Ask HN: Please review my new project: almost.at - <AUTHOR> http://almost.at <comment><USER2> I am not sure what it does, but it looks fucking gorgeous.

<comment><USER3> I had the same thought. It's a very impressive interface, but I couldn't find an "About" link that really says what it is, and it wasn't terribly obvious (at least to me). I see what looks like twitter stuff, I see comments, and I see links to news stuff.

But perhaps an "About" clicky would be helpful.

But overall nice job with the interface. Very slick.

<comment><USER4> Or even a video would be helpful.

<comment><USER2> As someone trying to make a video for "the product" with zero video editing experience, let me say that I no longer expect it from others. It's enough programmers are even making the UI useable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is fantastic! I could see myself paying for the ability to set up feeds to share with other people during an event.

It's also nice to see Cappuccino being used for something outside of 280 North. :)

<comment><USER6> I hadn't even thought of that, but you're right - I would definitely pay to have one of my conferences included / featured, which would encourage attendees to communicate about them more - I win all round.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I used Cappuccino to build the front-end, so thanks go to the 280 North guys!

<comment><USER7> I like that it grabs events out, instead of just trending words. How did you manage that if you don't mind sharing? I'm a big fan of tools, especially cool ones so thanks for showing great ideas can be made real in ones spare time if they keep plugging!

<comment><AUTHOR> Events are suggested by users (the little + button in the lower left). Currently, I approve/reject them by hand to keep it focused. Eventually, I'll have a public voting system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Man, I love what Cappuccino can do. It looks really slick. However, on a top- end Mac Pro with 6gb of RAM in Safari 4 beta and Firefox 3.5 beta, its sloooooow. Everything is just really jerky and non-responsive while trying to navigate around.

All that aside, its a really great interface. Soon as you enable some additional functionality (like search) and speed up the interface, this will be something I want to come to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I am definitely working to speed up the interface responsiveness.

There's a standalone app OS X that you can keep open for hours, so it won't bog down your main browser:

<https://s3.amazonaws.com/almostatapps/almost.at.dmg>

<comment><USER9> Since you used Cappuccino, were you able to compile this from the same source as the web site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, though technically it's not "compiled" ... only the browser wrapper is compiled objective-c code. It's still just html/javascript running inside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Beautiful, beautiful interface. Worked perfectly smoothly on my MacBook 2.2Ghz with 2GB ram. Am very jealous. Makes the interface of my AJAXified web app - www.gambolio.com - look a tad amateurish. Mine was done using jQuery, btw.

<comment><USER11> Nice interface, but jerky animation, which isn't surprising for jQuery, but a bit unfortunate.

<comment><USER10> Whacked, what library is best for animations, in your opinions> I heard mootools was pretty good.

<comment><USER11> 6 months ago I could easy find a jQuery animated effect somewhere that got sluggish if you start generating many simultaneous effects. There is an article by Dave Shea on A List Apart that would visibly choke if you moved your cursor around the links quickly; someone wrote one in Mootools and it was smooth. But I just revisited the article and it wasn't choking anymore.

My hunch is Mootools will still give you an edge. But it might not last long.

<comment><USER12> You guys are both oversimplifying the animation performance issue.

Alex will probably write slow animations with whatever framework he's using, because it depends way more on how you program than with what.

You have to be cognizant of your DOM, your scripting practices, your loops, etc., etc.

I'm gonna be a total whore and probably get downmodded but, hey, I wrote a book on this exact topic: <http://jsrocks.com/> with Thomas Fuchs, the creator of Scriptaculous. (Wait til you see Scripty2.)

<comment><USER10> Please don't dis other people's code before you have had a chance to look at it, especially when your sole aim is to promote your own product. I am very "cognizant" of my DOM, scripting practices and loops. The reason my animations are slow is the sheer amount I am trying to do with this app, not because I write slow animatations whatever framework I use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very cool. Easy quick improvement: add "cursor: pointer" to the CSS of the event links on the left-hand side. That will make it easier for the user to tell he should click on them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, good point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hm. Doesn't work on linux in Firefox Minefield , Opera 9.63 or in Konqueror 3.5.8. I only get a spinner for a few seconds - followed by a blank screen.

In windows firefox it works (a bit sluggish, though).

Anyways, apart from that problem and a few minor bugs it's a really nice tech- demo. I don't see myself using such a service, but you might find some followers in the twitter crowd.

</comment><comment><USER15> I played around with it for a bit and thought it was quite cool. Then just as I was about to click close I saw the wierd slider thing at the bottom and though - ah that would be so awesome if I could slide it and.... OH COOL!

Kudos.

<comment><USER16> I read this and slided to an earlier time. Now it's difficult to get back to the current time. Dragging the slider to a future time or clicking to the right brings me back to the earliest simulated time. Using Chrome 2 and it isn't slow.

<comment><USER15> Same issue here (using Chrome 2 as well :D). However for me the slider stayed at the earliest time but the updates appeared correctly in real time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You must be getting hammered by traffic; I just gave ya 30 seconds to load.. I'll try again later.

<comment><AUTHOR> The initial load might take a minute, but once it loads, 99% of the traffic is served from Amazon S3 via JSONP, so that part should hopefully scale well. If you're on OS X, there's a standalone browser app you can download (has the code embedded, so no loading time). I'm still working on a Mozilla Prism or custom WebKit standalone browser for Windows.

I welcome the traffic rush, though, because I want to figure out how to scale it!

<comment><USER18> _The initial load might take a minute_

You might want to mention that on the initial page. Yesterday I also gave up after 30 seconds, and I only came back today because this is still on the HN frontpage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Very cool! When I watched the Air France stream, many of the items were in foreign languages. You could offload language detection to the Google Languages AJAX API to allow filtering by language, or even better, automatic translation on-the-fly ;)

</comment><comment><USER20> Fascinating. Would be nice if you labeled the three columns, (The first is twitter mentions, the second flickr and the third everything else?)

But it looks like a great way of visualizing developing stories, with the downside being that you can only really track one thing at a time.

How are you dealing with reducing noise from stuff that you pull from twitter or the web?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

The "Followees" feature is going to be key in avoiding the twitter hashtag spam. Basically, you add people on twitter who are actually attending the event... and their posts are highlighted in yellow. You can also see only followee posts with the button at the top.

I was testing Google I/O last week with 50-60 followees and it really cut through the spam and all the "I wish I were at Google I/O!!!!" posts.

I'll be at WWDC next week and I'm hoping that the big Keynote will be a good test for the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think it's pretty cool looking. One question, one concern: 1) Are events added manually? They certainly seem well-enough targeted that I could see them being so. But the flip side of that is that there's a lot of other events of a similar nature, but with less of a geeky focus, that I'm afraid I wouldn't see. If they're not manually added, how are you ensuring that all events that could be potentially targeted are included?

2) It might be nice to include a throttle for the refresh speed. 5 seconds, for a high-volume item like the BEA, was total information overload.

EDIT: I should be more precise about #2. I'm seeing that even though it's been constantly refreshing every 5 sec for a couple minutes, it's still up to May 29. So maybe it's not actually that high-volume, but there's still something going on where I'm seeing a hard-to-follow stream of text.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) Yes, users suggest events and the moderator (me) approves them, if they're relevant. I'm trying to keep it to a short curated list of what's happening in the world (also, there's rate limits on most APIs!). Eventually, I'll add a system for users to publicly vote for "upcoming" events.

2) There isn't currently a throttle, but if you mouse-over a column, it will pause so you can read something interesting that you see. Mouse out and it un- pauses. Also, it's like an IM conversation... if you scroll up, it will stop auto-scrolling to the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looks great! This is definitely one of those first apps which will help give people an idea of what Cappuccino can do.

One bug I noticed: Expanding the left column seems to have some issues. More specifically, the content doesn't seem to expand with it until you click on another event. (In Safari 4 on a Mac)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea :/ I've been trying to solve that bug, though it has been elusive, thus far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Neat idea, but this is unusably slow on my PC (Firefox 3, Core 2 Duo 2ghz).

<comment><USER24> hate to add a "works for me" post, but try it in the firefox 3.5 beta - it has the new javascript engine, which makes this run very nicely.

It was speedy in google chrome too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It looks good! I had a few problems though:

It appears you can pause individual columns but clicking on the pause button doesn't work (in Firefox at least)

The columns should have titles

The last column (Links) keeps the background title over the text (in Firefox at least)

Selecting different stories on the left seems not to work some of the time and there is no pointer icon when hovering over them (in Firefox at least)

I think you need a page explaining what is going on and how the site works because it seems to assume you already know.

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks really nice, but perhaps a little buggy? I'm using Opera 9.64 on XP and when trying to view the stream about the missing France flight, I was only able to get two of three streams at a time. The third would show a paused icon in the top right. First, the Twitter stream was paused; after I clicked around the timeline, the Twitter stream started working but the pictures frame emptied and stopped working.

Great stuff overall.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, did you see a little pause icon in the top right of the column? If so, you probably had your mouse hovering over that column. It pauses on mouse-over so you can read something that you see is interesting.

Edit: Having said that... yes, I'm sure there are bugs!

<comment><USER26> I did have the pause icon, but it didn't go away as I moved my mouse around the screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> All I see is a timer and then just a black screen. I'm using Opera 9.64 on x86_64 Linux. I'm sad because the other comments make it sound awesome.

<comment><USER28> For what it's worth, it loads fine for me with Opera 10 build 4345, but it didn't work with the first Opera 10 alpha.

Here's a link if you're interested: <http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/snapshot-4345/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Cool that you list tweet links from major news sources!

When a user clicks on CNN, BBC or others could you not on the left most side bring up the article they clicked so they dont go to another site? Would be a UI thing, but I would never leave the page and I could click and read all the news stories about X, while staying within your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting... I was thinking an embedded viewer for photos would be good, but articles could work too. I could make that an option, so people could jump out to a new window if they prefer. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It looks gorgeous, but I have one question about web pages that look like applications: what happens when I leave the page and later want to come back? Is there a "save" button?

On my computer, I can come back to my data very easily. The next time I open an app, everything is where I left it. Does Capuccino work the same way?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, but there's not much "personalized" data on almost.at to save. If there were (or is in the future), then yea, your data could definitely be saved and displayed when you return. Check out 280 Slides from the creators of Cappuccino: <http://280slides.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Love the interface and the real-time aggregation thing. However I think it would be even better if one could submit the topic to be searched and aggregated for --> not limited to events chosen by you. For instance I'd like to find mention of my company at specific times (during a viral campaign, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm not sure if this is intentional or a browser bug (I'm using Chrome so anything Webkit/Safari should be the same) but at the bottom of the menu panel on the left I see a resize button (bottom right of left panel). If I resize the panel, the menu itself doesn't resize, only the right side menus shrink.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely a bug... thanks for the report.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am not sure it's working correctly on Chrome. Here's what I see: <http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/315/random_pics/almost.at.jpg>

I gave up trying to figure out what to do after about a minute.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm... that's not good. It should have a sidebar on the left. Looks like it's Chrome on Windows, right? I'll have a look and see if I can reproduce it.

<comment><USER33> Yep, Chrome on Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Beautiful! Rocks on FireFox 3.0.10 on Fedora 10. I expected it to be slow, but was pleasantly surprised to see the overall speed after initial loading was over. The '5 seconds remaining' idea is elegant.

</comment><comment><USER35> It looks pretty professional. Sort of interesting too. If there was a way to automatically get hashtags or news stories or submit possible stories that might be a way to improve the service.

</comment><comment><USER36> congrats on getting techcrunch covered

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That's pretty funny because I only told people about this site 2 and a half hours ago!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Font aliasing in the bottom timeline is not working for me. Running Google Chrome on Vista. Screenshot:

<http://screencast.com/t/zhoSHkz1Q>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the report. That looks awful! I'm going to try to reproduce it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> nice job. let me guess, you own a Mac? :) Beautiful UI. mouse cursor over items on left remained as arrow for me. Maybe hover color or hand cursor?

</comment><comment><USER39> I gave it about 30 seconds to load and then left. I saw it was just TC'd so maybe I'll try back in a few days.

</comment><comment><USER40> Amazing interface.

Favicon maybe a bit too reminiscent of Alexa.

</comment><comment><USER41> very nice interface. thanks for adding #cricket. :)

</comment><comment><USER42> Eye candy sells, especially for toys. iPhone is an icon because of an eye candy, visual effects and primitiveness - the stuff for masses.

This is really very good toy - just sit and watch and sometimes read, but not much (140 chars of very simple language) - that is exactly what a people wants from time waster.

</comment><comment><USER43> Of course it doesn't work in my Konqueror :)

</comment><comment><USER44> uuuh...guys? I think Bing might be better than Google....what do I do?</comment>


Samsung Fooling customers by writing 6Gb RAM instead of 768MB  - <AUTHOR> http://www.samsung.com/my/consumer/mobile-devices/smartphone/android-os/GT-S7560UWAXME

<comment><USER2> I like Samsung products, so I'm a bit surprised here.

Every page (including the one for Specifications) mentions the phone has 4 GB of "ROM" (read-only memory). Maybe the marketing person meant to say RAM instead of RAM, but if the phone does indeed have a tiny amount of RAM, then it's certainly a 'creative' way to confuse consumers.

Also interesting is a big image found on several pages stating the phone has 6 GB RAM, which is pretty unambiguous. But why not state this in the specs then? If this is actually a 'creative' way of writing 6 Gb RAM, then the phone has less than 800 Megabytes of RAM. That would explain why there's no mention of RAM on the Specifications page. :) Maybe there are more 'creative' ways to explain technology on that page?

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't believe Samsung is trying to cheat people like this. It is really mean and miserable to play around talking in bits instead of bytes to trick customers.

<comment><USER4> I think that this is just an error. (Maybe) There is no phone on this earth with 6GB RAM

<comment><USER3> It doesn't say 6GB of RAM, it says 6Gb which is not the same, one stands for Gigabits and the other for Gigabytes;

1 Gigabyte = 8 Gigabits // 6 Gbits = 768 Megabytes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Never seen any manufacturer use 'Gb' for RAM instead of 'GB'. It's probably Samsung's intention.

</comment><comment><USER6> Probably just a case of careless copypasta-ing by a clueless marketing guy.

<comment><USER7> It's in both the image and spec table, making carelessness seem less likely to me, but you never know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see it?

<comment><USER9> Likewise I didn't see it at first but it's on the image from the linked page [http://www.samsung.com/my/consumer- images/product/smartphone...](http://www.samsung.com/my/consumer- images/product/smartphone/2013/GT-S7560UWAXME/features/GT-S7560UWAXME-77-0.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Also: "ROM"?

<comment><USER8> Nah, that one is fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That should be Gb in the title, not GB.

<comment><USER12> Traditionally a 'b' stands for bit, while a 'B' stands for Byte (8 bits).

Also traditionally, Bytes (kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes) are used when it is about storage (RAM, FDD, HDD or other), whereas when they talk about _bandwidth_ or 'speed' (notice I put the '') , they talk in bits (gigabits per second, etc).

So no, I don't think it should be Gb in the title. GB is fine, since it's talking about RAM.

<comment><USER13> Read the link. Samsung is claiming that the phone has '6Gb', right next to stating it has '4GB' of ROM. In reality the phone has 768MB of RAM.

Not cool.

<comment><USER12> I've seen the link. My comment wasn't about it. It was about what I commented about (comment-above).

And sure it's not cool. I've seen non-genuine thumb-drives have false capacity written on them, but coming from Samsung .. It's weird.

<comment><USER14> >I've seen the link. My comment wasn't about it. It was about what I commented about (comment-above).

The comment was quoting the link...

<comment><USER12> I stand corrected. Image is the testimony. Submitter is the court clerk who corrected misspelling in his transcripts for the sake of grammar. Commenter corrected the transcript to include misspelling for the sake of authenticity. I corrected commenter's version for the sake of grammar thinking he agreed with image grammatically while he was talking authenticity. Either ways, I stand corrected.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are confusing me now !!

<comment><USER12> We don't want that ! I just got my nerd analytical side out. Can be scary, but it doesn't bite :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Australian government delays Internet filter for a year - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/352638/internet_filter_delayed_year_updated_/

<comment><USER2> Here's hoping this is Conroy trying to let this scheme fade away without the need for a humiliating backdown.

Can it be coincidence that this means nothing will happen until after the next election? I think not. I also think that it will only come up after the election if they still want Fielding onside.</comment>


It's Not The Data, It's The Flow - <AUTHOR> http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/05/its-not-the-dat.html <comment><USER2> This hits the nail on the head. Facebook achieved its massive user base by offering simple, worthwhile web apps (e.g. events and photos). They should be concerned about staying relevant to their users, not controlling where they do and don't go.

The platform is great and all, but what is FB itself doing to keep me engaged? Why aren't they pushing video harder? Where is music? Why does Facebook lag so far behind MySpace in both these areas?</comment>


Ask HN: How to become an "A*" coder - <AUTHOR>

As a result of this thread, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2353079 and it's parent, I'm wondering how one goes about becoming an "A" coder.
I originally thought I was a "D" or "C" coder, but based on the responses, I'm guessing I'm more of a "B" coder.
Any suggestions on how to become an A(star)? <comment><USER2> I'm sure there's an algorithm that will explore the search space according to some heuristic and get you there. </pun>

The thing I've consistently found that differentiates really great developers from the rest is the ability to think conceptually about problems. There are tons of people out there who may be able to implement something according to all sorts of best practices and patterns, but who can't actually reason about why those practices are there and when they become a hindrance.

This ability to reason about the act of programming isn't a sufficient condition for an "A" developer, but it's necessary. You simply won't ever know what to work on or how to improve otherwise.</comment>


Bitcoin is up 125 Percent in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/futuresin/bitcoin-is-up-125-percent-in-2019-358cdf08ab8e <comment><USER2> These stories are so misleading. _Up_ only means something in relation to when you bought. Everyone bought at different prices and some people are very "up" while others are decidedly down.

<comment><USER3> The title ignored the first few months of sideways, but still is not wrong. The 3-Monthly change for Bitcoin is up 120%+, so anyone who bought during the beginning of the year & hodl'd is up more than the title says</comment></comment>


How to promote your App to get early users - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@PitchMantra/how-to-promote-your-app-dc76a076f52e

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking for feedback/suggestion</comment>


Google: Open Letter to Australians - <AUTHOR> https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/ <comment><USER2> Google evil etc etc aside, they have been decent custodians of their users data. I don't really want to trust Google, but they behave much better than the Australian government, who recently admitted they spy on their citizens [0], can coerce citizens and companies to install backdoors into their companies software [1].

I trust Murdoch less than the government, and much much less than Google. Remember when Murdoch institutions illegally wiretapped celebrities, politicians, royal family members and relatives of dead British soldiers [2]?

0: [https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2020/aug/06/peter...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2020/aug/06/peter-dutton-confirms-australia-could-spy-on-its-own- citizens-under-cybersecurity-plan)

1: [https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law- global-...](https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global- impact/)

2: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacki...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal)

<comment><USER3> In regards to parent commenters [0] link, this is the story that got a journalist's home raided by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) because she received leaked information (that turned out to be 100% correct) that the Department for Home Affairs was planning to allow the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to spy on Australian citizens.

Directly quoting from the linked article:

 _ASD powers have been a source of controversy for the government, after the AFP raided News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst's home in June 2019 over a news report suggesting the home affairs department was seeking power for ASD to spy on Australians. Dutton had claimed the story was nonsense despite publicly confirming its substance._

The straight-up lying by one of Australia's highest ranked politicians bodes poorly, and goes hand-in-hand with Federal Police raiding a journalists home. Yet this seems to be the Government that the Australian people want.

<comment><USER4> > this seems to be the Government that the Australian people want.

I can assure you it's not. The problem with Republics is that "one man one vote" does not translate into the majority getting what it wants. The loudest and most well organized political forces will get their way, even ones small in number or popular support. State security services have a long history of involvement in politics and media in the Anglo-sphere.

<comment><USER5> Australia is not (yet?) a Republic

<comment><USER6> That was probably the least useful thing to criticise in the comment you replied to.

I know, I know, pedantry is fun. But I don't think the Queen makes much of a difference to Australia's problems one way or another.

<comment><USER7> Indeed she did make a difference in 1975 when her representative fired no other than the Prime Minister.

Source: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitution...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis)

<comment><USER6> Yes, every once in a while. Hence my qualification with 'much of a difference'.

<comment><USER7> sure, we also have a couple of atomic bombs only. Not much difference there either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Australian here. Fuck News Corp, one of the most corrupt entities in Australia that directly collude and interfere with our elections for the benefit of themselves and Big Coal.

I hope Google don't fuck around.

<comment><USER9> >corrupt entities in Australia

They have also seriously damaged the media in the US and the UK. Its no wonder all 3 countries are having serious issues with news.

<comment><USER10> That's an anglo-centric perception. Which countries has Google News been banned in? Spain. China. Germany briefly until Google told the news orgs they'd never pay, so could license their content for free or disappear from News and search.

Newspapers trying to screw Google out of money by pressuring politicians is not an Australia or News Corp specific problem. It's happening everywhere. Really, all it reveals is how cravenly controlled by journalists supposedly independent politicians really are. We always "knew" it, but now we _know_ it.

<comment><USER11> I don't know why this gets a so downvoted, it's correct. There was/is a huge pressure made by French and German media owners.

<comment> blaser-waffle You're not wrong, but News Corp doesn't hold a lot of power in FR or DE.

Meanwhile Fox News is still poisoning minds in the US, and basically calling the shots in Australia. Plus all the UK hacking, etc.

I'll give a shit about what AFP or Deutsche Welle are doing when they start becoming a tool of the US GOP that openly pushes for invading Iran.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Obviously the Australian government is trying to make google pay just because Murdoch told it to. But the pretense is bizarre - that google has to pay Murdoch because it steals his content.

Google doesn't republish News Corp content! It just lists headlines with URLs that readers click to go through to News Corp! Google is giving News Corp 70% of its traffic.

Bizarre.

What's to stop google from simply ceasing to index News Corp at all?

The fact that it doesn't, and instead runs a scary PR campaign, tells me there's something going on that I don't understand. But what?

<comment><USER13> Not indexing news content in order to avoid submitting to the proposed new law is itself prohibited under the new law.

<comment><USER12> Link to the new legislation or description thereof?

<comment><USER13> Concepts paper and draft legislation published by the ACCC: [https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital- platforms/news-m...](https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital- platforms/news-media-bargaining-code)

HN discussed this when the draft legislation was published: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24006150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24006150)

<comment><USER10> This law is the latest iteration of newspaper's attempts to turn Google into an ATM for the industry.

The first attempt was in Germany. The law said search engines must pay newspapers to index their content. However it didn't specify what the price should be, so Google simply negotiated a fee of zero and the law was in effect nullified.

The second attempt was in Spain. It is the same law, but this time they added a clause that said the fee can't be zero. So Google News was shut down in Spain and the law was in effect nullified again.

The third attempt is in EU and Australia. In Australia it's the same law, but this time it says the fees both cannot be zero and that you aren't allowed to shut down your service. In the EU the assumption is Google can't pull out, so if a Spain-style law is passed at the Commission level then Google have to pay up.

What comes next? My guess - either this is the point where Google breaks or they pull out of Australia completely. They did it on principle for China, once, and that was a drastically larger market. But it's not the same company it once was.

It may be that Google/FB just decide indexing news isn't worth it. Bing can serve loss-making news queries. Or someone would set up a news-focused search engine in the USA that doesn't have any legal presence anywhere else. Indexing news is a much more tractable problem than indexing the entire web especially with advances in AI-driven NLP. However, there's the question of how to get people to pay for it.

edit: apparently the law is a bill of attainder and names who it applies to specifically, note these laws are unconstitutional in the USA (at least theoretically).

<comment><USER14> How can government tell you what services you must provide? That's ridiculous.

<comment><USER15> In the Americans with Disabilities Act, US law states that if you're going to create a place of public accommodation, there are certain minimum standards you must adhere to, to support those with disabilities. So you must install ramps and elevators for the mobility-impaired, offer audio-only interfaces for the blind, sign for the hearing impaired, and so on. These apply pretty broadly.

We can argue whether Australia's legislation is a good thing, but "if you are going to operate here, these are the standards you must follow" is not beyond the pale.

<comment><USER14> There's a difference between having to comply to certain standards when opening a new service, and being forced by government to retain a service that is unprofitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> And surprisingly, not one mention of Murdoch.

Let's be honest - this is old media trying to push their weight to keep margins. Facebook and Google have effectively replaced both clickbait and tabloid news sources, as well as the well-resourced, quality journalism by taking ad revenue off their hands.

Google could easily setup a news sourcing hub themselves and self-cite news rather than relying on their external data feeds.

This is political. Neither Google or Facebook is going to be paying a cent here.

I find Google citing data safety annoying.

<comment><USER17> > And surprisingly, not one mention of Murdoch.

"The law would force us to give an unfair advantage to one group of businesses - news media businesses - over everyone else who has a website, YouTube channel or small business."

This wording doesn't suggest that Murdoch would have a better advantage than any other 'news media business'. Is there anything in the new laws to suggest, apart from capital/resources, that this is set to benefit any particular Australian media business over another?

> Google could easily setup a news sourcing hub themselves and self-cite news > rather than relying on their external data feeds.

So they'd be paying for news content from established media enterprise, or paying journalists to write their own - as opposed to leaching off them. Seems like a win?

<comment><USER18> I agree with your broader point, though it should be noted that public broadcasters (namely ABC and SBS) will not be able to make use of certain rights under the new legislation (namely the forced arbitration system). So it does give slightly more favour to private media organisations -- though you could argue allowing the ABC or SBS to exercise those powers would violate their own charters (their duty is not to be competitive with other media).

<comment><USER19> Where in their charter does it say that it is one of their duties not to be competitive with other media?

The only mention in the charter (it's really short) is:

> (2) In the provision by the Corporation of its broadcasting services within > Australia:

>

>(a) the Corporation shall take account of:

>

>(i) the broadcasting services provided by the commercial and community sectors of the Australian broadcasting system;

It's a Murdoch/Nine/7West continuous whinge that ABC/SBS compete "unfairly", yet when it comes to actual community needs (eg emergency broadcasting, rural and regional reporting etc), they do squat in return for their spectrum and cable licenses.

<comment><USER18> It's not that the charter says "you cannot be competitive with other media", it's that their charter _doesn 't_ say "you should be competitive with private media". The ABC and SBS exist to provide both information and entertainment with a specific focus -- not to try to be the most highly-rated channel in Australia. As a result, the ABC or SBS using the new powers under the proposed legislation wouldn't fall under their charter -- because the purpose of the legislation is to rectify an (alleged) power imbalance in the agreements between news companies and digital media.

On balance (reading my comment again), I should probably have phrased it as "it is not their duty to compete with privately-owned media" rather than "[it is] their duty not to".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Open comment from an Australian to google:

"Pay your f#$king tax like the rest of us or shut the f%$ck up."

This comment stands apart from any and all implications of their special interest policy pleadings above which are all pretty tedious in comparison.

Google don't pay tax for profit made selling in Australia. To hell with them and literally any case they have to make.

<comment><USER6> Google complies with all the relevant laws.

If Australians want Google to pay more taxes, they should change the tax laws to make them pay more taxes.

<comment><USER21> > Google complies with all the relevant laws.

Yeah, they use every loophole the system provides to pay the least amount possible. If I used every loophole to take advantage of a system and make it do what I want, I'd be labelled a criminal. I'd be called a hacker. But since it's a big company and the system isn't a computer, well... I guess it's OK then.

They're hacking the system and you're fine with it because "technically they're complying with relevant laws". Just because something is legally possible doesn't mean it's right.

<comment><USER6> The loopholes are part of the laws.

I am very glad that I moved to a country, Singapore, that in general has sane and simple laws that don't suffer nearly as much from loopholes as most other countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Link to the draft law is below [0].

Quoted from that page:

>The code also includes a set of 'minimum standards' for:

>providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and

>providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users' interactions with news content.

This sounds great to me. Australia has a history of producing consumer friendly laws (although I am sure we have our share of bad laws on this), and I consider google to be working against my personal interests, so I think this law is probably good (for consumers and news media, but not google/facebook).

0\. [https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital- platforms/draft-...](https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital- platforms/draft-news-media-bargaining-code)

<comment><USER23> As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience.

You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: [https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols](https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols)

Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I miss the old Google search, the one that didn't try to guess what I mean, but instead did exactly what I said.

I can see how for your average user "guess what I mean" might produce better and quicker results, but for power users (who are entirely comfortable with search syntax, and who sometimes may be searching incredibly obscure things), it produces a worse experience

The only type of search personalisation I want is the ability to exclude certain sites from my search results (bye bye Pinterest, bye bye Quora). Google used to offer that feature, but in more recent years it appears to have disappeared.

I particularly wish Google News Search had a way to exclude media sources I dislike. I am interested in Brexit, so I regularly search on that term, but then I get bombarded with a boatload of sensationalised crap from the Daily Express, a media outlet I'd prefer to pretend didn't exist

<comment><USER23> You can still do this per-query by typing `-site:quora.com`.

news.google.com allows you to hide publications, probably at the domain level but I can't tell. I use this extensively, but I don't know if those choices are honored in the Google search news tab.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know about `-site:`, but it is a pain to have to keep on typing it in, they used to have a feature to permanently block certain domains in results, from your Google settings. (Plus, `-site:` only works for a few sites, since it counts against the search keywords limit.)

When I go to news.google.com, I can't work out how to hide news sources. I do have a "Hidden Sources > Manage" option in the settings, but it doesn't let me add any, just tells me I don't have any. Each individual result has a few options under it – Share, Save for later, and a "More" menu with a "Go to..." option that takes you to the page for that media source. But even on the "Daily Express" media source page, I don't see any "hide" option, just "Follow" and "Share"

Does this feature still exist? Is it disabled for my Google account (maybe because of some privacy setting I set)? Does it only work from certain countries? Google is inscrutable as always

<comment><USER23> You have to click on the vertical ... button. It's a little hard to find on desktop, but on mobile it's very clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, I worked it out – really confusing UI. The "Hide" option only appears on the vertical ... menu on certain screens, not others. The "Headlines" page displays it, so do "Sections" and "topic" pages, but not search results. I was trying to find it on a keyword search result page, which is why I couldn't find it anywhere.

Also, blocking a source hides it from "Headlines"/"Sections"/"Topic" pages, but not from keyword search results pages. You'll still get your blocked sources displayed in those. (Confusingly, when you search for "brexit", you can get back two different "Brexit" topic pages, which have the same title but different pictures, or you can get a keyword search results page, which behaves differently.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > News media businesses alone would be given information that would help them > artificially inflate their ranking over everyone else, even when someone > else provides a better result

I'm not sure how Google wins this one because it seems like an easy comeback is "well why don't you just be transparent and tell everybody that information". Ultimately, as long as they have anything resembling "secret sauce" they will be in the cross hairs of regulators for unfair treatment (even if just alleged, not proven), and the minute they don't they will lose their competitive advantage.

Perhaps the worst thing seems to me that it prospectively constrains what kinds of algorithms they can actually apply to things they can tell people about. So all kinds of approaches with poor explainability (say, deep learning) will get put aside for things that are empirically worse (more biased, unfair, less equitable, etc.) but compliant with the law because Google can "explain them" to people.

<comment><USER25> > I'm not sure how Google wins this one because it seems like an easy comeback > is "well why don't you just be transparent and tell everybody that > information". Ultimately, as long as they have anything resembling "secret > sauce" they will be in the cross hairs of regulators for unfair treatment > (even if just alleged, not proven), and the minute they don't they will lose > their competitive advantage.

Because then people would game it.

<comment><USER26> Yes, same as the phone book for AAA Plumbers.

Playing devil's advocate, gaming search engines used to be about keywords then it became more about links. SEOs nowadays talk about "EAT", expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. It's still possible for marketers to mimic quality signals but it's less easy.

It would be much easier if the author of webpages were to declare themselves, sort of a Pagerank but applied on a person/topic level. It could/can be done with structured data. This of course has privacy implications but it keeps the publishers as transparent to the search engine as possible. Verification of sorts would be needed so other people don't use your authorship details on their own site. It's the kind of social fabric/data Google could've perhaps used Google+ for.

Slightly more on topic, marketers used to be able to do accurate keyword research with Google, and also see the keywords that people searched for when landing on their site, which is quite useful for figuring out their intent. Google keeps all that data to themselves now.

I find their "concerns" about "use of private data" a bit laughable, considering they used your personal search history to try and target you on sites you visit across the web via ads. They don't mind retaining data about users, they just don't like having to share it with anyone.

<comment><USER27> > It would be much easier if the author of webpages were to declare > themselves, sort of a Pagerank but applied on a person/topic level. It > could/can be done with structured data. This of course has privacy > implications but it keeps the publishers as transparent to the search engine > as possible. Verification of sorts would be needed so other people don't use > your authorship details on their own site. It's the kind of social > fabric/data Google could've perhaps used Google+ for.

This was actually done back when Google+ first was launched — people could attach their authorship and it would be displayed on the search page, and you would also see a list of "experts" for particular categories on the right hand side when you searched for things like "python" or "poker".

I believe it disappeared with the rest of Google+, because no one actually cared.

<comment><USER26> Seems like that's one major ingredient they'd like to add to their algo as intent/authority is otherwise measured much more indirectly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I initially thought this was going to be about the new [1] anti-encryption law's in Australia... another concerning matter of government intervention...

[1] [https://fee.org/articles/australia-s-unprecedented- encryptio...](https://fee.org/articles/australia-s-unprecedented-encryption- law-is-a-threat-to-global-privacy/)

<comment><USER29> nope, Google doesn't give a shit about that. They just hate having to pay for displaying content from news media.

<comment><USER30> Why would anyone be thrilled about having to funnel cash to News Corp? The news business is dead, and good riddance because it descended into yellow journalism and clickbait garbage.

Check the News.com.au homepage and observe it looks like a worse Daily Mail.

<comment><USER26> >The news business is dead, and good riddance because it descended into yellow journalism and clickbait garbage.

I think it could be the other way around, where people expecting news online and free has meant declining revenues, click-bait and ad-infested news articles.

News aggregators get the user's onto their site without the overhead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Google should just de-list News Corp and the other big media companies that dominate the Australian media industry and who often manipulate elections for their own benefit with one sided heavily biased coverage. Give some breathing space to the smaller players.

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't that just be Google manipulating coverage for Google's benefit?

I don't think Google should be blessing any publishers with special "news section" status. Let websites compete organically. Any media with finance capital backing is going to be biased in favor of wars and against labor.

<comment><USER32> There's a difference between giving special treatment and fully de-listing, kinda like what happened in Germany and Spain with Google News. This is a direct and targeted attack by NewsCorp, abusing their influence in australian politics to force a bill that benefits them. Why should Google help someone that is trying their best to attack them?

<comment><USER4> Being a neutral platform for speech is not 'helping' anyone. It helps the ideas the public agrees with the most, which is why Google and Newscorp are fighting to control internet media with backroom 'partnerships' rather than giving viewpoints that are actually popular a fair playing field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> From the letter:

        > We've always treated all website owners fairly when it comes to information we share about ranking.

Really? [https://twitter.com/methode/status/1166643751659429888](https://twitter.com/methode/status/1166643751659429888)

        > The law would force us to give an unfair advantage to one group of businesses - news media businesses - over everyone else who has a website, YouTube channel or small business

Google is concerned it can no longer pick winners and losers. I don't prefer News Corp, obviously, but it's just lies lies lies on both sides trying to control money funnels.

I assume google has other knobs like just making advertising in .au super expensive (they have a monopoly on that side too) but the battle will end up being bloody.

<comment><USER34> > Really? > [https://twitter.com/methode/status/1166643751659429888](https://twitter.com/methode/status/1166643751659429888)

What is this about? I can't tell from the tweet.

<comment><USER33> it is a google employee picking a winner of an algo update

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> To all the people (hopefully Australians) who paint this as the government propping up legacy media: Isn't it better to have control of your media in local, Australian-owned and regulated megacorps, rather than some faceless megacorp in another country?

<comment><USER36> ^ This.

I'm hearing heaps of people crying "Murdock" and "Newscorp" but how about local jobs and ownership vs a global conglomerate that doesn't give 2 f#%ks about our tiny 25 million population and takes $4.8 billion offshore while paying only $100 million tax[1].

The Australian Associate Press recently went bankrupt and needed a bailout from philanthropists[2]. As much as you dislike one particular section of old media it's essential that local media exists in a functional democracy. Google taking $4.8 billion of revenue out of the country strips these organisations of their funding without providing a replacement.

[1][https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-18/google-pays-more- tax-...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-18/google-pays-more-tax-but- still-makes-billions-in-singapore/12254448) [2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Associated_Press](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Associated_Press)

<comment><USER37> Ironic you should reference the ABC when the legislation specifically excludes the ABC from any benefit other "registered news organisations" may enjoy.

<comment><USER36> I didn't mention the government funded ABC but rather the Australian Associated Press (AAP) which is a collection of local journalists funded collectively by the large media companies on both the left and right wing.

<comment><USER37> I was referring to your reference [1].

The AU government wants to give private media a leg up, but won't allow the ABC (or SBS) to receive any moneys from Google/FB, and at the same time regularly cuts funds to both the government funded media entities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think, the best solution here will be for Google to sell all its assets and business in Australia to a company to be named by the Australian prime minister.

If they wish to continue to offer search there that is.

<comment><USER39> That would be NewsCorp. I really hope your comment is a joke.

<comment><USER40> I'm pretty sure it's a joking reference to Trump's executive order forcing a sale of TikTok.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'd vote they just delist news.com.au. It's a PIA when some search returns tags.news.com.au that is blocked by pihole. It's a cesspit of news biased news anyway. Sure, other newspapers are biased as hell and many just a voice for some ignorant opinion or blind agenda, but they are quaint in the naivety. News.com.au is an organised propaganda machine.

</comment><comment><USER42> The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's response: [https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/response-to-google- ope...](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/response-to-google-open-letter)

HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24185374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24185374)

</comment><comment><USER43> This letter is seriously weird. Shows a clash between two different lobby groups; neither of which actually cares about citizens. I think the quality of news has degenerated severely since it's been put in the hands of Google and Facebook and so I don't even know how to think about this issue.

This does make a case for increased competition in both the search and news space though.

</comment><comment><USER44> I imagine there's going to be a very strong knee-jerk anti-Google reaction here, but let's stop and think about the law itself. If it actually does what this open letter says it does, then it's a bad law, plain and simple, and we should support and applaud efforts -- even Google's -- to inform the public with the hope of changing things.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't like the "free services" wording in the letter. Free services shouldn't be a justification for anything.

<comment><USER26> Indeed. Free here = subsidised by the not-so-privacy-sensitive ad system, and their argument is worrying about user privacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Time for Yandex and Baidu to come into the Australian market. Baidu has shit tech so Yandex it is.

<comment><USER47> I guess you're not an Australian. It's a national sport to get access to American products which the companies don't make available in Australia. If Google dropped out of the local market, everyone would just get access to it via a VPN. (Probably one that Google makes available in exchange for private data.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Feels related to this article from June 2020, [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53176945](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53176945)

"Google to pay for 'high quality' news in three countries"

</comment><comment><USER49> I'd definitely encourage more regulation in this area.

It's going to be a balancing act but at the moment, its is way too skewed towards the big corp in the corp vs consumer arguement.

<comment><USER50> tbh im sick of seeing posts about stupid "kmart shopper finds.... bla bla bla" show up in my news feed

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> > You trust us with your data and our job is to keep it safe. Under this law, > Google has to tell news media businesses "how they can gain access" to data > about your use of our products.

This corpspeak wording seems very broad. I wonder what Australia is gunning at here, if they are really asking Google/FB to share user insights about users visiting these news sites, that doesn't sit well with me as an user.

<comment><USER52> Good news! You can replace corpspeak with legalspeak.

[https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital- platforms/news-m...](https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital- platforms/news-media-bargaining-code/draft-legislation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> What we see here is a final rebellion of the big media companies worldwide. In Germany we have seen something similar. In the end, it's highway robbery: Google is made to pay to the mediacorp, but it is not allowed to de-index them either.

Perfect scenario – you've succesfully made a cashcow! Google is by far not the good guy here, but rest assured, I hope all those big media outlets burn.

</comment><comment><USER54> > A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide > you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your > data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free > services you use at risk in Australia.

The last point particularly reads as extortion.

I get why those under Murdoch umbrella hate it so much but is picking another evil the only option?

</comment><comment><USER55> If anyone is smart enough and patient enough to understand the new law could they comment on these points?

1\. How will Johnny little guy's "news blog" benefit from this? Could they require google pay them to display their headlines on search? 2\. Will the revenue passed on to the Murdochs be taxed by the Aus gov? Ie: another way to capture tax from Google operating in Aus? 3\. What are the foreseeable outcomes of say, no news results are displayed on Google search and people have to visit the news websites directly? Ie: what I often do when I see an interesting article I can not read, I google for it and find a news site that _will_ let me read it.

</comment><comment><USER56> Surprised no one is saying this. Every generation has to relearn what many have realized over the centuries: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The only way to avoid people "abusing" other people is to make that situation impossible (both parties having power that other cannot take). If you create a situation with the tools of power just sitting in the open, and only one party can use it, then you will have abuses.

This logic applies to governments, corporations, and ordinary people (think of the tyrannical managers we've all had at some point). Its an unchangeable facet of human nature. As long as the weapon/tool is on the table, and there are enough people, someone who is a bit more sociopathic, greedy, or has more emotional turmoil will pick it up and wield it against other people for their own gain.

For examples see: all of history whenever a person / civilization had any advantage over another person / civilization and sufficient time elapsed.

Its kinda crazy but everyone always thinks that some new power / invention that creates a one-sided situation like this will "only be used for good", imagining that the people using these tools will be benevolent (for all people who could use the tool, and all the time the tool exists).

</comment><comment><USER39> Discussion on the law itself here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24006150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24006150)

</comment><comment><USER57> I just remember for non-Australians and Australians too: if you still use Bitbucket, Jira, or another Atlassian products - think about the privacy right now.

</comment><comment><USER58> If the problem is that Google will be forced to share data with news media... maybe just stop collecting data then, so there's nothing to hand over?

</comment><comment><USER59> google search is already going down the tubes. for example, i search every variation of "when is grass fungus active" and am served up with results on how to cure grass fungus. just one example of many in how there search engine cannot deal with different angles to a search and has huge delivery buckets that aren't useful, if you need a more granular search ability

</comment><comment><USER60> The legislation [0] gives all news businesses (including smaller ones) a pathway to force Google to enter into an agreement with them. It opens up Google and Facebook to world of costly business dealings.

With little effort, I could start "Deco's Local Newspaper" and publish a few issues online. This will give me a pathway to force Google to "deal with me." This negotiation, mediation and arbitration could incur Google thousands of dollars in employee time, arbitration fees, and paying for half of the legal costs. Google cannot say "no" from the start. They can't even ignore me without being in violation of the new legislation.

Relevant snippets:

"... news media businesses can participate in the code if:

\- They predominantly produce 'core news', and publish this online: [...]

\- They adhere to appropriate professional editorial standards: [...]

\- They maintain editorial independence from the subjects of their news coverage: [...]

\- They operate primarily in Australia for the purpose of serving Australian audiences: [...]"

"If the parties have not reached an agreement for the inclusion of news on digital platform services within three months of negotiation, and the parties have attended at least one day of mediation, news media businesses can elect to commence arbitration."

"Arbitration under the code would be performed through 'final offer arbitration'. The digital platform and news media business (or a collective of news media businesses) must each submit a final offer on the remuneration to be paid by the digital platform within 10 days of the commencement of arbitration. Parties would then have a further 5 business days to provide comments on each other's offer."

"After receiving submissions and comments from the parties and the ACCC, the arbitrator would have 30 business days to choose one or the other of the parties' 'final offers', which would form a binding agreement between the parties."

Therefore: I can force Google to enter into an agreement with me (even as a small business) and incur thousands of dollars of overhead costs in the process.

I'm not one to use hyperbole, but this is insane. I would not be surprised if Google turns off Google Search entirely for Australia when this code passes.

Also, this legislation is specifically for Google and Facebook: "Digital platforms must participate in the code if the Treasurer makes a determination specifying that the code would apply to them. The Government has announced that the code would initially apply only to Facebook and Google. Other digital platforms may be added to the code if they hold a significant bargaining power imbalance with Australian news media businesses in the future."

This also seems strange, though I'm not against legislation specifically for mega-corps. Small businesses / startups are already hard enough to start with all the legislation they need to comply with, so protecting them from irrelevant codes like this is healthy for industry.

[0] [https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/DPB%20-%20Draft%20news%...](https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/DPB%20-%20Draft%20news%20media%20and%20digital%20platforms%20mandatory%20bargaining%20code%20Q%26As.pdf#page5)

</comment><comment><USER61> between competing commercial entities and the government, I am unsure who is more likely to invoke "the law of un-intended consequences" as an explanation for their behaviour.

Lets just say _all of them_ are likely to do this: Not just note that there is an un-intended consequence, but actually acting to bring it on.

</comment><comment><USER62> > The law would force us to give an unfair advantage to one group of > businesses - news media businesses - over everyone else

They already give unfair advantage to mainstream news media over other sources of news and commentary. They artificially boost "credible sources" or "reliable sources" or whatever they call them; and also refrain entirely from recommending some sources which they disapprove of (right-wing, left-wing, world states which oppose the US etc.). On YouTube this has been very apparent in the list of recommended videos (at least if you're reading about US and world news). On the search engine itself it may be less pronounced, but they are actively doing that as well to some extent; see:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with- its-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-search- algorithms-and-changes-your-results-11573823753)

or if you can't get past the Paywall, see:

[https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/18/pers-n18.html](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/18/pers-n18.html)

</comment><comment><USER63> I tried to work out why I'm so unbelievably torn about this, and I've concluded that it's because this is a "whoever wins, we lose" circumstance. Both the press and Google are nightmarish creatures.

</comment><comment><USER64> Let's google win the next elections

</comment><comment><USER65> Pay corporate income tax here and then will talk.

<comment><USER66> (googler, opinion is my own)

My understanding is that Google is locally incorporated in australia, as you can see on this page[0], at least for Ads, likely other businesses. If you select Australia on there you will see Ads payments are made to "Google Australia Pty Limited".

[0] [https://support.google.com/google- ads/answer/2375370?hl=en](https://support.google.com/google- ads/answer/2375370?hl=en)

<comment><USER65> Google Australia Pty Ltd acts as an agent for Google Asia Pacific registered in Singapore.

The profits are routed as licensing costs around the world to end up in this or that low tax jurisdiction.

<comment><USER66> Interesting, thanks for sharing. Found this which gave more context.

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-01/google-facebook- make-...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-01/google-facebook-make- billions-in-australian-sales-pay-little-tax/11060474)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Open letter to Australians

We need to let you know about new Government regulation that will hurt how Australians use Google Search and YouTube.

A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you use at risk in Australia.

# The way Aussies search every day on Google is at risk from new regulation

You've always relied on Google Search and YouTube to show you what's most relevant and helpful to you. We could no longer guarantee that under this law. The law would force us to give an unfair advantage to one group of businesses - news media businesses - over everyone else who has a website, YouTube channel or small business. News media businesses alone would be given information that would help them artificially inflate their ranking over everyone else, even when someone else provides a better result. We've always treated all website owners fairly when it comes to information we share about ranking. The proposed changes are not fair and they mean that Google Search results and YouTube will be worse for you.

# Your Search data may be at risk

You trust us with your data and our job is to keep it safe. Under this law, Google has to tell news media businesses "how they can gain access" to data about your use of our products. There's no way of knowing if any data handed over would be protected, or how it might be used by news media businesses.

# Hurting the free services you use

We deeply believe in the importance of news to society. We partner closely with Australian news media businesses — we already pay them millions of dollars and send them billions of free clicks every year. We've offered to pay more to license content. But rather than encouraging these types of partnerships, the law is set up to give big media companies special treatment and to encourage them to make enormous and unreasonable demands that would put our free services at risk.

This law wouldn't just impact the way Google and YouTube work with news media businesses — it would impact all of our Australian users, so we wanted to let you know. We're going to do everything we possibly can to get this proposal changed so we can protect how Search and YouTube work for you in Australia and continue to build constructive partnerships with news media businesses — not choose one over the other.

You'll hear more from us in the coming days — stay tuned.

<comment><USER36> It's been highlighted below but the reason this is posted here and up voted is that Google choose to 404 any requests coming from non Australian IP addresses.

Hardly seems to be the thing you do when you're acting above board...

<comment><AUTHOR> It turns out there are two URLs for this, one which only works for Australian IPs, one which works for everybody.

Australia-only URL: [https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open- letter/](https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/)

Global URL: [https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an- open...](https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/)

Alias which redirects to Global URL: [http://g.co/australia- letter](http://g.co/australia-letter)

However, when I first posted this, Google was showing a message to people using Google Search in Australia, directing them to the Australia-only URL not the global one. It appears since then they've changed the popup to use the global URL.

At first I (and others) worried there may be something intentional and under- handed in this, now I realise it is probably just some sort of Google-internal stupidity. Hanlon's razor strikes again

<comment><USER68> Changed now. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link that works globally (not just in Australia): [http://g.co/australia- letter](http://g.co/australia-letter)

@dang, can we change the link on this submission please?

<comment><USER68> Yes. Changed from [https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open- letter/](https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/). Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> 404\. Got a copy?

<comment><AUTHOR> It appears they've blocked access to it from non-Australian IPs.

Here is the HTML they serve to me: [https://gist.githubusercontent.com/skissane/05bac6c78d99e359...](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/skissane/05bac6c78d99e359a004e4a4e034048d/raw/1bbf121d720775778270cb40beda2a071afbf1f7/an- open-letter.html)

Text:

 _Open letter to Australians_

We need to let you know about new Government regulation that will hurt how Australians use Google Search and YouTube. A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you use at risk in Australia.

 _The way Aussies search every day on Google is at risk from new regulation_

You've always relied on Google Search and YouTube to show you what's most relevant and helpful to you. We could no longer guarantee that under this law. The law would force us to give an unfair advantage to one group of businesses - news media businesses - over everyone else who has a website, YouTube channel or small business. News media businesses alone would be given information that would help them artificially inflate their ranking over everyone else, even when someone else provides a better result. We've always treated all website owners fairly when it comes to information we share about ranking. The proposed changes are not fair and they mean that Google Search results and YouTube will be worse for you.

 _Your Search data may be at risk_

You trust us with your data and our job is to keep it safe. Under this law, Google has to tell news media businesses "how they can gain access" to data about your use of our products. There's no way of knowing if any data handed over would be protected, or how it might be used by news media businesses.

 _Hurting the free services you use_

We deeply believe in the importance of news to society. We partner closely with Australian news media businesses — we already pay them millions of dollars and send them billions of free clicks every year. We've offered to pay more to license content. But rather than encouraging these types of partnerships, the law is set up to give big media companies special treatment and to encourage them to make enormous and unreasonable demands that would put our free services at risk.

This law wouldn't just impact the way Google and YouTube work with news media businesses — it would impact all of our Australian users, so we wanted to let you know. We're going to do everything we possibly can to get this proposal changed so we can protect how Search and YouTube work for you in Australia and continue to build constructive partnerships with news media businesses — not choose one over the other.

You'll hear more from us in the coming days — stay tuned.

Thank you, Mel Silva, Managing Director, on behalf of Google Australia

<comment><USER69> Nice one, thanks! Maybe also do an archive.is link?

<comment><AUTHOR> archive.is only wants to archive the 404 page.

I think to archive this you need either (a) an archiving service with servers in Australia or (b) an archiving service that archives it using your browser (instead of their servers) and then uploads it to their servers.

I can't find any archiving service for which either (a) or (b) is true

<comment><USER69> ah, ok

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> <deleted>

<comment><USER71> > Google pays a trivial amount of tax here.

Google provides a lot of value with their free products too. Aren't you discounting that?

<comment><USER72> That's debatable but ultimately meaningless when it comes to tax obligations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pot. Kettle.

No such thing as a free lunch.

Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism | VPRO Documentary [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw&t=29s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw&t=29s)

</comment><comment><USER73> Open letter to Google Earth. Fuck off

</comment><comment><USER74> I am delighted at whatever law is driving that letter and want to lobby to introduce the same law here in NZ.

<comment><USER3> Be careful what you wish for. This law is Australian government protectionism for the already-corrupt and thankfully dying status quo: the lumbering dinosaur that is News Corp.

IMHO, what makes it obviously corrupt is that News Corp pays little to no tax and is owned offshore, and yet the Australian government protects it as if it's local (whilst at the same time cutting funding from the local news organisation the ABC).

There's most definitely a void opening up for quality news and media, which is being filled by social media opinion pieces (which, to be fair, is no different from what I'm writing here) which are lacking in any of the quality, research or integrity that news reporting should have.

Having said all that, history shows that what news reporting "should have" (quality, research, integrity, fact-checking etc.) has been bent in various directions since the very inception of news media. So what we're getting is just a changing of the guard as opposed to anything necessarily worse than before. However, this law the Australian government is attempting to push is a delaying tactic against the changing of the guard.

It's protecting something that never really existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> > could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses

Coming from Google, this is a bit funny. I expect Google to be bigger than the combined Australian newspaper industry.

</comment><comment><USER76> I'd probably trust the Australian govt to protect my data better than Google or even worse Facebook. The way the article has twisted the words in Google's favour is commendable though. Marketing really is everything.

<comment><USER77> > I'd probably trust the Australian govt to protect my data better than Google > or even worse Facebook.

I would not.

The Australian government seems entirely incapable of creating any technical project of a decent size correctly. The list of disasters is quite long, but a few from recent memory are ones such as the census website which collapsed when people tried to use it [0] and the myGov project which has had so many data breaches [1].

Atop of which, the government's usual response to someone exposing flaws, is to attack them.

Whilst I don't want Google or Facebook to have my data, because they will use it in ways I don't appreciate, my government will leak it. And then claim it wasn't serious and excuse themselves from any repercussions.

[0] [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-12/census-2016-site- up-a...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-12/census-2016-site-up-and- running-in-australia/7722738)

[1] [https://www.smh.com.au/technology/revealed-serious-flaws- in-...](https://www.smh.com.au/technology/revealed-serious-flaws-in-mygov- site-exposed-millions-of-australians-private-information-20140514-zrczw.html)

[2]

<comment><USER22> I run on the assumption that the government has my data anyway. So it doesn't really matter whether they get it directly or via google. Since google wants to target me with ads, I preference removing google as a middle man. Bonus points for removing the only half-decent excuse for collecting that data anyway, so now the surveillance state is a bit less defensible.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Secure private key generation? - <AUTHOR> Would my keys be guaranteed secure if generated my keys on a laptop with wifi disabled (via hardware switch) using either a fresh install of linux and/or booting linux from a usb drive? <comment><USER2> Not if the management engine is compromised.</comment>


Free office chairs in Concord, MA - pick up ASAP - <AUTHOR>

Company's moving. We have maybe 6-10 black ikea office chairs if any startups in the area can put them to good use. Need to up picked up by 3pm today 10/14 in Concord, MA. Email me ASAP email@example.com http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00103102/#/00103102/ <comment><AUTHOR> gone</comment>


Amazon launches machine learning chip, taking on Nvidia, Intel - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-nvidia/amazon-launches-machine-learning-chip-taking-on-nvidia-intel-idUSKCN1NX2PY <comment><USER2> I am always Leary of companies that try to do too many things at once. If they are jumping into too many industries I reach around for the antitrust flyswat</comment>


Sarah Palin email hacker found guilty - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/01/2887727.htm

<comment><USER2> I don't really like the precedent this kind of case sets.

<comment><USER3> thats politics vs IT for you</comment></comment>


Reddit, Imgur and Twitch team up as 'Derp' for social data research - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/18/reddit-imgur-twitch-derp-social-data

<comment><USER2> Was HackerNews approached for this alliance, given that the data is already publicly available?

Not many details on the privacy policies governing data use, or the specific policies that apply to individual partners, [http://derp.institute/](http://derp.institute/)</comment>


Fengari: Why We Rewrote Lua in JS - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@giann/why-we-rewrote-lua-in-js-a66529a8278d <comment><USER2> great job! another project along the same lines worth mentioning is starlight: [http://starlight.paulcuth.me.uk/](http://starlight.paulcuth.me.uk/)

</comment><comment><USER3> nice, performance-wise alternative lua vm for web apps.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the ideal self-study computer science curriculum? - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN, I'm looking for advice on two topics:
1) whether to go back to school to study Computer Science 2) If I don't go, what is the ideal self-study curriculum?
Some background:
I graduated with a BA in Business 6 years ago (I know, I know) and a few months after graduation I became interested in programming because I had an idea for a startup. I self-studied enough to get a job as a java programmer, which I stayed at for 1 year.
The job was decent enough, but I felt really limited in my coding ability - like I didn't understand 95% of what was happening in the code base. I could code my own module, sure, but my ultimate goal was to develop websites (or learn enough to build a game or application) and I felt I wasn't making progress in that area.
I left after a year because I thought I just didn't have it to be a (great) programmer. Recently, I've discarded that belief. I now want to learn the fundamentals of Computer Science. My problem is that beyond the introductory courses, which I'm taking online, I'm not sure where/how to continue.
Is it possible to get a full CS education online? Or should I go back to undergrad to get another BS in Comp Sci?
And would they even accept me if I applied?
Could finish in two years, with transfer credits?
Also, if I self-study, what is the ideal curricula, and what are the dependencies (prerequisites) for each?
for example, I understand there is a lot of Math required, but I'm unsure when exactly to take each course. Should I study Calculus in conjunction with Intro to CS? And then when do I tackle statistics, probability? What Math do I need for Data Structure and Algorithms? etc.
Your advice is much appreciated! Thank you. <comment><USER2> As a developer who majored in economics, I'd suggest just going to <http://www.class-central.com> and taking any and every class that you find interesting and think would be useful. That should at least get you beyond the "introductory" courses--hopefully more higher-level courses will be offered in the near future, too. Try taking difficult classes, regardless of whether you meet the prerequisites--if the math turns out to be too difficult, just work on the relevant math skills while you take the class.

I think the software world is uniquely situated to bypass a lot of the outmoded educational models that we've built up over the years, where education is 10% about learning and 90% about slapping down a degree that "proves" you're intelligent and capable. This makes a lot of the trappings of a traditional education unnecessary--if you take a class but don't have all the prerequisites, you don't need to worry that your grades will suffer, because your grades (if you even have them!) don't matter. If you're interested and motivated, you'll learn a ton, and that's what will matter in the end.

</comment><comment><USER3> You may see diminishing returns when going back to get a second degree, especially if you can display competence in CS topics in other ways; doing so during an interview, completed projects, open source projects, etc...

This is all in relation to the "self taught" route, though I don't necessarily advocate it. As for the math necessary for the degree, I'm someone who has very little Math experience and have managed to start my M.Sc. in CS. With that said -- don't be me. Its not that a lot of math is required, but it helps a lot. This is true not only in mathematical ability but also the mindset it requires. Solving math problems exercises your brian in critical thinking -- a skill very necessary for programming.

Calculus, Linear Algebra, Statistics are a few domains of mathematics that will bear some relevance.

As for actual CS topics that tend to be included in core curriculum, why not just take a peek at what some good schools are doing:

<https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/current/courses/course_descriptions/>

I'll let you find the rest of the links.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. That's weird, I was just looking at the University of Waterloo CS program.

I've considered the M.Sc in CS but I honestly don't have the background for it. I need to retake Calc. I don't have any algorithms or data structures knowledge. I have taken literally no CS courses as well. Isn't a Masters in CS more advanced than the Undergrad Curriculum? Or am I able to take undergrad courses in the Masters program and get a M.Sc?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I created a blog post for some friends who asked a similar question (I keep it updated with time)

<http://eranmedan.com/post/22359967135/codeschools></comment>


App Store app names are now being auctioned off (by squatters) - <AUTHOR> http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-iPHONE-iPAD-APP-NAMES-ITUNES-CONNECT-SDK-ACCOUNT-/200475270643?cmd=ViewItem&pt=US_Tablets&hash=item2ead41ddf3#ht_8114wt_1139

<comment><USER2> I am always surprised at the simple brilliance of these type of people. They see simplicity in a way that I just don't see. Not that I would do this, as I believe in filling a role that produces something and not just profit off of speculation. I think they add no value and suck value out of the system. But I am still amazed at how they spot such simple opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just can't imagine Apple saying "We know that's your trademark, but you'll have to buy the name from some random parasite who typed it in first. We can't just take it away because we don't want iPhone OS developers thinking we're capricious and heavy-handed."

Edit: including Mickey Mouse, crown jewel of Disney's IP? When they get done with him he'll wish they just had him whacked.</comment>


Redis Sentinel properties and fail scenarios - <AUTHOR> http://antirez.com/news/80 <comment><USER3> This analysis does a good job of laying out what the software does, but there's no reason why Redis needs to work in this unexpected and confusing way.

Handling replication failures (especially those due to crashed nodes) in in- memory databases is hardly a new problem and there are formally described protocols and solutions available which do not require permanent storage and avoid many of the drawbacks of the Redis Sentinel.

IMO Redis throughout its life has had an identity issue: is it an in-memory cache, a 'data structures server' like the documentation used to say, a persistent key-set/key-value/key-? database, or a clustered/distributed systems solution? Like MongoDB, Redis has ended up used in a lot of inappropriate environments because of its confusing, mixed messaging.

I personally think Redis is great as a "data structures server" but would never trust it as a single source of truth or persistent store. When I've used it in the past to perform and cache set operations (for example, generating and caching view-privacy lists using set intersections), it's been excellent, but we've frequently had to re-populate the Redis store from our source of truth due to bugs or hardware outage / network partition scenarios which Redis doesn't yet handle well.

<comment><USER4> thanks for sharing your experience. Did you used persistence features of redis or just the configuration base? like memcache?

<comment><USER3> In the specific privacy-list usecase, were very early users of Redis (2009 timeframe).

We used RDB persistence for a while but eventually our load got too high for the fork()-and-snapshot model to work for us.

When AOF was introduced we tried using it but the initial few releases were _extremely_ buggy to the point that it lost data and confused us more than it provided persistence.

We eventually decided that since we were using Redis as a glorified cache anyway (not a source of truth), we might as well leave it to the in-memory only configuration and make our state-restoration system faster and more robust.

I've never used Redis as a source of truth / persistent data store because when I'm evaluating a database to use as a persistent source of truth, it needs to have a strong story around storage durability, replication, node failure recovery, and CAP tradeoffs / partition tolerance specifically.

NOTE:

I've used Redis since 2009, of course (still do!), and was just expounding on the anecdote from my parent post.

All that's changed in terms of persistence for my use cases is that AOF tends to be fairly workable and not very buggy anymore, and that using a snapshot- slave makes the RDB snapshot approach more workable. Because the replication/clustering story has never offered any good guarantees around node failure or partition tolerance, I haven't used Redis as a source of truth - <USER2> simply use the persistence features to prevent needing to repopulate/re-warm my cache and list+graph store in the event of an outage.

<comment><USER4> I have figured out what you say redis, but has changed a lot since 2009.

Basically I'm a rails developer so my I usually prefer ActiveRecord.. Mysql or Postgres. However I have noticed that redis is becoming a very good alternative to the persistent storage in term of hot cache(like twitter) when you have heavy writes not only for cache the data after the first read(like rails in memcache).

Another interesting feature, in the next release, is the support for geospatial

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a big fan of Salvatore's analyses. They are straightforward from the perspective of somebody who knows the ins-and-outs of their system(s). We need more of this.</comment>