Quebec seeks to block access to non-government online gambling sites - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/04/03/quebec-seeks-to-block-access-to-non-government-online-gambling-sites.html <comment><USER2> "The government needs laws to block Internet sites to stop terrorism and child porn sites. It will expand no further than that. This is not the thin end of the wedge."

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah the biggest Mafia of them all does not like competition.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems appropriate because then those gambling revenues fund the state.

<comment><USER5> Next step is those pesky newspapers because they critique the state.

<comment><USER6> How did you conflate free-speech and gambling? One is the right to express your own thoughts (which doesn't protect you from the repercussions of said expressions) and the other is an easily manipulated system to transfer wealth from those who may not understand to those that only care about more.

Governments were set-up to protect it's population from that type of manipulation...

That being said, the method they are going about it—getting ISPs to do the blocking—is just plain wrong. There are other areas of law and control that should be exerted here, not the weakening of net neutrality.

<comment><USER5> They could blacklist payment to those sites with the help of credit card companies.

Having a government controlled internet firewall is a Pandora's box that should never be opened.

<comment><USER7> or just have a legislature banning it... like NY recently banning Draftkings/fanduel.

<comment><AUTHOR> >or just have a legislature banning it... like NY recently banning Draftkings/fanduel.

This is how a lot of areas ended up with government monopolies on gambling. They decided it was bad, but not if they were running it and pocketing the revenues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Idiotic. All they have to do is block payment processing.

<comment><USER9> Bitcoin is pretty easy to get these days man. Payment processing isn't the panacea it once was.

<comment><USER8> Same issue. QC says they won't collect on CC charges to a Bitcoin trader. It becomes the Bitcoin site's problem to decide whether to sell BC to QC residents or whether to exclude them.

That still leaves all 3 gambling-addicted bitcoin miners in Quebec, but well, what can you do...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just confirms that Government is the biggest Mafia.

</comment><comment><USER11> Not surprised. They're really pushing their new online lotto options and such recently, may as well make those advertising dollars work extra hard by simultaneously censoring the competition.</comment>


Where is science fiction leading us and what does it concern?  - <AUTHOR> http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/on-science-fiction

<comment><USER2> _Why does so little science fiction rise to the standards of literary fiction?_

Because the standards of "literary fiction" are, at best, orthogonal to the factors which make a book sell well?

"Science fiction" and "literary fiction" are modern marketing labels. When a publisher labels a work "science fiction", they're trying to say "if you like stuff by Heinlein, Clarke, Bujold, Cherryh, Dick, Stross, or Stephenson, you might like this. It might or might not be literature, but we think it's a good read". Whereas a publisher who labels a work "literary fiction" is trying to say "if you drop quotes from this at a party full of literature professors they won't laugh at you. It might or might not be a good read, but it's _literature_ ".

Naturally, one of these genres sells more books than the other.

The situation is complicated by the lingering death of the novel as a popular art form. Guys like Nabokov or Fitzgerald or Thurber or Joseph Conrad wrote in an era where _everybody_ bought and read novels of one kind or another -- TV didn't exist, you couldn't watch movies except in a theatre, radios weren't portable. In that world, the novel was at its peak. There were more marketing channels for books, and a larger population of people who were highly print- literate and appreciative of subtle literary gestures. So publishers were that much more willing to print stuff regardless of whether it could be sequelized, or sold to Hollywood, or stamped with a genre label. Life today is harder. It might well be true that nobody [1] would buy _Heart of Darkness_ if it were published today... unless it were in the form of a movie, or an HBO miniseries, or a video game, or a series of Youtube shorts [2] -- you know, a _living_ genre. Or unless it could conform to the restrictions of one of the remaining established marketing channels for books, like the SF market, or the fantasy market, or the "Harry Potteresque" market, or the "will get recommended by Oprah" market.

[1] Where "nobody" is defined as "not enough people to make it a profitable use of the publisher's limited resources".

[2] Incidentally, the first person to turn _Heart of Darkness_ into an awesome series of Youtube shorts will win my admiration. And the videogame version would be _fascinating_.

</comment><comment><USER3> Many writers are very good at making already extremely complicated subjects (like social mores, conflicts, depression) even more impenetrable. There are very few writers indeed willing to explain complex subjects (like relativity or quantum physics) in simpler terms. If they did, it wouldn't be 'literature'.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. Much writing which is self-consciously 'literary' in nature seems knowing and deliberately obscure.

There's a problem too with long-winded SF authors: they leave too little to the imagination. Most of my fave authors write fairly succintly, with gaps for my imagination to fill. This makes their stories seem more real and exciting.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Much writing which is self-consciously 'literary' in nature seems knowing and deliberately obscure."

I would say "some" rather than most, and the best are not deliberately obscure: look at writers like Fitzgerald, Bellow, (some) Updike, Flaubert, Hemingway and

Others are more difficult to read because of the nature of how they try to express reality, feeling, and point of view, like Virginia Woolf, Joyce, or Proust.

But I don't think neither is all that obscure or all that direct, as both words seem to be synonyms for the same ideas expressed along the axis of "nature" and "artifice" that James Wood describes in _How Fiction Works_.</comment></comment></comment>


Regarding Last Weekend's Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament - <AUTHOR> https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23185888/regarding-last-weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament <comment><USER2> I might believe this, if the American team who made the exact same statement (pro-Hong Kong) in a virtually identical context (on a stream with shoutcasters) had received the same punishment.

They didn't. They didn't receive any punishment, they were immediately moved on to the next match.

So, Blizzard is not acting any anything resembling consistently on this matter. Some voices matter more than others; in this case Blizzard's business with China has proven to matter more than allowing someone to "share their point of view".

#boycottblizzard still stands.

<comment><USER3> Well the real test of hypocrisy is if someone made a statement in support of China on the same topic in a streamed event. Or if someone made a comment about any divisive issue from any side. Note I am saying it's a test of hypocrisy not whether their policy is "moral" or not

<comment><USER4> The reality is companies are in the politics of pandering to gain the largest audience possible. Blizzard is perfectly fine with western participants wearing things such as gay pride clothing (sadly a social/political issue) because it's popular with their audience. But they don't like what happened here because it isn't popular with their audience in China.

So of course it has to do with China. If they knew it wouldn't get them kicked out, and most of their potential players in China supported the issue, they wouldn't have cared. Because that's exactly how they handle social/political issues in the west.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Blizzard:

> If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and > deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same.

Also Blizzard:

> We will defend the pride of our nation (that nation being China)

So when will they be terminating the people in their company that posted that announcement on behalf of the company? Oh wait, they won't be, because this company is completely and utterly full of shit. This is a company that will ban players for using naughty words, but won't ban a country from the market place for actual real life atrocities. People like this make me ashamed to be American. Honesty and integrity mean nothing in this country. All people care about is whether you use nice words.

<comment><USER6> The word "nation" as you quoted above isn't present in the post by Blizzard linked here. Is your quote from another Blizzard statement somewhere?

<comment><USER7> It was posted by Blizzard's partner in China, NetEase, on an official Blizzard account on weibo.

<comment><USER8> [https://au.ign.com/articles/2019/10/10/verified-chinese- bliz...](https://au.ign.com/articles/2019/10/10/verified-chinese-blizzard- account-doubles-down-on-political-policy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My own take throughout the whole thing is similar to Brian Kibler's [1]. To me, even though it made sense that Blizzard wanted to stay neutral, the punishment was too severe for all of the people involved (zero prize money, 1 year ban) so it's nice that at least one of them was reverted.

[1]: [http://bmkgaming.com/statement-on- blitzchung/](http://bmkgaming.com/statement-on-blitzchung/)

Sidenote, Linus is reading the statement on the WAN show and he mentioned that Blizzard was "Lawful Evil." That's a pretty solid way to put it

<comment><USER10> Dunno about version 3 or later, but in the classic system 'lawful' means adhering to strict principles and 'evil' means selfish with disregard to others. So I'm pretty sure Blizzard is either chaotic or neutral, what with it trying to appease both sides at once. And probably neutral on the good-evil axis, since it passably honestly trades its games for the money.

<comment><USER11> Are there any multinationals that aren't chaotic evil, posing as lawful neutral?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and > deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same._

So now some Chinese player should make a statement praising China and condemning Hong Kong.

(But I've already said it: with Blizzard controlling a huge money market in WoW and China being big on farming that gold all day every day, there's zero chance Blizzard would give that up.)

<comment><USER10> By the way, does anyone know what the estimates are for the size of the in- game economy in WoW: items, characters, currency/jewelry, etc? I've heard some claims that would sober me right up, but dunno if those were too fictional.

<comment><USER11> If you're talking in real-world currency, then the size of the ingame economy is the sum of the maximums each player would be willing to spend for things in the game.

Any other calculations are just cryptocurrency-esque market cap dreams.

<comment><USER12> its not as clear cut in WoW's case. you got blizzard selling game time tokens which players can sell on the auction house for atm ~230k gold.

and this isnt just an option, but something done extremely frequently. tokens are usually sold within one day.

(and blizzard takes ~40% more € for that token than a subscription would take, so blizzard actually has a _massive_ profit margin there)

<comment><USER11> How is that not as clear?

The real world money to purchase those token (and anything else) come from _people_. Those people do not have infinite resources to spend on the game.

Ergo, if you exhaust their real world resources, and then offer them the best item in the game for $1, they wouldn't take it.

At that point, you've got the value of the total in-game economy. Because anything virtual after that would be worthless.

(Subject to demand curve, etc. But in aggregate it boils down to the same point.)

(You might be able to make the case that speculators without interest in the game would come in at that point to buy items, but I'd question how many would take the risk after the playerbase was already financially drained)

<comment><USER12> its not so clear because while your argument is true - people are only gonna spent disposable money on this - it can nonetheless be directly linked to actual transactions which happen at an incredibly frequent rate.

there is an actual cashflow happening - and not just for speculation like with cryptocurrencies - as people are actually spending the ingame currencies on their respective markets, which often removes the money from the market entirely. (not everything you buy ingame is sold by players)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Summary of changes made:

* Blitzchung will receive all his prize money.

* Bliztchung's suspension from pro play halved to 6 months

* Casters will now be allowed to cast Blizzard events after 6 months

Key statements:

* In hindsight, our process wasn't adequate, and we reacted too quickly

* The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision.

* We have these rules to keep the focus on the game and on the tournament to the benefit of a global audience, and that was the only consideration in the actions we took.

* If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same.

Source: Reddit comment

<comment><USER14> Imagine a comparable situation. Someone wins an olympic medal, and makes a political statement in the subsequent interview. Then the olympic committee decides to take the medal away, and ban the winner from competing again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not a gamer, but I imagine most are smart enough to see through this cringe-y PR disaster. Late Friday night dump of nonsense corporate speak is painfully predictable. This will do more harm than good. Yikes.

<comment><USER5> Oh they absolutely are not. You should see the way people have always, and will always defend this company.

<comment><USER16> Scanning social media, I haven't seen a single gaming influencer say it's a sufficient statement: [https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Averified%20https%3A%2F...](https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Averified%20https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FBlizzard_Ent%2Fstatus%2F1182813270639431681&src=typed_query&f=live)

The contrarian viewpoint is "what were you expecting?" in which case the reply is "an actual apology."

<comment><USER7> Or even a hamfisted attempt at an apology like you get out of many PR departments. The only thing that remotely resembles an apology in the whole release is:

> In hindsight, our process wasn't adequate, and we reacted too quickly.

No explanation of how that happened. No discussion about what they are doing to make sure it doesn't happen again. It's not even saying, "We made a snap decision and it was wrong." It seems to be saying, "We made all the right decisions, but we're going to tune the degree a little."

<comment><USER17> They did a much better job apologizing to China. [https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dfkmp1/blizzards_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dfkmp1/blizzards_official_weibo_account_just_posted_an/)

Had they not done that they might be believable, but because of the way the kowtow to china, definitely hard to find any honesty/truth in their statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ellen Pao (former Reddit CEO):

 _" Tech companies: We tolerate harassment and hate so we can enable political dissent, public squares, free speech

Also tech companies: Censor the Hong Kong protestors and kill all their communication channels"_

[https://twitter.com/ekp/status/1182710608887611394?s=21](https://twitter.com/ekp/status/1182710608887611394?s=21)

<comment><USER19> Didn't she ban a lot of subreddits?

<comment><USER20> Reddit has to make a lot of decisions, some were soon after she joined. Not sure CEOs of social media company get involved in making that decision personally, rather than name people who would -- Pao might be an exception, though.

From all the subreddits that were closed, I'd be hard-pressed to name one that I felt contributed to free speech.

<comment><USER21> > I'd be hard-pressed to name one that I felt contributed to free speech.

As in US Constitution free speech? I can think of dozens.

r/SanctionedSuicide

r/DarknetMarkets

r/shoplifting

r/gore

r/watchpeopledie

<comment><USER22> I don't know enough about the situation to take a definite position.

However, it seems to me that free speech is intended to protect the expression of unpopular viewpoints. In that case, I think that we should protect people's right to advocate that suicide, shoplifting, or advocating watching people die should be legal.

However, as long as those things are not legal then it doesn't necessarily violate free speech to restrict the practices themselves or information on how to engage in the practices.

<comment><USER21> Actually spent quite a while going through the list of banned subs to eliminate contentious ones, gotta make commenters work for it :)

They are a US based website subject to those laws, even if those words posted on their site didn't violate laws, it's entirely legal for them to censor at will for any reason they deem ok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not a great look. This line:

> The actions that we took over the weekend are causing people to question if > we are still committed to these values. We absolutely are and I will > explain.

Is basically saying, "What we did actually exemplifies our values", or maybe saying, "Well actually, our values..."

Combined with the complete lack of acknowledgement of wrongdoing and not addressing their initial online response at all, I don't expect this will smooth things over at all.

<comment><USER23> Lack of acknowledgement? They reduced the penalties, both for the casters and the player...

<comment><USER7> From 'far too severe' to 'too severe'? They basically doubled down and said they had done the right thing.

<comment><USER23> I'm sorry if you don't know what "acknowledge" means, but reducing the penalty is an acknowledgement, even if you don't think it's enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's extremely irresponsible for blizzard to host a massive platform for speech and pretend that platform exists in a vacuum outside of current events. (Read: politics.) In the same way that public platforms are dangerous when used for hate speech, they're also dangerous when those advocating for positive change are banned from them.

Whatever Blizzard set out to do, it's exceptionally naive not to acknowledge that demand changes a public technology.

… but of course we know what this is about. We know it's about not wanting to cut off a large revenue stream.

<comment><USER19> FIFA also bans politics from its platform.

<comment><USER24> I didn't know that as I'm not up on soccer, but I'm not surprised. This is liberal ideology at its most pure, and it leads to a great many of the social problems we have today. Some know taking a moral position will disenfranchise some subset and reduce their income, and some know that society would recoil (usually rightly!) at their views if they were forced to spell them out.

<comment><USER22> Are you perhaps using "liberal ideology" in a way that's different than what I'm used to? It seems that Blizzard's decisions were made in service of Capitalism which is a belief system that I associate more with conservative rather than liberal ideology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Some people think China wrote some or all of this response:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/SGBluebell/status/118281758814705...](https://mobile.twitter.com/SGBluebell/status/1182817588147052544)

<comment> lisp-missionary I highly recommend anyone following this thread to take a look at those tweets and replies.

I thought there was some awkward speech but didnt realize why.

What are prizings? This definitely was not written by an English speaker which takes it from corporate BS to totally creepy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > _We now believe he should receive his prizing. We understand that for some > this is not about the prize, and perhaps for others it is disrespectful to > even discuss it. That is not our intention._

It's a little weird that they say they "believe he should receive" his prize, rather than saying that he actually will. It's hard to think of a reason they would word it that way, except to give the false impression that he's getting the prize he won.

<comment><USER27> Wow yes that really is odd, thanks for pointing it out. Not proud to say it, but their statement fooled me (made me skim right past it thinking what they wanted me to think) the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> False equivalence. One group is oppressing the other group, and the oppressed are told to shut up because the oppressor's feelings will get hurt and will make the Blizzard's community feel less diverse and inclusive .. facepalm ..

</comment><comment><USER29> It's a soft peddle statement drafted by the PR department hoping the mainstream media would pick it up. There are too many contradictions between:

a) what was said in the statement, and Blizzard's statement made on Chinese social media at the time, and

b) the lack of discipline on American tournament players who also protested.

Furthermore a written statement is nothing compared to a video, where vocal intonation and body language communicates a lot.

Bottom line, releasing this statement will only intensify criticism that Blizzard is "Lawfully Evil".

The irony is that Blizzard's fanbase are 'heroes' who overcome evil in their games. Blizzard's actions are the very antithesis of their player bases' psychology.

This isn't over, and with Blizzcon around the corner, I predict escalation and Blizzcon being a total PR disaster.

</comment><comment><USER30> Digusting. If that had happened in the context of any other unimportant country, where no launch of a mobile game is planned, and which is not in a habit of crying and shouting down foreign press and companies, then Blizzard would have done nothing.

In fact, the language used here, about openness and 'feeling welcome' (cf hurt feelings) comes close to the CCP phrasebook. CCP, to remind you, has publicly stated that opinions on China affairs from foreigners and utterings that make people feel unwelcome ot hurt feelings, are not free speech.

HK people are fighting for their freedom and their lives. They need public support in the West to have a chance. Blizzard sanctioning them or others for this shows abundently clear on which side this company is!

</comment><comment><USER31> > One of our goals at Blizzard is to make sure that every player, everywhere > in the world, regardless of political views, religious beliefs, race, > gender, or any other consideration always feels safe [..] playing our games

This HN comment from 6 years ago comes to mind: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6154475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6154475)

<comment><USER32> Could that have been Grummz? [https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1181736075775004672](https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1181736075775004672)

<comment><USER31> No idea if he is, but thanks for that. Here it is in a more readable format, or least, in a not-on-Twitter format :)

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

This hurts. But until Blizzard reverses their decision on blitzchungHS I am giving up playing Classic WoW, which I helped make and helped convince Blizzard to relaunch. There will be no Mark of Kern guild after all.

Let me explain why I am #BoycottBlizzard.

I am ethnically Chinese. I was born in Taiwan and I lived in Hong Kong for a time. I have done buisiness with China for many years, with serveral gaming companies there.

So I think I have a valid perspective here, having been a Team Lead at Blizzard and having grown up in Asia.

I have watched China slowly take over as the dominant investing force in gaming and movies over the years. It's a shame US companies never believed as strongly as China and Asia in investing in games, but this allowed China to have unprecedented influence over our media.

Chinese game companies have grown huge not just because of market size, but because the government subsidizes them. They get free land, free offices, and huge infusions of cash.

This cash was and is used to do expand and buy up stakes in US gaming companies.

I've seen firsthand the corruption of Chinese gaming companies, and I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China. This is the first time I've ever spoken pubically about it.

I've also seen how American company reps in China have been offered similar bribes to get licenses for large AAA titles. Not everyone refused like I did.

Chinese companies tried to ruin my career with planted press stories. Money is often paid for favorable press in China and some of that money flows here to the US as well.

Unfortunately, money talks. China has succeeded in infiltrating all levels of tech, gaming and more.

Unfortunately, US and European companies are loath to take risks and invest in game companies legally as much as China was. China remained one of the few places mid tier studios could get funding.

So again, China influence grew. I'm sure this is the same for movies as well.

But now we are in a situation where unlimited Communist money dictates our American values. We censor our games for China, we censor our movies for China.

Now, game companies are silencing voices for freedom and democracy.

China is dictating that the world be authoritarian.

Of all the companies in the world, Blizzard is the LAST company I ever expected to give in to China's demands.

Blizzard was always about "gamer first" and "don't be greedy."

At least, it was when I was there.

It's one thing to keep politics out of games, which I am still a proponent of doing. It's another to unfairly and harshly punish voices that speak out against corruption, against abuses of human rights, and freedom.

I take a huge risk by saying this. China monitors all social media and I know this means that we will probably never get an investment from China for my new MMO, and probably never get a license to operate there.

But enough is enough. I stand with Hong Kong, and I oppose Blizzard's obvious and laughably transparent fear of China.

It's time for Blizzard to grow the spine it used to have, and to do what's right for gamers once again.

Gamers, rise up.

And yes, this means I will be refusing any deal for Epic exclusivity. The money comes from Tencent. Em8ER will never be an Epic game store exclusive.

This might mean we never make a dime, but more is at stake now than just games. A line has to be drawn, and I'm drawing it now.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just shameful. They are taking the side of a repressive regime over a player expressing support for _universal_ values.

Mealy-mouthed corpospeak will not save you now.

</comment><comment><USER34> Why would Blizzard bother to lie about this? I guess they're trying to recover from all of the negative press, but it looks like they're just digging themselves into a deeper hole.

<comment><USER35> The lies are weird. They're claiming they would have snapped off a 12 month ban for saying any political slogan, which is...insane. Wildly disproportionate. Not even a little plausible.

There's no explanation for Blizzard's actions that does not include feared pressure from China, and it's just insulting for them to claim otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Wow so many lines of PR fluff to basically say we have to make sure everyone obeys China's view of the world. blizzard, that post was completely useless unless you wanted to reinforce the impression you have no values other than big profits.

</comment><comment><USER37> Reads like a typical corporate response. Sanitized by lawyers, PR, and executives. It says nothing substantial. It's trying to ride the middle ground but it's just flat out contradictory in the face of their actions these past few days.

Very sad. Whatever piece of the original Blizzard may have been left in Irvine is surely on life support from the beating that Activision has been giving it for the last decade(s).

<comment><USER29> I just don't think there is any of the original Blizzard left, except maybe the artists. WoW has tanked in gameplay, the Diablo franchise has been starved, and then forced into something it's not... Heroes of the Storm has been killed off, Starcraft has been starved. Classic WoW (old IP), Hearthstone (lets be fair it's a casual mobile game) and Overwatch (just another shooter) are pretty much it sadly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The grammar in this post seems really awkward. It's almost like they cobbled together 3-4 different people's statements, didn't proof read it, then released it. Strange considering they waited so long.

</comment><comment><USER38> If I had to translate this from corporate speak into the real world it would go something like "fuck off, we are following the money"

</comment><comment> mewse-hn This part descends to absurdity:

> Every Voice Matters, and we strongly encourage everyone in our community to > share their viewpoints in the many places available to express themselves. > However, the official broadcast needs to be about the tournament and to be a > place where all are welcome. In support of that, we want to keep the > official channels focused on the game.

One of their core values is "every voice matters" and with this paragraph they are trying to twist it from what it actually means, to supporting their decision to suppress dissent

<comment><USER39> Right? It's fucked to the point of comical absurdity. How on earth did they let anyone write this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Ah, yes. Mealy-mouthed corporate nonsense. That'll shut the rabble up!

</comment><comment><USER41> It's not even hard to avoid giving Blizzard money these days.

I suppose one must immerse oneself in the scientific system of Mao Zedong thought to see the truth—that Diablo is best played on a smartphone.

</comment><comment><USER42> That piece is for sure loaded with weasel wording.

But on the other hand, blitzchung might have said or done many things during his segment. And just about everyone who is upset about Blizzard booting blitzchung here would demand that they boot him for at least some of those. Say, if he had ranted about gender issues, for example.

As always, perceptions depend on whose ox is getting gored.

</comment><comment><USER43> I support Blizzard's decision, it kept the bottom line. I feel ridiculous, in order to support the riots in another country, some people were so passionate. I think this people are affected by anti-China sentiment.

I write a post, tell everyone what happened in Hong Kong and try to persuade everyone not to make political opinions so easily, especially if a place is very far away from you.

Stand with Hong Kong, but which side? [https://chloerei.com/2019/10/11/stand- with-hong-kong-but-whi...](https://chloerei.com/2019/10/11/stand-with-hong- kong-but-which-side/)

The content may make you uncomfortable because it is different from the reporting position of some Western media. But looking at the problem from multiple angles will give you a more comprehensive understanding.

<comment><USER44> I agree with you that in the discussions of these issues on the Western internet sites, anti-China sentiment dominates and often blends with ignorance and prejudice. Unfortunately, if you post like you just did to HN, using inflammatory language like "I saw the hypocrisy of the Americans", you're guaranteed to take the thread further into nationalistic flamewar, and of course such language will be downvoted because it breaks HN's guidelines too ([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)). So if you're going to continue to post on HN, can you please make sure that your comments stay factual and neutral, and don't pour fuel on the fire? We ask the same of every user here.

<comment><USER43> Thanks for reply, I have edited the comments to more gentle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I have a question, what if he was to thank his mom while on a broadcast that would not be about the content of the game either will he be banned for that? Talk about foot in your mouth Blizzard now we can all count down to Blizzcon and watch the fireworks I am sure there will be.

</comment><comment><USER16> > The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision > we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on > our decision.

Needless to say, this line has generated a very large amount of snark on social media.

<comment><USER46> I don't see any way they could have addressed that without the hysteria still spinning it negatively.

Because it's not like they mention that out of nowhere: They are directly referring to accusations that they were pressured into shutting that particular player down by the Chinese government.

There's a whole lot of people out there who will not be satisfied with any answer contradicting that narrative.

Heck, even if Blizzard went out there and would fully admit "The Chinese government pressured us to shut this particular player down", then people would complain how Blizzard could ever buckle to those demands in the first place.

The reality is that nobody needed to pressure Blizzard because its competitive scene has already seen quite a number of bans, some controversial, many not, over players using the spotlight to share their particular political messages.

It's nothing new and just like they explain in the statement: They do this regardless of the political views being aired, they just consider it not a platform for that.

Very comparable to how the Olympics are supposed to be an "unpolitical event", at least in theory.

<comment><USER11> _> Heck, even if Blizzard went out there and would fully admit "The Chinese government pressured us to shut this particular player down", then people would complain how Blizzard could ever buckle to those demands in the first place._

No.

There are two fan axes here: agreement and respect.

Companies (and your comment) seem to focus on the former, while being completely oblivious to the latter.

If Blizzard had said "Our Chinese economic interests pressured us into doing this" they would have faced intense disagreement.

But, they would have retained as least a modicum of respect.

Instead, they forfeited both.

And really? Putting out equivocal PR fluff in response to an issue in 2019? Activision-Blizzard's entire Communications department should be sacked.

<comment><USER46> > Instead, they forfeited both.

How did they forfeit both? Do we have any evidence for Blizzard being pressured do this?

We absolutely have not, all we have is a bunch of social-media hysteria were this claim originally came from, in complete ignorance of the fact that Blizzard has banned plenty of pro-players before for voicing "negative speech" [0].

In that context your response is exactly what I was referring to: People are not interested in what actually happened, people only want to hear what they THINK happened, even if there's zilch evidence backing it up and it never actually happened.

Again: What evidence is there that Blizzard was pressured into doing this and as such debunking their reaction as a straight-faced lie? There is none, while there's a long list of other competitive players who've been banned for exactly the same reason.

I do not even understand why this is so controversial on HN out of all places. This whole comment section reads like Reddit, lots of appeals to emotions, very little sticking to the facts at hand.

[0] [https://liquipedia.net/overwatch/Banned_players](https://liquipedia.net/overwatch/Banned_players)

<comment><USER11> You're taking a company's statement, that avoids any mention of money, economic interests, or China, at face value?

I hear your point, but what would a smoking gun look like?

An email or recorded conversation from the CCP about the actions they would take if Blizzard didn't keep the ban in place?

That positive confirmation bar seems unreasonably high.

<comment><USER46> > An email or recorded conversation from the CCP about the actions they would > take if Blizzard didn't keep the ban in place?

How about anything concrete that isn't just sheer hearsay and speculation out of the social media sphere?

And yet you consider it outrageous that I take Blizz statement at face value? I already explained my reasons for that: To me this ban is very in line with other previous bans Blizzard issued.

That does not mean that I condone them or that I agree with them, but it gives precedence to the situation, precedent that had absolutely nothing to do with China.

We have precedent for Blizzard having banned players over political statements before, we have no precedent for Blizzard having been pressured by the CCP to do so. So what is the most likely thing that happened here?

<comment><USER11> That seems like illogical reasoning.

The fact that Blizzard has banned people for making political statements before does not mean that there were no ancillary motivations in this instance.

You may feel otherwise, but I don't think a pattern of previous behavior unambiguously resolves the motivation behind an action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> jerome-jh "Our goal is to help players connect in areas of commonality". If you only keep the intersection of all "cultures", you end up with a very small subset.

</comment><comment><USER47> I feel like the original decision was so harsh and the optics of it was incredibly bad that this "meet in the middle" resolution still doesn't cut it. It's like when a post-mortem only contains: "In hindsight, our process wasn't adequate, and we reacted too quickly." and they don't elaborate more on the inadequacy or the hastiness.

Maybe I just want blood but it feels pretty unsatisfying.

</comment><comment><USER48> _I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision_

<comment><USER30> Yes, I too appreciate being lied to outright in a letter addressed to me

Makes me feel really positive about Blizzard

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Question for all of y'all: what would happen if an Olympic athlete expressed or signalled a strong political view (beyond just "my country good, your country bad") during an official Olympic ceremony?

<comment><USER50> You mean like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> <can't delete>

<comment><USER13> <can't delete>

<comment><USER41> What statement? GP was "deleted".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Command + f "sorry": 0 results

Command + f "mistake": 0 results

Command + f "apologize": 0 results

They still aren't listening to a PR expert, and this is only going to throw gasoline on the fire. This blog post [1] counseling Burning Man back in their dumpster fire of pain when they switched to a lottery system is very instructional, Blizzard should be following it to the letter if they intend to get out of this hole.

[1] [https://alyssaroyse.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/burning-the- man...](https://alyssaroyse.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/burning-the-man-burning- mans-ticket-pr-fiasco/)

<comment><USER53> > They still aren't listening to a PR expert, and this is only going to throw > gasoline on the fire.

Of course, if they _had_ listened to a PR expert and written a first-rate apology letter, then we'd be calling them out as insincere and saying it was just PR fluff, a la the StackExchange letter recently.

<comment><USER54> They were put in a lose-lose situation from the start.

<comment><USER55> I agree.

Something to remember is China was a much different place 10 years ago when Blizzard started being distributed there.

I don't see this as being about the money as much as it is about really freaking complicated relationships. You can't turn off a billion dollar business in an afternoon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Wish bigwigs would keep it brief and to the point. This was all I need to hear:

> official broadcasts [should] remain focused on the game and are not a > > platform for divisive social or political views.

Same goes with NFL and the kneeling. Just say "hey, we're a business" and leave it at that. Hate all the moralizing.

<comment><USER57> You do realize that "our profit is more important than your people dying" is also moralizing, right?

<comment><USER56> You can argue Blizzard puts profits over free expression (every company does to varying degrees). It's absurd to say the kid's obtuse outburst, if left uncensured, saves lives.

<comment><USER58> It's really not. If no one makes a stink about HK publically, China can get away with awful things there. You can't be shy about calling out tyrants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This new language of mind-bending corporate doublespeak deserves more parody.

</comment><comment><USER59> Can't they just admit they like money more than free speech or democracy?

</comment><comment><USER60> I feel like this is Activision and not Blizzard talking.

<comment> lisp-missionary I feel like this is Joshua and not Josh talking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> > The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision > we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on > our decision.

It's depressing how stupid he thinks we are.

</comment><comment><USER62> Swing and a miss

</comment><comment><USER63> "We don't want to lose money from the Chinese market, but we also don't want to lose money from the American market, we're not really sure what to do and have no moral guidance on the situation, will you accept this double-talk and continue paying us?"

</comment><comment><USER64> TLDR: not an apology

</comment><comment><USER65> The publicity this is getting is amazing.

I wonder if protesters supporting Catalonia, Cuba, Venezuela, Kashmir, Sudan, Indonesia, or Palestine did this, if it would get more attention than a single article or thread?

Heck, 100 people have been killed in the current Iraq protests and there are less articles and outrage compared to this. Maybe future protests will focus on getting punishments from large companies? Perhaps this is the start of a new type of activism.

</comment><comment> lisp-missionary tl;dr Our top analysts have determined that the amount of money lost by people being upset about this is still less than the amount we would lose by losing business with China.</comment>


Facebook's Zuckerberg, Bucking Tide, Takes Public Stand Against Isolationism - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/technology/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-mission-statement.html <comment><USER2> Maybe stop building walls and buying land around his mansions first.</comment>


Newsletter Virtual Mall in a Google Sheet - <AUTHOR> http://newslettervirtualmall.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Inspired by the Elliot Virtual Mall. Take a stroll through the mall. 7 levels, 56 Newsletters. Truly spanning the globe.</comment>


A Boggling Return to C - <AUTHOR> http://thraxil.org/users/anders/posts/2011/04/17/A-Boggling-Return-to-C/ <comment><USER2> I started with assembly language and I thought C was heaven. Of course, there are easier languages, there are more powerful languages, there are fancier languages and whatnot. I like Python and I adore Lisp. But I still love C most.

C is the sweet spot where I can extend my programs to do high-level stuff while still keep my hands down on the actual hardware I'm programming. I like that a lot, probably because I grew up banging hardware. Or maybe it is because I like to keep in touch with the actual device that I program: bending some definitions, _C is what my machine does_. Even if I embed Lua and script parts of my program, I'm still conceptually working on a C runtime, complete with addresses, pointers, integers and registers. That's why I also like LLVM as it abstracts away different instruction sets into a generic high-level instruction set, much like C abstracts different assembly languages into a generic high-level assembly language.

C also has the property of being most enjoyable code to read. I've spent a lot of time just reading C out of sheer enjoyment. C is tricky: it can be a total mess or it can be terse and beautiful and clear. No matter what, it describes exactly what it does to my machine. Read some of D.J. Bernsteins source trees to get an idea of how neat C can be.

<comment> X-Istence Reading DJB's code can be both awesome in that his code is written clearly and neatly, yet at the same time it can be an excercise in frustration because he has foregone most of the standard library and written his own (especially string management, which is superior, in my humble opinion), so it can look foreign or weird to people looking at it.

The source to qmail/daemontools is a pleasure to read though and having read it I feel like I have learned a lot from what it has to offer.

<comment><USER3> djb once wrote a FORTH implementation for the IOCC. It would be cool to get it running under current BSD/Linux/Solaris.

Arthur Whitney is another I would put on par with djb. He's a bit older than djb.

For expertise you can't beat W. Richard Stevens. He also studies and wrote about FORTH before focusing on solely on C.

Both Whitney and djb have a true appreciation for speed, efficiency and succinctness; both have solid foundations in maths; both can build very level abstractions. But they have different areas of focus.

djb - secure systems administration and networking. (Stevens - documentation.) Whitney - Lisp background; big data.

Whitney has proven that it's possible, using a matrix-based approach, to meet or beat the speed of C with an interpreted language.

But it's difficult to write UNIX systems or networking code without knowing C. For guidance on navigating the many pitfalls of C, djb and Stevens are as good as it gets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I absolutely love writing C. Up until late 2011, it was by far the language I used the most. I am now learning Lisp (not exactly, I'm _using_ Lisp in SICP), and use Python more than before.

One thing I realized, is that _reading_ C is more tedious than code in other languages. Sure that's a gross generalization and is not true for every piece of code out there. However, I find I have less troubles picking up a Python project, understanding how it's written and start contributing than I have with C.

A few weeks ago, I was looking at the code of Qemu. The code relies heavily on preprocessor macros and some weird gcc-only syntax that made my head hurt. It was difficult.

I guess what I'm trying to say, my only problem with C is that it doesn't force the programmer to write in a clear understandable way. Or maybe that's just me.

<comment><USER5> > The code relies heavily on preprocessor macros and some weird gcc-only > syntax that made my head hurt.

The preprocessor is generally recognized as one of C's biggest flaws, is not for nothing that Ken Thompson, the first C programmer and the greatest influence on the language other than DMR himself, cut down most of the preprocessor when he wrote his own set of C compilers for Plan 9: <http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/comp>

And of course Go has no preprocessor.

As for your second complaint, one can't blame C for gcc's extensions ;)

You should try Go, many people would consider it C's spiritual successor (or as somebody put it: the language the people who created C would come up if they had 40 years to think about how to polish and improve it), it keeps all the simplicity of C, while being probably the most readable language I have used, it is concise but keeps everything explicit, and figuring what code does is very easy, because code does what it says and says what it does, no dark magic needed.

<comment><USER6> It keeps all the simplicity of C, without actually being able to write a kernel or device driver!

<comment><USER7> You can write kernels in Go, it even used to ship with a bare metal runtime and several people wrote kernels using it.

You cannot easily write device drivers for _existing operating systems_ in Go because the existing operating systems provide a particular environment unsuited for Go and expect certain constraints from the device drivers themselves, constraints which Go breaks. In principle, it could be made to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> maybe the biggest improvement in c programming over the last decade is valgrind, making purify-like debugging available to everyone. it's completely removed a whole class of annoyingly hard to fix bugs from my code.

<comment><USER9> valgrind, is only available for a few platforms/architectures. If you are unable to writer proper C programs without valgrind's help, please go home. :-)

<comment><USER10> Depends what you mean by "proper". Any fool can get a C program to work, but ensuring there are no memory leaks etc is very hard without a tool like Valgrind.

If you don't believe me, just run Valgrind on random sampling of C programs that didn't use such a tool - I reckon it will find issues with most of them.

<comment><USER11> Valgrind (and tools using its methodology) isn't the only way to solve these problems. Libumem finds memory leaks too, and without imposing an immense runtime cost. It also finds many types of memory corruption without the runtime overhead that often changes the program's behavior that you're trying to debug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd love to have time to play around with C again. I picked up C back in the late 80s when I became convinced that no matter what other programming languages I knew, I wasn't going to be a "true" professional unless I could sling code in C and C++. Fun times.

I also love the idea of using a trie here. That's something else I've been wanting to play around with for a while. Although now I'd do it in a functional language.

He brings up a good point: people coding in C tend to stop and think about data structures, memory usage, and clock cycles in a way people using higher languages very rarely do. It's part of the way to "think in C" Internal data structures are also much more important in FP. Interesting how different languages cause you to think in different ways. (Sapir-Worf anyone?) :)

<comment> X-Istence I also think it really depends on how you are taught or where you start...

I started programming in C/C++ (my first book, I'll admit at age 9 was a C++ for Dummies book, it came with a compiler :P).

I have learned and use a lot of higher level languages, but I still think about data structures, I still think about what the best way would be for handling the data most efficiently, mainly because I don't want to rely on the language doing the right thing.

I've seen Java programmers though that then start programming in C++ or even C and never pick up the art of thinking about their data structures. I work with one co-worker now that went through the extreme trouble of implementing Java like enum's which have caused all kinds of "warts" and all kinds of issues because they are not enums and they aren't "real" classes.

Watching Java developers turn C++/C developers is really interesting, they bring all kinds of "bad" practices back with them and the code is worse off because of it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "By way of comparison, the Python program takes 1.5 seconds to run, so that's about a 10X speedup."

Only tenfold? Interesting. While Python is surely not the slowest interpreted language around, a result like that borders on the performance of Java. That seems unlikely, especially given the fact that Python version uses worse algorithm.

I would think about how big is the portion of time eaten by I/O - that is, actually reading the `words` file from disk. I wouldn't be surprised if it eats most of the ~100ms that C needs to performs the task, leaving only a tiny percent for actual computation.

<comment><USER14> > a result like that borders on the performance of Java

I haven't seen the "Java is slow" chestnut in years.

<comment><USER15> I _think_ he's saying Java is fast (compared with Python at least).

The point is, if you assign nearly mystical properties to writing in C, but when you rewrite a brute force approach Python program with a much fancier algorithm in C and you "only" get 10x speedup then _something_ is amiss.

<comment><USER13> That's exactly what I meant, yes. And I used Java as comparison because of its speed being not that far from C itself - and certainly surpassing that of Python by a long shot. I definitely didn't intend to propagate the outdated "Java is slow" myth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's funny, because I recently tackled this exact same problem in Python as well. And guess what my first step was? Writing a prefix tree implementation, in order to use the exact same approach the author took in C. It never seriously occurred to me to do it any other way. It may be because I recently got into C as well after spending years with only Python, but honestly I think I would have done the same thing before that; that's just how I think. So I don't believe it's the language that dictates how much you think about efficiency, it's the programmer.

<comment><USER17> Well I didn't get back into C and last time I had to solve a similar problem typed:

      from Bio.trie import trie

<comment><USER16> Right, if time was an issue I would have used an existing implementation, but since I largely code as a hobby I figured I may as well take the time to practice implementing stuff like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Aha. Someone posted this up here. That's why I've gotten a huge burst of comments on the site in the last couple hours.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wrote the same program in Clojure somewhat recently. Boggle seems to be a popular problem. <https://github.com/dmansen/boggle>

<comment><USER18> Nice. Implementing the same problem in Clojure has been on my todo list. Now I've seen yours though so I guess I'll have to think up another problem :)

<comment><USER20> May I suggest a wander through <http://programmingpraxis.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The author implements an inneficient algorithm using python and then a better one using C. He seems to feel python is for dirty brute force and C is for "real" programming...

<comment><USER18> Yes and no.

I wrote the Python version in probably under an hour. My girlfriend had gotten into playing some stupid Facebook version of Boggle and I just wanted to see her face when I came out of nowhere with implausibly high scores. I didn't think hard about the problem, just reached for the tool I know best and implemented the first obvious approach that came to mind. It worked as needed and I moved on. You make it sound like I think that's a bad thing.

Later, when I had a bit of time to think about it, it occurred to me that a trie would be a better approach, so when I was feeling like getting back into C and wanted a toy problem, re-implementing the boggle solver in C with a trie seemed like a good choice.

The experience of programming in the different languages does feel different though and I think it can affect how one approaches solving problems. Python is so good at just letting me solve the immediate problem that sometimes I rush and don't think things through or settle for a less than optimal solution. This will come back and bite me if that suboptimal code ends up getting built on and re-used elsewhere.

When I write C (or Go, Erlang, Haskell, etc. basically any language that requires me to think a little more up-front about how I'll implement it), I know going in that I'm going to be putting some serious time and effort into the code, so I tend to be more careful about things at every stage. The game changes from "get a result as quickly and painlessly as possible" to "write something that is elegant in itself". That's not always a win. Sometimes you are much better off building the prototype quickly, seeing flaws that you never would've thought of and then being able to approach the problem in a whole new way. Sometimes you just need a result quickly and time spent making things elegant or efficient actually is wasted (I'm not going to build a framework out of the boggle solving code anytime soon, eg).

I code in Python pretty much every day. I have for years. I probably will for years to come. It works for me. I'm just saying that sometimes other languages push you in different directions and I can see why, despite taking more lines of code to write, taking longer to write, having more potential for segfaults, and so on, languages like C still find a niche for writing systems and platforms. And that reason isn't just that it runs a little faster.

<comment><USER22> From my experience Haskell has two faces. One is the one that says "write a piece of software _right_ with the tools I provide" and another is a messy "one"-liner (happens to me particularly when using pointfree style) with the "line" being an indecipherable mess of operators and library functions that is right as "fire and forget" kind of code. Haskell has a very rich range of libraries on the Hackage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My Python answer [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/746082/how-to-find- list-o...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/746082/how-to-find-list-of- possible-words-from-a-letter-matrix-boggle-solver/750012#750012) runs in 200ms on my laptop. It probably isn't actually within a factor of 2 of this C code, since I don't know what input board it was tested with to get 100ms, and it matters how much of the dictionary gets pruned while loading. I just stuck in a random 5x5 board and got 412ms real time, still pretty tolerable.

Edit: The next Python answer there uses a trie and takes 16.7 seconds on the 4x4 board. I like tries because they're elegant, but I hardly ever use them because the built-in collections are well-engineered even for problems you'd think are made for a trie.

</comment><comment><USER24> >> The C version is functional but will probably make more experienced C programmers cringe.

Oh boy. This looks like the type of C code I write. Could some experienced C programmer please point out what parts are cringe inducing ?

<comment><USER25> Not being a experienced C programmer by any measure, but this doesn't look right to me: <https://github.com/thraxil/boggle/blob/master/boggle.c#L92>

        struct foo f() {
            struct foo f;
            return f;
        }

isn't returning a stack-allocated struct a bad idea?

<comment><USER26> It returns a copy of it. Example:

#include <stdio.h>

struct foo { char space[1024]; };

struct foo f()

{

        struct foo f;

        printf("address of f is %p\n",&f);

        return f;

}

int main()

{

        struct foo g;

        g = f();

        printf("address of g is %p\n",&g);

        return 0;

}

produces this output:

address of f is 0x7fbfffec30

address of g is 0x7fbffff050

<comment><USER27> If I remember correctly (been a long time), most compilers would implement many cases of struct return by letting the caller pass the address of a block of (stack) memory to contain the return value. The function can then optimize things to get rid of its local copy, operate directly on the intended target, and the caller doesn't need to perform any copies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If you wanted to get really fancy, you could convert that trie into a DAWG: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_word_graph>

</comment><comment><USER29> Writing a boggle solver was the first assignment in CS106X at Stanford, which was still taught in C when I took it in the fall of 1994.

The trie code as well as the display UI were provided - you only had to write the board-walking code.

Being as this was the first time I had ever written any program, I remember it being quite challenging but also really fun. It was great to see your own program utterly house you when you played against it.

I wonder if I still have that code somewhere ... it would be fun to look at / cringe.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm a student who learns C#, Java, Php, javascript... at school. I bought "C: A Refence Manual" to learn this summer...

Hope it will make me a better programmer.

<comment><USER5> If you want to learn C, K&R is the right way to do it.

C: A Reference Manual is excellent and is probably the only other C book you need, but only if you are already a C programmer, and only for what the title implies: reference.

<comment><USER31> K&R is a book not suitable for beginner tutorial in C, especially modern C. As a reference type work, ok.

<comment><USER32> No, but it's perfect for an experienced programmer in other languages to pick up C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Did anybody noticed eC language www.ecere.com. Still under early development, documentation incomplete. Some issues with preprocesor and other stuff fixed. Definitely has potential.

</comment><comment><USER34> <butthead>Uhh...hehe..uhh..hehe...he said boxen</butthead></comment>


Coursera is phasing out free certificates - <AUTHOR> https://courserajunkie.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/courseras-free-statements-of-accomplisments-die-a-quiet-death/ <comment><USER3> While what the OP mentioned is True , what i really think is that the real value of MOOCs is not in the certificate (it not that much important especially from MOOC providers) but the opportunity that it creates for people to gain knowledge , and personally speaking , MOOCs have changed my life , i live in 3rd world country where the quality of education is worse than you can imagine, but thanks to Coursera, Edx and Udacity , i managed to learn so many things , so what we should focus on , is that the opportunity it provides for people around the world to learn new things and change their lives in one way or another is the true factor that should be considered in the MOOC revolution .

<comment><USER4> How did learning new things change your life?

<comment><USER3> Although that it's not important how MOOCs changed my life , but i will tell you how , i was raised in a poor family (like really poor) , i got my first computer when i was 16 years old , and saw the internet for the first time when i was 18 years old , i always had hunger for knowledge and learning new things but never could go further than reading some old books from the high school library , when i first got the internet access it was just the beginning of the MOOCs and i was amazed by the opportunity it gives , given that i always loved computers and the "magic" behind it , i started my first MOOC at that time which was CS50 by David Malan in HarvardX (Edx) , and never stopped MOOCing from the the three platforms , now thanks to MOOCs and of course practicing on my free time i am a 20 years old full stack developer, i am still a junior developer ,but i gained enough money to change the situation of my family from worse to the better, while most of my peers still studying in our system (I am studying too and graduating this year from electrical engineering) , the real difference is between our education system and the MOOCs , i have to emphasize that there is no way to compare the quality , and of course the price (which is free) , i really encourage everyone to never stop learning from MOOCs because knowledge and new skills can create a completely change a life .

<comment><USER5> That's really awesome to hear! I work on the Stanford edX team, but we don't see a lot of feedback from our off-campus users (even though there are lots of them). It's great to know that MOOCs are actually helping people out. In case anyone hasn't heard of our site (it's a little smaller than the more well known ones), we run a public edX instance at lagunita.stanford.edu and maintain forks of the edX repositories at github.com/StanfordOnline.

<comment><USER6> Kiloreux and others who have benefited in similar ways, PLEASE email your stories to Coursera, edX, MIT OCW, or any other sites whose MOOCs have helped you. Sometimes, they are sitting in a meeting room discussing whether to discontinue some free aspect of the service, and your story will be enough to convince them to keep it going a little longer.

You might feel insignificant off in some far corner of the world, but when the creators hear your voice, they REALLY care what you think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In my experience over about a dozen completed courses and many more with less attentive participation, Certificate policies vary from course to course. Some of it is due to policies of the sponsoring institution, some is due to the business transaction between the institution or the instructor and Coursera. There's a whole host of branding issues that come with putting _Blub State University_ on a course description. And good old BSU has a team of administrative staff that have nothing else to do than worry about BSU's brand.

That said, the Coursera Android App has become consistently worse. It wants to run at startup and once entered, never release the camera even after the app is stopped. To get rid of the camera-in-use toast, the app has to be uninstalled or the device rebooted. I came to the conclusion that unfortunately Coursera is headed down the road to finding the optimum between suck and income as a business model. Basically, it's given up on platform growth via innovation and is optimizing for Venture Capital fund liquidation timelines.

MOOC's are a model that can live off of exhaust fumes (in the words of Spolsky) but turning them into part of the people tracking infrastructure is simply more consistent with conventional wisdom and ten year investment fund timelines.

[edit:] On the 50% for a certificate comment, that's what Jeff Ullman does for his _Finite Automata_ course and for me, it was non-trivial and required a lot of learning. There have been other courses where 90% and distinction was far easier.

<comment><USER8> nice touch with the blub reference :)

(thinking to myself: how can put blub state on my linkedin profile)

more seriously though, to your points about Coursera and VC liquidation timelines: We need coursera like moocs that are "B-Corps" or similar [http://sos.oregon.gov/business/Pages/benefit- company.aspx](http://sos.oregon.gov/business/Pages/benefit-company.aspx) .

I made some comments along similar lines in the comment section of this post : [http://continuations.com/post/119930478310/going-past- capita...](http://continuations.com/post/119930478310/going-past-capital) \- ironically a VC's blog, but don't prejudge - he's also a philosopher of sorts and has some good ides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Honestly, if someone's resume tells me they took (say) the Coursera Natural Language Processing course, never in a million years would it occur to me to ask to see the certificate, any more than I'd ask to see their transcript to verify that they took specific classes in college.

And vice versa, I have lots of Coursera courses on my resume, no one has ever asked to see my certificates either.

<comment><USER10> Putting Coursera on a resume had never occurred to me.

Do you use it to bolster other experience and education? Or would you be comfortable applying for a position where your only relevant experience was from Coursera?

<comment><USER9> I have no non-Coursera CS training, so I use it as the "CS training" part of my resume. (I also have relevant work experience and a math degree.)

I would be comfortable _hiring_ someone entry-level most of whose relevant experience was from Coursera, assuming they convinced me they would be a good hire.

If you are a quick learner, IMO you should feel comfortable applying for any job you think you can get hired for, even if it's a stretch based on your experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> People in other comments are saying the certificates are pointless, or useless, or never needed. In contrast to their claims, recently when applying for a job I was asked for proof that I really do have a PhD. I have no idea where the certificate is, and pointed out in an email that certificates can, these days, easily be faked. To provide a certificate merely gives them grounds later, if they find I don't have a PhD after all, to claim that I actively misled them.

Instead I referred them to the British Library thesis lookup service[0] and pointed out that there's no way I could fake that. It was accepted (much to my relief!) but others may not have that option.

So sometimes some sort of documentary evidence of a qualification is going to be necessary.

[0] [http://ethos.bl.uk](http://ethos.bl.uk)

<comment><USER12> For the proof of your PhD, doesn't an official transcript mailed from your school suffice?

I've been at my job for the past 7 yrs, but has hiring changed so much in this time that most jobs DON'T ask for academic transcripts anymore?

<comment><USER11> That then means contacting my school and getting them to sort out a transcript, which means involving a third party. Easier just to point them at a URL. Done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Free MOOC certificates for most platforms? Forget about it" would be a more accurate title.

Nevertheless, the post content is quite accurate. I was immensely disappointed with Coursera's decision to remove free statement of accomplishment certificates.

On the bright side, It seems that edX won't be implementing a policy change. The reason is quite simple: coursera is a for-profit and edx is a non-profit.

The largest and most popular MOOC platforms are nearly universally for-profit orgs: Udacity, Iversity, Coursera, Futurelearn. Same with programming education platforms: Codecademy, Codeschool, Treehouse, Lynda, Pluralsight.

Putting it in UN terms: This is a reason for grave concern.

Platforms like Treehouse and Codeschool have superior learning UX and require monthly payment of $25-50. While this is certainly not much, the majority users of worldwide internet users won't be able to afford this price tag.

Dangers to public benefit will become more pronounced as soon as M&A commence and online education will become an oligopoly. Pluralsight has already acquired Codeschool for $x0 MM.

As Gibson's quote goes: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."

If this massive disparity in access to knowledge persists we will find ourselves in the world predicted by cyberpunk authors.

Are we able to change this?

</comment><comment><USER14> I honestly don't understand this. The article talks about revolutionizing the world of education and yet expects the online courses to give out certifications, like classical schools do. The free online courses exist so that you have free access to education, not that you have a piece of something that you can show to people. That might be an added benefit, and I see nothing wrong with strict requirements and charging money for it, but the primary purpose is the education, not the certificate.

<comment><USER15> While that is correct from a purely educational point of view, it's unfortunately not currently true from a social point of view.

There _are_ expectations of certification in many industries, and the assumption _is_ often made that without a certificate, you do not have the knowledge. In the IT world, this isn't really a thing, but outside it, it often is.

It's therefore completely reasonable to expect a 'replacement for classical schooling' to also provide similar certifications. Because that's what you need from a social point of view.

<comment><USER16> Yes, but frankly, does anyone ever accept MOOC certificates? All the employers I have met usually skip the MOOC part of my resume entirely.

<comment><USER17> You might have the impression that they skipped it. I, in opposite, claim that it showed the employer that you are very willing to upgrade your education on your own.

<comment><USER16> But that, again, has nothing to do with the final certificate.

<comment><USER17> No, the certificate _certifies_ that you indeed invested time to upgrade your education on your own to the employer.

<comment><USER14> Did an employer ever ask you to show them your university degree after you mentioned that you attended an university on your resume? I'm asking because it never happened to me and I don't think it's a common practice. Just mentioning that you have done some online courses on your resume and being able to talk about them seems enough to me. If the course is relevant to the job you are applying to, I expect the interviewer to be able to verify that you indeed took the course in a quick conversation.

<comment><USER17> > Did an employer ever ask you to show them your university degree after you > mentioned that you attended an university on your resume?Did an employer > ever ask you to show them your university degree after you mentioned that > you attended an university on your resume?

I live in Germany, so I can just answer this question for Germany and Austria (in the latter country the situation is even a little bit more expressed). But handing in a copy (often even a witnessed copy) of your university degree is nearly always required when making an application even to get an interview.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The shame for me is that I occasionally used the "with distinction" grading to push myself where I might otherwise think I've done a "good enough" job understanding the content. It really helped push me over the line when taking the "Mathematical Biostats Boot Camp" series, which I enjoyed. [https://www.coursera.org/course/biostats](https://www.coursera.org/course/biostats)

It's silly, I know, but free certificates were the gamification of learning, and I'll miss that particular aspect of the game.

<comment><USER19> > It's silly, I know, but free certificates were the gamification of learning, > and I'll miss that particular aspect of the game.

Absolutely. Even if I'm the only person in the world who even knows I took the class, grades and deadlines, and (to a lesser extent) certificates are part of the added value of an online class, compared to self study.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Certificates lose their meaning if they are doled out willy-nilly. Hence, Coursera has to implement (or at least try to) some sophisticated verification technology. This stuff doesn't come cheap; who's going to pay for it?

Me, personally, I don't care about certificates. I want the knowledge; and that is still free. Methinks the OP is making a big deal about a piece of paper.

<comment><USER13> >sophisticated verification technology

Haha. Coursera's verification technology is a joke and prevents only the worst cases of cheating.

>Me, personally, I don't care about certificates

What's fine for you is fine for others, right?

<comment><USER21> _Haha. Coursera 's verification technology is a joke and prevents only the worst cases of cheating._

It really is terrible. It can't recognize me, so I stopped caring about verification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does this really demonstrate Coursera "giving up on the dream [of eliminating barriers to education]?"

IMO, the important thing about MOOCs has never been accreditation (show me an employer who actually cares about potential candidates' MOOC certifications, anyway), but simply making university-level courses available without the overhead of actually attending school. And in that regard, nothing's changed.

<comment><USER23> part of what makes a course "university level" is the assessment, though. there is way more to a course than just sitting in on the lectures - you do the projects and the homework and that is where the real learning happens. courseras assessment story is weak for projects and homework, so those areas of their classes are ridiculously watered down from what is offered at a university, to scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Y'know, back when I actually read the legalese, I feared some day Coursera would take their ball home and nobody would be allowed to play anymore:

[http://octave.1599824.n4.nabble.com/Stanford-University- Prob...](http://octave.1599824.n4.nabble.com/Stanford-University- Probabilistic-Graphical-Models-tp4470602p4470781.html)

Granted, my fears at the time were about the materials vanishing, not the diplomas, but I still fear that the entire thing will some day become completely closed up.

<comment><USER25> It isn't an unreasonable fear. The interesting thing though is that the university system (actually all post secondary education) has a vested interest in having this sort of moat.

Of course 'subjects' is only one of many things you learn by going off to college, but as a new 'tradesman' class of job emerges in technology it is struggling with its own accreditation and evaluation crisis. In my youth I was a mason part time and I was required to join the union (although as I was just starting and doing odd jobs it really was more of temporary membership rather than entering as an apprentice with the goal of making masonry my profession). What struck me was how very much the masonry union was, in large part, a educational facility which dedicated a big chunk of its resources to both training new recruits, and ensuring the skills of existing members. And as software has gone from being something just a few people understood or worked on, to something every nerdy secondary school child can do the basics of, I realized that perhaps one way to solve both the 'tuition debt' and employee shortage is to just create a coders union. Something you can walk into at 15 if you want and start apprenticing, and structured so that once you were a master in good standing you could be relied upon by any employer to tackle what ever coding task they threw at you.

The conditions are ripe for this transformation of the software industry, but it is going to be painful for the entrenched players.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well that's what happens when you are trying to do charity AND make money - <USER2> doesn't make sense. Either it is free, or it is for profit. You have to choose which.

Khan Academy is free. MIT Courses on youtube are free.

These websites that want you to sign up, only be able to view courses at certain times, etc etc. Please, just give me youtube links and pdf/slides and have a forum for discussion.

This is not hard, youtube is free, pdf/slides are very cheap to host, as is a forum.

Why does Coursera even exist, what's the differentiating factor?

<comment><USER27> edX is a nonprofit, and they also charge for certificates.

[https://www.edx.org/verified-certificate](https://www.edx.org/verified- certificate)

There are labor costs involved in grading assignments and "making sure that you're the one taking the class".

<comment><USER28> There are two tiers of certification at edx. The unverified certificate is free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't see the problem here. The important part, the actual knowledge being communicated by the class is still being given for free.

<comment><USER30> For now.

<comment><USER31> Yeah it is free for now, there are no guarantees about the future (death and taxes excepted and then I am not even sure about death), but why would you make that comment? The MOOCs don't owe you anything, they are providing the equivalent of a university degree for no cost, so why so negative?

<comment><USER30> I think there are conflicting incentives, and we've seen how these things tend to play out. It's really the universities and the professors teaching the classes who are providing the courses, and they need to be careful that they don't inadvertently put all this material into a walled garden under the assumption that they're giving it away to the world.

<comment><USER32> So far, there's no wall. There's just a gardener that can sell you a certificate that you indeed visited the garden, but you can still visit it anytime whether you pay or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> One thing I'd add is another comparison to edX. edX is a non-profit, while Coursera is for-profit.

Considering that point, I view the "bait-and-switch" slightly differently, but I agree more transparency is necessary.

</comment><comment><USER34> I seem to remember that my certificate for Functional Programming with Scala had a shareable link code, whereas now it is only available to me. It's not anything I ever wanted to show someone, but it's slightly alarming from a company trust perspective that they would retroactively change the value of the free certificate.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't see the problem with charging for providing a valuable service. If Coursera is valuable then of course the people who contribute their time to making it so deserve to profit from their efforts. If it isn't valuable, then why does it matter what they charge?

<comment><USER36> I totally agree with what you're saying. However, I'd like to point out that the initial intention with MOOCs was to lower barriers to entry for low income learners around the world. Adding a fee to certificates may have increased barriers to entry in jobs that require certificates now. This, too, may prove to be a trend for increasing charges in MOOCs ... who knows maybe in a few years you'll be paying a massive sum of money to take a course course.

<comment><USER37> > "trend for increasing charges in MOOCs"

Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I work for one of the large MOOC providers. We "sell" "certificates" as a means to enable us to keep on providing education for free for those who would otherwise not have access to it. Certificate sales enable us to function (e.g. pay for staff and infrastructure) and work with our university partners in putting on courses for free.

Every day we get email from learners complaining that we charge for certification. Everyday we also get email from learners thanking us for providing free education. It's a tough balance.

</comment><comment><USER17> I accept that Coursera wants to earn money. But if paid, verified certificates can't fulfill this wish to Coursera (others on this discussion page already have argued, why it is not that easy to offer additional value for verified certificates), why doesn't Coursera try a completely different way to earn money:

It is often discussed on HN that there is a lack of qualified, say, programmers, data science experts etc. The "typical graduate" of Coursera courses is an ideal candidate to fulfill this role: Why doesn't Coursera instead let employers pay for access to their user database so that they can find high-potential candidates for their open jobs (a little bit similar to Stack Overflow Careers, but with a different focus). Why don't startups that look for underestimated, say, Python programmers search the Coursera database for good graduates of some Python programming course on Coursera. I can imagine that there could be money to be made if the often argued shortage of qualified programmers etc. is true.

</comment><comment><USER39> MOOCs ultimately face the same problem that the old Chinese Imperial Exam had that (albeit circuitously) led to the holocaust of the Taiping Rebellion of 1850. You cannot create a true meritocracy for a number of reasons, gatekeeping being one of the biggest ones.

[http://www.sacu.org/examinations.html](http://www.sacu.org/examinations.html)

</comment><comment> alok-g I am very happy to pay to get a certificate for a course that I actually get an opportunity (i.e. time) to finish. With a full-time job, a family, and side projects, it is generally hard for me to predict during sign-up if I'll be able to give enough time for course completion. It is also clear that if I do spent enough time on a course, the monetary value of my time spent and knowledge gained is much more than the cost of the certificate (I am based in the US). Additionally, while I care for the knowledge as the main thing, I do feel "why not" for the certificate too.

However, I do mind getting a certificate showing say a score of 51% when my score is 51% (instead of say 97%) just because I was unable to find time to finish. Does anyone else feel this way? Is my concern real? Assuming so, I would like to pay to get the certificate after I finish the course, not when I start it.

</comment><comment><USER40> All of these MOOCs lack true verification of knowledge. Ultimately I think that the certification test should be done in person, at a cost to the person taking the test, since they are the ones who benefit most from the legitimacy of the certificate.

Also the signed certificate should include a clear photo of the person who took the test.

</comment><comment><USER41> Who cares?

I don't think it matters in the slightest whether you got a certificate or not. These online courses provide a tremendous value by letting people _learn_. They are especially valuable for expanding your knowledge later on in life, when you already work.

As an employer, I don't care about certificates of any kind. I care about the person I'm hiring — and it isn't difficult for me to get a feel for his/her knowledge in a particular area.

</comment><comment><USER32> I have take a lot of Coursera courses, and I guess this news is a bit of a downer, but not too much. For me, SOA is more of a memorabilia peace than any value, though I admit it is convenient to have an externally visible list of courses. But if any employer ever cared, I could just print out the profile page listing them anyway :)

OTOH, they have to make money somehow, and the fact that I still can learn so much without paying anything is plain awesome.

</comment><comment><USER42> Thank you all for the discussion. I am on the support team at Coursera and wanted to share the official response we posted on the Coursera Junkie blog below.

+++

Hi Kathryn and readers,

My name is Hannah, and I'm on the support team here at Coursera. We're glad that you raised this concern, and we sincerely apologize for any confusion around our policies.

We are fully committed to our mission of providing universal access to the world's best education. As such, we continue to offer free and open access to all courses. We also offer learners the option to earn Verified Certificates, which provide official recognition from Coursera and the partner institution offering the course and formally showcases their achievements. Our robust financial aid program offers full support to learners who can demonstrate that the registration fee for a Verified Certificate is beyond their financial means.

Coursera's free certificates, also called Statements of Accomplishment, were designed before we made Verified Certificates available. Over time, we noticed confusion regarding the relative significance of the free certificate and the Verified Certificate. The latter is an official document, while the former is an unofficial, unverified memento of the course. We chose to phase out Statements of Accomplishment in order to better distinguish the official status of the Verified Certificate.

Last November, we published a blog post ([http://blog.coursera.org/post/102036391812/verified- certific...](http://blog.coursera.org/post/102036391812/verified-certificates- ensure-academic-integrity)) explaining the value of Verified Certificates and describing how most courses would no longer provide Statements of Accomplishment. Still, some older courses continue to offer Statements of Accomplishment, including the Child Psychology course you've referenced above. Understandably, that inconsistency has proven somewhat confusing.

We do our best to communicate changes clearly and will strive to be more transparent in our communication around such changes moving forward. If you have any further questions about Coursera's certificates, I encourage you to visit this page in our learner help center: [https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en- us/articles/201212139-Ce...](https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en- us/articles/201212139-Certificates-and-Course-Credit).

</comment><comment><USER43> Interesting article (and responses) on Coursera's actions, but am I the only one who objects to the clickbait title? This has nothing at all to do with the loss of free MOOCs, even with respect to Coursera itself.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm quite surprised there isn't a general "sigh of relief" that this is happening...

HN is a tech news community, where many if not most of you who are working have tech salaries that can easily pay for the new Coursera pricing...

everyone knows the tech industry is volatile in the way that every few months, a new technology comes out that sends IT professionals scrambling to learn it in order to, not stay ahead of the pack, but just to keep up with the pack.

the enormous amount of free tech/programming/CS theory/knowledge from Coursera and others have created more competition in terms of tech jobs.

By principle, all members of our society deserves access to quality education, especially in the STEM areas. But let's face it -- this is good news for existing professionals in IT...for the most part ;-)

</comment><comment><USER45> I prefer edX, it's more open in general.

</comment><comment><USER46>
        "The Statements of Accomplishment (free) and Verified
        Certificates (signature track) will be provided to all
        those who achieve 50% or higher grade, and will be released
        within 1-2 weeks after the final submission deadline closes.
        Everyone will be notified by email when they are ready. You
        will be able to download the certificate from your course
        records after they are released."

50% as a passing grade?

<comment><USER47> Usually the grading scale is the same as is used in the iteration of the college class that the MOOC is based off of.

<comment><USER46> You might be right, although a 50% grade to pass The Clinical Psychology of Children and Young People still seems a little on the low side to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Do we really need coursera? Most universities are uploading their lectures into youtube anyway.

<comment><USER49> Well a lot of coursera courses come with :

\- a community where you can discuss courses like in a real class

\- exercises,source,... that are often reviewed by real teachers or peer- review which absolutely invaluable at least for me . I learned a whole lot because of this.

So it's way more than a youtube channel with a bunch of videos. Course are shot specifically for coursera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> You have my support.

PS: MOOCs(massive, online ordered courses)</comment>


Dear Comcast: Why are you not crushing Netflix? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bradlanders.com/2011/06/15/dear-comcast-why-are-you-not-crushing-netflix/ <comment><USER2> Comcast already rakes in cash from consumers who usually have the "choice" between ATT with awful DSL service, or Comcast with awful cable modem service that is at least fast most of the time.

ATT: 1.5mbit in most locations and costs $20-$40/month not including phone line.

Comcast: costs $50-$200/month but you can get 6-100mbit in lots of locations.

To anyone who is going to try to play the "free market; let's see some competition!" card:

It's pretty impossible to do in this industry since ATT and Comcast OWN THE INFRASTRUCTURE THAT CONNECTS TO HOUSING. You really think that every city is going to let you either dig up miles of road or put up new lines on their poles? You'd even have to pay ATT/Comcast if you went the "running new lines" route.

The residential ISP business is ABSOLUTELY an oligopoly, and you'd need billions in funding to even have a chance at breaking into the market.

I hope Comcast dies a fiery death and I'm really glad to see Netflix killing them at their own game. VOD / cable boxes have been AWFUL with software that never gets updated even though they can do OTA updates and UIs that look like stuff the airlines used in the early 90s.

UX? What's that....

EDIT:

TL;DR Comcast isn't going to change much any time soon because they already make $50-$300/month in most cases...they have no motivation to change.

If netflix gets more popular, they'll just lower their bandwidth caps more to make you indirectly pay them for netflix.</comment>


Cloudatcost - You don't have to pay sky high prices to be in the Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://cloudatcost.com/index.php

<comment><USER2>

My Account

Privacy

terms

This baffles me. Are you trying to avoid things (especially spiders) accessing the T&C and such?

(It's only a few which are done this way; most are honest links.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Many questions that are left unanswered...

What does "onetime" payment mean? How long does it last? Until hardware fails? Until company bankrupt? Until end of time?

What virtualization technology do you use? I'd like to know if it is Virtuozzo/OpenVZ so I could stay away.

Which city will my VPS be hosted in? I'm in <insert city here> and need to have my VPS respond within <insert number here> ms.

Basicly, more transparency means more sales. I would never, and I assume others are like me, put my money down on a product with so many unknown variables, which generally the competition have no problem providing.

</comment><comment><USER4> it's been discussed 3 days ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563152](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563152)

</comment><comment><USER5> Very disappointed with the uplink speed. They claim to have 1 Gbps, but what I am getting to Europe is never more than 8mpbs which is awful (less than home DSL). Their ISP (Fibernetics) delivers much better uplink speed when tested, hence I guess speed is limited to their datacenter "Rack & Data" / on their VPS switches.

Support ignored investigating my request by simply closing the ticket..

Will be seeking refund.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can't i have more disk space there? I'd take a 1GB one for $70 plus some more for more disk, i need at least 80GB.

</comment><comment><USER6> Got an instance from them, works really cool, so far i'm happy and i save on hosting a lot!</comment>


Show HN: Quanra, a REST API for QuantLib - <AUTHOR> https://quantra.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just in case, I posted this a couple of years ago but according to HN policies it is fine to repost.

These couple years and the quarantine gave me time to make some changes to it.</comment>


Show HN: Reader.watch: daily curated list of 5 articles on tech and startups - <AUTHOR> http://reader.watch

<comment><AUTHOR> Welcome to follow us at [https://twitter.com/reader_watch](https://twitter.com/reader_watch) and [https://www.facebook.com/reader.watch](https://www.facebook.com/reader.watch)</comment>


Twitter: Shutting down spammers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twitter.com/2012/04/shutting-down-spammers.html

<comment><USER2> Sadly we are not seeing any results. I get far more spam followers and mentions now, than ever before.</comment>