Consumers are frustrated by endless streaming services - <AUTHOR> https://blog.peer5.com/you-favourite-show-is-on-another-platform-endless-streaming-services-and-frustrated-consumers/ <comment><USER2> Used to be I made an item for sale, sold it to an expert in retail sales, and they sold it to a customer. Now content creators want to own the store, too. Problem is, if the ice cream makers want their own store, and the meat growers have their own store, well I'll be damned if I'm driving all over town, so I'm skipping the ice cream.

In this analogy, I dust off my copy of a bittorrent client that I thought I'd retired after HBO wised up. Because HBO Go, Netflix, and iTunes to fill in the gaps is as far as I'm willing to drive.

<comment><USER3> > _Used to be I made an item for sale, sold it to an expert in retail sales, > and they sold it to a customer_

My dad had a company about twenty years ago, that helped solve an important problem in getting cell phone coverage deep into buildings. They achieved this via a little hardware widget.

He'd frequently complain about various business issues, so one day I asked him: why are you guys having all these problems? Why are you leasing these widgets, why are there all these contracts in place? You guys make widgets; why not sell them?

So he explained it - if you make widgets and sell them, once every building has enough widgets, your company is done and you gotta go out and find some new way of making money. But if you're _leasing_ these widgets, on a yearly basis, with a warranty plan, etc., etc., you can actually continue making money.

There hasn't been a "used to be" in forever. People have figured out that selling widgets isn't the best way to have a continuous revenue stream.

<comment><USER2> _People have figured out that selling widgets isn 't the best way to have a continuous revenue stream._

I'll make note of that should I ever find myself selling widgets. Should I ever buy said widget, I'm sure I won't need another one until this one breaks. Seems to me one could make money selling widgets that are a little different than the last ones sold, so the customer keeps coming back for more. Starting to see where I'm going with this?

However, Disney isn't selling widgets. Disney is selling a product I've purchased hundreds of times over. I mean, I've _seen_ a movie. I own bits of plastic should I ever care to reuse that product. Yet I keep buying more of them. Just like no one leases me ice cream, either.

But I'm not here to argue. I'm here to say, "should Outcome A come to pass, here's what you can expect from me." Disney can do whatever the hell they please.

<comment><USER4> > Seems to me one could make money selling widgets that are a little different > than the last ones sold, so the customer keeps coming back for more

The Apple/Samsung model.

> Disney is selling a product I've purchased hundreds of times over.

Disney is extending copyright terms with heavy lobbying and cronyism, and then every few decades opens their "vault" for the new and younger generation of parents to buy the same product. As long as they can keep successfully lobbying for longer copyright this is a sustainable business model because quantity will be limited, and who owns a VHS player any more? Guess you should buy that DVD player after all, and the new DVD copy of Snow White. DVD? What's that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This might sound radical, but I think a system of compulsory licensing should be instituted.

It worked for radio and it worked for physical video rental (in fact that's the reason netflix's physical rental catalog has almost every movie while their digital catalog has few and keeps shrinking)

<comment><USER6> What is the economic rationale behind such a scheme? There are almost no barriers to entry in either the content-creation market or the content- distribution market. Indeed, the barriers are lower than ever thanks to digital media workflows.

It's kind of like saying we should have a law to force car manufacturers to sell to any dealership, so Toyota can't have Toyota dealerships versus Ford having Ford dealerships. Maybe there is a hand-wavy argument that it would make car shopping more convenient, but is there an actual market failure that would justify regulatory intervention?

It should be noted that compulsory licensing for music is just an accident of history with no sensible economic foundation: [http://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...](http://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1447&context=lawreview).

<comment><USER7> Lower barriers to entry aren't a bad thing though - I'm perfectly happy having a lot of competition in the content distribution or content creation markets. It drives innovation and ultimately results in a healthier market and more consumer choice.

I think the possible danger that compulsory licensing would prevent is that companies can use their market power in one area to starve out competition in another. For example, once Disney launches their streaming service, they could easily capture a large portion of the market due to their dominance in content creation

<comment><USER6> If the worry is that Disney will use market dominance in one market to capture another (ala Microsoft and browsers), the solution is antitrust action against Disney, not forcing compulsory licensing on all content creators whether they have market power or not.

<comment><USER7> I guess my point is, if this is a natural consequence of vertical integration between content creation and content distribution, a more general approach could make sense (you could make the same argument to a lesser degree about HBO or even Netflix).

<comment><USER6> But what you're positing is a consequence only where vertical integration is combined with horizontal dominance. If I don't have market dominance in content, there is little risk that I'll be able to translate that into dominance of the streaming market.

At the same time, there are huge downsides. You take all the negotiating leverage away from the content creators and give it to the distribution middlemen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So let's bring back piracy! Show these content holders who is boss... let's make _them_ feel beholden to _us_ for once! So many "entrepreneurs" think that slapping supply-and-demand on data (something for which there is literally an infinite supply of) is something they can do, let's show them otherwise.

Of course lots of people will be like, "that's stealing" and "if creators don't make money shows don't get made," which is fine, as there is too much garbage for sale anyway. This way we kill two birds with one stone: the culling of shitty media _AND_ greedy creators.

</comment><comment><USER9> Frankly, I'm fine with the current situation. I can buy ala carte stuff on iTunes, Amazon, and a few other services. I can subscribe to a few "networks" or whatever you want to call them, that consistently provide good original shows (like Netflix and HBO).

On the rare occasion that a show that I would like to watch is on a service I don't have, I can either, wait a year for it to become available ala carte (like GoT on iTunes, for example), I can watch at a friend's house, or I can just find something else to watch because there's so much good stuff on.

I can't think of any compelling reason to subscribe to either services with ads, or to dozens of streaming services. I won't get to watch everything, but honestly, I don't have time to watch everything. It's still cheaper and way less annoying than cable TV. Even if it weren't cheaper, I'd still do it because it's _that much_ less annoying than cable TV.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty much in the same boat. I admittedly don't watch a huge amount of video but a few purchases (physical and digital) and a few streaming services and I'm pretty good. I haven't quite pulled the plug on cable TV yet but I will sooner or later. I certainly get a lot more value out my non-cable TV spending.

There's very little that I just _must_ see and even less that I must see right now. There's frankly far more really good content available than I'm ever going to get around to watching anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seriously. I have Netflix, YouTube Red, HBO, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and yet I often have to end up paying (or pirating) for very well-known movies. What's the fricking point.

</comment><comment><USER12> Meanwhile, bittorrent is completely free and requires absolutely no subscription.

<comment><USER13> And is illegal.

EDIT: Does it really need to be stated that the context here is using bittorrent to illegally download copyrighted works, and that the protocol itself is not illegal?

<comment><USER14> The BitTorrent communication protocol is not illegal, at least here in the US.

<comment><USER15> Don't be dense, f2n was clearly advocating for downloading copies of copyrighted works.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, that was very likely what f2n was advocating. However I wanted to make it clear to eridius that it is not the protocol itself that is illegal. Downloading copies of copyrighted works is indeed illegal.

BitTorrent is not only used for illegally downloading copies of copyrighted content, just like encryption is not exclusively used for terrorism.

<comment><USER13> I would like to make it clear that I am perfectly aware the protocol is not illegal, and I'm rather flabbergasted that anyone thought that actually needed to be said. The context was _very clearly_ advocating for using bittorrent to illegally download copyrighted works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> At what point would it just be cheaper to buy an old desktop/server, put a FOSS OS on there, install Plex/Kodi, and purchase all of your media legally?

<comment><USER16> For most, probably never. While installing Plex/Kodi on an old machine isn't that hard, it's well outside of the comfort/effort zone of most people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The solution for me is to wait and get the show on DVD/BlueRay (the local library usually gets these shows for free rentals).

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm fine with this arrangement. Between Netflix, HBO & Amazon I have more than enough content to fill my viewing habits. I rarely pirate content because usually there is something good to watch.

Customers were frustrated by highly integrated cable companies who charged for channels they didn't want. Now customers are frustrated by highly module content creators creating their own distribution channels, at the end of the day I do not think there will be a middle ground. Content has become segmented and you'd better pick your providers wisely.

<comment><USER19> There very easily could be a middle ground. If there was one source to stream data from and have a single login/payment where you selected your content sources and they were added to your single bill, I don't think any consumer would be unhappy. Paying for the content you consume isn't the problem is either paying for extra content you don't use with cable, or keeping track of numerous providers and having to authenticate all of them whenever I get a new device or change cards.

The content creating companies don't want this however as they would lose power in this arrangement and probably make less money. That'll just lead to rampant piracy again. As we've seen with every type of digital good where consuming it legally was difficult/frustratinf

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is just going to lead to another massive wave of ~privacy~ piracy (thanks for the correction), and it's harder to win people back from free than hold them to begin with.

<comment> j-c-hewitt Rentals would be more appealing if the prices on the main services weren't so sky-high. Why is it that you can buy a 2-year-old AAA game (equivalent to a summer blockbuster) indefinitely for somewhere between $5-20 when it's on sale, but it costs at least $4 to rent an old movie for just a day in HD and sometimes more like $8? Instead of pricing taking digital into account movie studios keep trying to protect their DVD/bluray pricing.

In the end for a popular movie it's often a better experience to just pirate it. Netflix churns through movies so frequently that actually finding something that's not sub-Kangaroo Jack in quality takes longer than just torrenting.

<comment><USER21> Also Netflix's quality is just shit. I have a good connection. Fast.com (which measures bandwidth to Netflix servers) shows a solid 100Mbps (which is what I pay for). Then why does my movie start off worse than a 10 year old DVD? Even youtube is better.

<comment><USER22> I've been very disappointed by this as well - I pay for a 4k Netflix subscription, but can't actually use it on any devices. Linux is restricted to 720p due to copyright protections, and my older tv is restricted to 1080p since it doesn't have new enough HDMI ports (again due to copyright restrictions).

<comment><USER23> It was only recently that Windows got 4k Netflix, and that comes with a big bag of caveats. It's gotta be one of a handful of Nvidia GPUs, using a recent driver, only on monitors that support the right version of HDCP, and only through the Netflix app (ie: no web streaming).

<comment><USER22> Yeah, piracy seems way easier, better, and cheaper..

<comment><USER20> The downside is that you don't get to support the media you enjoy through purchase or Netflix metrics, that kind of thing. It probably skews the ability of streaming services et al to learn what people who know how to pirate watch. Given that pirates skew to a very desirable youth demographic, that's no good at all.

Still, they're giving us few good choices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Yeah it is getting annoying. I've got the bigger ones - Netflix and prime. Anything else I'll just backfill via alternative methods.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's strange how his has happened with video, while the opposite has happened with music. There are a bunch of music streaming services with really similar catalogs. Most people can just subscribe to one and be done. Why has video ended up with such a mess? Or, how did music avoid it?

<comment><USER26> Music has compulsory licensing, and rights societies; visual entertainment doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I currently subscribe to Netflix (free from T-Mobile), Amazon Prime Video (not for the video just because I have Prime), Hulu w/o commercials, CBS All Access, Sling (everything else), Starz (summer only) and I watch CW (free).

About $45 a month.

And it's still worth it to enjoy a much better experience across multiple devices, no crazy fees for cable tv, and not having to deal with the cable company's crappy hardware.

It also helps that only pay $70 a month for unlimited gigabit internet.

And I still end up getting movies off of the "back of a truck"

</comment><comment><USER28> We need a standard streaming API. I like Netflix's interface, and I would pay for HBO for example, but I want the shows to show using the Netflix interface, not another crappy client.

</comment><comment><USER29> Just another reason to consume less media. I enjoyed netflix, and then everything good left netflix. I enjoyed youtube, and then it started shafting creators. I enjoyed a lot of modern video games, but now they all require you to pay extra money for what used to be standard functionality. Meanwhile TV has never been good, seeing as in America you see a commercial every ten minutes, and the same exact 4 commercials all day.

Sorry creators, I can't support you, your owners are being dicks.

</comment><comment><USER30> It looks like the movie industry is finally gaining a little sanity with Movies Anywhere ([https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome](https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome)), I really want something similar for TV and the other streaming services.

Does anyone know how the stakeholders managed to come up with Movies Anywhere? _Someone_ managed to get everyone talking. Could such an approach work for TV and VOD as well?

<comment><USER31> It's based on Disney Movies Anywhere. If you've bought a Disney movie in the last few years that comes with a digital copy, you'll have gotten a code to redeem on DMA. Movies Anywhere seems to be an expansion of that to drop the Disney-exclusive branding and include content from other studios.

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/12/16462824/movies- anywhere...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/12/16462824/movies-anywhere- digital-movie-locker-disney-warner-bros-universal-twentieth-century-fox-sony)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The unified search of Apple TV have helped alleviate this issue to some extent, but the fact that there are so many different platforms with different content makes it feel an awful lot like cable, when you don't have the package to watch the show you want to see. Purchase from iTunes or Amazon and Piracy often end up being more convenient.

</comment><comment><USER33> One solution is to use Netflix's DVD service. In my experience it has the largest catalogue of any service and in many instances is the only way to legally view a movie without actually purchasing a copy.

It also switches from a passive "watch what is available" model to an active "watch what you have sought out" model.

<comment><USER10> In spite of the fact that the DVD service has declined in availability, it still IMO makes a lot of sense to keep a steady stream of content coming into the house that I've deliberately chosen to watch. It's a good way, for example, to watch Oscar winners and other movies I know I want to see when they're available. I have a minimal grandfathered plan and it works for me to have two DVDs a month arrive in my mailbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The endless amount of content versus the lack of time for it has made me incredibly selective about entertainment. It has to be extremely good, super easy to access and have an insane low price. Streaming services do not qualify... yet.

</comment><comment><USER35> Maybe the now there will be an effort to aggregate and make deals with the streaming services since net neutrality has been repealed. They could bundle up all the services into a single package. Why does this sound so familiar... /s

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd pay for video on demand, as in I want to watch that episode, I pay one Euro and come back when I wish to watch more. No monthly fee, no bundles, I won't pay for that.

</comment><comment><USER37> sounds like we need some sort of subscription service that bundles most of them together for one price. Premium channels I mean services like HBO could be add for a separate charge.

</comment><comment><USER38> The promise of new technology was to provide simplicity and better prices for the consumer, not for content providers to try to run around maintaining legacy profit margins.

</comment><comment><USER39> 57 channels and nothing on...

</comment><comment><USER40> > ... VRV is the only bundle of other streaming-only services that I'm aware > of. This is shocking. If consumers are reluctant to have 3 or more streaming > services, bundle packages are an obvious alternative.

I'm not sure if the author realizes the irony in pining for a return to the equivalent of cable bundles.

Not to mention that there is nothing shocking about Netflix, Hulu or Amazon having less than zero interest in allowing their services to be bundled. It would undermine their very business model while also devaluing the service in consumers' minds.

It concludes with several disjointed, contradictory conclusions:

> We have seen these streaming services do little to distinguish themselves > through technology, payment models or branding. There is a lot more that > could be explored in the underlying system of how video is delivered over > the internet, and this is an area many smaller services should begin to > investigate, while the giants fight it out over who has the next Game of > Thrones/Stranger Things hit.

Who cares how innovatively the video gets transmitted if all the shows you want to watch are on a different streaming service? Quite the fool's errand to throw money at tech innovation without great content as a foundation.

> Streaming video over the internet is hard. The underlying technology is > complex and fickle, and to do it right is expensive. Perhaps as expensive as > buying or creating content.

Spoiler: this is a lead-in to the sales pitch. And also why the current payments models are well-suited to the product: they ensure a higher degree of revenue to pay the high overhead.

> To be sustainable, a streaming service needs several pieces. It needs to > handle high loads and deliver high quality streams. It needs great exclusive > IP or popular original content. And it also needs to be innovative and to > develop a strong brand to stand out in the crowd.

> It's a big ask, but it is doable.

This statement undermines advocating for smaller services to take on the giants without all these necessary ingredients.

And the pitch (my critique is clearly not of their product or company):

> If you'd like to hear more about Peer5 and the advantages of P2P video > streaming, you can reach out to us for a demo!

\-----

The bottom line is this: this is a winner-take-all market that will consolidate down to 2-3 major players. Netflix, Amazon and probably Disney/Hulu (depending on Hulu's fate post DisneyFox merger). I am very doubtful we'll see HBO be able to replicate GoT and it will quickly fall to niche status. There will always be niche players, but we are already well past the point of seeing a challenger to Netflix. And the consolidation is most definitely in the average consumer's best interest to alleviate the very frustration that was the point of the article. Even more odd that the article advocates the creation of more streaming services (bundled or not) while starting with the premise of consumers' frustration over just such issues.

</comment><comment><USER41> This just looks like a plug for peer5.js

It isn't that complex to build out a CDN. Rent out unmetered server, slap together nginx, gluster, and openresty modules.</comment>


Gmail's support for CSS in HTML emails kinda sucks. Who knew? - <AUTHOR> http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css

<comment><USER2> I have never received an email that could have benefited from additional decorations.

</comment><comment><USER3> To what extent do people stylize their emails?

<comment><USER4> People may not, but the information is relevant to sites/companies that send out stylized emails.</comment></comment>


The S&P 500 Is the World's Largest Momentum Strategy - <AUTHOR> http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2016/05/the-sp-500-is-the-worlds-largest-momentum-strategy/ <comment><USER2> >You would assume that half of all stocks would outperform a market index while the other half would underperform.

Why would you assume that? The probability space isn't even symmetrical. Stocks can't drop more than 100%. Not to mention that prices tend to grind upwards, but crash downwards, whereby mathematically the only way it works out is if you have a skewed distribution. Even the most naive investor would have a hard time justifying a "mean = median" assumption.</comment>


Xto6 modernizes your JavaScript code - <AUTHOR> http://xto6.js.org/ <comment><USER2> Most ES6 features are either equal to or worse than their ES5 counterparts in terms of performance, some by orders of magnitude (!)

For example, `class` has particularly bad performance characteristics because under the hood it has to set an object's prototype on the fly (at least this is how Babel implements it) [1] and `super` is also slow due to prototype lookup [2].

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

[2] [https://jsperf.com/es6-classes-super-es5-vs- transpiled/2](https://jsperf.com/es6-classes-super-es5-vs-transpiled/2)

<comment><USER3> FYI, when compiled with Babel 5's loose mode, the transpiled code is roughly similar to what you'd hand-write:

[https://babeljs.io/repl/#?experimental=true&evaluate=true&lo...](https://babeljs.io/repl/#?experimental=true&evaluate=true&loose=true&spec=false&code=class%20A%20%7B%0A%20%20moo\(\)%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20return%205%3B%0A%20%20%7D%0A%7D%0A%0Anew%20A\(\).moo\(\)%3B)

I didn't test the performance impact though. Also it's still a mystery to me how to enable Loose mode in Babel 6.

<comment><USER4> You should read this [http://www.2ality.com/2015/12/babel6-loose- mode.html](http://www.2ality.com/2015/12/babel6-loose-mode.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Always getting 'app.js:22 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property 'kind' of undefined' :-(

However, I doubt that I would use it - most of the 'modernizations' are really dependent on the context of each change and require some tweaking.

For instance, ES6 classes do not allow for inline computed methods:

      const x = function () {};

      x.prototype.a = wrapFunction(function(){});

\--- this is impossible: ---

      class x {
         a() wrapFunction(function(){}); // invalid :-(
      }

So we're still required to use the explicit prototype way of declaring the class.

Then you can't just rewrite all methods to arrow functions because they don't have prototypes, even when they're really tempting:

      var x = function () {};
      x.prototype.a = <foo>;

\--->

      var x = () => {};
      x.prototype.a = <foo>; // cannot set a of undefined

...

$0.02

<comment><USER6> If you don't mind setting the function on instances at construct time, you can use ES2016 class properties:

        class x {
          a = wrapFunction(function() {})
        }

This kind of use case is pretty well covered by ES2016 decorators as well (they're a bit more general as they act on property descriptors, not just values):

        class x {
          @functionWrapper
          a() {}
        }

<comment><USER5> Neat, thanks! But we're working with the half-baked V8 ES6 support that is far from ES2016, unfortunately. However, it's interesting to see the support coming :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Your working javascript can now be transformed into slower, more incompatible code that might not work! Yaaaaaaaay.

<comment><USER8> Since ES6 can be cleaner, many projects have switched to using it with a transpiler like babel. This project (if/when it works) could help move older code to the new standard for consistency.

Even otherwise, I'm sure this was a fun and challenging project for the author.

So, more like this. And congrats on release.

<comment><USER9> I agree it is a fun project.

The I'm unlikely to use a tool like this is because I find the exercise of updating the codebase manually an important. Really understanding how and why ES6 syntax can clean up your code and how to use it properly.

Also, how many times do you get such a good opportunity to re-factor everything? This is a great excuse. Make it better, not just ES6ify.

Finally, improve your regex by updating certain elements of your code. A good example is moving all var statements to let across whole codebase, and then finding cases where you can 100% use const, and replacing all of those.

I've done this update recently (as have a lot of people) and it was great. If you do it right, you should delete more code than you add, and avoid numerous bugs by using const.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, the example is atrocious,

      Person.prototype.getAge = function (birthYear) {
        var age = 2015;
        age -= birthYear;

        return result;
        // Do you mean return age?
      };

      Object.defineProperty(Person.prototype, 'age', {
        get: function () {
          return this.getAge();
          // getAge function takes a required parameter.
        }
      });

</comment><comment><USER11> Javascript sure got more features, but how many should Crockford add to "the good parts"? If you ask me, only generators.

<comment><USER12> Typed arrays, weak Maps, weak Sets, and let/const.

Now what I really wish to see in JavaScript are real Immutable Objects. Like, any variable declared with const makes that Object Immutable, not just preventing it from being reassigned. That, imo, would take JS to the next level. That and something like TypeScript/flow built in to native JS. It's do- able, and I see it happening way down the line, maybe es8/9 haha....

<comment><USER13> Object.freeze?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Trying some simple this-based class/instance-construction in the constructor leads to the whole thing failing:

        var Person = function (name) {
          console.log('This is the constructor.');

          var _name = name;

          this.getName = function() {
              return _name;
          };
        };

Since this is 1 of the 2 patterns for creating classes, and the only one which supports encapsulation, it seems like a strange omission.

Especially so if the goal is to migrate "old" javascript to get it "modern". Migrating bleeding edge JS to even more bleeding edge JS hardly seems like a very worthwhile endeavour.

</comment><comment><USER15> Could this be used to improve current ES5 codebases by converting to ES6 and then use Babel to convert back to (improved?) ES5?

<comment><USER16> Sure, in the same way English can be improved by translating it to Chinese and then translating it back to English. As the The Presbyterian Church said in Star War The Backstroke of the West: "Do not want!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Watch out for lexical binding with arrow functions. It could lead to some nasty bugs if you blindly transpile your old code.

<comment><USER18> Surely the compiler handles the case of anonymous functions referring to `this` or `arguments` and leaves them alone?

edit: the original issue[5] specifically notes that the anonymous function shouldn't refer to `this` and the corresponding commit has a test case for that, though it doesn't talk about `arguments` so that might break.

[5] [https://github.com/mohebifar/xto6/issues/5](https://github.com/mohebifar/xto6/issues/5)

<comment><USER17> Perhaps it's fixed on the master branch but it's broken on the websites live transpile thing (which is where I tested it).

<comment><USER18> Unlikely, the same commit added it all, I can only assume the offline version behaves similarly (I haven't tested).

The compiling seems very inconsistent and fragile:

* it won't convert at all if a function literal is returned or assigned to a variable (but it will if the function literal is passed to an other function or for IIFE)

* it will generate an incorrect conversion in case the `this` is deref'd for a method call or (directly or indirectly) passed to an other function: these are OK (will not convert)

        (function () { this; })();
        (function () { this.foo; })();
        (function () { this.bar + 1; })();

but these are _not_ ok (will convert to incorrect code):

        (function () { this.foo(); })();
        (function () { foo(this); })();
        (function () { foo(this.bar); })();

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's not like your JS won't run on ES6 browsers. That's the whole point of backwards compatibility. Besides, older features will probably have better performance as they have been tuned for years, compared to newer features.

People in the JS world should seriously drop the NIH syndrome and contribute to existing tools instead. The last thing we'd ever need is yet another framework/library/tool that's just a bit more than what's already existing.

[http://www.isaacchansky.me/days-since-last-new-js- framework/](http://www.isaacchansky.me/days-since-last-new-js-framework/)

</comment><comment><USER20> I would also recommend: [https://github.com/alcuadrado/hieroglyphy](https://github.com/alcuadrado/hieroglyphy)

<comment><USER21> Ahaha, there's this one which goes even further: only uses "[]()!+" [https://github.com/aemkei/jsfuck](https://github.com/aemkei/jsfuck)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't see this as a real benefit to update your code, but maybe as a learning tool to see how your code would be implemented using es6.

I like to take a wait-and-see on these language updates to see which parts get widespread adoption. I find the most important part at this point isn't the features, but having code that the majority of developers can understand.

</comment><comment><USER23> Demo box felt claustrophobic. I pasted in code and nothing appeared on the other side. An error message would have been nice. Ah well, I'll probably check this out again after a while.

</comment><comment><USER24> i would like a es6 to es3 compiler. When working with legacy devices it's a real mess, especially when you are used to sometimes use console.log..

</comment><comment><USER25> can someone explain where "result" comes from in their examples?

</comment><comment><USER26> It's neat to see a competitor to babel, but man that colour scheme is suspiciously similar.

<comment><USER27> Babel is ES6 to ES5 right? This seems to target a different audience. Namely moving your ES5 codebase to ES6 automatically.

Also I think the similarity in color scheme is very intentional. As this seems like a wink towards babel, being an anti-babel.

<comment><USER18> Yes, in fact it looks a lot like a preparing step towards babel: convert ES5 codebase to ES6, then use babel so it still runs on ES5 browsers.</comment></comment></comment>


Java.com down (again) - <AUTHOR>

Can anyone confirm or deny that java.com is down? From here in the UK it appears to be down, which is annoying. Very annoying. <comment><USER2> Neat final hop in the traceroute.

        15  bigip-outage-outsourcing.oracle.com (22.214.171.124)  42.755 ms  42.604 ms  44.284 ms

Blaming someone? Nice.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oracle have posted up a page saying that the Site is Unavailable and provided this link:

[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/inde...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index- jsp-138363.html#javasejdk)

That doesn't work either though. "File not found." apperently. Good work Oracle.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't help that today Chrome decided not to play nicely with Java and insisted on a re-install of the JRE ..... which of course I can't do because I can't get to the website. I've tried getting Chrome to recognise my installed version of JRE7 but it's not playing ball. All round large amounts of frustration this morning.

</comment><comment><USER3> This website tell me it's up: <http://www.isup.me/java.com>, but for me (in France), the website seems down too.

</comment><comment><USER4> Down in the US, too. I'm getting a static maintenance page for java.com, but oracle.com isn't responding at all.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://java.com/download> is back now.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is down here too. (Hungary)</comment>


GitHub Actions Ranking – Top - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/alekseykulikov/28e3a8d52bf1cd8f42f506335a6242ed <comment><USER2> This is cool - I just set up Github Actions for some Rubygems that we maintain for work, it's been a breath of fresh air!

Can't wait to dig more into it tbh, just looking at this list there are so many more powerful things other than checkout/releasing code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, there're powerful integrations for testing, deploy, and frontend performance. And some interesting, like using scheduler to update profile ([https://github.com/marketplace/actions/waka- box](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/waka-box)), or tmate connection ([https://github.com/mxschmitt/action- tmate](https://github.com/mxschmitt/action-tmate)).</comment></comment>


Supreme Court Refusal to Hear Investpic Signals Death for Most Software Patents - <AUTHOR> https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/06/27/supreme-court-refusal-hear-investpic-signals-death-software-patent-applications/id=110755/ <comment><USER2> The source is extremely biased toward patent protection. Beyond the pale biased. ipwatchdog writers believe patents, copyright, trademark, etc, should be treated like real estate. Afforded the highest ownership protection. By them, it should last forever, be unassailable, and be inheritable.

Ipwatchdog is a fundamental enemy of the progress of the science and the arts, as nothing would be left to do without paying some patent or copyright troll. Doing anything "on the internet" would be patented from old expired patents with "on the internet" added.

Anything this website says should be taken with a grain of salt at all times.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I noticed the rather strong bias. It leaves me a bit unclear on how to interpret the situation, though. Does this leave software patents as (mostly) dead as the article says? Or is this just "the sky is falling" rhetoric from patent maximalists?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The salt in the comments on that site ( by lawyers / patent filers ) reminds me of comments made by software engineers on more than a few threads here on HN back in ,say 2011-2014, about the Eastern District of Texas.

<comment><USER5> The practitioners of a craft celebrating losing patent-protection, while lawyers mourn it, tells you all you need to know on whether patents on that craft are beneficial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think this is a trivial and non-important problem. It is very likely that we a might enter an era of billion dollar, years-long investment to develop truly capable AI software. The fundamental idea behind patent is to provide inventors with a way to take risks, investing time and money, to develop innovative solutions to problems and have the opportunity to have a return on that investment.

That said, I absolutely abhor nonsense patents, of which there are probably millions at this stage. I don't have a problem with software or the general case for utility patents. I have a huge problem with the apparent incompetence of a system that has been granting patents for things that are not even close to inventions.

One of my favorite examples of this (of the many possible examples) was the rash of patents granted years ago for the use of PWM to control LED intensity in order to use multicolor LED's to mix new colors. These patents were nothing even close to invention. My head exploded when I learned about how this company, Color Kinetics, had been amassing an inventory of related patents. They were then going around suing anyone who dared do anything with LED's. The culmination of this embarrassing episode was that Philips bought them out and pretty much shelved the patents. The patent office did a ton of damage and they are never held accountable for any of it.

The other one that truly angers me is a patent (or series of them, I forget) on a device that uses buttons with pictures to allow people with speech issues to communicate. Yes, a button with a picture of a dog that when you press it emits the sound "dog". F'ck me!

I learned about this when I, at the request of a local school, became interested in authoring a bunch of free iPad apps to help the Special Needs programs. One of the solutions envisioned was an app with icons the teachers could load pictures and sound into. Touch the "food" icon and the iPad says "food". Touch the "bathroom" icon and the device says "bathroom".

Well, our IP search revealed this patent. It also revealed a company (forgot the name) that was making these physical devices with a bunch of pictorial buttons on them. They owned the patents. The devices sold for thousands of dollars each. Thousands. As in $8,000 or thereabouts. This was ridiculous beyond comprehension. And it was only made possible because they were granted patents they should not have been able to even file. As a side thought, these devices were paid for by various insurance, State and federal programs. This means that they made healthcare that much more expensive for everyone else, unnecessarily so.

Anyhow, tough topic. It has exactly zero political value. Nobody in government has any interest in doing the right thing. If it doesn't help them get reelected they won't bother.

<comment><USER3> > Anyhow, tough topic. It has exactly zero political value. Nobody in > government has any interest in doing the right thing. If it doesn't help > them get reelected they won't bother.

The Supreme Court seems to be bothering...

<comment><USER6> They should have bothered 50 years ago, before the damage was done.

Also, the US Supreme Court does not have the power to structurally modify the way the USPTO works and how patents are evaluated.

It stands to reason that the rate of real invention should approach some kind of an asymptotic limit with time. In other words, real invention is far more difficult with time...because we have learned so much already.

The example of the LED PWM control patents demonstrates this well. PWM control of, well, everything, had been known, applied and taught in schools for decades before these patents were ever penned. Anyone with an electrical engineering background who read these patent applications would kick the applicants out the door with a "Nice try! Get the hell out of here!".

Not the USPTO. They took the money and granted several patents. And with that they caused damage to the industry. The only way further damage to innovation was prevented was when a mega corporation took these criminals out by paying them off. That's just terrible. Our patent system should not create such situations. The damage done to innovation is incalculable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> end of software patents could be nigh? lets hope so</comment>


How Facebook and Twitter betrays you - <AUTHOR> http://newsanchormac.com/wp/kitchen/facebook-twitter-betrays/ You will can easily be betrayed by yourself if you use Facebook, Twitter, or even Google Reader for your source of daily news. These sites may lead you to succumb to your primal desires, dulls your perspective and narrow down your world-view. <comment><USER2> Google Reader filters out entries from feeds I've added to it? Really? Is there any evidence anywhere to back this up?

<comment><AUTHOR> For Google Reader's case, it tends to display more to the top of its home page of the kind of news you click the most (not really _filter_ per se, just make them harder to find). For Facebook, it hides your friend's updates if you don't click on them after a while. Lookup Eli Pariser's TED Talk somewhere from the web (the talk is actually _removed_ from TED's website, which shows the power of Google's & Facebook's corporate muscles in doing censorship).

<comment><USER2> That TED talk is here, if anyone else is following: [http://vodpod.com/watch/5736793-tedtalks-eli-pariser- beware-...](http://vodpod.com/watch/5736793-tedtalks-eli-pariser-beware- online-filter-bubbles-eli-pariser-2011)

<comment><AUTHOR> Another copy is here: <http://vimeo.com/21341684></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Impact of Facebook's Payment Platform For Virtual Goods - <AUTHOR> http://blog.viximo.com/corporate/2009/07/20/the-impact-of-facebooks-payment-platform-on-virtual-goods/

<comment><USER2> Reducing payment friction and user buy-in to the economy increases conversion. FB gets a legit way to profit off the apps on their platform and the apps benefit as well. Is there a downside I'm not seeing?</comment>


Startup Myths - <AUTHOR> http://www.inspiredstartup.com/5-startup-myths/

<comment><USER2> _Myth #2: People care about your business. Sorry, folks - people couldn't care less about your new business. You need to earn that attention. I've learned a tough lesson with this the first time I launched my web business, we may have had 6 visitors on our first day - and those were our employees and families. The next day, everyone forgot about us._

That helps to get a little perspective. First week I launched www.cuuute.com, I did some adwords and MechaTurk "advertising", I was ecstatic I got 700+ uniques and 3500 page views.

I decided to stop the advertising for two days. I got 45 uniques and 200 page views a day. I was feeling pretty depressed. It's good to know others have been in the same boat, and I should probably be grateful for my 45 uniques and lower my expectations a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER3> _"I don't wish it on anyone, but if you haven't ever faced a lawsuit or been threatened with a lawsuit, you probably don't matter."_

That one seems a little extreme... especially if he's talking about 1M revenue businesses.

<comment><USER4> The startup I previously worked for, Trovix, never faced a lawsuit and it was sold for 72.5 million. I guess it didn't matter.

There just wasn't any _real_ advice in this link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Getting threatened with a lawsuit is not a good thing. I'm not sure you can go through this for real and be cavalier about it.

Otherwise, good article.</comment>


Introducing Pulse for Web - <AUTHOR> http://pulse.me

<comment><USER3> There is no need to force me to create an account to use this service. Have a list of supported news sites and let me pick the ones I want to see, then save a bookmark to the page.

Requiring an account is a back button.

<comment><USER4> We require accounts on web for things like news source recommendations and notifications for when we release new features. If you create an account, your sources will also sync across platforms like Android, iPad, iPhone, etc. Our mobile apps do not require sign-in, however, so feel free to download those from our homepage: <http://www.pulse.me/>

<comment><USER5> > notifications for when we release new features

The real reason. This should be explained on the site.

<comment><USER4> We don't send frequent emails - we haven't emailed our user base in months - until today about this launch. If users don't have an account, they can't have a consistent experience across platforms. A good user experience is our top priority here.

<comment><USER6> What about being able to at least preview the service without needing an account? We can do that already on the app version, before we decide to sign up with Pulse.

Signing up is an extra step, and a little too much, for a product that I want to field test before I decide I want to use it.

<comment><USER4> Fair point. As you said, you can test the mobile app without signing up. We found that many of our users didn't know about our account syncing feature (because they didn't sign up). They then told us that it was difficult to switch between devices when they downloaded our apps as they had different news sources on different devices. This is an effort to remedy that confusion by keeping one single consistent account across platforms. Trying to get users to sign up later when they want to sync (which we've tried on mobile) has proved to be difficult for most users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sure I'm not the target. The window is - empty? [1]

Ghostery informed me that it had to block Facebook Connect, but this surely isn't the intended landing page, even if I _do_ hate Facebook crap? I mean - <USER2> could at least use the links above and see the about page, but for a landing page this is kind of baad.

1: <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1194203/Pulse.png>

<comment><USER8> Same problem. Chromium Version 21.0.1180.75 (150248) on 3.5.0-2-ARCH

L.E: Unblock Facebook connect in Ghostery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> ... why is there an Internet Explorer logo in the top-right of the interface screenshot?

<comment><USER4> We worked with Microsoft to incorporate multi-touch gestures available in IE10 into Pulse for Web. You can read more about that partnership on the IE10 blog here: [http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2012/08/09/with-i...](http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2012/08/09/with- internet-explorer-10-pulse-comes-to-the-web.aspx)

<comment><USER5> Incredible! Hopefully Microsoft submits its pointer events to W3C.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pulse user here since the first iPad came out. Love your service and use it all the time. Need an intern for next Summer? :)

<comment><USER11> What do you want to work on? ankit<at>pulse<dot>me

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Definetly looks interesting! However the corperate network I am on at the moment does not display the page correctly (could be anything from outdated html5 or just regular blocking).

Either way, I really enjoy the iPhone/Android app!

I agree though, I don't like the IE logo on the top right of the page. Call my crazy, but I am really fond of the simple, clean, eligant display on the iPhone/Android. Plus I just don't like IE.

As far as requiring an account - While I do see the merit in requiring registration, I think it should just load up the interface, and require registration if they would like to save their list of sources for when they visit the website later. Not to mention, noting that the sources and everything sync's across platforms is definetly a plus.

Good luck to you!

<comment><USER4> Your corporate network is likely blocking FB Connect, which we have on the top of our page. We're working on a fix for it.

<comment><USER12> Ahh.. yes that would definitely be it! They are very anti-facebook.

Cheers!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Requiring facebook connect is a deal breaker. My corporate intranet blocks all facebook request (and I do as well with Ghostly). Please place the facebook connect JavaScript at the bottom of the page.

</comment><comment><USER14> 'Welcome message' is being popped up for every page I visit even for the pages that I'd already visited. A bug? Using chrome 21.0.1180.60 m on Windows 7

Edit: Issue resolved after reloading the page

<comment><USER4> Thanks for pointing that out. Some other users have mentioned it showing up more times than necessary. We're taking a look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Funny to see this ranked right below "Design Tips: Never Use Black." <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4357002>

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) It is not black it is #111 :) 2) Rules in design are meant to be broken. It is good to know the rules nevertheless, so that you know which ones to break.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _Super high_ information density for browsing followed by a clean and simple reading experience.

Well executed, congrats to the Pulse team.

</comment><comment><USER17> Awesome job guys. It looks really cool!

</comment><comment><USER18> can I use this product without signing up

<comment><USER4> You can if you download our mobile apps. Our web application, however, does require a sign-up.</comment></comment>


Private Git Repository on Any Computer - <AUTHOR> https://www.alexkras.com/private-git-repository-on-any-computer/ <comment><USER2> It pains me to think that people nowadays need to be reminded that many cloud services were/are originally available locally, for unlimited use. Amazon's whole services model seems to revolve around converting on-prem services into cloud offerings, even.

Modern computing is just like the chemicals industry now. You can clean your whole house with just a few simple ingredients (only one is a product -- water, citrus, baking soda, vinegar, mud, and bleach), but how many of us actually know that? Instead we go to the store and pick up Windex, Drain-o, and everything else, because we paid more attention to advertisements and marketing droids than the world around us.

The damage that modern technology has done to human resourcefulness makes me weep

<comment><USER3> Ok you peaked my interest. How do I clean with mud? Are you simply using a "Sandy mud" as an abrasive?

<comment><USER4> Sorry to be that guy, but I thought you might want to know: it's "piqued" my interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The point of Github is not so much the repo hosting part (well, that too). The point of Github is

\- the nice web UI for browsing code

\- the social features (issues, pull requests, reviews)

That's why, after years of Gitolite (i.e. nearly as bare Git hosting as the submission discusses), I've switched to Gogs last year.

<comment><USER6> Probably worth highlighting the gogs/gitea split: [https://github.com/gogits/gogs/issues/1304#issuecomment-1191...](https://github.com/gogits/gogs/issues/1304#issuecomment-119106551)

I would guess given that, gitea would be the better road at the moment.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure, it looks _both_ are still active.

<comment><USER6> That's fair enough. There's isn't really a good current state comparison of the two.

It was discussed in January, on HN, here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13296717](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13296717)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I built a free lightweight service that automates this, and provides a nice CLI tool for interacting with it. Right now it deploys to free hosting on the gitup servers. Repo auth is handled via git-ssh verification with offloaded key storage and individual user roles/permissions.

[https://gitup.io](https://gitup.io)

[https://npmjs.com/package/gitup-cli](https://npmjs.com/package/gitup-cli)

Some commands include:

\- `gitup login <username>` : authenticates/registers user

\- `gitup new <repo-name>` : creates a new repo at gitup.io/username/repo-name

\- `gitup add-user <repo-name> <username>` : share a repo with another gitup user

Repos are private by default. Right now this is a very basic free service but hope to expand the offering quickly including self hosting the repo storage, the key store, web interface, etc.

Would love to know if you check it out and come across a bug or have any feedback for me! Thank you.

<comment><USER9> Minor Feedback: I think part of the point of private hosting is privacy / security. Maybe some info on the landing page or documentation about what kind of security is provided would help people decide whether to use it. Also your npm package could use an actual module rather than just cli tool

<comment><USER8> Appreciate it! So far I've been only able to put minimal time into this, definitely trying to ramp up. I agree I need way, way more information about what the service is, why it's any good, etc.

Roger on the module, plans there as well - hope you'll check it out again soon.

Thanks again for your advice, much appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wait, so people use git and they don't know this?

How?

<comment><USER11> People drive without understanding engines. People cook without understanding the maillard reaction.

<comment><USER12> This isn't like driving without understanding engines. This is about paying a chauffeur to drive you everywhere without realizing that you could always just drive yourself there.

EDIT: Or better, having your buddy drive you in your car everywhere without realizing you could drive yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I recently did something like this as well, and one thing I particularly missed was the convenience of quickly creating the remote repository, so I made this bash script: [https://gist.github.com/zikes/926fd8bb72f9856776e309fba45f07...](https://gist.github.com/zikes/926fd8bb72f9856776e309fba45f07cc)

An interesting thing about git, if there's an executable somewhere in your $PATH and it starts with git-, then it becomes a "git command". So in my case, I named it git-make-remote.sh, and I can execute it via "git make-remote myreponame" and it will SSH to my private git server and create the associated remote repo.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have essentially the same tutorial on my readme here: [https://github.com/divbit/grimoire](https://github.com/divbit/grimoire) except I've included a step where Ubuntu uncomplicated firewall is setup. I wonder if anyone has any suggestions on other basic security measures that should be taken for a private git repo?

<comment><USER9> I should add Linode to that.. didn't realize they have a $5 instance, having never used them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've git all my local scripts and snippets for years. Good to rollback sometimes. I have a 2010 laptop running behind TV. Any SSH host can be git server. And it hosts my owncloud. In purpose of rolling back binary documents, it works much faster and frequently.

</comment><comment><USER15> I built a docker container that can serve as a quick plug and play ssh over git repository: [https://github.com/rkcf/docker-git- server](https://github.com/rkcf/docker-git-server)

</comment><comment><USER16> Even if you need issues, you can still use apps like gitissius that will store the data in your repo [https://github.com/glogiotatidis/gitissius/blob/master/READM...](https://github.com/glogiotatidis/gitissius/blob/master/README.org)

For PRs there's [https://github.com/google/git- appraise/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/google/git- appraise/blob/master/README.md)

</comment><comment><USER17> Those who are missing issue tracking with this approach might want to consider using Fossil ([https://www.fossil-scm.org/](https://www.fossil-scm.org/)) which includes a wiki and issue tracking in one simple DSCM system.

<comment><USER18> Until you start hankering for "rebase" or any other history-altering commands. However, if you don't generally use them, Fossil should be able to suit your VCS needs well enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> For a lot of my non-critical work that I want to share between computers (e.g. desktop and laptop), I commit to various git repositories in my Dropbox. It's very convenient, and allows me to share my git repos as seamlessly as documents.

<comment><USER20> Careful with that. I used to do something similar, then one day all my git repos were suddenly corrupted due to duplicate and renamed files in the .git directory. I pinged Dropbox support to notify them of a bug in their OSX client, and their response was "Don't store git repos in Dropbox." YMMV

<comment><USER21> I had that happen with AeroFS instead of Dropbox, simply by using a repo on one machine that was not synced to the contents of the other machine. This can happen either if a machine doesn't finish sync to dropbox after using a repo in it, or the repo is used before the machine has finished syncing from dropbox. A simple "git commit" and close the laptop in a hurry as soon as the command finishes would likely do it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your commute time? What do you listen to? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 30 seconds, taking the stairs to my home office. I listen to podcasts, almost exclusively while doing yardwork, and classical radio while working or cooking.

</comment><comment><USER3> The wrong end of San Jose to Mountain View takes me about 25 minutes when traffic is good. And at least an hour when it isn't. I play tech podcasts or audio files made from Coursera lectures or YouTube videos.

</comment><comment><USER4> 1.5 to 3 hours going to work. 1 to 2 hours back.

Depends on the time I go, and whether I choose to take the bus, train, Uber, or drive.

A lot of my playlist this month is Islamic hip hop or Linkin Park.

</comment><comment><USER5> My commute time is 15-20 minutes. I either listen to some upbeat music or catch up on news online or Twitter on my phone. Sometimes I don't do anything and just think.

</comment><comment><USER6> 11 minutes, I'm riding a bike.

I don't understand why so many people listening to music all the time, what is really the benefit of it? And how are you able to do taht ? Everytime I listen to music for 1 hour I'm exhausted

<comment><USER4> You'd need to actually get used to it. I think is MTV generation guys grew up doing homework with a music video in the background.

Music gives me a lot more energy, similar to caffeine. Sometimes the extra energy is distracting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> About an 50-60 each way. Usually tech podcasts (Linux Unplugged, Late Night Linux, BSDNow, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER8> Working from home, so few minutes to my office and listening to sports radio usually...

</comment><comment><USER9> 10-minute walk / walking meditation (Simple Habit app)</comment>


He Had 8 Drunk Driving Convictions, on His 9th He Got Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/us/he-had-8-convictions-for-driving-drunk-on-his-9th-he-got-life.html <comment><USER2> seems odd to give him a life sentence while he still has a drivers license.

I would have thought it would be more logical to revoke his license first/as well</comment>


Chrony: Comparison of NTP implementations - <AUTHOR> https://chrony.tuxfamily.org/comparison.html <comment><USER2> Every time ntp comes up I wonder what happened to ntimed. [https://nwtime.org/projects/ntimed/](https://nwtime.org/projects/ntimed/)

...latest on it appears to be that Poul-Henning Kamp is building a house and that's taken up the time that was devoted to it, for now [https://twitter.com/bsdphk/status/886166233783119873](https://twitter.com/bsdphk/status/886166233783119873)

(the Network Time Foundation were funding 1 day a week of his time, but that was just weekend work, he's a busy guy)

<comment><USER3>
      > the Network Time Foundation were funding 1 day a week of
      > his time, but that was just weekend work, he's a busy guy

I guess he just doesn't have the... time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Reference clocks

Just saying "Yes" here is highly misleading. NTP supports dozens of reference clocks, including the protocols of may precision timing receivers. Last I looked chrony supported only a single kind of reference clock.

<comment><USER5> > Just saying "Yes" here is highly misleading.

FWIW, the page also compares the number of reference clock drivers. chrony does not have any HW-specific drivers, but there is an interface which other programs can use to provide the timing data. The most commonly used reference clocks these days are GPS receivers, which are well supported by gpsd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> chrony seems great from this comparison and I remember using it in the past and being pleasently surprised at how good it was with laptops. These tests show the same. Anyone know why it hasn't become the default on Linux?

<comment><USER7> chrony seems great because this comparison is on the chrony website.

<comment><AUTHOR> Then prove them wrong instead. Just because it's on their website doesn't mean it's misleading or incorrect.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, but this is just flabby thinking. We know it takes 10 times as long to refute bullshit as to create it. No-one needs to spend their lives proving wrong every slated comparison on every website.

<comment><USER6> On the other hand, just calling bullshit because an open source project did a comparison page is a bit much. The incentive to lie isn't particularly high and doing a good comparison has the utility of letting you know what you still need to work on. So unless you have at least one example of how the page is wrong just calling bullshit by default seems uncalled for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't speak for chrony but considering the amount of security issues with ntpd I would much rather run openntpd.

<comment><USER10> They don't do the same thing. At least last time I looked at it, openntpd was more like a SNTP client than a NTP client.

That means it's more suitable for following a reference clock, not keeping a number of machines in sync with each other and the rest of the world. Unless they have implemented more of the protocol now. This has security implications of its own.

<comment><USER11> I'm running OpenNTPD on all my devices (laptops, servers, VMs) and as far as I can tell they are in sync. Both amongsts themselves, as well as with other devices that are running other NTP implementations.

I've heard other people claiming that OpenNTPD is not accurate enough and what not, but my anecdata says it performs well enough. Do you happen to have any specific gripes with it ? Is it the timekeeping algorithm that is lacking ?

Sibling comment mentioned leap seconds, and that's unlikely to change. AFAIK, for 'proper' leap second support, the daemon must support it (to parse the announcement from the upstream NTP) as well as the OS. Gathering from I've read on OpenBSD's mailing lists, leap second support in the kernel is not a priority -- to say the least. Seeing the fallout on other OSes, I'd say it's a sound decision. On a similar note, Google introduced leap smearing to _not_ deal with introducing leap seconds across all of its' servers[1]. Several other actors, such as Amazon[2] and Akamai followed suite.

[1] [https://googleblog.blogspot.fr/2011/09/time-technology- and-l...](https://googleblog.blogspot.fr/2011/09/time-technology-and-leaping- seconds.html) [2] [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/look-before-you-leap-the- co...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/look-before-you-leap-the-coming-leap- second-and-aws/) [3] [https://blogs.akamai.com/2016/11/planning-for-the-end- of-201...](https://blogs.akamai.com/2016/11/planning-for-the-end- of-2016-a-leap-second-and-the-end-of-support-for-sha-1-tls-certificates.html)

<comment><USER12> IIRC (possibly outdated info) OpenNTPd lacked support for Linux and other platform PLL syscalls, just used the standard (and less precise) adjtime syscall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If chrony had an MIT license, it has the potential to be more awesome. ntpd's configuration is its attack and misconfiguration surface. There's no one "perfect" ntp client/server, they have their strengths and weaknesses.

</comment><comment><USER13> I miss systemd-timesyncd in that list... is it actually the default on modern Linux distros?

<comment><USER14> From [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/systemd- timesyncd](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/systemd-timesyncd) :

> In contrast to NTP implementations such as chrony or the NTP reference > server [systemd-timesyncd] only implements a client side, and does not > bother with the full NTP complexity, focusing only on querying time from one > remote server and synchronizing the local clock to it.

<comment><USER15> How does any average users and admins want NTP server feature on their machine?

It just sounds like running a more complicated (meaning, more attack vectors) software for no reason.

<comment><USER16> Reference NTP server is less complicated than entangled steaming pile of "let's not" that is systemd. I trust the reference implementation more than I trust the team behind systemd with regard to network communication.

<comment><USER17> Why is this is getting downvoted?

systemd has a _horrible_ security track record and should not be allowed on any server that is connected to the internet.

The last remote-root exploit from 2 months ago: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/29/systemd_pwned_by_dn...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/29/systemd_pwned_by_dns_query/)

The major distros _urgently_ need to get rid of systemd and return to proven, modular init systems.

systemd was the biggest single mistake in UNIX history.

<comment><USER18> I hate the binary logs of journald, the unnecessary complexity of stuff like systemd-hostnamed, dbus and the ignore-invalid-options policy but the init system it's actually very good.

I don't want to return to a pile bash scripts with `sleep n` to get the system to boot, even if it's a proven method.

<comment><USER17> Many other dependency/supervisor driven init systems exist (upstart, minit, daemontools, etc.). Upstart even was the Ubuntu default for a while.

One of them should be adopted and fleshed out before systemd causes even more damage.

<comment><USER19> There should be competition but no one is willing to step up to the plate. That's the real issue.

<comment><USER16> That's false. There are several daemon managers designed to run as PID 1, starting with upstart the parent mentioned and you silently dismissed. The problem lays elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very interesting to see. I'm a big fan of (X)NTP and introduced it to several clients many moons ago, and still have code lurking in it AFAIK. But I was not happy with the maintainers seeming to lose whole versions of (my) code and have not run a real local ticker for a while. I still have plenty of users of ntp.exnet.com anyway!

</comment><comment><USER21> I've used htpdate for the times ntp has been blocked by firewalls. It's worked fine for me without hiccups.

</comment><comment><USER22> This link resurfaced again after getting a mention in cron.weekly issue #99; [https://www.cronweekly.com/issue-99/](https://www.cronweekly.com/issue-99/)

Gotta say, I'm happy about that, as I wrote the newsletter :-D

</comment><comment><USER23> Just for completeness, how would ntpsec fare in this comparison?

I know ntpsec is a somewhat questionable fork. But the refactoring work itself can't be all bad...

<comment><USER24> As far as that page is concerned ntpsec is just ntp with fewer features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It took an embarrassedly long amount of time for me to notice this was on chrony website. Might be better described as 'things chroney has, it's competitors don't have and may or may not be important.'

</comment><comment><USER26> This managed to put most of its content off-screen on Android, without letting me resize the viewport at all. Completely unreadable.

I miss the days when people would use tables and minimal or no css.

<comment><USER27> Those days site would come with a "best viewed in IE at 800x600" disclaimer because they would be completely unusable in any other configuration.

Maybe you miss the days of simple text as HTML. That one did work everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Seems like a great candidate for a Rust implementation, but I can't seem to find one yet..

<comment><USER27> Thread carefully, because most NTP vulnerabilities are protocol misuse, not badly written servers. Thus Rust won't protect against them.</comment></comment>


Why we are getting rid of our hourly rate - <AUTHOR> http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/why-we-are-getting-rid-of-our-hourly-rate/

<comment><USER2> Without following the Ron Baker links, what is a good scenario for how to calculate and use value pricing?

Is it along these lines? "ABC business needs a custom inventory management solution which also doubles as an e-commerce platform. This will likely generate them X amount of money per year, so we're going to price this solution at Y."

If so, how do you quantify these variables?

note: I have no business degree and am a developer.</comment>