Sonic Visualiser: Viewing and analysing the contents of music audio files - <AUTHOR> http://sonicvisualiser.org/index.html <comment><USER2> I used this for developing an audio recognizer ([https://github.com/trishume/PopClick](https://github.com/trishume/PopClick)) and it was incredibly cool and useful.

You can write your own recognition and analysis plugins pretty easily and then overlay those on the spectrogram so you get a sense of what your program is doing and why it is going wrong. I don't think I could have ever successfully gotten a recognizer working if I hadn't found Sonic Visualiser. It's awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sonic Visualiser v3 has just been released, here's a list of features: [http://sonicvisualiser.org/new-in-v3.html](http://sonicvisualiser.org/new- in-v3.html)

Also it's open source: [https://code.soundsoftware.ac.uk/projects/sonic- visualiser/f...](https://code.soundsoftware.ac.uk/projects/sonic- visualiser/files)

</comment><comment><USER4> Been using this for years to recognise chords with the help of the Chordino extension. Great software, but the controls are a bit cumbersome (scrolling, zooming etc). Further, when you do audio editing, you rarely work at 0dB, so i've had many a shock tabbing into Sonic Visualiser and pressing play.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's good to know -- if you'd like to be any more detailed (e.g. how would you ideally like it to handle levels in order not to blow your ears off, or where are the controls most awkward) that would also be useful.

<comment><USER4> Just have it at -6 on startup. I'd be happy to give more detail. Email is in my description.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I Love Sonic Visualiser. I use it all the time for musical analysis to slice audio files for playback in SuperCollider. I only wish it had an annotation layer text file format like Praat does for phonetic analysis of speech audio-- I know you can easily export CSV files, but the way Praat uses textgrids always felt more intuitive.

I would also highly recommend using Sonic Visualiser to prototype an analysis pipeline, then automate the analysis with the Python vamp plugin host [1]. I think there is a command line interface called Sonic Annotator, but I never used it.

[1] [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/vamp](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/vamp)

Edit: the text file thing is probably what the xml .svl format is for, huh

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the .svl file is a single layer from the session format, in XML. (The session format is itself an XML file, but compressed with bzip2 compression.)

One thing SV does lack is a layer file format that can easily be interchanged between SV itself (for label alignment) and a text editor (for bulk text changes). Neither is there any built-in text editor for editing the whole content of a text transcription at once. I suppose this has to do with the initial focus being on music rather than speech, and having no particular desire to "compete" with Praat.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the explanation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shameless self-plug: I'm working on a similar tool for video files: [http://nordlicht.github.io/](http://nordlicht.github.io/)

</comment><comment><USER7> The band Vulfpeck used the PNG export for this recent video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbO2e65gmwg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbO2e65gmwg)

</comment><comment><USER8> Also a staple piece of kit for ARGs that are using audio-based clues. Thanks for developing this software!

</comment><comment><USER9> Have been using for this quite a long time, good tool for solving audio based ctf challenges as well.

</comment><comment><USER10> So why would I use it over Audacity, which can also show the audio spectrum?

<comment><USER11> From a quick look at the screenshots, and the other comments here: because it offers more than the basic spectrum view of Audacity?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is no better tool I know :) Especially with the nice export function.

</comment><comment><USER13> No Aphex Twin in the screenshot section? Missed opportunity right there.</comment>


The Chromebook's Magical Button-Free TouchPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.i4u.com/46506/chromebooks-magical-button-free-touchpad

<comment><USER2> > _"I have a feeling most people will prefer the touchpad, though"_

BS. I hate the touchpad on any device. I prefer a mouse! You cant draw in apps like visio, revit, autocad with a touchpad.</comment>


Hackers tricked Teslas into speeding with 2-inch strip of tape on a 35-MPH sign - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/hackers-trick-tesla-accelerating-85mph-using-tape-2020-2 <comment><USER2> So, I read this trick works on older third party hardware running MobilEye software. Not newer Tesla "Hardware 3" and software, which I understand is blocked from reading speed limits in the first place due to a _patent_. Are they going to use a database of speed limits instead?

Currently MobilEye has the patent on reading speed limits and other traffic signs. How they managed to get it on such a trivial image processing task is beyond me...

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a known attack vector for autonomously-driving vehicles.

A 2018 paper titled "Robust Physical-World Attacks on Deep Learning Visual Classification" [1] tested what it called "adversarial perturbations" on the most important of all traffic signs: the STOP sign.

By slapping black and white stickers a couple square inches in size on the STOP sign, the authors managed to achieve a 100% misclassification of the STOP sign into 45 MPH speed limit one. To the human eye, the STOP sign is clearly visible and perceivable.

In theory, people owning autonomously-driving vehicles could be assassinated this way and nobody would be the wiser.

1\. [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.08945.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.08945.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> Other discussion on same topic: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22371486](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22371486)</comment>


What are good resources to learn about iOS app design? - <AUTHOR>

My background is in web design. I'm very comfortable with the limitations and techniques needed to design websites.
Where do I start learning how to design apps? How does the UI work? Why do some apps look like Path, while others look like the default UI.
Anyone know a good starting point? <comment><USER2> <http://designthencode.com> was good for helping me get it.

Also worthwhile to review the WWDC videos available at <http://developer.apple.com> and the Stanford iOS course at <http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/>

</comment><comment><USER3> iOS Human Interface Guidelines

[https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserE...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/Introduction/Introduction.html)

Apple recommends reading it all the way through first as opposed to using it as a quick reference on a specific topic.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here are a few resources I found:

Good first intro [http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/mobile-design- tutorials...](http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/mobile-design- tutorials/iphone-design-templates/)

_plus's suggestion for designthencode.com was great

This was good to play around with layouts <http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/iphone-gui-psd-v4/>

This could be good <http://www.tapptics.com/series/code-custom-graphics- xcode/>

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that "From Idea to App" is a good intro to all of the tech behind the UI. It has some code but the main point is to teach the "What you need to know in order to design"

[http://www.amazon.com/Idea-App-Creating-animations- gestures/...](http://www.amazon.com/Idea-App-Creating-animations- gestures/dp/0321765559/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1328960591&sr=8-7)

I'm working through it now and I really am enjoying it.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://mobile-patterns.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> stanford iphone classes

<http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/></comment>


Transfer a secret audio message by poking someone with your finger - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-09/13/disney-touch-audio

<comment><USER2> The video seems to be a completely different and much cooler thing that messages by poking.

It would be pretty cool if they'd license the tech to cellphone OEMs so touchscreens would be easier to use.

<comment><USER3> link for the lazy

TeslaTouch Technology

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf0sIKypI4g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf0sIKypI4g)

<comment><USER4> For me it points to: Life of Pi - "Flying Fish" Clip

<comment><USER3> Oops, paste error. Should be [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l3MDNZk-3I](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l3MDNZk-3I)

TeslaTouch would be insanely fun if applie to actual consumer products. I've seen similar technologies on Sony devices using ultrasound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is actually an old idea, perhaps a hundred years old. It was patented in 1972 (3,647,970 Flanagan) and called the "neurophone", but I recall an article about something like it from the 1920s.

<comment><USER5> Gizmodo beat me to it, with photographs and construction details, even. Nice job!

[http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/how-to-build-the- miraculous-t...](http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/how-to-build-the-miraculous- talking-glove-of-1923-1277697228)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure I want other people stick their finger in my ear, even if they aren't doing it to electrocute me.

<comment><USER7> s/even/especially/

<comment><USER8> Care to explain your pedantry? Especially is connoting a favored preference, whereas even is denoting an absolute preference.

<comment><USER9> I don't believe this is pedantry. It appears to be a joke since the replacement changes the meaning of the sentence, implying that being electrocuted is a more preferable reason for someone to touch your ear than sending a message.

<comment><USER7> indeed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I noticed that my MacBook does this as well. If I touch the case then touch my ear while it's charging I hear a buzzing sound and feel my fingers tingling where they touch the laptop. I always wondered how the buzzing was transmitted.

</comment><comment><USER11> Now people won't have to text to talk to someone a few feet away.</comment>


Ask HN: Software licensing excluding military use? - <AUTHOR> I have a piece of software in the robotics / computer vision domain I'll be open sourcing soon. I want to prevent any military from legally using it (I know that if they find it useful, they'll just use it anyway - that's not the point).
Does anyone know of a well behaved license that has this feature?
EDIT: I understand that restricting usage would make this not 'free as in speech' software, however I don't really mind.
Further clarification: I mean use by a military organisation for any purpose. If it makes it (somehow) into accounting software used for running military procurement/payroll or medical devices used in a military hospital, I also want that to be against the license. <comment><USER3> What does "military use" even mean?

E.g. Armies operate hospitals for it wounded soldiers. Can your software be used in an army hospital?

E.g. What happens if private company ABC Inc. Is using your software, and then they are contracted by the military to perform work - is that allowed? You say you "want to prevent any military from legally using it" \- who's using your software in this situation ... the military or private company ABC?

EDIT: and even if you figure out the exact language to restrict military use, how do you enforce it and what are the consequences of breaking it?

EDIT2: Linked below is an example to restrict military use. Note though, it's so broad reaching that it might scare away even non-military organizations for using your software. And it still doesn't address how you enforce such license. So there's lots of questions about the applicable of this example license. [http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/license2.pdf](http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/license2.pdf)

EDIT3: the problem you are going to have is that you're breaking a fundamental principle of open source software. And that is that _anyone_ can use your software so long as they do so based on your stipulations. What you want to do is restrict _who_ can even use your software. Read the FAQ for "what is open source software". [https://opensource.org/faq](https://opensource.org/faq)

<comment><USER4> > E.g. Armies operate hospitals for it wounded soldiers. Can your software be > used in an army hospital?

This is clear cut military use. I'm not sure why this is an example of ambiguity.

For private company it's up to their lawyers. I'm sure this is in part of why this is being done to make it harder for companies to support the military.

>how do you enforce it

This is addressed in the comment? Besides which internal company lawyers will enforce it and perhaps somewhere along the line it'll be so blatant somewhere a lawyer will take up the cause and get OP a lot of money.

<comment><USER5> > > E.g. Armies operate hospitals for it wounded soldiers. Can your software > be used in an army hospital?

> This is clear cut military use. I'm not sure why this is an example of > ambiguity.

But what if the hospital also treats sick civilians if they have capacity. Is it then allowed to use the software when treating civilians?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I would prefer that the license not allow it.

<comment><USER5> Then I will continue my socratic dialogue: We now have a civilian hospital that also treats soldiers if they have capacity. Should it be allowed to use the software when it treats a soldier?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Proprietary licences give you the most control. You as the licence holder would simply refuse to grant a licence to any party involved in matters you do not condone. You could add an EULA that explicitly states this, and have legal staff at hand to follow up on any misuse. This is a costly option though.

Free software licences are not an option. Forbidding specific use of your software goes against the intent of the commonly accepted free software licences — you would run afoul of freedom 0:

> The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose¹

There probably exist other open source (but not free software) licences that do limit the audience, but you probably won't be able to enforce them, and they tend not to be taken seriously. You would on the other hand frustrate users outside of the military who want to legally use your software in ways normally permitted by free software licences — e.g., by reusing parts of it, forking it, combining it with other free software, etc.

Lastly, the absolute sure-fire way of preventing any military use of your software is not releasing it at all.

I don't think it's worth the hassle to add such a clause. If the point is not to actually prevent its use, but to make a statement, then make a statement on the project's homepage and in the documentation. It will have the same effect without resorting to weird software licences, and you can choose a well-known free software or merely open source licence.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition)

<comment><USER7> The open source license doesn't have to discriminate if the author has 2 licenses from the start.

1) License one grants all open source rights to individual use.

2) Government and state-level entities require a commercial license to use it.

Just don't mention the military.

When the government requests a license, ask what it is ifor. If it's for hospitals or charity, give the license.

If it's for one more war waged for bankers, then tell them the license is 2 billion dollars.

<comment><USER5> > 1) License one grants all open source rights to individual use.

> 2) Government and state-level entities require a commercial license to use > it.

"all open source rights" implies freedom 0: "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose".

<comment><USER7> Does OP require the license to be OSI approved?

Why can't he have his own license like Qt has? They have free version for individuals and paid version for commercial use.

<comment><USER5> > Why can't he have his own license like Qt has? They have free version for > individuals and paid version for commercial use.

The free version of Qt can also be used for commercial purposes - <USER2> this would violate freedom 0. The paid version is for people who prefer different license terms instead of the imposed open source terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> David Crockford puts a "don't use this for evil" clause in the license for all software he releases, creating some interesting situations: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCimLnIsDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCimLnIsDA) (2:44 and worth it)

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting, and in more or less the vein I'm after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a former DoD contractor and someone who has spent the majority of his life around the US military [1], I have three points:

1) The majority of the DoD struggles to get _permission_ to use open source software. There are plenty of developers, DBAs, and IT technicians who would love to use some piece of software that they are not allowed to use specifically _because_ it is open source. I once spent 11 months trying to get approval to use a single Google-produced library. I was unsuccessful.

2) Related to the above, agencies responsible for approving software for use are _very_ concerned with licensing issues. After all, they are used to negotiating licensing terms for multi-million dollar contracts. The fact that OSS essentially guarantees that you have no one to call [2] when you have an issue (for the entire lifespan of the project) is a large part of why they will not approve OSS. Beyond that, compliance is a real concern. Popular opinion may be of heartless assholes, but these are real people working jobs. I would not be so cavalier in saying "they'll just use it anyway".

3) I am always disappointed, though never surprised, when people assume that the military works solely to execute war. I was specifically contracted to a (large) part of the military that works on exactly the kind of thing that prevents and reduces violence (sorry to be vague). The kind of domain that would probably translate improved computer vision into saving lives (domestic, foreign, combatant, and civilian). That is, if they could get approval.

[1] I have no idea how other countries' militaries operate.

[2] Literally call. On a phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for your insight! I'm glad the US military takes Software licensing seriously - this means spending time on this may actually be valuable.

I don't want to go in to my specific objections because they're not material here, but I appreciate that militaries don't only make war. That doesn't change my objective.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't normally leave a reply like this, but I would like to say that your comment took me by surprise. In my personal community, I'm used to knee-jerk responses to the military that feel both hostile and uninformed. Your reply was neither and I want to thank you for that.

I can get a bit defensive about this sort of thing, but that's not an excuse for implying that you were being "cavalier". I apologize for doing so. You seem to be thinking carefully about what you want to do and how to go about doing it.

I sincerely appreciate that you are approaching your work and your words with thoughtfulness. Good luck with your project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you do find or use such a license, it's definitely not open source. According to the OSI, the only authority on what constitutes open source, open source license must not discriminate against fields of endeavour:

> 6\. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

> The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a > specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program > from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

See the open source definition: [https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd)

I would encourage you to use a normal open source license, like MIT, and to not worry about trying to control who uses the software for what.

<comment><USER11> Why should the open source philosophy trump any other moral objections?

<comment><USER11> And I'll clarify, in today's world code has severe moral repercussions, especially in the fields of AI and vision. Why shouldn't we have more discussions over ways that we can add caveats and nuances to the licenses in order to distance our consciences from repercussions.

<comment><USER12> We should, but this isn't the right way to have the discussion IMO. As OP noted, this is impossible to enforce, so it's more symbolic than anything. Which is fine, but it comes with the cost that anyone in a company that observes OSS licenses will need to decide whether it's worth having legal sign off on it, even if they aren't involved with a military (since it doesn't fit under a pre-approved license). This applies not only to OP's code, but any code that uses it as well, so even if OP decides this cost is worth it other non-military users may avoid the code anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You can't discriminate against any fields of endeavor[0] if you wish for your software to be under any OSI approved open source license.

[0] [https://opensource.org/osd-annotated](https://opensource.org/osd- annotated)

<comment><USER14> [deleted]

<comment><USER15> Actually, he did.

<comment><USER16> He said he would be 'open sourcing' it. To me this means, making the source available. I suspect OP doesn't care about strict definitions of what does and doesn't constitute open source..

<comment><USER5> > To me this means, making the source available.

"Shared source" is a notion which Microsoft termed to refer to make the source code available without the software being open source.

> > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >I want to prevent any military from legally using it (I know that if they find it useful, they'll just use it anyway - that's not the point).

So... you don't _actually_ want to prevent any military from using it, you just want to virtue-signal?

I'm not even being sarcastic here; this distinction is pretty important to the license you choose and how you enforce it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do want to prevent the military from using it, but I am also aware that militaries frequently do illegal things, and I don't have the resources to take them to task over it.

I am a signatory to the autonomous weapons non-proliferation petition from the future-of-life institute: [https://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous- weapons/](https://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/)

I am hoping that by including a non-military-use clause, if I ever do have the resources to fight military use of my software, I will be able to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> PETA helped develop the Harm-Less Permissive License (HPL) which I have used in the past. You may have to dig for it. It explicitly prohibits causing harm to humans and animals, which may serve your purposes. You may also want to think about prohibiting surveillance as well. Good luck!

Edit: found it!: [https://4zm.org/files/2010/HPL/index.html](https://4zm.org/files/2010/HPL/index.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This might be a good starting point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> No. However, there's nothing preventing you from taking the BSD license and adding a fourth clause:

4\. This software cannot be used for military purposes under this license. You must negotiate for a license from the original author, AUTHOR NAME.

<comment><USER20> Couldn't you ad another clause to any license?

<comment><USER21> I guess that would become harder the longer the license gets.

Say you wanted to add a clause to the apache license (AL2) or GPLv3 - Then you would also have to make sure that your new clause does not contradict anything in the rest of the license.

Edit: And that clause would probably prevent even others who are not in the military from using your code. Just because there's a chance your license is incompatible with the GPL.

<comment><USER19> Very much this.

The longer the license, the more likely it is that you have not understood the effects.

The simplest license is abandonment to the public domain; that won't work. You need something that establishes that you are the original author (so that you own the rights) and that you are offering certain specific rights to most people (now it's open source, though not Open Source) and that keeps the same restrictions for people making derivative works -- and now you have the BSD 3-clause.

So that's the simplest license which can possibly work for the OP's purposes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Some projects have added a "no military use" clause to the GPL [1] to do this.

[https://www.linux.com/news/open-source-project-adds-no- milit...](https://www.linux.com/news/open-source-project-adds-no-military-use- clause-gpl)

<comment><USER23> I wonder what Stallman and the EFF had to say about that. I thought they were against modifying the license in that fashion.

EDIT: oops, they actually asked him later in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are lots problem with this kind of terms:

\- What kind of use is to considered military? Dual use goods? Software running on some computer in a military department that is used for "civil purposes" (think of some accounting software in the accounting department)? Projects that are also financed by some military pot of money (lots of civil research e.g. in the USA is financed by DARPA)? Consider that the precursor of the internet (ARPAnet) belongs to this category. Civil defense systems that are not owned/built by the military but by private security companies?

\- If OSS people would tolerate such a restriction, the next people will come and also want to add restrictions to the usage of their software. At the beginning these will even serve noble purposes, but the time will come when people will use this kind of restructions to build their political agenda, such as

* must not be used for military purposes

* must not be used for animal experiments

* must not be used to produce hate speech

* must not be used for misogynistic purposes

* must not be used for homophobic purposes

* must only used by white people

* must not be used on Intel processors

* must only be used on RISC-V processors

* must only be used by citizens of democratic states

* only for noncommercial purposes

* only for research purposes

etc. So it is accepted practise in FOSS communities not to consider usage restrictions as acceptable.

<comment><USER7> Sure but it is also part of the author's own freedom to choose what his software is used for.

A lot has been talked about the restrictions of open source.

If I want my program used for things I agree with only I should have that right. If OSI says my license isn't good, then I'll be proud to have a non- conforming license.

<comment><USER23> You have the right to do what you want with your copyrighted intellectual property. Nobody disputes that. Just don't call whatever you want "open source" when it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> StackExchange discussion of the more general case: [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/3193...](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/319308/software- license-which-discriminates-on-ethical-grounds)

Interesting related historical item (java used to disallow usage in nuclear power facilities): [https://www.quora.com/The-license-agreement-of-Java-says- You...](https://www.quora.com/The-license-agreement-of-Java-says-You- can%E2%80%99t-use-Java-to-run-a-nuclear-power-plant-Why-do-you-think-SUN- cared-to-incorporate-this-point)

Neither really addresses an important point made by user venning here--that simply writing any license that makes it more complicated for someone to get approval to use your software will actually work, in cases where the "someone" is part of an organized operation that generally operates according to standard processes. But RMS (paraphrased and linked in the SE article) has thoughts on how that may not apply in many states.

</comment><comment><USER25> Similar question here: [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1990...](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/199055/open- source-licenses-that-explicitly-prohibit-military-applications)

</comment><comment><USER15> Be careful, some people like the FSF and Debian won't like it:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4762035](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4762035)

[https://wiki.debian.org/qa.debian.org/jsonevil](https://wiki.debian.org/qa.debian.org/jsonevil)

Personally, I applaud it and I would live with these consequences, but be aware of these consequences.

</comment><comment><USER26> I used to! Please see my old comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5506623#5507187](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5506623#5507187)

I took the repo down shortly after, and can't seem to find the original :(

I'll keep looking...

</comment><comment><USER27> While I _" like"_ the idea, I think it's a lot like DRM.

It will prevent law abiding persons (natural/legal) to use your software and make their experience with it worse, while not blocking anyone who'd really want to use it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Some old software had BSD license with clause 'do not use for evil'. It was useless for corporate use. 'Evil' has different meaning for each individual and is impossible to define.

<comment><USER29> This was the case for JSON and JSLint, with a clause of "This Software shall be used for Good, not Evil". Famously, IBM requested (and got) an exception from this.

<comment> martin-adams Yep, the exception was in the form of:

"I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil."

IBM's response:

"Thanks very much, Douglas!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have the same problem, but I want to exclude its use in the domains of advertisement and user tracking, as well as military.

</comment><comment><USER31> What if military organizations are doing something that isn't really "military" in the normal sense?

e.g. The RAF used to run search and rescue helicopters in the UK until a couple of years ago - my wife was rescued by them after a climbing accident in Glencoe.

<comment><USER4> That would be being used by the 'military'and not allowed, seems pretty clear cut to me?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Probably you can get some inspiration here: [http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/license.htm](http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/license.htm)

</comment><comment><USER33> Check the licens for JSLint

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSLint#License](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSLint#License)

</comment><comment><USER34> You mean like this [http://mindprod.com/contact/nonmil.html](http://mindprod.com/contact/nonmil.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm seeing a lot of people throwing around "definitions" and "authorities" of what constitutes free or open source software in here. I disagree with them. You are ethically in the right to want to keep your work from being used in such a way. I don't know of any licence that as this provision in a legally enforceable way, but I hope you find it. I really like the thought,

<comment><USER5> > You are ethically in the right to want to keep your work from being used in > such a way.

But then it is not open source or free software anymore - since this violates freedom 0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Not doable. Not for the ones protecting your country much much less for the ones planning an attack to it.

<comment><USER37> be constructive, and save us all the fluff and drama next time please...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How few employees could major tech companies get by on? - <AUTHOR> To me, it's interesting to imagine how few people could run a company like Google/Facebook/Twitter in their current capacity, if needed. Google, for instance, now seems to employ over 60,000 people. Could they make do with 6,000? 1,000? <comment><USER2> 55 employees:

[https://pando.com/2014/02/24/whatsapp-bought- for-19-billion-...](https://pando.com/2014/02/24/whatsapp-bought- for-19-billion-what-do-its-employees-get/)

</comment><comment><USER3> 1,000? You can't be serious.

<comment><USER4> I wonder about that. Craigslist operated with 28 people (in 2009) and served 20 billion pageviews a month. Whatsapp had 50 staff for 200 million active users when it was bought. PlentyOfFish for many years operated off _one_ person, making a million or two in revenue off tens of millions of users.

I kinda suspect that most tech businesses hire employees because they have money, not because they need them. Obviously there's _some_ operational cost, particularly when you're charging money from a customer. But for consumer or small-business products that offer a well-defined product in exchange for either advertisements or a small monthly fee, there's really not all that much work needed to serve a marginal customer.

<comment><USER3> I think we as engineers tend to unconsciously disvalue non-technical roles. The fact of the matter is that there is an incredible amount of work that goes into the sales and marketing pieces of a business. To even suggest that a "major" tech company could exist without is laughable and out of touch.

<comment><USER5> I don't think I've ever worked at a large company that wouldn't do just fine with a third of their workforce. Of course most of these companies are big, older, and full of technical and human cruft.

It's astounding the number of people that aren't really needed.

I worked at one company that was close to optimal once. A lot of automation and only a few employees kept around for various political reasons. The company has a revenue of 4 million from less than 20 people

<comment><USER3> My reaction was the suggestion that google could get by with with less than 2% of their current employees.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Flickr's redesign makes it a photo service actually worth sharing - <AUTHOR> http://danwin.com/2013/05/flickr-redesign-a-photo-service-worth-sharing/ <comment><USER2> As a former active Flickr user all I can say is that I have gone back to the product, big time.

I have ditched iPhoto as my archiving software and moved my +150GB of photos and videos to Flickr. I couldn't be happier. I'd also like to note that I share zero photos with the public, all my photos are 100% private or shared with family members/close friends.

Having said that there is plenty of improvement to go:

\- iOS app (maybe it is also the case for the Android app) needs to improve (auto upload, better integration with iOS, etc). Recently I went on holiday and only used my iPhone to take pictures (over 5GB), it would be nice for an easier way to tag + create/add to set + upload photos and videos. By the way, where is the tablet app?

\- Video is really really bad. Apparently Flickr doesn't support long video playback (and by long I mean 10 seconds or more - i think). Now a days (specially with smartphones) video is a big part of albums/experiences. Video needs to be permitted and nicely integrated within photo albums.

\- Upload via web is nice, but a better Mac/Windows/Linux native app would go a long way for power users. Better upload resume, tagging, etc.

\- Map view. Something is wrong with the new Flickr, it has a world map view, but it doesn't read/process any geo location from my pictures - unlike iPhoto which does this flawlessly. I need to drop one by one the photos into the map for these to be processed. I also have to say that the Nokia map could be better, I'd love to see Flickr using Google Maps. Has someone experienced this same thing?

\- Better album sharing, a la Dropbox, would be great (e.g. allow friends and family to download an album as *.zip)

These are just a few things I would like to see in the coming updates.

<comment><USER3> _I have ditched iPhoto as my archiving software and moved my +150GB of photos and videos to Flickr_

Nice! Glad it works for you. I suspect that a lot of people won't be using Flickr for everything because of NSFW photos that shouldn't live off the hard drive. That's certainly a concern for me.

I'd definitely emphasize this: "a better Mac/Windows/Linux native app would go a long way for power users" is a huge one. Right now the OS X version doesn't simply default to intelligent settings, which is bothersome: it should start uploading as soon as a photo is selected (along the lines of Instagram).

<comment><USER4> > _Nice! Glad it works for you. I suspect that a lot of people won't be using > Flickr for everything because of NSFW photos that shouldn't live off the > hard drive. That's certainly a concern for me._

This is the most tangential and unnecessary thing I've read on HN all the years that I've been here.

I mean, DOH! Your XXX candid shots will stay in your hard drive, how is that a surprise or relevant to the discussion?

<comment><USER5> Maybe go back and re-read the comment, it's pretty obvious, but I can spell it out for the language challenged. He has photos that since some shouldn't be put on a public photo site, and since sorting them out isn't easy, a local hard drive based solution is still preferable for him. I should think a lot of people are in this place. They don't want their children on the web, or their girlfriend. I realize this country was founded by religious zealots he'll bent on eliminating any fun, but it's a fact of life that a lot of people have naked photos!

<comment><USER4> > _Maybe go back and re-read the comment, it's pretty obvious, but I can spell > it out for the language challenged._

We, "language challenged" don't need it spelt out thank you, we got it the first time.

It's not what the comments says we find problematic, is why he deemed it relevant to say it. I mean since it goes without saying that this situation applies to some people, and that not everybody can share everything in Flickr.

It's like posting on an article about a cool new email client, and somebody commenting "Alas, I can't use this for everything I mail, because a lot of that are physical packages, not just emails". Well, duh!

> _I realize this country was founded by religious zealots he'll bent on > eliminating any fun, but it's a fact of life that a lot of people have naked > photos!_

Well, that was not my issue with his comment. For one, I could not care less -- I'm from another country, and I won't even raise an eyebrow for people having naked photos (or any kind of fun for that matter).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the second coming of Flickr, a rebirth, and I couldn't be more excited. I'm not a power user of Flickr but a fan of what it once was back in the day. It was a real shame to see it be neglected after the acquisition but Marissa Mayer has arisen as it's saviour and beyond that the saviour of Yahoo. For anyone of us it was blatantly obvious how powerful Flickr was and how it could have continued to dominate the photo sharing social scene. For some reason Marissa's many predecessors failed to see this. Honestly, if utilised in the right way, Flickr is a Facebook killer. At the core of Facebook is it's photo sharing service, take that away from them and it's nothing but useless news items from people you wish you could block.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm as quick to dismiss re-skinning as any self-righteous dev, but this really hit the spot for Flickr. Flickr has always had a trove of useful photo archiving and categorizing features...sometimes I upload photos just because their geocoding editor is so convenient to use. Many of the other major photo services lack even simple group creation of photos (I.e. having a single photo endpoint both be in your "Family memories" and "Summer Vcation" albums)...and Flickr is by far the best in terms of making it easy to discover old, but significant photos.

This is not to say that this means Flickr will survive against Facebook, anymore than quality point and shoot pocket cameras have a chance of revival in our camera phone era. But Flickr, for now, definitely has the edge in quality and variety of photos. Even if you think Instagram filters are the best thing ever, the laws of physics (I.e. optics) limits the vast majority of their photos to a narrow range limit.

It's worth pointing out that Google Plus has had a better photo album design than Flickr for awhile now...I just tried them out (again) and saw that they, for the most part, have most of what makes Flickr useful. However, Gplus is decidedly focused on social sharing...it's hard to describe how this drastically impacts its use as a photo service...but using GPlus's photo feature was, for the first time in a long while, that I've just given up in frustration in the first five minutes. But this may be just a sign that I've finally hit old age.

<comment><USER6> You make some valid points. I was not aware of the Google+ photo album design but then again I was only a user when it was mandatory within Google. I don't personally know anyone outside of Google who uses it. Quite a few public figures have accounts but none of my friends are on there. Google+ feels like a very closed community. I've never seen anyone share links to albums on there whereas someone is always passing around a Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Imgur or Dropbox url.

Flickr is almost 10 years old. They've been around longer than anyone right? It only makes sense that they would have one of the most mature products relevant to people who want to maintain thousands of photos and share them.

I think we'll see a lot more interesting features for Flickr over the next year as social and mobile becomes a bigger priority for Yahoo.

<comment><USER7> You seem desperate to find reasons to dislike G+, so I'll help you out:

<https://plus.google.com/communities/101451257802046158545>

<comment><USER6> Oh I have nothing against G+ personally. I just don't use it and none of my friends do either. If there was a significant level of activity on there or better content discovery then perhaps I would use it.

<comment><USER7> Did you actually click on the link and look at the timestamps, or are you just blowing smoke?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I must be the only one who doesn't like Flickr's redesign. Sure, there's some good benefits from it, but...

\- The lines and colors are harsh

\- The grids on the single image view separate the page in non-equal thirds which feels awkward

\- A lot of the data elements just run together without labels or any indication that they're links: <http://i.imgur.com/Szy3Y7Z.png>

\- In 2013, I'm a bit shocked that the site isn't responsive, even if they do have a good mobile app: <http://i.imgur.com/OMiqoZs.png>

Everything else is okay, but only because they didn't actually redesign the majority of the site. Go to your groups, stats, etc. and you still see the nicely organized old Flickr. I'm a fairly active user and usually a big fan of redesigns and changes, but I don't see myself using it much now.

<comment><USER9> The reactions on the Flickr forums are heavily weighted against the redesign as well. There are lots of little problems I noticed (the links to fullscreen images on my feed would fullscreen a different image - fixed now), and hopefully they can run the problems down over the next few weeks. I'm equally aghast that their mobile website hasn't changed - come on guys. Overall, though, I really like it. I think it's a much more attractive public face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> OK, coming from a regular user:

\- Your updates and activity entries are now mixed with other people's photos. That the photos are humongous and your updates are tiny one-liners doesn't help. You have to eye-grep and scroll the infinite image feed all the way to the bottom.

\- At the same time, the right bar is occupied with such immensely useful things as "Flickr Blog", "People you may know" and a patch of empty space.

\- Portrait orientation photos are disadvantaged in the feed layout.

\- The documentation is not updated! It took me some time to find how to share BBCode in the new layout.

\- Flickr is no longer Safe for Work! If any of your contacts posts a nude image, instead of tiny thumbnail it gets blown into all its high res goodness.

<comment><USER11> I don't like the intermixing of photos and activity either, but you can get to a feed of activity only by mousing over the You menu in the top left and choosing Recent Activity, or go directly to <http://www.flickr.com/activity>

Regarding the SFW issue, I know Flickr has safety levels on photos...if you go to <http://www.flickr.com/account/privacy/> there's a Content Filters section, but it's not clear if it would apply to your Contacts photostream or only searches/viewing another member directly. The setting says:

      Choose a "safety level" that will apply to any site-wide
      searches you perform or member pages you visit on Flickr.
      You can also set the sort of content you'd like to see.

<comment><USER10> Yes, you still can find the activity feed, but for practical purposes it's not on the front page anymore.

And I'm aware of content filters (since I disabled them). I don't feel like disabling/reenabling them every evening though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The design might be modern but it is very distracting. The photos are surrounded closely by so many other photos that it is difficult to enjoy the beauty of a particular photo - it like a painting framed by a gold gilded frame which is more beautiful than the painting itself. Photography is an art form but in this new layout the art is overwhelmed by its 'evil' cousin, design.

<comment><USER13> _The photos are surrounded closely by so many other photos that it is difficult to enjoy the beauty of a particular photo_

On the "feed" screen, sure, because that's the point of a feed screen -- information density is key. You navigate to a specific photo for immersion.

<comment><USER14> Yes, but is it really necessary to have a feed screen in everything? There's already Facebook and Google+ for that. Flickr was nice because it was geard towards the less ephemeral. I guess "less ephemeral" goes against the zeitgeist.

<comment><USER13> But it _is_ a feed of contact photos. The presentation makes sense.

With the flickr redesign (and, more importantly, the massive speed up of their backend servers), I've looked at dramatically more of my contact and group photos in the past two days than I did in years prior combined. It makes it so pleasant and effortless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Flickr has long had good features for sharing photos with Creative Commons licenses, and for searching based on license. Example: [http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=duck&l=commderiv&ct=...](http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=duck&l=commderiv&ct=0&mt=photos&adv=1)

I am happy this still works. If Flickr gets more popular with photographers, there will be even more photos available to Wikipedia and other free content projects.

</comment><comment><USER16> With this new move, it seems that Flickr has made a turn towards the domain of 500px.com, also known as providing a stylish way of showcasing your photos. 500px actually used to have a design that was almost an exact match to what Flickr has now, and still looks remarkably similar.

<comment><USER17> I launched the beta of my own photo sharing site a few weeks back and the new Flickr design is somewhat similar in parts (flexible width/tiling photos). It seemed logical to me to adopt a Pinterest style grid for varying size images, rather than cropping them all to squares, though I notice that Flickr's design works more in terms of rows (<https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=nature>) than columns (<https://photographer.io/categories/nature/photographs>).

I'm very curious as to which style people find the easiest to browse.

<comment><USER18> I prefer your index view to theirs.

Just check your page on iPad - the header bar doesn't quite fit.

<comment><USER17> Sorry for the slow reply!

Aye, the layout is pretty broken on various smaller devices; a fix is in the works :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rkuykendall-com I was a huge Flickr user from 2006-2009, but the service stayed in 2006, and so I moved on. The new changes are very exciting, but I still have one huge gripe. For a service about to turn 10 years old, being unable to change my URL is a deal breaker:

I registered my URL in high school, and now I'm starting my masters. My photos have improved, and so has my online identity.

I'm considering just switching to a new account, but the situation gave me no faith that Flickr was worth the effort. I look forward to a similar post when Flickr overhauls the backend.

<comment><USER19> I have this same gripe (about HN too, I suppose). Flickr claims that it's a philosophical thing - that URLs shouldn't change, so the username I chose when I first registered years ago should invariably be what I'm associated with for the rest of my life.

They likely do have the technical ability - when you initially register, your URL is represented by internal IDs (like 1234567@Z01), and you then choose your 'friendly' url. So it doesn't seem like a stretch that they could extend this to allow changes.

<comment> rkuykendall-com I understand the philosophy of keeping URLs active, but this is taking it to a new extreme. How about changing URLs every... 5 years or something ridiculous. I mean, they allow me to delete my account and that would kill URLs, so if it's between deletion or changing, what is the difference?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I find the website really slow when scrolling, as if the Javascript engine were choking.

And I'm using a 8GB RAM, i7 laptop.

</comment><comment><USER21> What is the best tool to move all my photos from my local harddrives (unorganized currently) to Flickr in an easy way?

<comment><USER22> Flickr Uploadr works for me: <http://www.flickr.com/tools/>

<comment><USER23> As I mentioned elsewhere[0], I've had lots of problems with their Mac uploader. I'd heartily recommend sticking with the web upload until it's updated, or using some third party tool (if you have tons, this might be the best option - web is limited to 200 at a time, not resumable if something goes wrong).

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5758033>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What I don't like about the new Flickr is that if you look at single photo, it's presented on a black background. While this is stylish, it's also feels distracting.

I miss the white background.

</comment><comment><USER25> They're late to the game. I use Facebook, Google+, and Dropbox to share and view photos. Right now, Flickr doesn't give me any reason why I should switch.

Facebook is already good because everyone uses Facebook. It's a convenient way to tag, share, and comment on your photos of your friends.

Google+ has a great Communities section where people share and post photos to other people. Also, a lot of photographers hang out there.

Dropbox is great if you want people to download your photos. They automatically zip the photos up. Or if they have a dropbox account, you can share your folder with them.

I do like they give us a TB of space. I think if they make a way for Flickr to sync my Lightroom catalogue and all my RAWs, I think that would be a good use of that TB of space.

<comment><USER26> > They're late to the game. I use Facebook, Google+, and Dropbox to share and > view photos. Right now, Flickr doesn't give me any reason why I should > switch.

Let me give you one: full quality image.

Aside from Dropbox, the other services will compress your images. If you're an enthusiast and expect people to see your photos in all it's glory, that's important. And while Dropbox does that, it doesn't really supports the concept of galleries and such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think one of the interesting bits of info to bubble up since the redesign was launched was they said mid-March was when they geared up and went for it. Even if they had bits of it done they did a great deal in a small time frame and made massive improvements, and it's a great sign for Flickr because they've got room to get better.

I was a paid up Flickr Pro user for a while, and I actually let it expire this year as I'd decided it wasn't going anywhere but this has really got me interested again. Seems like Yahoo understands the potential value of Flickr, it might not compete against Facebook in terms of raw numbers and standard phone camera photos but there's potential to get the serious enthusiasts back.

</comment><comment><USER28> Anyone know of a decent way to sync a set of photos in folders with Flickr? Mac or Linux...

<comment><USER29> On Linux, there is a photo app named shotwell. shotwell has a flickr plugin that works like a charm

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> / _almost off topic/_ I love the history Flick'r! Back in 04, made for gamers... A brillant turn over induced by users misusing the website uploading their holidays photos... A lesson to keep in mind, always listen to your customers!

</comment><comment><USER31> Narcissism aside, why did they drop the view counts ? I used to find them useful to see what people actually look at and therefore which of my pictures work and which don't. Comments and 'likes' are good, but only view counts are honest.

<comment><USER32> For reference: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourusernamehere/stats/> should provide you with what you're looking for (although it may be a paid feature, I am not sure as I have been paying for flickr for years now...)

<comment><USER33> Stats are only available for (new and old) paying members

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Even with its new design, I find it surprisingly primitive. I don't have an account, but if i try to watch a set from some user as a slideshow, I have no option to scale the picture to my screen size (or at least no obvious way of doing it). Furthermore, when I rightclick, I get a list of sizes, but those links only embed a full-size picture into a new page. How useful is that.

Anyway, needs lots of improvements.

On an unrelated note, I am planning to make a backup of all my ebooks there, by storing them as pictures (something like <https://github.com/meltingice/flickr-store>, but better).

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder if Flickr API ToS is going to be updated. Last time I tried to integrate Flickr API, the rules were that you need special permission to use Flickr API for commercial use. I sent multiple emails and nothing happend.

Is this going to change?

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm really picky about the way my photos are presented and right now flickr looks cleaner to me than G+ photos. Flickr puts the photos at the forefront and I also like the photostream idea in general.

For me though it feels really hard to switch everything over to Flickr bc there are other issues. For example, with Google I get auto backup of photos taken on my phone which, as we all know, is accounting for a greater and greater percentage of total pics taken.

So that's kind of a big deal to me.

Anyhow, assuming I wanted to transfer ALL of my photos from G+ to Flickr, how the hell would I go about doing that?!

</comment><comment><USER37> Overall I really like the new Flickr layout, especially the main photo stream. It's more of a Portfolio that one can use rather than a collection of your photos one after the other.

What I don't like is the single photo page. The photo itself is nice and big, which I like. But once you scroll past it it's pretty much a cluster fuck of information that looks very much out of place. It looks like they didn't even bother to make it blend well with the page.

</comment><comment><USER38> What are the privacy/access controls/sharing facilities like? Are the terms of service and privacy policy OK?

A convenient way to store online and share selected photos and videos would be good. I don't trust FB/Google with images of myself and my family or my geo- tags. I would automatically be similarly sceptical of Yahoo bet a quick glance at the main TOS didn't show anything obviously objectionable.

<comment><USER39> I wrote a thing about how your favourites are public and searchable with not opt-out on HN: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5756487>.

Other than that, Flickr is one of the most privacy-conscientious services I know—which is why it took me by surprise that there weren't controls for my favourites.

Flickr's (general) emphasis on privacy and ownership rights are their main features to me. Maybe those are just hold-overs from the early days when monetizing your users' data weren't in vogue, though.

<comment><USER38> Thanks, your link is to this topic though. I think you meant: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5751591>

I've also asked a question on that topic.

<comment><USER39> Thanks. Got a bit recursive there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> ARgh, and they still haven't released the Android app (and apparently the iOS app) in Japan.

It's available in Peru, it's available in Ukraine—but not Japan (which is much larger, richer, and almost certainly has more photographers than those two countries), and this has been the situation for ages.

WTF, Flickr...

[And unfortunately Flickr has always had a very annoying habit of completely stonewalling on such issues.]

</comment><comment><USER41> I like the new Flickr. Its made me want to use it again. Both for the large amount of storage, the new Android app and the website. I've not had time to fully try everything out yet.

Facebook's dominance may mean its too little too late except for the crowd who detest using Facebook (myself included).

</comment><comment><USER42> It's great to see Yahoo! in the news so often. Growing up in the first Internet boom, Yahoo! still holds a place in my heart as my first search engine and homepage.

Flickr has been a great asset for Yahoo! but has lost much of its momentum, especially with the rising popularity of Pinterest.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is a really good model of product resurrection. Now lets what yahoo do more of the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER44> What I'm wondering is: are the android and iOS apps being developed separately now?

</comment><comment><USER45> Can someone comment on the new flickr vs PIcasa?

<comment><USER23> So far I'm liking Flickr better, though I've only dipped my toe in. Uploads (on the site, see [0]) are fast, organizing is fast (though the batch organize is weird IMO), everything can be made private by default easily, and ONE TERABYTE OF STORAGE. It's also much better for browsing than Picasa Web Albums, which are _functional_ but don't really do it well. Flickr makes browsing quite pretty (in a good way, mostly) and generally better for showing your photos to someone.

Picasa the website is fine, and does just about everything _right_ , though generally not in the most ideal way. Privacy controls are rich and you can still link directly to a photo to bypass (and revoke existing links). Albums are functional, face tags are functional (though now they use G+ accounts if you link to contacts... not happy, but I guess it works), comments are a bit hidden but work. I have several gigabytes in it (and bought more), no problems, no complaints. Main downside is it has definitely not been updated along with the rest of Google's properties, and it integrates very poorly for the most part (notifications, accounts, weird partial G+ linkage...).

Picasa the application is... different, but decent. It's surprisingly good in a number of ways, and I'd recommend it over iPhoto if only because iPhoto has routinely lost my data during updates, and slows to a crawl after several thousand photos. Picasa stays fast, searches quickly, organizes oddly but effectively. It leaves your photos in folders that (basically) match the UI, which may or may not be a good thing for you.

Picasa the application _when synced to your Google account_ is slick 95% of the time (it all works as you'd expect), and a total hell-hole of duplication, sync failing, and filename mangling the remaining 5% (though most of that only rears its head when you hook it up for the first time). The 'Sync to web' on/off switch for each album is handy when it works, but hasn't generally handled turning on dozens at once.

I would honestly recommend against the syncing aspect of it, though sadly it's a major selling point. If you can hook it up once and leave it that way you probably won't have much trouble, but I did a lot of reconnecting, and it definitely got confused sometimes.

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5758033>

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Flickr seems to be down at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER47> But i still prefer the old design

</comment><comment><USER48> All said and done, somehow I feel it looks a little _Instagrammy_.

\- More clutter

\- Less clean

\- Congested, as in a little border would have done no harm.

\- Looks _loud_ but maybe that's just _Instagrammatical_.

\- For me, at least, the home page takes longer to load.

\- Maybe earlier they had the site built for photographers and now they have made it for everyone

\- just like lady Mayer said.

<comment><USER49> Where are you getting that? It looks more like Pinterest than Instagram. There's less whitespace, but the old design was more complicated. It's more colorful now and there is more focus on the photos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It is pretty nice but navigation between photos still feels a little clunky. I'd have expected the 'next' and 'previous' arrows to slide/load in the pre- loaded image rather than generating a full page refresh.

Still very nice all in all though and a terabyte of free space makes it an easy choice for the default place to store all your photos. Goodbye iCloud for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, yesterday I saw a "fail whale" page on Flickr for the first time ever (though it was of a baby panda). I don't know if that's a consequence of infrastructure changes or increased traffic...I don't think it's the latter but perhaps the increase number of fetches on each normal page load is causing a burden.

Also, the simple prev/nav between single photos has always been unacceptably slow...hopefully that gets fixed, as that's also kind of key to the viewing experience</comment></comment>


Industry-Wide HTTPS Certificate and SSH Key Reuse - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sec-consult.com/2015/11/house-of-keys-industry-wide-https.html <comment><USER2> The worst part about this is that it's not even shocking.

Even using something like [https://Userify.com](https://Userify.com) (SSH key management) (disclaimer: CTO) can't help if you don't practice basic key management or publish your private key (client or host).

It's easy to say "well, throw up a pfSense fw and done" but I can't tell my Dad to do that. Instead his router will probably get pwned and become part of some botnet.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. What about obsolete devices? Do we really have to tell people to replace their devices (routers, phones, automobiles, drones?!) every few years?

I'm against regulation in this space, but people need to get educated that security updates are required (forever?), or bad things will eventually happen. What's the answer here.. does it simply come down to a liability/lawsuit risk?

<comment><USER3> No, go ahead and regulate it. Consumers should have the right to fitness for purpose and reasonable and foreseeable care.

In this case, I would suggest that a manufacturer of a device with internet connectivity must prominently disclose an expected lifetime at the point of sale; and support the device for that lifetime, and notify all registered customers when a flaw is found, again when it is fixed, and finally when the device lifetime is ending.

Your car shouldn't have internet access in the first place; it should have an access port that can talk to an internet connectivity device. Gigabit ethernet with PoE is a pretty good choice there, by the way. You'd think that people would demand clear interfaces for things like that, after going through the generations of aftermarket radios, cassette tape players, CD players, MP3-CD players, DVD players... and now we expect an AUX-in and, maybe, a Bluetooth receiver. Standardized interfaces are great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's really easy to get excited about this and say it's bad, but we do need to consider the reality of the situation.

Lets say these devices all do the perfect thing and when first fired up generate their very own device signed public / private key pair. So what? How does this make them more secure if the device cannot provide the public to the end-user so they can match it to the one they got in the SSH or HTTPS connection before they establish that connection? The problem here is a chicken or the egg one, plain and simple. You can't just ship root CAs on devices which will connect to other devices because you'd be distributing private keys on the device generating the certificate which could be used by a bad guy to make valid key material.

As it stands with existing implementations, if the end users accepts the security warnings and connects to the device, a man in the middle can simply tamper with the encrypted traffic so that when they view the device cert, it's the one they see in the connection. This I'm afraid is the elephant in the room when it comes to device connectivity over protocols utilizing public / private key cryptography.

Of course this problem can be solved, but I would propose that it wouldn't be cheap in many cases and doesn't really solve the problem. For devices with no display output the manufacturer could fire the device up on the product line and then obtain the public after it is generated. They could then print it out or save it to a USB drive and put it in the box with the device. Ultimately; however, the end user getting the device will have no idea what that paper or USB drive is and it will be promptly ignored anyway and browser or SSH security warnings will be accepted just as they are today. The assumption for all of these products should be that they are untrustworthy until made trustworthy, even if they are generating their own unique key material. With that in mind they should be configured on isolated, trusted networks until which point they are secured for environments which require this level of paranoia.

The only way to make them secure is if they can generate unique key material or accept organizational key material and then the connections are validated before establishing encrypted communication with the devices. Ideally this means having an organizational PKI program that can issue certificates to devices which are then validated against an organizational root CA or exporting the device generated public and importing it into hosts which will be used to connect with the device. For NAT'd or firewalled networks this also necessitates local DNS.

This I believe is the conversation we need to be having here. Are we in fact fooling ourselves on this one? As I look at the entire market of devices which implement HTTPS and SSH to connect to things like embedded web servers I don't see a solution which really allows anyone to secure anything unless you are in an organization with a solid PKI program and the device allows the use of organizational key material.</comment>


Using Uninitialized Memory for Fun and Profit (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://research.swtch.com/sparse

<comment><USER3> Due to multilevel caches I doubt this would be so applicable to modern systems - the index-set representation takes several times more memory and naturally requires lots of random accesses, which are bad for caches. In some ways, it's no longer a time-space tradeoff: smaller _is_ faster.

Also, initialising the space doesn't take so long; REP STOS on x86 is _fast_ since it can write an entire cache line at once: [http://ptspts.blogspot.ca/2014/10/on-speed-of- memset.html](http://ptspts.blogspot.ca/2014/10/on-speed-of-memset.html)

<comment><USER4> I'll bet it's still faster in plenty of circumstances. It's hard to beat superior asymptotic complexity.

<comment><USER5> The 'magic' here is that you can quickly iterate over the data because it lives in 'dense'. In dense cases 'm'='n' and we loose. The apparent faster clear performance is because the length ('n') is stored as an auxiliary value, which is not unique to this scheme. As pointed out before, the extra logic will break vectorization and result in poor performance.

<comment><USER4> You can't just assert "we win" or "we lose"; you need to measure different the different possible implementations for your particular application. In the paper I wrote with Linda Torczon (cited by Russ Cox), we did exactly that. In that application (a graph coloring register allocator), we were very sparse (n was significantly less than m) and we cleared the working set quite often - the win was pretty significant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Python uses a similar trick in its internal allocater (pymalloc) [1]. Given a memory address, pymalloc determines if it controls it by computing what would be the base of the arena containing said address. It then finds the index of the arena (or trash) at a constant offset from the base. It then uses the index to check a vector of all the arenas that it controls.

[1][http://svn.python.org/projects/python/trunk/Misc/README.valg...](http://svn.python.org/projects/python/trunk/Misc/README.valgrind)

</comment><comment><USER7> Something in between traditional bit vectors and sparse sets is described here:

[http://upcoder.com/9/fast-resettable-flag-vector/](http://upcoder.com/9/fast- resettable-flag-vector/)

This is designed for a fast clear, but doesn't actually have constant time clear, it's just O(n) clear with very small (amortized) constant. It's a bit more cache friendly, though, I think, and gave us some nice speedups in practice.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think I have seen this method used in a data structure called something like a 'B.* set' or 'B.* index', but I can't remember the exact name. Does anyone have a clue as to what I am (mis)remembering?

Update: I remembered that the algorithm had something to do with checking if an item is not in a set, which quickly led me to Bloom Filter - <USER2> particularly similar, as it turns out.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ahhhh, I love hacks like this :) But it is super branchy; I would definitely profile before assuming it's an improvement.

</comment><comment><USER10> Reading from uninitialized memory in C seems to be a bad idea:

[http://blog.frama-c.com/index.php?post/2013/03/13/indetermin...](http://blog.frama-c.com/index.php?post/2013/03/13/indeterminate- undefined)

<comment><USER7> I didn't read all that, but it seems like the issue there is that, if the compiler sees you are reading from uninitialised memory, then it can effectively 'choose' a value for the contents of that memory to suit it's optimisation purposes. Is that right?

If so, then this isn't actually a problem in the case of sparse sets. With sparse sets we don't care what is in the uninitialised memory and if the compiler wants to get tricky and choose values for this memory (which I don't think actually applies in this context) that doesn't change the correctness of the data structure..

<comment><USER11> If you read it, you'll see that things are much worse than that.

<comment><USER7> Ok, yes. Reading to the end of stuff is a good thing. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fintech Female VC talks about pursuing excellence in a male domninated field - <AUTHOR> http://www.africantechroundup.com/pursuing-excellence-with-dominique-collett/

<comment><USER2> It auto-plays audio AND has a giant popup preventing you from seeing the controls.

Here's the MP3 link from the page instead: [https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/216861287/download?client_...](https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/216861287/download?client_id=0f8fdbbaa21a9bd18210986a7dc2d72c) It's 43 minutes long.</comment>


Claw machines are rigged – here's why it's so hard to grab that stuffed animal - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/4/3/8339999/claw-machines-rigged

<comment><USER2> Wait until you figure out how redemption machines (those games that pay out tickets which you redeem for prizes) are set.

Almost every state that allows casino gaming sets minimum payback percentages for their slot machines. Only a handful of states require minimum payouts for arcade redemption machines. I've seen machines set to pay back 10% on the dollar.

Some machines will even adjust the outcome of the game to ensure the payout setting is averaged correctly.</comment>


What happens when you search for flights? - <AUTHOR> https://duffel.com/blog/what-happens-when-i-search-for-flights <comment><USER2> Glad to see ATPCO mentioned in this article. I'm a lead software engineer at ATPCO. Hope the article makes it to the HN home page.

</comment><comment> abc-xyz I might be misunderstanding the author but when I go to flight booking websites (such as google flights) then I have to select start + end destination + date(s). I usually only get back 10-20 results in total, but even if they did return more then I fail to see the complexity. Maybe there is another way to book flights that I'm not familiar with?

Nevertheless, it was an interesting article, would've been nice if it also revealed the pricing of these services.</comment>


CoderDojo NYC: Bringing free tech education to NYC youth - <AUTHOR> http://indiegogo.com/cdnyc

<comment><USER2> Very cool.

There has been a lot of talk about teaching HTML and js to adults recently (learn to web-dev in x months, get a job), but this is even better!

Teach kids! You have to wonder what will become of a whole generation of kids who are growing up with a js shell in their browser... (Anecdote, the other day a 10 year old showed me around minecraft -- not just the 3D world game: he also had a complete understanding of about 10-30 commands in the command window. I found tp=teleport to be quite cool. 10 year old! In a couple of years, you could give this kid some ssh keys and he will run your systems n.p. I spoke to his hacker mom RE hiring her son (eventually) and she said she will think about it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! CoderDojo is doing crazy well in the UK (specifically Ireland, the motherland) and we're trying to spread the love here in the US.

One of the amazing stories so far is a 12 y/o building an iOS game app and outselling Angry Birds (in Apple App Store Ireland), had the pleasure of meeting his mother who was exceptionally proud.

One of our youngest girls here (9 y/o) mastered basic HTML and was mentoring older youth!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a bit puzzled why both the $30 and $100 levels both state that _Your donation can purchase 1 USB bracelet for 1 youth!_. Surely the $100 level should be able to provide at least three.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because the rest of the money is going towards the $200 Chromebooks ;)</comment></comment>


Show HN: PokerHelper – deep learning backed poker assistant - <AUTHOR> Https://www.pokerhelper.app?ref=ih2 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I've just launched the beta version of PokerHelper.app - its a deep-learning backed poker assistant for Texas holdem that provides recommendations for the best possible next move, given your current cards and hand situation.

Unlike other poker assistant apps that use maths to calculate hand strength, Poker Helper's use of deep learning is capable of bluffing, and is aware that other AIs may also bluff, too.

Poker Helper is currently completely free while in Beta, as the AI is not yet 100% production ready. It is currently capable of beating average human players and many other AIs, and I've managed to make some money playing poker online with this app already, but it will be refined further before the paid version is launched.

Thanks for looking, Chris

</comment><comment><USER2> This definitely looks interesting. I'm gonna try this out next time I'm playing poker with my friends.

A quick feedback, can you explicitly show shortcuts while selecting cards. It will reduce a lot of cognitive load on the brain. Also give quick keyboard shortcuts to be able to input/update the variables and evaluate.

Nonetheless, I wish you the best :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, will get that added in

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey!

I just signed up to check out your web app! It looks nice, and I have a couple of feedback notes:

\- Didn't look in to this, but when I input the verification code, LastPass popped up an alert that there was a non-secure web form submission. In this case it is of pretty small consequence, but that's probably not great for a first-time user to see during the registration process. The login form appears every time I reload the page, and I'm presented with the same non-secure form submission dialog.

Actual App Feedback:

\- On the first welcome screen, there is probably some UI/UX Room for improvement. Remove the initial back button, colored buttons for next/close, Escape key has weird behavior.

\- Welcome screen is fine, but I've seen some tutorial stuff that will step through by highlighting the actual items on the page.

\- The Help button in Safari takes you to a new page, links inside take you to new pages, which makes going back to the game a hassle. Same for support. These are very different from Game Settings and should be visually differentiated.

\- On the first Welcome screen, I would present the user with a quick start button. This should automatically configure the hand and everything so that the user could get an idea of the app without digging through settings first.

\- Player cards should be at the bottom.

\- There should be options to actually draw cards. Maybe I'm missing something, but instead of me selecting what cards I have and what cards the community cards have, let the app pick cards for you. Then the player can learn while actually playing.

\- For Card Selection, have the card value as a selection, and then a dropdown below with the suit selection. This dropdown could be always visible or toggled by clicking the card value.

\- Get some art for card backs/fronts! Obviously not necessary at this stage. Table Art? Get some felt!

\- Might need to iterate on the "Evaluate". This could be a button on the table. I would treat it as a toggle, and have the information always available. Users could select what information to keep pinned.

\- Show the other players, even if they're smaller cards. Hovering over cards should let you see possible cards.

\- Button tooltips.

\- I can have 22 opponents?

I know a lot of this is polish work that isn't necessary at the moment, but I wanted to call it out anyway for reference. I do think this is a great idea and hopefully I can learn to play poker by the cards instead of looking at my friends faces and guessing what they're thinking!

<comment><USER3> Also, I'm not entirely sure what the AI is doing in here that could not just be calculated... Could you explain that in more detail?

<comment><AUTHOR> Regarding the AI, this is a machine-trained agent. Basically you start of with a bot with zero understanding of how to player poker - it's presented with the available moves (eg call, check, fold, raise etc) and initially it just picks one at random, and records both the game state and result. So when it first tries to play, it has absolutely no idea what it's doing any loses badly. However, it learns a little from each game it plays, and gradually, over the course of literally millions more games of poker, it learns how to beat the opposition. It has an awareness of the overall game state, rather than the specific hand it holds and eventually learns that the opposition may fold it it raises, regardless of the cards on the table</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter Hack Zoom Court Hearing Interrupted by Zoombombers - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxadb/twitter-hackers-zoom-hearing-is-interrupted-by-pornhub-video <comment><USER2> > According to Ryan Hughes, a reporter from local outlet WFLA, Judge > Christopher Nash said next time he'll require a password.

Are you kidding me? I know the courts tend to be tech Luddites, but jeeze.

<comment><USER3> Well, this brings up the problem, even if you require a password, as an open court, they're required to publish it to allow people to join. Would they simply post it physically somewhere and only local people could access? But then people could share it with bad actors anyway.

Maybe it would just reduce the volume of attacks, not eliminate them.

<comment><USER4> They could use Zoom for meeting participants, and a separate video streaming service for viewers.

<comment><USER5> That's what all of the courts I've seen do. They stream the Zoom meeting via YouTube.

<comment><USER3> Ah, that's a good solution. Although clearly beyond the current capabilities of many departments still...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Organizations really need someone who is technically proficient enough to dig in to zoom settings and configure meetings to disallow anonymous users, screen shares, videos. Zoombombing can be simply prevented by putting everyone not part of the hearing in a "listen-only" mode, and I'm pretty sure the controls to enable that are already there.

<comment><USER7> I'd argue that this is something that Zoom should have made easily discoverable and probably the default from the beginning. It's bad UI design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of the televised trial that was using Skype to conduct an interview of a witness and 4chan got ahold of the phone number. The video[1] of it happening is hilariously surreal.

[1] [https://youtu.be/QKhOFRMkE-0](https://youtu.be/QKhOFRMkE-0)

</comment><comment><USER9> okay this was hilarious

but it did answer a burning question I had about how they froze this kid's funds in a prior case: they were on Bitmex and Bitmex cooperated with authorities, and unfroze the funds when authorities realized they had no standing.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why are courts using Chinese spyware to conduct official business?

<comment><USER11> The same reason why Europeans use American spyware and adware to communicate with eachother.

Because the risk profile permits it. In this county, many courts are open, and prior to COVID, you could just walk into one and listen. Court decisions are likewise open, and part of the public record.

Edit: Did you also know that courts and lawyers still use faxes? Did you know that tapping a fax line has been _trivial_ for decades?

<comment><USER12> "Sorry, we can't accept an email. You'll have to fax it to us. Why, you ask? Because security reasons..."

<comment><USER13> Just a side note, but some jurisdictions treat faxing similarly to giving a document in-person. For example, signing a contract and faxing it can be considered the same as certified mail. Generally not so with email. I'm not saying it's right by the way, just that is how it is sometimes.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. I know for a long time "HIPAA reasons" was another justification, which is just downright crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Boomers and refusing to learn technology, name a more iconic duo

<comment><USER15> Punk kids and thinking they know everything.</comment></comment>


TwitterSnooze. A script I wrote over the weekend.  Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://twittersnooze.com/ <comment></comment>


Studio Ghibli Holds Farewell Ceremony for Late Director Isao Takahata - <AUTHOR> https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-05-15/studio-ghibli-holds-farewell-ceremony-for-late-director-isao-takahata/.131568 <comment><USER2> RIP</comment>


Small Social Groups Are Finally Finding a Home Online - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/small-social-is-here-why-groups-are-finally-finding-a-home-o#.cpd6w7gLJ <comment><USER2> Small social groups have always found a home online. It was called Usenet, internet forums, IRC, mailing lists, etc. The only difference with Slack and other stuff is that the user interface is slightly shinier.

Then again, this seems to be a common thing in the modern media. Taking something that's been around (or known) for a fairly long time, throwing in a few buzz words and pretending it's a brand new idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does slack support peer-to-peer groups? In other words, groups that a company doesn't pay Slack to facilitate the group.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure what you mean but anyone can create a Slack "team" and while the free tier has limitations, number of members is not one of them. I'm on one with over 5,500 members and dozens of channels. If you wanted the non-free features, someone would have to pay Slack and arrange some way of collecting "dues" from each member.

[https://slack.com/pricing](https://slack.com/pricing)</comment></comment>


Interview: The Pitch is a podcast that lets you invest in early-stage startups - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@BetaList/b40d3ae13bca

<comment><AUTHOR> We featured The Pitch on BetaList a while ago and since I was really intrigued about the concept I decided to interview the founders to hear more about the backstory.

Would love to hear what the HN community thinks :)</comment>


Taiwan's government bars its agencies from using Zoom over security concerns - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/07/taiwans-government-bars-its-agencies-from-using-zoom-over-security-concerns/ <comment><USER2> I find it quite surprising that government agencies around the world are even considering using a US/Chinese-hosted video-conferencing system. Both countries have a long history of spying on pretty much all foreign nations wherever possible.

<comment><USER3> US also used German companies for spying. So I guess there is no escape.

<comment><USER4> The 'escape' is for governments to have their own semi-competent IT departments that can maintain the digital infrastructure needed to run the government.

It almost seems like a pipe dream.

<comment><USER5> Do you mean exactly what China has done with its semi-nationalized technology companies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As terrible as Zoom is on security--they have a product that nobody else has created. I just want to click on a link from my email or from a text message and enter a meeting. With WebEx, I have to enter a 16 digit PIN code that I can never type right, right after dealing with browser plugins that doesn't work on my Mac. With Teams, I have to log in to my corporate domain, that doesn't like me using my personal device. Amazon Chime is a fairly decent alternative, I like the fact that it calls ME in advance of a meeting, but still requires downloads and isn't a video-centric product.

This should be an easy business opportunity. Give me easy access, E2E encryption, simultaneous screen sharing, whiteboarding, ability to mute other folks, good quality video/audio and I'll pay you thousands of dollars per year for my company to use that service in exchange for not routing my traffic through China.

<comment><USER7> Google Meet hits almost all your criteria (not E2E encypted AFAIK). It even works right from your browser.

I have to use both Zoom and Meet for various calls, and being able to send a link to someone and know it will work without anything being installed is a big bonus for Meet. I think Zoom has better quality, though.</comment></comment>


Aol clones Groupon with Wow.com - <AUTHOR> http://smallbusiness.aol.com/2010/11/11/aol-launches-deal-of-the-day-site-wow-com/?icid=main%7Chtmlws-sb-n%7Cdl2%7Csec3_lnk2%7C184312

<comment><USER2> Groupon is going to be a fascinating case study on the defensibility of a web property. I'm really interested in seeing how this plays out.

</comment><comment><USER3> But it doesn't clone Groupon...

 _Wow has no minimum qualification to purchase the deal (unlike Groupon's "tipping point," where a certain number of shoppers have to commit to it), and Wow plans to "keep it simple" and avoid gimmicks and games._

This would make potential buying experiences very different. The secret sauce of Groupon is collective buying power. This looks like a simple race to the bottom for merchants, except they are not guaranteed to get a certain number of purchases.

<comment><USER4> I could be wrong, but it seems Group is so popular now that every deal reaches the tipping point.

They need to have deals with a network effect so as more people buy the deal it then gains more value for each customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yahoo is launching in this space too: <http://mashable.com/2010/11/16/yahoo- local-offers/>

I've heard yelp will be entering as well (I can't confirm if they're already there since yelp perma-banned my ip after I tried to do some lite-scraping)

</comment><comment><USER6> Sad, as I liked typing that short domain name to get to the World of Warcraft blog.

<comment><USER7> Speaking of which. Where is it now?

<comment><USER8> <http://wow.joystiq.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's a great big gold rush taking place right now for sites like this. Another one that's getting a ton of play in Ontario right now: <http://www.wagjag.com>

<comment><USER10> Indeed. In the Scoble interview posted a few days ago, pg mentioned the surge of groupon clones applying (and being rejected) to YC this round.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I honestly thought Blizzard had that domain.</comment>


NIST Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program Program Overview - <AUTHOR> https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/cryptographic-algorithm-validation-program <comment><AUTHOR> Submitted because this needs to be higher up in search rankings.</comment>


Bring your .bashrc, .vimrc, etc. with you when you ssh - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Russell91/sshrc

<comment><USER2> Previous post (197 days ago): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8343469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8343469)

</comment><comment><USER3> I recommend using vcsh[1] to sync your dotfiles between different _frequently used_ machines. This script seems to copy all the files every time you login which can slow down your login (as noted in the doc). It can however be useful to login in rarely used machines for which you don't want to go through the hassle of setting up vcsh (or a similar solution).

[1]: [https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh](https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh)

</comment><comment><USER4> A .bashrc file usually contains references to local pathnames. When this tool executes a client-side .bashrc file on the server, it would try to use those pathnames on the server. More usefully, this tool lets you define a set of local files which are used as your environment on the server.</comment>