Writing a book in public - <AUTHOR> https://200wordsaday.com/words/i-am-writing-a-book-in-public-5585c109c5735a98 <comment><USER2> I wrote a book[1] - well - i wrote the same book 4 times again and again, writing, learning, throwing away, writing, iterrating, editing, rearranging, throwing away, starting new, iterrating, ... . Some learnings:

I) just write

first attemp i made a super fancy setup - google chrome book with custom linux installed that automatically transformed markdown via pandoc into a custom styled PDF everytime i saved. was fun to create this setup, but i wasted time not writting the actual book.

II) don't wittgenstein

i wanted to be absolutely correct, so i started with defining word, what do i mean with website, domain, webproperty, webpage, page, link, external duplicate content, internal duplicate content, ... or any other technical term. wittgensteining is yak shaving for authors. don't do it. just write.

III) a manuscript is not a book

after you are finished, the real work start. a manuscript does not have the same feeling, read-feeling, read flow as a real book. get a professional editor, work with him/her. fire him/her if not the right match, find the right match, start again. the right editor is as much a factor for the success of the book as the author.

IV) live with the law of strawberry jam

the further you spread knowledge/jam the thinner it gets. yes, in a 1:1 talk, in a 1:12 people workshop you can communicate more knowledge than you can with a book. talk, interaction, any form of communication with exchange, has direct feedback - something unbelievable important for information communication. a book is a one way street with - if at all - delayed feedback. you can always continue writting, pack in more knowledge, more details, more clarificaiton, more scenarios, but then the book will never finish. at one point you have to stop.

V) cut away

go through your book again, and question every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter. if the word, the sentence doesn't ad substential value, get rid of it. your book will be better. it's not about quantitiy of words, it's about what you want to say.

VI) let go

& publish, just do it.

[1] "Understanding SEO - A Systematic Approach to Search Engine Optimization" [https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding- seo](https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo) ISBN: 978-3-200-05426-4

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your advice, I'm currently starting down the path of writing (what I hope will become) a book. I'm at your piece of advice I). I'm working on a framework which links LaTeX and Python notebooks in a dynamic compilation setup [1], so reading your first point of advice makes me think I might have started on the wrong path.

Did your setup ultimately prove useful in writing your book? Or did you give up part way through and that helped you get to the task of actually writing?

[1] [https://github.com/poulter7/ipynb-tex](https://github.com/poulter7/ipynb- tex)

<comment><USER4> I have written three scholarly history books [0] where custom Python code was used to generate TeX files (not LaTeX) that were then typeset into PDF.

Python's main purpose was to enable thousands of cross-references across the books, and to transform a large, every-changing text database into a pleasing output, where different parts of the database had different output formats.

Perhaps a TeX wizard could have done it all in pure TeX, but I never could have. Besides, who wants to learn all the intricacies of TeX/LaTeX when the task in Python is so straightforward? To this day, I can't imagine a different approach.

Joining the Python and TeX pieces together into simple scripts was trivial. The Python code evolved as I got into the books, so I would recommend a rapid- iteration model of code development, rather than building a perfect edifice before starting.

[0] [http://www.physical-lincoln.com](http://www.physical-lincoln.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is very similar to NaNoWriMo[1], which originally stood for "National Novel Writing Month" (I say "originally" because the "National" bit no longer applies), whereby you sign up to try to write 50,000 words of a novel in November. It has similar word tracking features and a community of other users whom you can interact with (IIRC; the last time I signed up was 2012). The only real difference is that the words/day is more explicit here (200 vs. an implied average of over 8x that) and that you're not constrained by time. While it is pretty hard to maintain the level required to achieve the goal set by NaNoWriMo -- 200 words/day is trivial, in comparison -- the time constraint certainly helped focus.

[1] [https://nanowrimo.org/](https://nanowrimo.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is intriguing. It reminds me of 750words.com as well. I think what I really want to show with the 200 words objective is that it is reachable by anyone. 1600 words per day is way too much for a regular worker who just started writing.

<comment><USER6> >1600 words per day is way too much for a regular worker who just started writing.

I write a lot for work that's interspersed with a fair number of other activities as well. However, even on days when I'm more or less full-time writing with maybe a bit of add-on research and color for a topic I'm already familiar with, 1600 words is a _lot_. And I say that as someone who has written books. Personally, I'm more in the 800 words or so per full "production" day average. I can probably hit 1600 but that's assuming I already know what I'm writing about and even have some existing material I can adapt and fold in--and I've really cleared the decks.

200 words/day should be pretty achievable for many although that's not enough for a typical post and you may find breaking things up like that (rather than, say, spending one day per week writing 1000 words) isn't very efficient. It partially depends how much control you have over carving up your time and whether you need to really get in the flow of writing vs. banging off a few paragraphs here and there.

<comment><AUTHOR> 200 is still so hard for many people. I talked to users who tried the website and couldn't do more than a 1-day streak, they all say the same: I can't get into the habit / too much work / didn't plan it blablabla And I think this is the case for 80% people on earth. And I'm talking about english native speakers, non-native are even less likely to reach 200 words per day.

Anywasy, thanks for sharing your experience! I appreciate it.

<comment><USER6> Oh. I don't disagree and the habit thing is definitely part of it. When I'm traveling I find it very easy to get out of the habit of getting something/anything down on paper quickly even with the expectation that I would need to knock it into publishable shape when I have more time.

Personally, I'm also guilty with a number of things of the mindset that it's not worth chipping away at, it's too much to contemplate, etc. Writing can definitely be similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You'd have to take editing into account. By any reasonable account, I saw a page that discussed it once, to have 100 readable words, you'd need to write 500-1000 words. Which means the time required goes to 5-10x. On the other hand, 200 words per day is pretty low, you could easily get up to 500-1000 words per day once you really get going.

<comment><USER8> I think the idea behind the 200 words is that it is achieveable, once you hit the 200 you're already in the zone, the ball is rolling, you can easily continue. But getting there is the hard part.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Exactly what I'm describing in the article: 200 words give you momentum. I end up with double this word count in average.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _This is a full-time job, but it did not prevent me from writing at least 200 words daily for over a month now._

The author would be surprised to note that many people do that already via forum comments.

I practice my english this way and made it a part of my daily routine years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. Do they publish comment books though?

<comment><USER9> To me this looks way more like a series of blog posts than a book.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are 100% right. The website is 3 weeks old and the "book editing" feature is not released yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Almost two years ago I started writing my short posts on a similar premise on my blog [https://arcticloon.fi](https://arcticloon.fi). In fact, as of today, I'm four days short of writing every day for two whole years.

And all this time I have been writing alone, mostly for myself. I do have a few loyal followers and I see some random readers every now and then.

I think a community of other writers would be a great next step for me, so maybe I'll join in. But I'm not sure if I'd like to switch my writing and publishing platform just yet. Hope it's ok for me to keep writing on my own site and copy the texts over. Who knows, maybe in time I'll switch over. Or even better start writing on both places every day, doubling my output.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not a problem at all! Your writings belong to you. Always.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm currently 203,027 words into planning out my next technical video course. I like to write things out before I say them because it helps organize my thoughts.

It's similar to writing a book suppose.

But if you're interested in writing any type of book, just remember your goals will be different depending on what you're writing. Writing a fiction novel is a lot different than a book on some technical topic. You're on a strict time deadline with technical books because the content can get outdated.

On days where I don't have freelance work or other activities planned, getting down 3,000 "production ready" words is very possible in about 6-8 hours. That includes writing, rewriting, iterating, proof reading it multiple times, maybe doing research if needed, etc..

</comment><comment><USER12> I like this idea and plan to give it a go, although I think you could be doing more to entice people to read each person's contributions besides just saying 'they wrote x words today, and it's called this, and it has these tags".

At the very least I think a super short blurb could be included, like a line or two (can be as short as a tweet or even shorter, you can take it from the beginning probably, just let the writer's own words attract people). Like it's either just the first sentence, or even the first half of a sentence, just something that has an opportunity to attract the end user.

I'd even consider a different emphasis. The title and the words are more important and should be more prominent than the author. The "@piotr wrote Strzelnica" makes it sound like they wrote a full piece, even though I think you should consider it to be more like a serial (i.e. 200 words in an ongoing work), and includes a redundant word "wrote" for each entry that's the assumed activity on your site.

I'd probably do something more like "Strzelnica 10" (10 being the number in the series), in larger and in bold, then the next few lines "Lorem ipsum...." the brief excerpt of text. Then at the bottom of that text, real small, the author's name, number of likes/feedbacks (one or the other), maybe a single tag, maybe the word count. But keep most of the other information on the entry itself. Maybe not even include the profile image.

If you really want the other information I recommend hiding it, because right now it all blends together and I don't get anything too interesting when I scan down the list of entries.

Anyway, my main concern is it looks too much like an engineer decided to include as much information as possible on these things, stuff that they would find interesting but most readers aren't really going to care about when scrolling through this and scanning for something to catch their eye, and I think more than anything the author's own words should catch the eye, not the 'info'.

But I'll still give it a try and hopefully it does well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for taking the time to write this! I need more time to consider your points. One thing I am sure of though, is that this is a writing community, not a list of publications like the ones you can find on Medium. Empowering the writers matters more to me. The content is important obviously, but what I really want is for them to just write. Anything. And be seen/heard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow ! I absolutely love the concept and the website is straightforward to use, no fuss or unnecessary feature, just write and save. Brilliant. It's funny because I'm struggling with my writing skills and I wanted a way to practice, this is the perfect solution for me. Hope you continue working on it.

Unrelated question: what technologies is it built with ? I'm just curious to know !

<comment><AUTHOR> This is becoming my life work :D I work full-time on it!

I'm using Symfony 4 (PHP) and some basic JQuery. Nothing fancy but it allows me to ship faster as I'm starting to know it well. Here is an article I wrote detailing my stack: [https://medium.com/@basilesamel/how-i-am-building-my- minimum...](https://medium.com/@basilesamel/how-i-am-building-my-minimum- viable-products-46e5bd103758)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have built an app that helps people to write every day and track their progress:

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

I think you might find it useful (it's still in active development, I'm currently working on completing v1).

I really hope your project takes off, there's never enough writing tools and communities!

<comment><AUTHOR> I already have my home made app and it's called [https://200wordsaday.com](https://200wordsaday.com) :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a very interesting idea. I started with something more humble "Just 50 Words" a day and the objective was to write articles instead of a book.

I also created a simple writing tool [https://just50words.com](https://just50words.com) to help me focus and write.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is nice Gunjan. Post your words in our community, we love to read those! Originally 200wordsaday is still about writing short articles daily. Writing a book is a personal goal of mine. The members have many different goals: just get better at writing, releasing their ideas for the world to read etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just wrote my first 200 words. I really like two major things about this site:

1\. It's really simple UI/UX so you go straight to the point. 2\. The Github like counter for your post.

I will definitely use the site more and more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have any suggestion or improvement point to share. I would love to hear them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice idea. Is there a way to see the list of books currently being written?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some people PMed me about it. I think we are going to tag our posts with #publicbook and those will be drafts that will probably be integrated into our books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice job on the app! I'm reminded of [https://750words.com/](https://750words.com/) that I discovered years ago.

<comment><USER19> 750words is amazing

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The hardest part is organization. it means that the stuff written on day 40 has to some how be connected with or relevant to the stuff on day 7.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you are right. But isn't it nice as well to digress a bit sometimes :)? Still, a goal feature would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I also came up with something like this: [https://streaking.app](https://streaking.app)

</comment><comment><USER21> Am I the only one turned off by the very poor grammar on a post about _writing a book_? Are you writing the book in English?

<comment><USER22> In the post, the author notes English is not their first language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Writing the book is the easy part. Getting more than a handful of people to read it is hard. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm 24 and this would be my first book. Let me learn my lessons. Thanks for the warning though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Love the platform, how long have you been working on this?

<comment><AUTHOR> 3 weeks today lol MVP in two days, MLP in one week

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I like the website, its simple and fast. Also love the idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I'm trying to improve it daily so if you have any suggestion I would love to hear it.

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the work, I enjoyed trying it and loved the fact that indeed, 200 words is really achievable. I even did it twice ;) Do you have any plan for the possibility to publish "privately"? I'd like to write, but I don't want/feel the need to be read. I guess we could consider the drafts are private, but they seem like second-class citizens regarding streaks and so on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes the private posts will be a thing very soon: [https://trello.com/c/s0Hho8LS/30-later-an-user-should-be- abl...](https://trello.com/c/s0Hho8LS/30-later-an-user-should-be-able-to- decide-if-he-she-wants-his-writing-to-remain-private-or-not)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why do chocolate chip cookies have 37% (1/e) chocolate in them? - <AUTHOR> http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/651823/is-there-a-mathematical-reason-why-chocolate-chip-cookies-have-37-1-e-chocola <comment><USER2> This feels like pure numerology to me, with the entire argument being based on some vague numeric coincidence. I have no experience in food manufacturing, but I'm willing to bet there are much easier ways to mix dough at any desired proportion than the one described here.

Here's another, potentially simpler explanation: I am no pastry chef, but it seems these recipes often use a 2:1 mix of different types of chocolate (e.g. dark and milk) [1]. Now if the recipe contains 1/4 of one type and half of this of another type, that's 25% + 12.5% = 37.5%, which is about as close to 37% than 1/e. Ta-da!

And this is just one explanation I just made up on the spot; I'm sure one can find many others by playing around with the numbers. I don't know for sure what the real answer is or if there even is one (it could just be that marketing thought 37% sounded more elaborate than a round number like 40% while also costing less to produce and tasting the same), but one shouldn't forget to apply Occam's razor here.

[1] a quick Google search gives me this: [http://www.talkfood.com/forum/showthread.php/3230-37-Chocola...](http://www.talkfood.com/forum/showthread.php/3230-37-Chocolate- chips-cookies)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is incredibly confusing: 37% of what? By mass or by volume?

The answer about even distribution pre-supposes physical dispersion characteristics, but does not mention which measure of proportion is relevant (it would seem volume); nor any means of reliable testing. As another commenter has aluded, the "100% chocolate%" concept (even for the chocolate) is also at best inaccurate. So, this looks to be more of a coincidental alignemnet of numbers, and a game of causation/correlation. To wit: A cookie with 37% by volume of 72% chocolate is in no way the same cookie as one with 37% by mass of 40% milk chocolate. Either by taste, consistency, or chemistry. So, i would think any proper answer for this question would need to be robust the these particulars.

<comment><USER4> I read the hypothesis as relating the appearance of the cookie. That is the proportionate ratio of visible chocolate to dough on the surface of the cookie as it relates to the maximizing the visual appeal of the cookie on product packaging.

So we are talking about "perceived" cookie quality based on visible surface area of chocolate.

Now in this case, what I think is happening here is that we are observing a simple case of the golden ratio. Humans, consistently and subconsciously see distributions of ~38% to be harmonious (sometimes crudely approximated as the rule of thirds).

Therefore it stands to reason that this "golden mean" ratio of visible chocolate creates the most visibly appealing image.

With the cooperation of a chocolate chip packaging manufacturer or online retailer we could test this. Simply conduct some extensive A/B testing of chip packaging that varies only by ratio of visible chocolate. And see if the golden mean comes out best.

However, I suspect this testing has already been done.

As for the best _tasting_ ratios of all ingredients (including chocolate) in a chocolate chip cookie, fortunately, significant research in this area has recently been published. You may have seen this link from the food lab: [http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the- best-...](http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best- chocolate-chip-cookies.html)

<comment><USER3> > great article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of the movie "Pi."

"Max... You will find that thing everywhere... As soon as you discard scientific rigor, you're no longer a mathematician, you're a numerologist."

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IzNKIHhp0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IzNKIHhp0)

<comment><USER6> My favorite recent example of that: [http://www.2014equals420.com/about.html](http://www.2014equals420.com/about.html)

It starts with the curious observation that 2014, spoken aloud as "twenty fourteen", becomes "teen 420" in reverse. Perhaps just a coincidence. But then it further notes that April 20, or 4/20, is the date of Easter in 2014. Two coincidences! Now the numerologist starts getting suspicious...

<comment><USER7> I don't get it. What does "Teen 420" mean? How can it be equal to 2014 if it's the reverse of saying 2014?

<comment><USER6> The number has somehow become significant in marijuana subculture: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_\(cannabis_culture\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All that and nobody figured out that the cookie isn't 63% things that are not chocolate chips. The Chips are milk instead of semi-sweet and so they are 37% Chocolate.

Just like these are not 28% not Chocolate bar. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004BR1C46?tag=itemsid-20](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004BR1C46?tag=itemsid-20)

<comment><USER9> Nice affiliate link. You should print that as a QR code onto a t-shirt and send it to Archive.org.

<comment><USER8> I would, but the commission on chocolate is so low that I don't think I would get a good ROI.

But I did sell 3 Chocolate bars with that link so it might work out better than I thought.

I'll promise in a week to do a follow up with stats from the link and Post it on HN "How I made 84 cents on a single Hacker News Post And So Can You"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the answer given by dfc is the correct interpretation: the chips are 37% chocolate, not that the cookies are 37% chocolate chips.

</comment><comment><USER11> I doubt it has anything to do with 1/e. Someone in marketing probably liked the number 37% and manufacturing said, "yeah, that won't cost us much extra". Nothing to do with infinite sums or the distribution of chocolate chips in dough. Just marketing.

For the same reason, why is Ivory 99.44% pure? Because 99.44% sounded catchier than 99%.

</comment><comment><USER12> Clifford Stoll has a great chocolate chip cookie recipe in his book "cuckoos egg" \- about his experience tracking crackers through international networks. (With cameo appearance from RTM and the worm).

I'd put it here but the experience of cutting / pasting on iPhone is painful. (Hints and tips gratefully received).

<comment><USER13> "Two eggs, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup regular sugar, 2 sticks softened butter. Fold in 2 1/4 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and a couple tablespoons of vanilla. For an extra chocolate jag, toss in 3 tablespoons of cocoa. Oh, don't forget 2 cups of chocolate chips. Bake 'em at 375 degrees for 10 minutes."

This is very similar to the Toll House cookie recipe, but with even more vanilla which I think is an excellent idea. And that extra cocoa powder looks good too!

Edit: For metric measures, 250 ml white sugar, 250 ml soft butter, 530 ml flour, 2.5 ml salt, 5 ml baking soda, 30 ml vanilla, (optional 45 ml cocoa), 250 ml chocolate chips.

I wonder if someone could do this in by-weight measures? Flour is too compressible to measure accurately by volume.

<comment><USER13> Whoops, plus 125 ml white sugar for the metric.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Someone once briefly explained to me why it is that chocolate chip cookies have 37% chocolate in them." -Someone once pulled your leg mate.

</comment><comment><USER15> They shouldn't. The best cookies are going to have ~ 60% cacao chips.

</comment><comment><USER16> I like my cookies to contain πr² chocolate chips.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would like a cookie with 62% chocolate chips.

<comment><USER18> Years ago I embarked upon a quest to maximize the amount of chips I could put into a cookie and still have it meet a rough operational definition of cookie: It had to look like a cookie and I had to be able to pick it up and eat without getting chocolate on my fingers.

In other words, a blob of chocolate wouldn't qualify, but a blob of chocolate with pastry handles might.

But that seemed like a lot of work and not very Occam-y.

I found that by playing with the butter-flour-chip ratio, I could get a very thin very crisp cookie, almost more of a wafer, that I could grasp by the edges and lift to my mouth with clean fingers; there was enough chocolate that the shock of biting in didn't travel through the cookie and cause it to break, but enough dough to prevent anything beyond reasonable crumbs from falling away.

I cannot remember the recipe and don't know if I ever wrote it down, but I'm pretty sure the order by quantity was chips, butter, flour, and maybe an egg or two.

62%? Yeah, well past that, if memory serves.</comment></comment>


I Hate Voicemail - <AUTHOR> http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/i-hate-voicemail/ <comment><USER3> I know some people like the author, people who never listen to their voicemail. I call and leave them a message and they call me back without listening to it. When they do this, they are communicating to me that their time is more important than mine. I am often just conveying information and I have to say it twice if they don't listen to the message. That's fine if it's a salesman cold-calling you. If it's a friend or family member, that's insulting.

There are a number of other reasons to use voicemail:

1) Everyone can speak faster than they can text. If you have a significant amount of information to convey, texting sucks. Voicemail can be very efficient.

2) Many people don't have unlimited texting plans and texting can get expensive quickly.

3) Texting is dangerous and illegal while driving in many places, while speaking and listening on the phone are often not illegal and definitely less dangerous.

<comment><USER4> > 1) Everyone can speak faster than they can text. If you have a significant > amount of information to convey, texting sucks. Voicemail can be very > efficient.

Voicemail is potentially efficient for the sender at the cost of the recipient's ability to understand what you're rambling.

My phone lets me SMS via voice. I can send a concise, planned message. The recipient can receive something that uses his time most effectively.

> 2) Many people don't have unlimited texting plans and texting can get > expensive quickly.

I turned mine off in favor of a data plan and use that for SMS.

> 3) Texting is dangerous and illegal while driving in many places, while > speaking and listening on the phone are often not illegal and definitely > less dangerous.

Speaking and listening to a phone while driving is dangerous and illegal without digging out and hooking up a headset, while waiting until you stop is not illegal and definitely less dangerous.

<comment><USER5> > Speaking and listening to a phone while driving is dangerous and illegal > without digging out and hooking up a headset

It's still just as dangerous, even with the silly headsets. Multiple citations in the first paragraph of the "Handsfree device" section here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safet...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safety#Handsfree_device)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You lost me with the first line: "Leaving someone a voicemail message on someone's cell phone in 2011 is not only misguided, it's selfish."

If you don't want to get voicemail, don't offer it as an option to your callers.

I get really bent out of shape by people who expect that everyone trying to reach them by <insert communication medium here> will follow their personal, and unpublished, rules.

We all use <insert communication medium here> in different ways, and most of the mediums are designed to be flexible, thus appealing to more users. Don't attribute malice, or selfishness, to other users of the medium who are using it in the way it was designed.

If you don't want people to leave a VM, say so. If you don't listen to your VMs, say so. If you don't want people to leave a long VM, say so.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just as an alternative point of view: I probably won't call you back just because of a missed call if you don't leave a voicemail as I'll think whatever you were calling about wasn't important or if it was you will call back later.

I use Google Voice on my android phone and though it doesn't always update right away it does mean I don't have to call a voicemail number and log in to hear my messages I just press play.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't listen to voicemail, but it is rude not to accept it just as it is rude to leave long messages on voicemail.

The caller has already connected with you, for you to tell them to then hangup and try again with a txt or email is pretty obnoxious and arrogant.

I don't listen to voicemail, because I have googlevoice.

</comment><comment><USER9> I agree fully. First of all 90% of my voicemail messages suck and follow this universal script:

\- "Oh.. Erm.. It's XXX. I tried to reach you"

\- Babbling, most are not used to a one-sided talk and get lost

\- After listening the conversation could've been compressed to half a text message.

Unfortunately the business phone I have is required to support a voicebox. Worse: German carriers tend to abuse these things to milk their customers. The cheaper the carrier, the more certain you can be to have a mandatory (no way to turn it off. Calling your own box costs money..) mailbox that answers after X rings, where X is usually small enough that I can reach my wife only on the second try (before she pulls out the device the voicebox answers).

What a rant. I guess I have a deep sympathy for all people that hate this voicebox thing..

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm notorious for never returning voice mails for the exact reasons expressed in this post. But two months ago I signed up for Google voice it largely fixed the problem. The text recognition is bad, but I can usually figure out who called me and that's all I need. The only outstanding issue is that my phone (WP7) doesn't always update the Google Voice tile that lets me know I have new messages. Not sure if that's an issue on other phones.

</comment><comment><USER11> While I agree with the premise that voicemails that provide no additional information are not useful, the author is an elitist jerk. That being said, callers generally have no idea if you aren't answering because you're not near your phone, or because your phone is off/without reception/on a plane, in which case the call notification would never appear. Google Voice does a good job of solving this by includes notifications for missed calls, but everyone else has no way of knowing they missed a call.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if there's a way to deconfigure voicemail completely. Someone noticed that on a friend's phone & sort of envied them having "one less inbox." [1]

[1] [http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2011/04/three-phone-tips- for-...](http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2011/04/three-phone-tips-for- antisocial-people-like-me-that-hate-phones.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Personally, even if I get voicemails I tend not to listen to them - <USER2> return the call. If my phone rings I find myself feeling a little stressed. I'm usually in the middle of something that I don't want to be pulled away from for more than a minute. Phone calls always imply they will last longer than you want.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't hate voice mail - I hate people who use it without understanding how to.

Half my messages are .... crackling .... dut dut dut

</comment><comment><USER15> I agree voicemail is pointless. Just send me a text message, email or Instant message.

</comment><comment><USER16> while reading this I was afraid of what conclusion the author was going to reach -- but a vm message that says 'txt or email me' is great -- amen!

<comment><USER17> That seems redundant.

If I get a voicemail that says, "text or email me" - isn't that basically saying, "i was trying to get in touch with you, please reciprocate" - which is already made implicit by the fact that you have a missed call because someone was trying to get in touch with you?

At that point, don't even leave a voicemail. I never do - they'll see that they missed a call and call me back, or I'll try again later - or I'll send them a text or an email!

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure the OP is taking about having the RECEIVER'S message mention texting/emailing, e.g.:

ring... ring... ring...

"Hi, this is Steve. I'm not here right now. If you could text or email me instead of leaving a voicemail that would be much appreciated."

<comment><USER16> yep really I find VM is just a 'medium' choice, and one that I don't prefer, but maybe my callers would at the time. Sometimes it's just easier to ramble on about something instead of typing. But VM is by no means instant, don't expect a reply in any soonish timeframe. That's what IM/txt is for. Email and VM might as well be the same...non-current issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> the-kenny In soviet russia, voicemail leaves messages for you.</comment>


The Great Firewall of China - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/e19b3022-40eb-11e9-9bee-efab61506f44 <comment><USER2> need pay to read the news.</comment>


Desktop game controlled with your Smartphone/Tablet - <AUTHOR> http://bandcontroller.se/?new=1

<comment><USER2> This is rad!

I built a platform for building games (or apps) that use a smart phone or tablet browser as a controller for a desktop browser.

Check it out here: <https://github.com/mrmch/browser-gt>

It's pretty buggy still, and my BomberMan demo is hokey, but it's designed to be multiplayer out of the box.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty cool! Definitely engaging. Maybe the instructions shouldn't be on your phone since that can disengage the user/player. Perhaps they could be in a notification on the desktop screen the whole time. Looking forward to seeing what you make of this.

</comment><comment><USER4> Should probably have a QR code or option to text the address to a phone number.

<comment> 97-109-107 or even be speech controlled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Opening it with Firefox shows just a message: "Sorry! This is a Chrome experiment". First time I see a Chrome experiment refusing to run out of chrome, usually most of them work fine on Firefox.

<comment><USER6> Even worse. I opened it in Chrome on my computer, then in Chrome on my Nexus 7, and on the latter it said "Sorry! This is a Chrome experiment".

SS: <http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/3807/img2012112300144.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here is space invaders on the desktop controlled by your smartphone from the browser <http://www.webdigi.co.uk/fun/space/></comment>


Building Products at SoundCloud – Part I: Dealing with the Monolith - <AUTHOR> http://developers.soundcloud.com/blog/building-products-at-soundcloud-part-1-dealing-with-the-monolith

<comment><USER2> Loose coupling is awesome and dogfooding your public API is smart as well. However, it seems like there is a lack of strong technical leadership and a lot of big decisions are being made without thinking them through. For instance, "We were constrained by the same rules we enforced on third-party applications... It was not possible, for example, for a microservice to notify users about activity on private tracks". This type of constraint should be immediately obvious to the person/people making large architectural decisions. Throughout the article there are a few examples of "we tried this but shortly found out it wouldn't work". I may be wrong though and this whole post was actually the result of an hour meeting to discuss new architecture but phrased to sound like you actually tried all of those approaches.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. Looks like poor engineering leadership.

Guess its one of the disadvantages when you are not based in the Silicon Valley...you simply don't have access to 1st class talent that has done the same task at 2 other high growth startups before.

<comment><USER4> This is what arrogance looks like folks.

<comment><USER5> also what inexperience looks like :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an outsider to scaling issues, what strikes me about SoundCloud's struggles with shedding their Rails past is how similar their problems sound to Twitter's problems. Granted, a microblogging service has a different set of concerns than an audio delivery service, but the pain is the same.

Going out on a limb, perhaps this similarity contributes to the reasoning for the Twitter/SoundCloud acquisition rumors: more exciting problems for Twitter engineers to solve now that they've tamed their own beast? Or to put the theory in a business light, Twitter engineering leadership may have confidence they can architect SoundCloud better than the SoundCloud team has done.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great product with some impressive traffic numbers! Looks like a good candidate for flow based programming. side-note: I'd happily pay for streaming that had less compression applied.

</comment><comment><USER8> My company currently is facing the task of breaking up the monolith. Not going to be fun. Glad that others had this problem as well and solved it in manageable ways. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th - phoe-krk https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/3/18123752/tumblr-adult-content-porn-ban-date-explicit-changes-why-safe-mode <comment><USER3> If Verizon bought Tumblr with the sole purpose of having one more service to serve ads to, and if banning the adult content move aims to please the advertisers then oh boy, are they in for a nasty surprise.

Tumblr will become a ghost town in days.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. So many artists, photographers and models used tumblr to showcase their work. It was also easy to link your blog to a .com with little to no webdev experience.

The only other social media network out there with a following that allows near the same level of expression is twitter and I have already seen posts from artists directing their followers there. But twitter is no real substitute to what tumblr offered.

I imagine tumblr's bandwidth costs are going to shrink exponentially.

<comment><USER5> I'd say instagram is the other big one for artists, not twitter. Instagram has all the functionality of tumblr with even more accessibility.

<comment><USER4> I've known several photographers who have lost 25k, 100k+ followings by being banned from instagram for posts that did not break the ToS. This has been devastating to their careers as freelance artists. I wouldn't recommend leaving a more tolerant platform (tumblr) to put all your eggs in a FB owned basket. With instagram, it all seems to depend on who the mod is who got assigned the reported photo to look at. Many of these artists now run a backup instagram and promote it on their primary account about once every 2 weeks to keep a solid follower count on it in case their main gets the hammer.

<comment><USER6> Same with all sorts of legal cannabis business related pages. I see a lot of seed companies, dispensaries, culture/meme accounts with fallback accounts and bios saying 'deleted at 25k...', etcetera. It's the same situation as consumers have long faced with Facebook, Twitter, Etsy and so forth - <USER2> don't seem to care that other people invest time and money in their accounts, which the company tosses aside so easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Alternative Title:

"Tumblr will lose 80% of its visitors come December 18th"

Another one:

"Tumblr preparing to shut down"

<comment><USER8> This is exactly correct. Sure there are "clean" portions of Tumblr, but from what I can tell the real purpose is to host adult content. And there's nothing wrong with that! It's a fantastic magnet for eyes, with which to show ads. They're basically killing themselves with this.

<comment><USER9> The vast vast majority of advertisers do not want to be displayed next to porn.

Think of tumblr as nothing but a way to get pageviews for Cheerios and Volvo ads. It explains their decisions perfectly.

<comment><USER7> > The vast vast majority of advertisers do not want to be displayed next to > porn.

This i dont understand though. Who wouldn't their product to be subconsciously associated with sexual satisfaction?

<comment><USER10> Subconscious is fine. It's overt porn they don't want.

<comment><USER11> [https://www.google.com/search?q=we+are+slingers](https://www.google.com/search?q=we+are+slingers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seeing as everyone seems to agree the whole point (if we're being real) of Tumblr is adult content, that there's at least some acknowledgement that there's real societal value in having a safe space for various kinds of healthy adult sexual kinks that are non-mainstream, and that with this move Tumblr will surely pull a Digg and probably disappear for all intents and purposes...

...why isn't Verizon managing to sell it to someone who wants to support that, instead of effectively shutting it down? Financially it doesn't make sense to me. If free porn sites make money, I really don't see how a porn-embracing Tumblr wouldn't do the same?

Or just split the site in two automatically based on analysis of each account's contents, decide whether the "Tumblr" brand is more valuable for clean content or adult content, and sell off the adult side with or without the name. Sure splitting a site isn't technically the easiest thing, but I can't believe it wouldn't still make sense financially.

Banning this much content seems like literally burning piles of money and just destroying value. Whatever happened to stockholder value... for real? How can a board approve this, or allow it to happen? Looking it up now, MindGeek owns PornHub and so many other sites... surely it would fit perfectly in their portfolio?

<comment><USER13> 4chan just split the SFW parts into 4channel for advertiser reasons, so its clearly a feasible idea

<comment><USER14> One should wait a year or so to see if 4chan's split was a good decision. That site doesn't have a history of good financial decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> there are a lot of jokes being made along the lines of "there goes their userbase" but for me personally this is a huge loss.

especially for those of us who have certain kinks, Tumblr to this day has been the only place to ever exist where women could safely express their sexuality.

it allowed us to meet like-minded people, it allowed us to break the taboo and it ended the isolation that many of us felt.

Tumblrs main asset has always been it's community,and I'm deathly afraid this new policy will take all of this away

<comment><USER16> This is the new reality of the internet, best get used to it. Free speech is dead.

<comment><USER17> This seems like the opposite of free speech being dead. A website shut down and you can just... go... make or use another one, anytime you like, without having to worry about it even being illegal.

<comment><USER18> I also see this as a market opportunity for a startup to adapt / improve on tumblr and fill the void. An unexpected, and permanent content restriction on a major platform is a disruptive event.

<comment><USER19> Yesterday's BitChute discussion [0] brought up the unfortunate fact that many ostensibly free-speech zone sites such as Voat and Gab just end up being havens for far right bigots and conspiracy theorists. Made me wonder if that toxic stew could be balanced if far _left_ activists brigaded those platforms. With this story, it'd be even more amusing if amateur erotica creators and kink community people migrated from Tumblr to those places as well.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583211)

<comment><USER20> Far Right + Far Left !== somewhere good, you just get Reddit (or WW2). You need sane people to have sane conversations.

<comment><USER19> Oh, I hardly think it'd be much more than a toxic cesspool. But at least it'd be a multipolar, _interesting_ cesspool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My daughter at 12 got sucked into Tumblr and developed an eating disorder. She was in this gigantic web of pro-ana tumblrs with crazy diet plans that tell you to eat like 100 calories a day. Then the app would just keep suggesting more, "skin and bones", "thinspo", "meanspo". Holy crap there are some scary corners of Tumblr.

I of course am more mindful of what she looks at, but she was hiding it and I can't monitor everything.

It's hard to balance my love of free speech with the responsibilities of myself, these bs Tumblr pages, and the app suggestions.

From what I've seen, Tumblr can be a very toxic place and I could understand why advertisers would have problems with the content that ends up next to their ads.

I wish them luck trying to figure out this mess.

<comment><USER22> I knew pro-anorexia groups use slang like "your friend Ana" to hide their actions, but had to google "thinspo" and "meanspo".

Thinspo (thin inspiration) is positive anorexia reinforcement, like anorexic role model pictures.

Meanspo (mean inspiration) is negative anorexia reinforcement, like aphorisms demonizing fat or destructive critic.

Why are young girls so vulnerable to mental disease trends? What can we do better as a society to strengthen the resilience of kids?

<comment><USER23> It's not a gender thing. Young people in general are vulnerable to all kinds of negative groupthink because they don't have a fully formed identity, experience, or adult critical thinking skills. The nature of the toxic material seems to differ a bit by gender.

Loads of teen boys are sucked into toxic online cults too including neo- Naziism, extreme misogyny, other kinds of toxic political radicalism, gaming addiction, self-help cults, etc.

<comment><USER22> I think you hit the nail in the head. Kids (and many grownups) are very vulnerable to groupthink, The only solution I see is encouraging common sense through critical thinking.

<comment><USER24> Considering most of these groups rally around conspiracy theories, which by definition start from a position of questioning commonly accepted facts (i. e. "critical thinking"), maybe we have actually gone too far with the critical thinking?

<comment><USER23> We teach the idea of critical thinking but not the intellectual disciplines of doing it honestly and effectively.

<comment><USER22> It could be taught in schools, but it has to be taught at home too, by example. I wonder if enough parents would be willing to let their kids question something as basic as their religion and indoctrination?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Even Digg didn't set out to die overnight.

Come to think of it, of all decade-plus websites, Tumblr is exactly the one for whom suicide is an entirely expected ending.

Moody, unique, too obscure for the mainstream but popular enough among the kind of people who would appreciate you. You were the kind to enjoy poetry and inspirational images, but those inspirational images just couldn't give you enough dopamine. You sought a higher high, and would happily do so unnoticed, until some higher-up found the hidden closet.

<comment><USER26> Digg's demise was due to its failure to police their content and to leave it up to the users. I remember it being a fun place, and then it became overrun by do-gooders we called the "bury brigades". Anything remotely interesting or creative got killed and you were left with press-releases from a few big media outlets. A dull news feed.

Many people moved to reddit, but /r/politics is pretty much exactly what became of Digg. If reddit didn't have diversity in its sub communities (and different people moderating them), it would've probably suffered the same fate by now.

<comment><USER27> > but /r/politics is pretty much exactly what became of Digg

Could you say some more about what you mean by that?

<comment><USER26> A filtered news feed of the political left.

The difference is /r/politics has a whitelist of "acceptable" domains. Essentially anything left of Lenin is OK, and anything else is deemed "far right".

The bury brigades still exist in the comments.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, you know those bastions of Communism known as Fox News, The Hill, Breitbart, Conservative Review, Military.com, Right Wing Watch, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, TheBlaze, CATO Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and all those other left-wing news outlets on the whitelist.

"Left of Lenin" get out of here with that nonsense.

<comment><USER26> Just looked in "new", and every one of those you've listed which are there are downvoted to zero.

Care to prove my point further?

<comment><USER28> Just because they're not popular doesn't mean they're not on the whitelist. Care to move the goalposts further?

<comment><USER26> Well, my original comment was making a point that r/politics has become exactly what Digg became. A cesspit of bury brigades with a political aim.

I wasn't entirely sure what was/wasn't on their whitelist because I don't waste my time in that cesspit.

I'd be willing to bet money that they're not just "unpopular", but that there's a functional army of bots equipped to down-vote those domains automatically.

It doesn't matter anyway. It's not like somebody expecting a nonpartisan commentary will bother going to r/politics anyway. Anyone can clearly see it is full of only left opinions, and anything remotely right-leaning is heavily downvoted.

<comment><USER29> You're right, pretty much everyone knows r/politics is too left for most leftists, but people will defend to the death that it is balanced because only conservatives can be unbalanced; everyone else is a "centrist."

Though this forum is getting it's own tropes. Good luck being pro-copyright, not entirely convinced the war on drugs is a massive failure, and a person who likes living in the suburbs and owning a car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting how the presentation of healthy sexuality and eroticism in US culture increasingly suffers under a joint assault by neo-puritans, radical feminists, middle-of-the-road advertisers, and gender-smashing warriors. By the gods, even at the gym the vast majority of Americans feel they must cover their body with towels when walking to/from the showers, and those who don't are eyed with suspicion. Similar trends are present in e.g. Sweden and France where the depiction of beautiful women in ads is now a socio-political problem.

I wish for our cultures to look for inspiration to the Ancient Greeks' fundamental love of the human body and soul; some of which we can observe in the sculptures that have survived (not the beefy Roman copies); and some of the perspectives one may gather from surviving poetry, tales of normal nudity in social activities, and benevolent jokes about sex.

<comment><USER31> "Presentation of healthy sexuality" is a pretty mixed up way to look at online pornography

<comment><USER32> This is literally the viewpoint that is the problem. Just because you don't like the kind of kinks and fetishes that other people have doesn't mean it isn't healthy or valuable. Especially on a place like tumblr, where communities are built around these sexual interests. It isn't some industry imposing artificial expectations on an unwilling populace. It's people who are genuinely into such a crazy variety of things and want to share that interest with other people. What could be more wholesome than that?

<comment><USER31> I don't believe that. There is research showing that online pornography distorts people's views of sex, making people less satisfied with their real life partners, and pushing their fetishes into more extreme territory.

This is sex negative, and harmful. And I believe we can see the results of this with all the headlines talking about how people are having less sex. A larger and larger percent of orgasms are happening online, to unrealistic scenarios.

<comment> ux-app >There is research showing that online pornography distorts people's views of sex

I'd cautiously agree with this wrt commercial porn, where the negative effects, coercion etc are well documented and "sex negative" as you describe.

Tumbler is full of OC. How on earth could this be seen as "sex negative"? These are adults, freely sharing their kinks. Not sure there's much room for outrage here.

<comment><USER31> They're still in a market, and the market rewards (with reblogs and followers if not money) more extreme and more addictive forms of whatever product is being sold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Isn't that the point of Tumblr these days? I honestly don't know of any non- adult Tumlbr pages. It seems to consist entirely of premium camgirl pages, NSFW LGBT discussion, furry and hentai art, and artistic nude photography.

<comment><USER34> They should really just have made another site (which could be fairly easy given they already have the technology developed, just get a new domain, set up a new server instance, tweak the design and that's it) if they want a "clean" one. Tumblr is essentially a porn site, banning all the porn from it to compete with Instagram makes as much sense as banning all the porn from PornHub to compete with YouTube.

<comment><USER35> Reddit is vastly varied.

There are mountains of politics and hobbies on Reddit.

<comment><USER34> I meant Tumblr, sorry. And I know Tumblr actually is varied too, although in a smaller degree probably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> For folks leaving Tumblr, the Fediverse is a great alternative. You can host your own instance if you want assurance that content will not be banned, or join one of the many existing instances that already exist around Tumblr-like and LGBT-like interests.

</comment><comment><USER37> I worked at Tumblr up until the Verizon merger so this story drew my interest. Most of the people who work there are too young to remember Betamax but that sounds like the direction things are going. Good news is that the government of Turkey can finally stop complaining to Tumblr about all the gay porn -- they are REALLY good at finding it (Short KMB!) Seriously though Tumblr never made any money on the adult content - they refused to run advertising on it - it was questionable that the adult content brought eyeballs that stayed around for the non-adult content. It was just a matter of time before the accounting people started wondering how much less their monthly S3 bill might be without the petabytes of un-monetizable porn. Now the question is, can Nyan Cat memes and a Minecraft blog support the business and justify the merger. Maybe Justin Timberlake is still in the market?

<comment><USER38> > Seriously though Tumblr never made any money on the adult content - <USER2> > refused to run advertising on it

I can't believe this, I only follow(ed?) NSFW blogs and I see ads and sponsored content all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have been archiving many of my favorite tumblr's for some time now, but will have to go in and refresh my downloads.

Highly recommend this app called TumblThree for archiving (also TumblTwo) [https://www.jzab.de/content/tumblthree](https://www.jzab.de/content/tumblthree)

The UI is a little annoying and takes a little discovery to figure out, but the actual setup / install is painless.

Edit: after reading more about the shutdown, it appears Tumblr may have their own export tools, they could be superior if you are exporting your own content, I'm not really sure.

<comment><USER40> Thank you for this! I had a pretty successful Tumblr where I posted all my crazy, colorful class notes from my math and physics classes and I've been wanting to get all those scans off there and into another place for safe back up. I had hundreds of posts on there, this will actually make it feasible to do this.

<comment><USER41> Hey, since you mentioned it, could you tell me where to find your blog?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Well, there is a healthy community concerning a particular obscure kink I have been 'given', that is not present anywhere else. I wonder what are suitable places to migrate to.

<comment><USER43> Hosting your own server gives you full control. That said, it puts more responsibility and liability on you to do content moderation, assuming you make it public.

Some people do a hybrid approach. A public forum/board to share content, with some rules. Then another private server for a smaller group of friends to share anything.

You can also create a Tor Hidden Service.

<comment><USER44> The thing is that for the more niche kink communities on Tumblr the fact that everyone was using it was what made them work.

You will never get that kind of activity on a Tor service. If you look at the more obscure, older fetish-related networks which often still have active IRC channels and such you'll notice that a large portion of people there are quite techy.

I don't think that's true for the wider kink community at all, it's just that the barrier of entry & discoverability of such communities will exclude the less techy folks.

<comment><USER43> I agree. If something isn't happy-clicky and already works from their existing browser, most won't bother. Perhaps you could develop a simple innovative way to make Tor easy for that community to adopt. Maybe a small number of them try it out at first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> American indecency running wild again. When does that bunch of religious extremists make a difference between social unacceptable behavior and physical lust.

Go ahead with your KKK, QAnon and anti-feminist meetings but keep your tighty- whities on to avoid shocking people. What a sick bunch of religious extremists.

</comment><comment><USER46> This bit, within the linked story, seems relevant: [https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios- app-...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-child- pornography-removed-from-app-store)

<comment><USER47> While this may well be a factor in their decision, it seems highly unlikely to me that (a) Apple was _entirely unaware porn existed on Tumblr_ for the years the app was in the store before November 2018, and (b) the only way Tumblr could ensure there was no child porn on their servers was to ban everything that smacks of NSFW-ness down to "female-presenting nipples." Tumblr's CEO said they've been considering this move for months, and I don't see any reason to doubt him.

Tumblr has never made money, as far as I know, and Yahoo's new corporate parent Oath seems to be a lot less mellow about that sort of thing. I suspect this is a necessary step before they open the advertising floodgates and see if they can get Tumblr to start paying for itself. Losing a massive amount of their userbase is an acceptable outcome as long as there's still _enough_ users there for more advertising to turn a a profit.

<comment><USER48> b might not be so insane if you consider that tumblr is used by a lot of people who posts selfies. That would include a lot of teens/tweens. The problem with selfies is that they wouldn't be in anything like photoDNA and thus impossible to catch by any of the modern day algorithms except for the ones designed to catch porn in general. They might not have any better solution (of course they would ban stuff as it was reported, but that might not be good enough) and apple's move forced their hand. Guess the question is what caused apple to do what it did now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> "Tumblr bans all of its content"

</comment><comment><USER50> The way things are going with centralization, pretty soon the web itself will be unsuitable for adult media. Maybe we need a xxx:// protocol instead of the .xxx domain suffix.

<comment><USER51> Someone make a Github repo so we can design this new protocol!

<comment><USER43> It does exist. It's not a new protocol, you can use (just about) anything that supports tcp. The domain names all end in ".onion"

<comment><USER51> For such purposes, Tor would be pretty inefficient. I suppose one could say that the inefficiency is a "feature" that makes the system self-limiting, curbing porn addiction. LOL

<comment><USER52> It'll be like 1996 all over again, only without the added titillation of listening to the screams and shrieks of a 28.8-baud modem in heat.

Instead of watching hour-long videos in 1080p, you get to watch a single JPEG download and render line-by-line until the connection drops right at the exciting part.

<comment><USER43> Tor hidden servers can push around 40mb/s with a tiny bit of tweaking. They were working on support for the concept of sharding, but you could do that yourself by having multiple tor nodes. Actually, it's been a while since I toyed around with it. By now it's probably faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> It's a shame because there are some genuinely talented artists there that partake in NSFW art. A lot of the people I follow seem to be moving their work to pixiv and taking commissions through patreon. Some are straight up uploading porn on twitter which is funny considering it is even more public than tumblr.

To be fair though, there some artists push boundaries far harder than others especially concerning the "age" of the imaginary character. However I find these groups far more tame than some fandoms of shows like Stranger Things that straight up sexualize real life kids such as Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown.

</comment><comment><USER54> FetLife should offer an migration assistant to Tumblr authors and collect the free business.

</comment><comment><USER55> I figured the writing was on the wall with that whole garbage static page, along with "Disabled due to safe-mode".

Of course, you had to have an account and all its bullshit to 'turn off' safe mode.

Whereas, reddit, imgur, pornhub, and all of them have no safe-mode garbage. Reddit has a click-thru if you hit a sub on a work machine (and then you can bail out).

But yeah, this is setting a "dead by" date probably 6 months from now. Talk about killing a property.

<comment><USER56> I still haven't figured out how this works, Tumblr smashes the page to 1/3 the screen and displays stuff I don't care about in the center 2/3.

<comment><USER57> It confuses me too. Is there a way to turn it off?

<comment><USER58> It's called dashboard view, and some blogs choose to force it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> If you think you can code a tumblr clone in a weekend, this is your opportunity. You have 2 weeks, go!

<comment><USER34> It's possible to code this fast but hardly possible to host it the way it would handle the load without a million dollar invoice or to find an investor that would pay it this fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> So adult content is apparently immoral, but stalking their visitors by leaking their data to over 100 "partners" (according to their non compliant GDPR forced "consent" screen) is okay? Lol.

</comment><comment><USER61> Surprisingly, the thing I'd been using it most for, was that it's the only major social media website I know that still shows posts in chronological order.

<comment><USER62> The app is rather insistent about showing me the same post 20x while hiding new things though :\

I'm _very_ sad to see chronological continuing to disappear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Apple is calling the shots here. Tumblr was not going to be allowed back on the app store while adult content was on the site.

<comment><USER64> Isn't Reddit allowed on iOS?

<comment><USER65> Reddit has been removed from the app store more than once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> This sucks. I just deleted my profile since it'll all get deleted anyway. It's hard to get out there with particular fetish interests in the gay community. It was a great way to meet some genuinely awesome people. Now all I've got is Recon, which is aimed more at dating.

</comment><comment><USER67> Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long. I'm assumed Yahoo would have banned/purged adult content immediately after buying Tumblr.

<comment><USER10> I have this vague memory that they did, and then had to backtrack, but I could be thinking of another service.

<comment><USER57> No, I think you're right. I remember them announcing they would be banning it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Advertisers are being given undue influence in the evolution of our culture.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wish the could just tag particular subtumblrs as NSFW or something and filter these by default. Users should be let to choose for themselves. Banning adult content is ridiculous.

<comment><USER69> There is already forced login for tagged adult subs, as well as a quarantine mode that embed the affected subs to your timeline rather than accessible as its own subdomain. If anything this has already killed much discoverability because search engines are prevented from crawling and their in-house search is useless anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Tumblr was a great place for porn. This is a great opportunity for a competitor to snap up the community and I wonder who it will be.

</comment><comment><USER70> I think this should be considered the original source, as opposed to the Verge article?

[https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/231885248-Sensi...](https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/231885248-Sensitive-content)

</comment><comment><USER71> Keep an eye on [https://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Tumblr](https://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Tumblr) or join #tumbledown on EFNet to join ArchiveTeam's coordinated, collaborative effort in saving things.

</comment><comment><USER72> I don't really get it. Reddit can do porn and has an iOS app. A blanket ban just doesn't seem necessary, especially if it's a large part of your community and technically Tumblr isn't a particularly novel product in 2018, community is all you have.

</comment><comment><USER73> I havent blogged on Tumblr in 6 years but I bookmarked some really great curated photography/art sites that were 99% SFW. Safe Mode login loop thing was so annoying I gave up on checking them. I noticed a couple other Tumblrs I enjoyed moving stuff to instagram.

</comment><comment><USER74> _> Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose._

That's the big positive from this announcement. Giving ample prior warning, and even helping the transition will certainly atenuate the feeling of betrayal community members have when being ousted.

I sure wish Yahoo did this during the first "advertiser cleansing", back when they acquired Tumblr.

Instead, I remember the dread as I scrolled through my blog to find 5 to 10% of the carefully curated pictures on it had been censored out, with no warning whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER75> If only we demanded more of the violence industry rather than the sex policing industry.

</comment><comment> m-localhost Anybody remembers the AI generated porn? Yahoo's experimental porn filter is the basis of beaches and dunes getting flagged as adult content.

[https://open_nsfw.gitlab.io](https://open_nsfw.gitlab.io)

</comment><comment><USER76> They really downplayed the effect of Apple removing the tumblr app from their app store. With the tumblr app is still gone from the Apple app store for 3 weeks now, it's very hard not to see this move as being directed by Apple.

I think it's disappointing that they chose to block all adult content rather than filter adult content in the iOS app. The world would be much better off without Apple dictating what we can put on our websites.

</comment><comment><USER77> There's always demand for 'adult content' so my assumption is sites like steemit and minds are going to get a sudden population rush, especially given Steemit's monetization model, on December 18. Oath I'll assume are shuttering sites they can't data mine for marketing intel on users, and to not be associated with the terrabytes of 'adult content' they currently host...

</comment><comment> m-p-3 It's like if 4chan was bought by someone who wanted to make it more family- friendly and get rid of /b/ or /s/.

That will not go well.

<comment><USER78> 4chan recently split SFW & NSFW boards onto separate domains ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> I wonder if tumblr will keep the content available for some time after the 17th and if the API (and dashboard) will still work for blogs that have been flagged as NSFA.

The main wordpress importer depends on the tumblr API to connect and pull posts and pics and such I believe. So it would be nice if that was an option for some time after the shutdown.

</comment><comment><USER34> That's exactly the thing it was useful for. There was just so much beauty (as well as so much weirdness neighboring it but I didn't mind) RIP Tumblr. Anybody capable and interested please back-up and re-upload to some alternative (what are any, BTW)? I was so glad such a censorship-free place existed.

</comment><comment><USER80> Anyone have stats on how much of Tumblr is adult? My impression was that it is a huge percentage of it.

<comment><USER81> I've never been on a tumblr that wasn't adult..

Also, I believe on mobile you "had" to use their app if you wanted to see 18+ content users.

So they were indirectly promoting their app with nsfw content...

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Half or more Tumblr traffic comes for adult content, without this, it's just another platform to publish your I don't even know the purpose of Tumblr now: images, thoughts ? I suppose the market for Tumblr has changed and died - Medium has replaced tumblr everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER83> RIP Tumblr.

</comment><comment><USER84> This is sad. Tumblr was one of the last few places that adults could share explicit photos. Without them, everything will be paid sites. :-(

</comment><comment><USER85> This strikes me as a heck of an opportunity to create a system (with a tumblr importer) specifically replicating Tumblr, but for pr0n.

"fumblr" ?

<comment><USER86> Given that the porn industry basically invented the monetized internet, I assume that the "opportunity" was seized long ago.

<comment><USER85> I don't think the adult industry has truly been able to simplify things as much as products like tumblr (and other social media networks.)

Fetlife probably does a good job for certain 'niches'.

What I mean is, all the 'tumblrees' and "their" 'content' ( so much air-quote) will want to go somewhere. En masse. Soon. Most likely in protest.

<comment><USER87> Why did you word that as if the poster didn't create the content within the blog?

<comment><USER88> Tumblr as a platform exists on shared content, and actively measures, and provides to the user-measurements of "reblogs". In the context of _this_ discussion, so many user account blogs that could be tagged as 'adult content' are full of reblogged sexual images that the account owner identifies with or wants to advertise as the type of sexual activity they are interested in.

Many comments here are pointing out Fetlife as a refuge for some tumblr ex- pats. Speaking as a Fetlife user, it's not hard to see why the 'their' is in quotes. When you see a tumblr profile on someone's fetlife profile it's often described by the profile owner as "you can see the kind of stuff I'm into on my tumblr" with a small ratio of original content to reshared content. Either images from a movie, online porn, or just "reblog" of another tumblr user's content when not the blogger's own images that are being posted.

This isn't me taking a position on adult content on tumblr, denouncing it or condoning it either way-but I think that bit of context might help answer your question.

It doesn't define the entire experience for the entirety of the porographically inclined userbase, but it's relevant.

<comment><USER87> Ah, that makes sense. I was seeing it from the point of view that reblogs are seen as just that. A method of sharing, not a method of laying claim. Its a way of saying "Look at this thing, and heres the source" thats pretty simple to do.

To me, "Content" implies stuff you uploaded directly, being the source yourself.

I can see the confusion now.

<comment><USER88> _To me, "Content" implies stuff you uploaded directly, being the source yourself._

You'll sometimes see someone tag a picture post, if they tag it at all, if it's something the blogger actually created themselves with #oc for "original content" or they'll just tell you as much in the caption. Not always, but sometimes.

I'm not on tumblr for the porn (I read it for the articles, I swear), but a lot of the mechanisms and meta-memes of how people use the platform are pretty consistent across subgroups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> BTW isn't there a viable distributed P2P alternative perhaps? Something like Aether but without content life time limit?

</comment><comment><USER89> What even is Tumblr at this point? Who would want to blog on a platform that restricts your speech so heavily?

</comment><comment><USER90> I think some of the content will move to Instagram and Twitter

<comment><USER91> Instagram is extremely strict with NSFW content today because of Facebook. Twitter, however, is def more lenient with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> As well, they turn off their half of the server fleet.

</comment><comment><USER93> "Porn site bans porn"

</comment><comment><USER94> Take note, Instagram!

</comment><comment><USER95> as soon as the buyout news hit I said "well there goes all the porn"

Surprised the berkeley intern didnt put me on blast on social media

Or maybe she did but everyone said "he's right tho"

</comment><comment><USER96> Any alternative from China or Russia? This adult censoring from US (even Google is doing that!) is driving me nuts as an adult European.

Or anything backed on IPFS ?!

</comment><comment><USER97> The real culprit needs to be called out here. Fuck apple and their puritanical crusade against porn. Anyone who appreciates NSFW content needs to boycott them.

<comment><USER98> Huh? How does Apple play into this?

<comment><USER47> Apple pulled the Tumblr iOS app after complaining to Tumblr about them hosting _child pornography,_ not just NSFW blogs, and not seeing action being taken.

As I mentioned elsewhere, Tumblr stripping adult content is very likely a move toward making their site advertiser-friendly, because Oath (their new corporate parent) does not have the tolerance for losing money that Yahoo did. I mean, yes, getting rid of all content from "female-presenting nipples" on up should technically get rid of the child porn, too, but the breadth of Tumblr's actions here make it highly unlikely this is primarily driven by getting the app back in the iOS App Store. (I mean, hell, Tumblr doesn't _need_ an app, and it's not like Apple blocks you from surfing to porn sites on Safari.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> Blog spam / Vox media.

Original URL: [https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/231885248-Sensi...](https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/231885248-Sensitive-content)

HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18590605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18590605)

<comment><USER99> Ugh the original source is now marked as a dupe and The Verge version is on front page. Dang/sctb please do better!</comment></comment>


Google+ is shutting down on April 2. Help mirror it to the Internet Archive - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/b69d1b/google_is_shutting_down_in_just_a_few_days_april/ <comment><USER2> DigitalOcean will give $100 credit to new user for free, you can help by using this to run warrior: [https://gist.github.com/0polar/0bf2fdad524a0b582e0806c28da8c...](https://gist.github.com/0polar/0bf2fdad524a0b582e0806c28da8c97c)

</comment><comment><USER3> Poor Google haven't got succeeded in Social Media.

It had shut downed Orkut, Allo shutting down Google+, Hangout.</comment>


Show HN: HTTP Live Streams (HLS) Downloader Chrome Extension - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/puemos/hls-downloader-chrome-extension <comment><USER2> Not that it should be, but will Google remove this from the play store? In the past anything they viewed as being able to download YouTube got a ban, and they went through extra trouble to keep people from loading "blacklisted" plugins - more trouble than they go through stopping actual malware/infected plugins!

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think so, it's not working for YouTube videos..

<comment><USER2> IIRC if you change your user agent for mobile you'll get HLS

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you sure? I'm not detecting any m3u8 requests</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What people in India and China are really thinking - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/united-nations-supports-ispeak-china-india-adrian-fisk-2011-10

<comment><USER2> Interesting experiment. I don't agree with comments on BI that this was forced, manipulative and therefore inaccurate. I just spent 6 months living in India and man, I've never met an Indian who wasn't ready to talk and share their opinions, which is a great thing. I too think people are the same all over. Just different levels of liberalism, self-awareness, world knowledge, spiritualism, etc. That doesn't means places are the same. Compared to living in New York, Sydney or Toronto, the big cities of India are a sensory overdose. Love it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Each of these photos deserves its own discussion. 10 years ago I doubt I would have ever seen these photos. Technology is definitely increasing the pace in which the world becomes connected and a lot of the youth in china and india are seeing it transform their lives.</comment>


Remote Work – Mapping Problems and Startups - <AUTHOR> https://loop8.io/posts/remote-work-mapping-problems-and-startups <comment><AUTHOR> Let me know the problems you are facing or solving in the Remote Work ecosystem.</comment>


Losing Ground - <AUTHOR> http://projects.propublica.org/louisiana/

<comment><USER2> If anyone is curious, the tool we wrote for rendering raster map tiles on the fly for this project is open source: [http://www.propublica.org/nerds/item/announcing-raster- suppo...](http://www.propublica.org/nerds/item/announcing-raster-support-for- simple-tiles)</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't all computers use atmospheric noise for random numbers? - <AUTHOR> Info on atmospheric noise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_noise <comment><USER2> Having a radio antenna feeding information into the computer has its own negative security implications.

<comment><USER3> Hold on, what of wifi and Bluetooth?

<comment><USER2> In a highly secure environment you don't use WiFi or Bluetooth.

<comment><USER3> The OP is talking about random numbers in general I believe, not in highly secure environments only.

<comment><USER2> Sure. I think Intel's RDRAND, using thermal noise (or whatever) makes more sense, because you don't have to hook up some antenna -- I'm no physicist but my guess is it gets substantively affected by atmospheric noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Because pseudo random is good for most purposes, and there is enough chaos in the machine to seed cryptographic random numbers. So why add extra manufacturing cost.

</comment><comment><USER4> Probably because interference (intentional or otherwise) at similar wavelengths could seriously skew the "random" numbers. This obviously isn't good.

<comment><USER5> Apparently they already do this though

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generation#%22Tr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generation#%22True%22_vs._pseudo- random_numbers)</comment></comment>


Bing for iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.bing.com/search/2015/11/18/the-new-bing-app-for-iphone-re-thinking-mobile-search/ <comment><USER2> I'm wondering why the Bing app on my Windows phone isn't as full featured as this?</comment>


Tech Tools That Make It Easier To Operate a Coworking Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.thefarmsoho.com/magazine-blog/coworking-space-nyc/tech-coworking-space <comment><USER2> I only got to #12 before I had to give up reading this article. Everything is so dripping with marketing speak that it's completely useless. I have no idea from the descriptions provided what Meshwork, Essensys, or Cowork.io are. At best, the descriptions provide a use case, but in no way do they define the tool you're using.

An example phrase "engage their members and facilitate introductions between them" could refer to a targeted email campaign software, a forum software, CRM software, etc. It doesn't in any way allow me to visualize what it looks like or where it fits into the puzzle.

While I applaud that companies are now "focusing on the solutions", that focus should also include being upfront and direct about what it is you're offering, not just the supposed problems you solve.

<comment><USER3> agreed. What on earth is Essensys?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You don't need 12 of them, and 8 of them won't be here next year _

</comment><comment><USER5> Site is literally unreadable on iOS since the lag from whatever JS it runs is so bad that I can't scroll down.

<comment><USER6> Silky smooth on my iPhone 6s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article could have done better by comparing services that are similar rather than simply listing them.

#13 Essensys

Essensys does not provide any clear info on pricing on their website.

#6 RightSignature

There are quite a few alternatives to them like dochub.com which is $6.99/user/mo.

</comment><comment><USER8> > Their story began in Missouri where they found a gorgeous barn that needed a > second chance. They dismantled the barn and brought it to NYC and rebuilt in > in their loft in SoHo.

Huh?

</comment><comment><USER9> TL;DR: Full of those bingo-words, almost no useful description at all.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would love to add a tool that I helped develop and maintain called HelloBox. It's a tool for creating a community.

[https://www.hellobox.co](https://www.hellobox.co)

You can create either a private or public community and I've seen a number of small teams using it to post questions, share links etc. Of course there are a number of similar tools available (many forum software, as an example), but we've built HelloBox to make things far easier + powerful to run your community. I think it might suit very nicely with co-working spaces where people need to ask questions, send messages or make an announcement.

</comment><comment><USER11> It might help if they just said what each of these things _is_.

</comment><comment><USER12> Too lazy to even screenshot them or provide a use case? Next.

</comment><comment><USER13> I work with lots of tech tools at my job... ;)</comment>


U.S. Army Exploring "Devastating" New Weapon in the Event of War with Russia - <AUTHOR> http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/04/us-army-exploring-devastating-new-weapon-event-war-russia/136943/ <comment><USER2> The thing to do is to put these things in orbit. Imagine a piece of tungsten bigger than a phone pole dropping into your neighborhood from a height of 200 miles.

EDIT: It would not surprise me to find that I am not the only person thinking about things like this.</comment>


EURion constellation - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation <comment><USER2> Here's one more thing that is used to track counterfeit currency and other purposes: secret tracking dots on printers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sit6zUQKpJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sit6zUQKpJc)

[https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do- not-d...](https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display- tracking-dots)

<comment><USER3> Couldn't that be defeated by a preprocessing step that inserts yellow dots at every grid position on the printout? If the extra dots were aligned correctly, I don't see how someone could recover the encoded information.

Someone could probably create a printer driver that does that automatically. It probably would need some calibration to work, though.

<comment><USER4> I was briefly trying to do that as part of our project about this but I didn't figure out the proper pixel size and offset, nor whether you can use a fixed offset relative to the edge of the page or whether the printer tries to defeat this by slightly randomizing the offsets. I hope someone will figure it out.

There's an additional challenge that some more recent printers often use a different watermarking technique whose details have never been documented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Privacy-minded people could print this on a t-shirt.

<comment><USER6> I've always wanted to incorporate it into a mural or graffiti. Or car paint.

There's a Gibson novel, I think, where the protagonist at some point obtains t-shirts with a pattern which is recognized by the universal DRM-enforcement code in video camera chipsets, making them invisible to surveillance.

<comment><USER7> yes, that's Gibson's "Pattern Recognition".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This website talks about software detection of currency (and it's well worth a read): [http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/currency/](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/currency/)

And here's a thread about it: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7006848](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7006848)

Here's a thread about a BBC article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9776985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9776985)

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting, previous HN thread about money anti-counterfeiting, including EURion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9314523](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9314523)

</comment><comment><USER10> That's interesting stuff. I wonder how the algorithms work, they have to be pretty fast if they're running on the printer itself.

Also, slightly unrelated, but this for some reason reminded me of a certain issue some copiers had a while back, where they would swap certain numbers/letters for some reason when copying. Don't really remember what the cause of that was, though.

<comment><USER11> The reasonable reason was compression. Parts of the image which looked alike were saved in the same buffer, that meant especially numbers. Which is the right way to lose the trust from your customers.

<comment><USER6> It is an interesting observation about compression loss though. The more sophisticated any compressor gets, the more its artifacts are going to look semantically plausible.

With simple technology, at first, you might get grainy or blurry images, or poor frequency response in audio. Those are easy to perceive as artifacts of the medium. Then you get things like JPEG fringes and context-dependent color shifts, which are a bit harder to learn to see past, since they are interacting with the image in sophisticated ways. JBIG (from the article) detects and compresses repeated textural elements or multiply-used glyphs, but if it applies that behavior to something that is actually information-bearing, it'll produce convincingly misleading artifacts.

There's a sequence in _A Fire upon the Deep_ where two people are conversing over a link with rapidly deteriorating bandwidth— their communicators are compressing more and more heavily to compensate, until at the end the character is "interacting" with a sophisticated Markov-like model of their interlocutor with only a few bits per second of actual entropy from the far end. Or possibly none at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Desktop software and modern printers/scanners no longer use this, they use something based on watermarking. I suspect it may have something to do with the fine pattern of parallel lines, which you will find on almost every currency.

I suspect this patent might have something to do with it, but the math is beyond my comprehension: [http://www.google.com/patents/US7720249](http://www.google.com/patents/US7720249)

This patent was referenced by the above patent and seems even more applicable: [http://www.google.com/patents/US6449377](http://www.google.com/patents/US6449377) (references patents 5583614, 4723149, 5633952, 5640467, and 5424807 which may be good further reading).

I also remember someone mentioning that they reverse engineered the currency detector code in Photoshop(?) and got something like "fourier mellin transform, followed by checking specific values in an array".

</comment><comment><USER13> Does open source software include this code? Does anyone know of examples?

</comment><comment><USER14> I was actually always curious as to why Adobe would go out of their way to add bank note detection. Now I know they didn't, some outside entity did it for them! Cool.

</comment><comment><USER15> interesting, thanks</comment>


Neural Networks Look Set to Thrash the Best Human Go Players for the First Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/533496/why-neural-networks-look-set-to-thrash-the-best-human-go-players-for-the-first-time/

<comment><USER2> On-going discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8753347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8753347)</comment>


Good to Great is a flawed book - <AUTHOR> http://y0ungmoney.blogspot.com/2015/04/good-to-great-is-flawed-book.html?m=1

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting post, though I still find that most of the "findings" of GtG make total sense. I would even argue that the insights are not that revealing. I like the book because is makes its points easy to communicate.</comment>


Low grade "journalists" and internet mob attack RMS with lies. In-depth review - <AUTHOR> https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ <comment><USER2> This is an example of why I stay off the Internet (and especially Facebook) <not the article, but what the article is talking about, or is an example of>. There are now too many ideologues out there with deliberately poor reading comprehension skills willing to outright manipulate, obfuscate, and every other rhetorical trick in the book in order to "win".

So it has become pointless to even participate in all this bullshit. I guess I learned something in the email flame wars I got involved in back in the day... If the other side evinces some integrity, then one can learn from them, to see what your blind spots are - But if they have no integrity, it is a waste of time. And very few people nowadays have any integrity, certainly not the loudmouths, pundits, and a lot of journalists.

Trump and Brexit are hopefully the nadir of all this sort of thing, but I doubt it.</comment>


Atari employee tapped to help in Secret Service raid - <AUTHOR> http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1031

<comment><USER2> I guess I'm missing why he feels bad about it. They had warrants and pretty damning evidence. They went after people who were engaging in fraud and identity theft, crimes that cost innocent people untold billions per year, both as consumers and investors. This wasn't some Patriot Act wiretapping bullshit. I don't see this as an unreasonable violation of people's privacy though it does sound like that happened once along the way, with the pictures, but that's humans being humans and an unfortunately reality in law enforcement.

A year and a day in jail is probably not enough for people who engage in credit card fraud to be an effective deterrent. I can't see any reasonable argument as to why they don't deserve felonies on their records. It sounds as if, for the most part, this is just a case of the system actually working to protect citizens rights. I'd be happy to assist in a case like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had that same reaction. It's like he doesn't have a problem with people getting busted for committing crimes, so long as he doesn't personally have to get his hands dirty with the icky details.

Another way to look at it, though, is that he felt he wasn't prepared for such a thing. He mentions that he had no training in computer forensics and got very imprecise instructions, and the crooks could have foiled his work with very little effort.

<comment><USER3> Missing the point. No matter what the crime being committed, he trusted the authorities without reciprocation. Huge liability for him and Atari. Consider:

1) Would you help a stranger recover a stolen item from the perpetrator?

2) If you were in Mexico, and Mexican authorities asked you help them catch someone they labelled a criminal, would you do it?

Read about the experiences of Steven Hatfill and Rick Convertino as a reminder of why trust relationships are easily abused by governmental power.

<comment><USER2> Your first example is nothing at all like the article. I would do some consulting for a law enforcement agency that had a court issued warrant for that purpose, no doubt. I would not, say, break into one neighbor's house to steal back a blender he took from another neighbor.

And in the second, if I were running a Mexican business, and a Mexican law enforcement agency had a valid warrant, again I would consult. It's a simple case of the system working as planned to protect innocent victims. I'd be glad to help.

Those people you cited have no parallels to what happened in this specific instance.

<comment><USER3> The examples show circumstances separated by a matter of degrees regarding application of trust.

>It's a simple case of the system working as planned to protect innocent victims.

I'm not going to be a yahoo about this, but that's just plain naive. I'm not getting the point across, which is that when a government asks you to act as an agent for their benefit, that government appeals to your assumption of trust without providing any evidence for that trust.

A warrant may be enough insurance in return for consulting, but would I go on a raid? Absolutely not. What if your consulting involved providing private information on citizens just because someone in the government assured you that what you were doing was legal. Would you still do it? If you would only with a warrant, then what if they told you that this was some kind of FISA thing that didn't require a warrant?

I cited Hatfill and Convertino because they're examples of one-sided trust relationships with the government that went terribly wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow! I enjoyed this story. This could be a hit if made into a film. Would surely win an Oscar.

The author must have felt like a geek-hero during the job, considering the fact that the Atari-800 released in 1979 and this incident must have occurred sometime around 1979-85 or so.

The lines I liked very much... \--"and next to it hummed a TEN MEGABYTE HARD DISK, clearly the pride and joy of its owner." \--"That's a modem cable. That's a modem. Wait, I need to shut the computer down"

I was born almost a decade after Atari-800 released. Couldn't understand these terms: "Pen Register" and "Sprint Codes"

After googling: Pen Register is a device that maintains phone call lists for a fixed phone line.

But does anyone know what "Sprint codes" mean? Googling didn't get me much info.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sprint is (was?) a long distance telecom provider. I'm pretty sure "Sprint Codes" means some type of access code that allows you to make long-distance phone calls without that call showing up on your bill, i.e., it was paid for in advance by some other method.

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure it means that your calls would be billed to some other Sprint customer.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, that's what i meant, thought it would be obvious.</comment></comment></comment></comment>