How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/how-advantage-players-game-the-casinos.html <comment><USER3> I used advantage gambling to help put myself through grad school during the first online casino boom. There were so many casinos vying for players, that many offered a bonus -- say $500 extra to play with if you deposit $500. Of course that $500 had a playthrough requirement -- you may have to wager a total of 20x that to withdraw -- so $10,000. Now you simply find a casino that has a game with odds that beat the playthough. So, for example, if a game has a 1% house edge, you're expected to lose about $100 wagering that $10000, leaving you a theoretical $400 in profit.

Eventually, the casinos wised up and changed it so the wagering had to be done on slots, which have terrible odds. However, we figured out early on (I was in an advantage gambler forum) that there were "double or nothing" games in the slot machine, that let you go double-or-nothing between 5 and 10 times. These counted towards wagering, and were essentially perfect 50/50 odds (no house edge) - so by always going double or nothing until the end, you could rack up most of your wagers at 50/50 even though the initial slot roll was at a much higher house edge.

I think I started with $100 deposit into a casino and probably made > $50k in the two years after that. About $40k of that went to bills and $10k became my initial poker bankroll while I taught myself to play poker professionally, which I did for the rest of grad school after the casino bonus gambling winded down (they eventually wised up to the slot machine thing too) -- and if you player poker at a high enough level and you use judicious table selection, you can always advantage gamble (because you are gambling with each other, not the house, though the house gets their cut with the rake -- so you have to win at a high enough level that you know you are beating the rake)

I was a "small time" person, just doing it on the side to earn spending money -- there were certainly other people who had many many computers, VPNs, shill addresses, etc who took those casinos for hundreds of thousands a year for those couple years.

I learned a lot about probability theory, estimated value, and the mathematics of gambling in general, gained the emotional strength to deal with high variance (the best description of playing poker professionally that I ever heard was that it was like playing a game of chess for $1, then flipping a coin for $100. In the long run that chess game is the only thing that matters, but in the short run those coin flips can be brutal). Good times.

<comment><USER4> > the best description of playing poker professionally that I ever heard was > that it was like playing a game of chess for $1, then flipping a coin for > $100. In the long run that chess game is the only thing that matters, but in > the short run those coin flips can be brutal

Great quote! What books or online resources would you recommend for getting better at poker? Not looking to play professional but do enjoy the game and always looking to improve.

<comment><USER3> It's been a long time now since I've studied intensely (haven't played much poker outside of the occasional home game with friends for 10 years), but I imagine the 2+2 forums are still the best forums around for discussion of strategy, hand reviews, theory, etc.

David Sklanksy and Harrington and Ed Miller's books are probably the best around still in terms of a comprehensive overview of the various games, especially Hold Em and Stud, the games of course change as people change styles, but the basics are there.

If you are mathematically minded or just interested in a whirlwind tour through game theory and gambling theory, I highly recommend The Mathematics of Poker by Chen and Ankenman -- but it's a pretty heavy lift [https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Poker-Bill- Chen/dp/188607...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Poker-Bill- Chen/dp/1886070253)

I've also heard good things about Applications of No-Limit Holdem by Matthew Janda but it came out after I pretty much quit playing regularly so I haven't read it.

If watching people play is more your thing there are tons of good sites out there now were good players record themselves playing and give a running commentary on their thought process as they play. It can be quite an eye opener to listen to what a good player thinks about when they make their decisions.

<comment><USER5> Daniel Negreanu is always fun to watch, and he has some great streams on Twitch when he's out of the country: [https://www.twitch.tv/dnegspoker](https://www.twitch.tv/dnegspoker) (He often plays Hearthstone when he's home in Vegas, and that's fun to watch too.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those of you that don't know, the primary character in this piece, James Grosjean, isn't just any advantage player, he is _the_ advantage player. He wrote what is often referred to as the Bible of advantage play - <USER2> Counting_ \- and its sequel, _Exhibit CAA: Beyond Counting_. Both of these books are incredibly hard to find, and when they do come up for sale, often sell for thousands of dollars. Here's a current listing for the original book, at the low price of $1600:

[http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beyond-Counting-Exploiting-Casino- Ga...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beyond-Counting-Exploiting-Casino-Games-from- Blackjack-to-Video-Poker- James-G-/131848943010?hash=item1eb2cf35a2:i:131848943010)

Here's a link to his _Beyond Numbers_ blog:

[http://beyondnumbers.lvablog.com](http://beyondnumbers.lvablog.com)

<comment><USER7> I know it might be judgmental and possibly hypocritical, but I can't help but think that kind of intellect and education is wasted on trying to beat a casino.

If money is the end goal, wouldn't there be a bigger opportunity in pursuing investment strategy ideas (i.e. market inefficiencies), or working on making some process more efficient that could disrupt some industry (i.e. spam/phishing detection, or deep learning) and have better chance of long term gains. I'd think casino strategies once discovered can be mitigated over time so all that hard work will payoff temporarily?

<comment><USER8> You could say the same thing for derivatives traders. At least with beating the casino, you're usually comped swanky rooms and perks (since you're wagering so much money).

<comment><USER9> If you're good, you get comped a lot more than swanky rooms. A friend of mine has done this for a couple decades. He gets comped cars. Nice ones. He sells them. He's always selling stuff like $1,000 Saks gift certs online.

He gets what they call RFB (room, food, and beverage) out the wazoo. He's drank more expensive wine that most sommeliers. At one point it was hard to find an expensive restaurant in Vegas I hadn't eaten at, and I only saw him a tiny fraction of the time.

He gets his plane trips to basically anywhere with a casino paid for, often in a chartered jet. A guy with a sign with his name meets him at the airport.

In most parts of the country, if you ask enough girls if they want to go with you on a private jet to a luxury suite at the Wynn, one will say yes. Not a direct perk, of course, but an attractive indirect one for a single guy.

The value of the perks is substantial. You could buy them, but it would cost a lot.

<comment><USER10> If he's "good", he must win money. If he wins money, the casino loses. If the casino loses, why on earth would they comp him anything beyond the first couple of times he turns up?

Sorry, but I don't believe you. Either your friend has a chronic gambling addiction and is filthy rich and the casinos love him as he's a walking ATM, or he or you is talking nonsense.

<comment><USER11> Most career gamblers are making money in poker. In big money games, you play against other players and the house takes a rake. If players have stacks in the millions (which they do), the rake is pretty damn big. Not to mention, players will win a million in poker, then go play Baccarat or something. Gamblers don't gamble just to make money...

<comment><USER12> I remember a quote from somewhere: "If you are winning it's not gambling". If you beat the rake and have an edge over the other players it's just a mind game of dealing with variance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to think my sister-in-law was impervious to the law probability because she plays the slots.

Then one day she noticed there was a scratch ticket where you could put the losing tickets into a raffle being held at the local casino and win a prize but you had to be present at the drawing. Well, she looked in the jar a few days before the drawing and estimated there were only about 50 tickets in the jar so she bought 80 tickets and put the losers in the jar and got her mother to put 20 in... And her mother won a trip to Las Vegas worth around $2000.

Which is the rub because people who look for this kind of thing are people who are serious about gambling and often they lose it back some other way.

I think of the many WSOP winners who immediately lose the money playing craps.

</comment><comment><USER14> Casino (and gambling in general) benefit from the perception that they can be beaten. It's why they sell card counting books in the gift shops. While they'll shut down anything like card based craps that advantage players can just clean up on, they're generally perfectly fine with professional gamblers who work their asses off to get a slight advantage.

<comment><USER15> They will toss you out on your ass for any systemic card counting that actually works, especially the newer blinded player methods.

<comment><USER16> What are the "newer blinded player methods"? Google only finds your comment.

<comment><USER15> I'm aware of it from school. Essentially it's a variant on the MIT team running tally system for blackjack. In the original, players are called over to "hot" tables, based upon a running tally kept by other team members at each table. Details are widely available.

Casinos now use training and technology to differentiate surprise vs. expected wins. It also becomes fairly obvious to spot once one knows the trick. To obfuscate the technique, some players are called to average tables. As a result, the players don't know whether their table is hot at the time. The overall win percentage is lower, resulting in lower ROI, but it's much more effective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > But when Sun was arrested in 2007 for a $93,000 gambling debt owed to MGM, > she vowed revenge

What? How is that legal?

<comment><USER18> Not legal in Canada. Debt isn't a criminal offense. I don't think they can arrest you.

But maybe I'm confusing it for: they can't throw you in jail for debts.

<comment><USER19> It's also illegal in the US to jail someone for debts. The way they get around this in Nevada is to jail you for writing bad checks, which is fraud. THat is to say: intentionally writing a check you know will bounce is fraud and a crime, but in the event that a check you wrote bounces, it's hard to prove that you didn't know the check would bounce when you wrote it. So it's not really debtor's prison, but almost a loophole to create a debtor's prison.

<comment><USER20> "Didn't know the check would bounce" implies you, what, don't know how to add up a list of numbers? Its fair to say a bounced check means bad faith.

<comment><USER19> Here are some examples where it wouldn't mean bad faith, and I'm pretty sure the majority of the time a bad check would NOT indicate bad faith:

I wrote a check, but I was changing direct deposit accounts at my employer to a new account. I transposed my account number, my paycheck didn't get deposited, my check bounced. Oops!

I completely forgot that I wrote a check earlier in the week. I write the second check after looking at my bank account balance which says I should be able to write the second check. The first check then comes through, the second check bounces. Oops!

My landlord usually cashes my rent checks on the 3rd. This month he was out of town so didn't get around to cashing it until the 10th. I checked my balance on the 9th and assuming my rent check had been cashed as usual, that I had enough to write the second check. By the time the second check is cashed, there is no money in my account so it bounces. Oops!

Didn't mean to write a check that would bounce in any of those (imaginary) situations. No intent to write a bad check means no crime of fraud, as fraud requires specific intent to defraud.

<comment><USER20> Most of those _do_ constitute "not knowing how to add up a list of numbers". Checking your balance before writing a check is not sufficient, as the examples demonstrate. This is almost a perfect example of 'bad faith' e.g. the check writer isn't diligently accounting for all of their expenses.

What you 'mean' to do doesn't matter. Writing more checks than there are deposits to cover, is bad faith.

<comment><USER21> "Bad faith" requires intent. Carelessness is not "bad faith". It's negligence.

I've had my debit card declined because I'd already withdrawn everything and failed to pay attention to the balance. If I'd written a check instead of using the debit card, it would have bounced instead of being declined. That's not bad faith. It's careless and embarrassing, but not bad faith.

<comment><USER22> In New York, you have 10 days to make good on the obligation.

[http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article190.htm](http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article190.htm)

I imagine in some of the nastier states, the law is harsher. IIRC, you can get 10 years in prison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > "We killed most of the cards-based craps games, including one at Agua > Caliente casino near Palm Springs. That's where we won $335,000

I grew up a few miles east of this casino, I wondered where craps went when I ended up there during a bachelor party.

<comment><USER23> I don't understand what "cards-based craps" is. I'm only familiar with the dice kind.

<comment><USER24> It's explained pretty exhaustively in this article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Unless you get some other enjoyment out of gambling, this is a hard way to make a little easy money.

I used to play poker 30 hours a week. If you play optimally, it is extremely boring and fatiguing.

</comment><comment><USER26> This article was great. It made me remember reading Scarne's New Complete Guide to Gambling long time ago.

[https://www.amazon.com/Scarnes-New-Complete-Guide- Gambling/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Scarnes-New-Complete-Guide- Gambling/dp/0671630636)

He has a great story of how gamblers would get casinos to increase betting limits and allow them to successfully use a martingale system. To this day, casino owners still fall for this and lose substantially.

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

<comment><USER27> Martingale systems definitely do not cause casino owners to "lose substantially" \- the bettor cannot match the casino's bankroll and any amount of money won back after the first bet increase is actually the bettor's. The casino can afford to let you double because they are only ever putting the original amount bet at risk.

<comment><USER28> It could only happen if the tables had a ridiculous limit which almost never happens. If it did, I could see a few billionaires grouping together to be able to bankrupt almost any casino by betting a billion on black instead of red.

<comment><USER29> Couldn't the casino buy insurance from some other billionaires?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I can expand a bit on how advantage play can work for the hold'em games against the house. I'm sure Grosjean and other professionals at this sort of thing have more sophisticated tactics. Fun fact - last I looked maybe 6-7 years ago, his book was selling for low 4 figures on the secondary market. That's how much advantage players can value an unknown tactic.

About 10 years ago casinos started offering various hold'em variants played against the house, presumably to cash in on the poker boom that was going on. Most of them try to mimic the flow of a hold'em hand as much as possible. You'll always have to ante something (somewhat analogous to posting a blind, but also just required as a way to force action in a table game), and then generally there's a decision point after getting your hole cards where you can bet more or fold. The more complicated games include additional decision points after seeing the flop and sometimes the turn. There's a lot more details I'm glossing over here about how it works (dealer hand must qualify by being a minimum strength, different payouts for various final hand strengths, different allowable bet sizes, bonus bets, etc.), but that's the basic structure. I recall seeing 3 major variants at the time - from least complicated to most, WPT All-in Hold'em, Texas Hold'em Bonus (I think, whatever the WSOP branded one was that Harrah's had), and Ultimate Texas Hold'em. WPT seems dead, UTH I still see around a bit. Not sure if Harrah's and other places still run Bonus.

The basic strategy for all these games generally involves a simple lookup table for the preflop action - for WPT, the correct play is to max bet for 90+% of your hands [1]- it's a very easy game to play perfectly. For UTH, it's probably closer to 25% [2]. (Aside - ignoring bankroll considerations, it's almost always correct to bet the max on any game that allows a range of bets. Either the bet is +EV or it isn't.)

The easiest advantage you can take is to simply know more cards at the table. Most dealers in my experience will allow you to show cards to your friends, ask for advice, whatever. Knowing more cards lets you make better decisions. Simple example - in WPT 83 offsuit is a very borderline playable hand. If you see another 8 in a player's hand, that may make it unplayable (since you're less likely to make a pair of 8s). Alternatively, if you have a borderline unplayable hand, seeing a pair of high cards in another hand may make the dealer less likely to qualify, which is an advantage for you when you have any bad hand.

In WPT at least, this is an extremely minor advantage - the "strategic frontier" where your decisions may be changed by this knowledge is extremely small. It's theoretically a much larger advantage in UTH, but there the strategy changes you can make with this knowledge encompass such a huge state space that you'll not be able to apply it consistently.

A second advantage is touched on in the article, viewing the dealer's hole cards. This is much harder to do and usually involves finding a dealer with bad form - I believe they're trained to slide the cards right out of the machine along the felt to avoid this, but some dealers lift slightly, so you can catch glimpses if you're in the right seat. Hopefully the playing advantages of knowing the dealer's cards are obvious.

I wouldn't be surprised if shuffle tracking is employed as well, but I'm not really sure what the state of the shuffle machines is these days.

Surprisingly, the biggest advantage I ever saw was to simply understand how to evaluate a hold'em hand. I've played hundreds of thousands of hands (former pro), and I still get it wrong occasionally when I'm not paying attention. When all these games first came out, casinos had to train dealers to do this, many of whom had never played poker. I think I calculated that I'd need to see a mistake rate of something like 1/600 to make the game profitable right out of the gate, ignoring any other advantages, and I was seeing 2-3 mistakes/hr (out of maybe 30-100 hands/hr). Admittedly only about half of the mistakes will be in your favor. It's not quite as easy these days, but for the first year or so it was an absolute gold mine.

Orthogonal to all this, some of these games are pretty easy to play at 98+%. Watching how people play these games, I wouldn't be surprised if the average table hold is upwards of 10%. I don't have any particular proof, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten grossly overcomped for play at these games.

[1] Everything but 82o, 73o-, 63o-, 52o, 43o, 32o. I'm not sure why 53o is playable. [2] Something like Ax+, K5o+, K2s+, Q5s+, Q7o+, J8s+, JTo, 33+. You can find the full table at wizardofodds or similar sites.

<comment><USER31> > When all these games first came out, casinos had to train dealers to do > this, many of whom had never played poker. I think I calculated that I'd > need to see a mistake rate of something like 1/600 to make the game > profitable right out of the gate, ignoring any other advantages, and I was > seeing 2-3 mistakes/hr (out of maybe 30-100 hands/hr).

What kind of mistakes are you talking about here? Like, the dealer has a full house but mistakenly thinks he has two pair?

<comment><USER30> Things like the board being a 5-flush and not realizing that it's a push (or pushing instead of winning because they don't realize that they have a card in hand that plays), or the board being two pair that counterfeits your pair, or the board pairing and counterfeiting your kicker. Occasionally flat out missing things like having a straight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > illegal for dice to determine financial outcomes in games of chance

That's pretty odd, anyone knows why that is?

<comment><USER33> Weighted dice. Go back a century and it's much easier to ban gambling using dice than it is to ensure that the games are fair.

<comment><USER34> Or it was a [poor] way to try and ban certain types of gambling while allowing others.

<comment><USER33> Same thing, really. Dice games tended to erupt into violence amid accusations of dice being weighted; there was no practical way to sure that the dice weren't weighted, but the state had an interest in preventing violence; so the solution was to ban those games while allowing other forms of gambling which were less likely to become violent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Personally I love the fact that people try to beat the house. And to play devil's advocate for a second, the fact that consistently winning is even possible should just drive more business.

<comment><USER35> I feel that the idea, that consistently winning is possible, is partially a myth, but it persists among casino regulars. I know people who do this or have in the past, and the big problem is eventually getting banned from various casinos. It seems rather one-sided to me, but legally they're allowed to ban people for consistently winning.

<comment><USER36> My grandfather plays a video poker game called Deuces Wild and when the payouts are set just right and you play perfect you have a slightly over 100% payout. He has been playing for over a decade in Mesquite Nevada and has been making a slight profit year after year.

When you add in points rewards you can end up doing ok in free steaks and massages. The casino knows he wins and is fine with it. My guess is that they like the fact that he is willing to try and help people learn how to play perfectly (which is not trivial) and that makes the other customers play more and essentially cover the small amount of profit he makes.

<comment><USER37> Sounds like you are talking about what's often called "Full Pay" Deuces Wild

[http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/deuces- wild...](http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/deuces-wild/)

<comment><USER36> Yeah that's the term he uses.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


From H.P., a Blunder That Seems to Beat All - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/business/hps-autonomy-blunder-might-be-one-for-the-record-books.html?pagewanted=1&nl=business&emc=edit_dlbkpm_20121130

<comment><USER2> "Hewlett-Packard's acquisition last year of the British software maker Autonomy for $11.1 billion "may be worse than Time Warner," Toni Sacconaghi, the respected technology analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, told me, a view that was echoed this week by several H.P. analysts, rivals and disgruntled investors.

Last week, H.P. stunned investors still reeling from more than a year of management upheavals, corporate blunders and disappointing earnings when it said it was writing down $8.8 billion of its acquisition of Autonomy, in effect admitting that it had overpaid by an astonishing 79 percent."

Doesn't that mean they overpaid by 482 percent? It is true that the acquisition lost 79 percent of its value, but the editor seems to have gotten the math wrong here.

<comment><USER3> Almost correct - actually 382 Percent overpayment. 0% overpayment would have been 2.3 Billion. ($11.1 - $8.8).

Did you send in a correction to the Editor?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "From H.P., a Blunder That Seems to Beat All"

"The dubious title of worst corporate deal ever had seemed to be held in perpetuity by AOL's acquisition of Time Warner in 2000"

No mention of Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch? Within 15 days of the acquisition's close, Merrill recorded an operating loss of $21.5 billion... Leading to a market capitalization loss of $108 billion.

<comment><USER5> The article makes a point of comparing the mergers to the broader economic conditions at the time. HP acquired Autonomy and lost money at a time when the computer industry was (and still is) growing.

On the other hand, AOL and Time Warner merged right before the bubble burst and BoA acquired Merrill Lynch at the same time the economy was crashing. Without the acquisition, Merrill would have gone bankrupt anyway and BoA's market cap would have cratered anyway because the entire financial sector was cratering at the same time. In fact, the US government heavily pressured (threatened) BoA into acquiring Merrill ([http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/04/23/AR2009042302461.html)).

So no, they're much different cases.

<comment><USER4> Of course they are "different cases" - there are always separate macroeconomic conditions, and there was government intervention in the acquisition, but the fact still remains on the "worst corporate deal ever" front, BAC acquired a company that lost $20+ billion in the first post-acquisition quarter.

<comment><USER6> They are not comparable. Its good info and context, but you're overselling it as a comp. "worst corporate deal ever" is shorthand for executive decision. ML was too policy infected to be considered a "real deal" with other options on the table. If you take the "choice" away from the transaction, you are no longer takling about a "deal" in the common sense of the term, IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"We tried really hard to make this work," the former Autonomy executive said. "Instead of doing it the Autonomy way, which is to sweep problems out of the way and move full steam ahead, we got bogged down in H.P. process."_

I have no words.

<comment><USER8> Having seen Autonomy's products and support in action, I can vouch for their seemingly preternatural ability to brush off problems as if they didn't exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Autonomy debacle aside, what has Meg Whitman accomplished since she took over HP ? After a long tortured process that needn't take so long, she enshrined WebOS's abandonment. And with her at the helm, HP continues to fail to innovate in the consumer electronics space. No decent phones, No compelling tablet, not even a laptop worth glossing over. Zilch.

When is she going move on from blaming her _failed_ predecessors for their missteps & actually put an imprint of her own.

I don't know who's worse at H.P. The CEOs who effectively run the company to the ground or the board that picks them.

<comment><USER10> I don't know what you're expecting. When Steve Jobs became CEO of Apple in 1997, it also took more than a year for any products he influenced to launch. And presumably his predecessor hadn't gutted research and development of hardware...

<comment><USER9> Not only did Jobs bring with him the trunk of what effectively would become OSX. Within months of his return , Jobs had slimmed down Apple's product portfolio to a handful of products then immediately started executing on that vision. As flawed as he was as a human being, Jobs was decisive.

She took forever to make a decision about the fate of the PSG (personal systems groups,) Agonized months over what to do with (granted, a fatally wounded) WebOs. I'm not saying she wasn't dealt a tough hand. I couldn't agree more. Her predecessors strategic blunders were atrocious, but she could have acted with more urgency.

<comment><USER11> It's actually kind of funny to hear you talk about this.

Meg Whitman "enshrined WebOS's abandonment", "After a long tortured process", "Agonized for months".

Steve Jobs on the other hand "Within months [...] slimmed down Apple's product portfolio to a handful of products".

Is it just me, or are you describing fundamentally the exact same actions? I sense a spin doctor in the house.

<comment><USER9> No, I just remember listening to the investor calls over a couple quarters & she was unable to give a straight answer on either issue ( WebOS, PSG)

<comment><USER6> The issues are totally different. Meg is an ex board-member doing triage after a series of clusterfucks. She has to sort-out the politics and vision thing that has been left over from the previously aborted pet projects of more than one "administration". In that sense, its similar to the Yahoo situation with Marissa Mayer. What you want to see is think-fast+move slow...not more haphazard whiplash. That being said, she still may not be all that great. Time will tell. The automony thing is a complete embarassment, and she was on the board that approved it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone take HP seriously as a modern software company? Although I haven't looked into their operations and financials, my impression is that they sell plenty of servers (going on the Compaq legacy); a certain amount of ill- regarded desktops, laptops, and peripherals; probably lots of scientific equipment like oscilloscopes, gas chromatographs, etc.; and networking hardware. Of course there are also printers, but their once-wonderful reputation has dropped precipitously since the 1990s.

<comment><USER13> HP desktops and networking hardware is good. I don't know about their laptops but they were horrible 4 or 5 years ago. Their printer division has been resting on its laurels for almost a decade and its not clear if the hardware is any good because the software that ships with HP printers is SO bad its impossible to say.

<comment><USER14> I print a few pages a week, scan something occasionally, and almost never fax, but I like to have the option to do these things. When I but a cheap-ish all- in-one printer, I specifically avoid HP. My expectations for cheap-o printers are low, but the last two HP printers felt way too flimsy, they installed too much bloatware, and on the last one I could never get the scanner to work. I've had much better luck with Brother and Epson products.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article isn't perfect but the conclusion is:

> _Just as Autonomy was supposed to transform H.P. into a software powerhouse, > AOL was meant to transform old-media Time Warner into an Internet darling. > So-called transformative thinking by some board members and top management > rendered traditional valuations irrelevant and silenced critics.

In both cases, that thinking proved delusional._

<comment><USER16> The reminds me of when eBay bought Skype and sat on it for half a decade. Big companies rarely get transformed as a result of acquiring a smaller company.

Would love counter-examples to this idea if anyone can think of any :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why do they keep referring to the company as "H.P." when it's "HP".

<comment><USER18> The New York Times style guide recommends periods after the letters if you pronounce the letters individually. [1]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Pronunciation- dependent...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Pronunciation- dependent_style)

<comment><USER19> And yet they write "AOL" in this article.

<comment><USER20> That's because the company's name is AOL, Inc.[1], and not an abbreviation. It doesn't have anything to do with the pronunciation. AOL used to be known as America Online, but when it bought Time Warner, the new company was called "AOL Time Warner"[2].

The Times also writes "I.B.M." instead of IBM, because it is officially "International Business Machines". They also used to write "A.T.&T." for "American Telephone and Telegraph" [3], but now write "AT&T" when AT&T changed their name to the former acronym.

[1] <http://www.google.com/finance?q=AOL>

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/11/business/media-megadeal- ov...](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/11/business/media-megadeal-overview- america-online-agrees-buy-time-warner-for-165-billion.html)

[3] (google-cache) [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ByumNxy...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ByumNxycOjwJ:www.nytimes.com/1990/07/01/business/equipment- drags-on-at-t.html%3Fpagewanted%3Dall%26src%3Dpm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER11> Don't you hate it when people pick standards, and then actually stick with them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > an eye-popping multiple of 12.6 times Autonomy's 2010 revenue

Is 12.6 really "eye-popping"? It seems that similar companies (SAP, Oracle) go for about 4 times sales (Microsoft is just 3 times sales, probably because they are seen to be in decline). Expecting a growing company to quadruple sales (presumably also quadrupling the number of salesmen) isn't really that crazy, is it?

And it's a good way for HP to push their new sales + consulting strategy.

It sounds more like a perma-bear whinge about over-priced IT companies. There's good arguments about why IT companies are often overpriced (they do tend to be risky), but I can see where HP was coming from.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't know how much they paid, but it seems like the acquisition of Vertica was a great move. I use it everyday and it is a fantastic product.

</comment><comment><USER23> I assume that Autonomy probably does all its sales via sales people long personalised processes, but I have to say their website isn't particularly good at all. Given the money involved you would think they would have invested in a more modern website, telling people who do happen to visit it in less abstract terms exactly what they do and why people should care.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is not a blunder.

<comment><USER25> Be more specific, please?</comment></comment>


Why pandemic problems should get colleges to admit by lottery - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickhess/2020/04/07/spotty-transcripts-no-test-scores-how-should-colleges-select-students-next-year/#4bafcec03270 <comment><USER2> All that work and effort reduced to the chance to roll a dice is not going to sit well with many and with that, we cal almost call 2020 a snap in marvell speak.

I appreciate that the lottery idea is a solution from one perspective, and should your education be based upon a lottery or merit is not a choice that should be even on the table as a solution.</comment>


Ask HN: How to start working with Common Crawl? - <AUTHOR> I have just seen Common Crawl and is interested in it ! What are the instructions on getting started with it and how to set it up if needed to ? <comment><AUTHOR> Is there any tutorial on there you would recommend for me as everything is very advanced and hard for me to understand please ?

</comment><comment><USER2> The common crawl website has tons of links to tutorials and examples...

<comment><AUTHOR> Where on the site because I searched the site and found none ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well at least nothing that will have me learn how to use it or to get to accessing common crawl data .

<comment><USER2> [https://commoncrawl.org/the-data/](https://commoncrawl.org/the-data/)

That's one of the main menu points of the site, linked from the top of every page.

<comment><AUTHOR> What does this tutorial teach you how to do with common crawl ? [http://ecs- network.serv.pacific.edu/past-courses/2012-spring...](http://ecs- network.serv.pacific.edu/past-courses/2012-spring- ecpe-293a/projects/commoncrawl-tutorial)

<comment><AUTHOR> Because i'm not sure if it tells me how to use MapReduce only or common crawl ?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


NYC BigTime CityTime Fraud Charges Ripples On  - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/nyc-bigtime-citytime-fraud-charges-ripples-on <comment><USER2> I once developed a web based time card system for $3K.

I'm certainly not comparing that to a system for all of NYC but $60M ballooning into $700M that's completely insane.

How can anyone imagine that the complexity of a time card system could approach that of air-traffic control. Is this sort of thing due to the total technical incompetence of our leadership ?

<comment><USER3> I did a research case-study on this project and the FBI system as part of a study on enterprise architecture failures. The principal purpose of the CityTime system was to prevent city employees from filling out and signing time cards for their coworkers. In other words, reduce fraud in the time keeping system and thereby lower city costs (payroll is one of, if not _the_ , biggest expense for the city government).

Outside of the fantastic irony of the situation, that requirement was interpreted to mean a fairly high level of security and auditing over the city employees' time keeping activities. This meant system integrated biometric scanners, one-time keys, end-to-end encryption etc...making for a fantastically complicated architecture.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the information. But I can't see how even those technologies could begin to justify even the initial price (unless they were trying to develop their own biometrics systems from scratch, which I don't think is necessary given today's state-of-the-art).

My guess is that the biggest risk in trying to develop such a system is making something that's completely impractical for the end user.

<comment><USER3> Oh, I agree. Even the original bid price seems outrageous to me. However, one thing to keep in mind is that the city government of NYC is _massive_. Something like a bit over a quarter of a million employees working in everything from teaching to subway track maintenance, with a budget of $50 billion/yr. Just stopping the fraud issue with the time and attendance system would have saved the original cost of the system!

One side-issue that's caused some of the bloat was the various city-employee unions fighting against biometric scanners for time-in/time-out logging.

Here's some of the sources I used in my study (note the great discussion _here_ on the same topic a while ago):

[https://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/03/26/2010-03-26_city_...](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/03/26/2010-03-26_city_pours_722m_down_consulting_contracts_black_hole.html)

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/nyregion/23scanning.html>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068>

<http://www.nyc.gov/html/opa/html/about/city_time.shtml>

[http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_...](http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_230_consultants)

[http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.62e273bb0ef1f...](http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.62e273bb0ef1f307a62fa24601c789a0/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Deutsche searched in money laundering probe over Panama Papers - sahin-boydas https://www.reuters.com/article/us-deutsche-bank-moneylaundering-idUSKCN1NY0ZN <comment><AUTHOR> This is about Deutsche Bank.

As a German, this headline reads like "Germans searched...", so I was confused for a moment.

<comment><USER2> I (as a German) was not. Reading "Deutsche", "Money Laundering" and "Searched" in one line made obviously clear what was meant. In my bubble, this institution is a synonym for organized crime.

<comment><USER3> As a Polish person both your and GP's user names caught me off guard somewhat.

<comment><USER4> I, for one, are reminded of a most excellent Polish vodka by your parent's user name.

<comment><USER3> Ah yes, one of the very few brands that wasn't taken over by foreign competition.

To be honest I don't remember if I ever tried it - emphasis on remember.

If you are into mean spirits(pun intended) I recommend "Śliwowica łącka", although to try it you'd have hike the mountains od Lesser Poland because this type of liquor is technically illegal and available mostly in that region.

<comment><USER5> Is that like the Slivovitz you can find in the balkans? If so, the homebrew stuff is definitely tops (if you have relatives who still distill their own) but there's serviceable mass-market stuff you can get in some US liquor stores.

<comment><USER3> More or less, but has more of that barely-made-it-through-the-snowstorm taste.

Highlanders usually brew it, but I heard that given that it's not legal there are a lot of counterfeits in circulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't this a bit late? Surely everything incriminating has been burned by now?

And also, how much is even stored locally on paper these days? I wonder how much sense these kinds of razzias still make.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely scary amounts of the information associated with private wealth management is still paper-based. Secondly, banks have huge internal complexity of systems and limited ability to coordinate people. Whether or not DB were doing this, it's highly likely there is a lot of evidence.

<comment><USER8> >Absolutely scary amounts of the information associated with private wealth management is still paper-based.

Can confirm. I was an AML Officer for a pretty substantial bank that focused on private wealth management. The lack of technology would truly horrify most HN readers.

For example, the height of our technology was our "intranet" \- a shared excel file with hyperlinks to other files on the shared drive.

<comment><USER9> A feature, not a bug: If you want to cheat the state, technology is your worst enemy. Paper trail too

<comment><USER8> You know that's very true. If you can't present a file because it's "lost" (which happened not infrequently) the regulators don't know whether you've done your due diligence or not and you get a slap on the wrist for deficient paperwork. On the other hand, if your files demonstrate inadequate due diligence you're in for quite a bit of trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> PROTIP: If you are having trouble opening a bank account for your blockchain company, use these headlines to find banks that just dgaf

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't Deutsche Bank the only bank that will still do business with Trump?

<comment><USER12> Not sure if they're the only bank that will lend but he certainly owes them a bundle of money: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-28/mnuchin-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-28/mnuchin- suggests-his-twitter-was-compromised-deletes-retweet)

"According to an analysis by Bloomberg, Trump now owes Deutsche around $300m. He has four large mortgages, all issued by Deutsche's private bank. The loans are guaranteed against the president's properties: a new deluxe hotel in Washington DC's old Post Office building, just round the corner from the White House; his Chicago tower hotel; and the Trump National Doral Miami resort."

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/16/deutsche- ban...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/16/deutsche-bank- examined-trump-account-for-russia-links)

And this: [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/31/deutsche- ba...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/31/deutsche-bank- fined-630m-over-russia-money-laundering-claims)

And this: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-donald-trump-needs-a- loan-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-donald-trump-needs-a-loan-he- chooses-deutsche-bank-1458379806)

And well, you know where this all goes...

<comment><USER13> > his Chicago tower hotel;

Coincidence? The lawyer that handles tax matters for this property had his office raided by the FBI today:

[https://cltv.com/2018/11/29/federal-agents-raid-office-of- po...](https://cltv.com/2018/11/29/federal-agents-raid-office-of-powerful- chicago-ald-ed-burke/)</comment></comment></comment>


Gitstats - cool stats about your git repo - <AUTHOR> http://gitstats.sourceforge.net/

<comment><USER2> Cool. Here's another take on this, which doesn't produce quite as nice output, but produces some different stats and is Ruby based and a bit more objecty (if that matters). It doesn't like being fed the kernel but was fine on some very large software projects.

<https://github.com/mpdehaan/lookatgit>

<comment><USER3> There is a joke in here somewhere about Chuck Norris and parsing the Linux kernel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hosted on Sourceforge... seriously?

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha exactly what I thought. Looked like some people forked it on Github though <https://github.com/trybeee/GitStats>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Aw, there's some sanity checking missing. The Linux kernel example report has commits from 1970 & 2037, which really screws up the graphs.</comment>


Octogit - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/myusuf3/octogit <comment><USER2> I used this project as an excuse to submit a pull request (adding gist viewing), refresh myself some python (it's been a while), and write a blog post about it ([http://earino.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/being-a-github- polygl...](http://earino.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/being-a-github-polyglot/)). I genuinely love what github has provided me, a place to program for fun again, without having to delve so deeply into a sub-community of open source that I have to invest real deeply. I can literally hit a URL, see what issues exist about a project, and fix something. Github is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> See also Hub <https://github.com/defunkt/hub>

<comment><USER4> it hasn't been updated in ages, which is a shame really as last time I checked a lot of the super useful commands (like transforming an issue into a PR) were not working because of the v3 API

<comment><USER5> Would be nice to see someone take on maintaining hub, or at least fixing the broken stuff. Zach Holman spoke highly of it in "Git and Github Secrets" a few weeks ago.

<comment><USER6> I was under the impression mislav was maintaining it at the moment. At least I've seen some commits from him in the last 2 months, including some a few hours ago, although that might have been prompted by this thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish the author could have just contributed to hub (<https://github.com/defunkt/hub>)... It would be very cool if 'hub' had issues support.

Oh well, this is written in Python, and 'hub' is Ruby.

<comment><USER8> Before defunkt's _hub_ there was _App::GitHub_ so it might have been good if everyone had contributed to this :)

ref: <https://metacpan.org/module/App::GitHub>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the issues arena is a good use case, and I currently use ghi, but I agree that most of the other commands are pretty rare and using a web interface is not a major issue every few wweeks

but I definitely will give it a try - I would like to add prentice child relationships to issues - they would make a good backlog / story tracker combined with hubboard

</comment><comment><USER10> The only issue I have with this is having to type 'octogit' as a command or alias it, compared to 'hub' or 'git'.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't seem to me that any of these commands are actually run that often, and if that's wrong, is making an alias really that hard?

<comment><USER12> `octo` is better, shorter and catchier than `octogit` IMO. And a lot of people unfortunately don't know about aliases.

<comment><USER13> I'd be surprised if many people choosing to run a command line github interface wouldn't know about aliases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> off-topic, but what's this font?

[https://github.com/myusuf3/octogit/raw/gh- pages/assets/img/r...](https://github.com/myusuf3/octogit/raw/gh- pages/assets/img/readme_image.png)

<comment><USER15> Based on the lowercase "g" I assume it's the same as GitHub's, which is apparently a [modified version of Collegiate][1].

[1]: [http://www.quora.com/GitHub/What-font-is-used-in-the- GitHub-...](http://www.quora.com/GitHub/What-font-is-used-in-the-GitHub-logo)

<comment><USER16> That's a completely different font.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is awesome.</comment>


Facebook Begins Testing Friend Filters in News Feed - <AUTHOR> http://itechtalks.blogspot.com/2011/09/facebook-begins-testing-friend-filters.html

<comment><USER2> The submitted article honestly identifies Mashable as the original source

[http://mashable.com/2011/09/08/facebook-news-feed- changes/#v...](http://mashable.com/2011/09/08/facebook-news-feed- changes/#view_as_one_page-gallery_box2321)

and seems to add very little new content. There was a rumor flying around Facebook status messages about a feature change like this, but apparently the change has yet to roll out to the user base.</comment>


Did That Rent-To-Own Computer Spy on You? - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/did-that-rent-to-own-computer-spy-on-you?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IeeeSpectrumFullText+%28IEEE+Spectrum+Full+Text%29 <comment><USER2> I'm not super well versed in the inner workings of laptop webcams but how is it possible to disable the "webcam on" LED from software?

Shouldn't the LED's be controlled on the hardware side to make it impossible to turn on the webcam without having an LED show up?

Having software control the LED is only making it easier for people to keep using laptops as remote spying devices. Granted some industrious peeping tom could always take the laptop apart and disable the LED from the hardware side, but that takes a lot more work than just downloading some software that will do it for you.

<comment><USER3> I'm not aware of a "webcam on" LED on most laptop webcams - as far as I know, a webcam is just a sensor that picks up light. Some smartphones have an LED for flash next to the webcam, but most don't. I've owned webcams that had no LEDs on them whatsoever, notably Logitech webcams from 2002.

Did the article say something about an LED being disabled? If so, I missed it. I think the issue is that anti-theft software was intentionally activated, which turned the webcam on and streamed it to another location, where store employees indulged their voyeurism.

<comment><USER4> MacBooks all have a green LED next to the webcam which comes on when it's activated so you can tell if it's trying to spy on you. Lots of other laptops do as well, although I'm not sure how common it is outside the Mac world.

<comment><USER5> And that was disable via software in a recent scandal with schools spying on kids:

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9158818/Pennsylvania_...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9158818/Pennsylvania_schools_spying_on_students_using_laptop_webcams_claims_lawsuit)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District)

On the laptops the LED was hardwired to camera power but the software go around it by momentary activating the camera and taking pictures.

You would only get a rather slight flicker occasionally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everyone worries about their webcams but most laptops have built in mics and most of them don't have an LED for that at all...

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess the difference between them and Facebook is that you consent to Facebook spying on you...</comment>


Will GPT-3 change the Front end developer eco-system - <AUTHOR> https://blog.workofutkarsh.com/how-will-gpt-3-change-the-frontend-developer-eco-system-ckczts7ky00f388s1c413djh9 <comment><USER2> First of all, as per Betteridge's law of headlines the answer is No. Not GPT-3, anyway, it hasn't been trained to be performant in coding.

But I am sure future language models will give developers lots of new projects to work on. Automate all sorts of office tasks, build a research bot, a teaching bot, counselling bot, writing aid bot, coding bot, natural interface to knowledge bases, automated information extraction from all sorts of unstructured and semi-structured documents, news monitoring and digest, emotional support chat bots, NPC game bots, math problem solving, etc.

And it's not just about better prompting, we need to improve the training set to include more examples of the desired tasks, monitor it for bias and profanity, measure its performance, integrating it in all sorts of places.</comment>


[] are like Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://arelikefacebook.com/

<comment><USER2> This is way off topic, but I want to share since I just learned about this a day or two ago. Skip over this comment if you don't care about HTML5 trivia.

I had no idea what this was supposed to be, and I thought maybe it just wasn't loading more content, so I checked the source. While there, Firefox told me there was an error with the HTML, and that the
 element contained elements that hadn't been properly closed.

This turned out to be because of the first
 element in the section, because it's trying to be a self-closing element when such a thing isn't possible.

As it turns out, the slashes you see in such elements as
 are purely decoration in HTML5. They're a holdover for people like me, who like the structure that XHTML tried to bring to the language.
 is the proper HTML5 element, and
 is just there for decoration/compatibility. The slash doesn't mark the element as void - the element is void regardless of whether or not you use the slash.

The impact of this is that trying to create a self-closing
 in HTML5 by including the slash in the start tag - i.e.
 \- only opens a
 without closing it. You need to include a closing tag right after the opening tag to get the result you want - i.e.

.

<comment><USER3> The HTML5 spec [1] covers this nicely: "[I]f the element is one of the void elements, or if the element is a foreign element, then there may be a single U+002F SOLIDUS character (/). This character has no effect on void elements, but on foreign elements it marks the start tag as self-closing." Furthermore, the space before the slash is only necessary for XHTML [2].

[1]: <http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/single-page.html#start-tags> [2]: <http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_2>

<comment><USER2> That's not what foreign elements are. If you click the link to "foreign elements" in your first link, you'll see that the spec[1] defines foreign elements as " _Elements from the MathML namespace and the SVG namespace._ " In other words, elements which are foreign to HTML.

The
 element is a "normal element", and the spec doesn't seem to indicate what to do with the slash/solidus on normal elements, only on void or foreign ones.

I got my information for my previous comment from an answer on StackOverflow[2], but the w3c's validator seems to back it up. The OP has been changed to use the explicit close tag on that element, so you'll have to edit the source to use the (non-)self-closing version to check it yourself, but it kicked up errors for me.

Specifically, the error given read " _Self-closing syntax (/ >) used on a non- void HTML element. Ignoring the slash and treating as a start tag._" This is what I said in my previous comment, albeit much more succinctly.

As for your second comment, regarding the space before the slash, I don't understand its relevance to my comment. I said nothing about the space in the element; I only referred to the effect of the slash. Also, you're talking about XHTML, and linking to its spec, in a discussion regarding HTML5. If I'm missing your point, please clarify.

[1] <http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/single-page.html#elements-0>

[2] <http://stackoverflow.com/a/3558200/1588>

[3] <http://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_input>

<comment><USER3> I linked to the HTML spec because it explains that the slash only means something for void or foreign elements. The
 element is neither, so the slash is either interpreted as an attribute or ignored. You are correct, both in this comment and the previous one; I was agreeing with you and providing sources.

My comment about the spaces was trivia on top of your trivia. I thought it was relevant because all of your examples of self-closing tags had a space.

<comment><USER2> Ah, well in that case I certainly apologize. I inferred a tone from your comment which you didn't intend to be there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll take one for the team: I don't get it, what does this mean?

<comment><USER5> I dunno, but this looks pretty: <http://waves.arelikefacebook.com/>

<comment><USER6> Seems accurate: <http://rabid.bunnies.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most common English words in the subdomain seem to work.

Even apparently non-plurals:

<http://shit.arelikefacebook.com/>

Some other good ones:

<http://weirdos.arelikefacebook.com/> <http://bangs.arelikefacebook.com/> (cute) <http://freedom.arelikefacebook.com/>

<comment><USER8> <http://scrotums.arelikefacebook.com/>

<comment><USER4> In a similar vein: <http://weiners.arelikefacebook.com>, probably one of the best films of all time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not HN worthy, come on voters.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it supposed to be a parody, or is that an actual photo? <http://ycombinator.arelikefacebook.com/>

Echo chamber? <http://silicon.valley.arelikefacebook.com/>

Giraffe wtf? <http://airbnb.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment><comment><USER11> I found the UI difficult to figure out (type a word over "CHAIRS" in the hard- to-see box), but this is otherwise a clever hack.

<http://sausages.arelikefacebook.com/>

<http://toilets.arelikefacebook.com/>

<http://movies.arelikefacebook.com/>

<http://differential.equations.arelikefacebook.com/>

<http://bork.bork.bork.arelikefacebook.com/>

<comment><USER12> <http://your.base.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> <http://monkeys.arelikefacebook.com/> less-than-stellar image retrieval

<comment><USER14> Luck of the draw! I picked elephants. <http://elephants.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> <http://google.arelikefacebook.com/> Is that a cookie joke?

</comment><comment><USER16> <http://privacy.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment><comment><USER17> <http://obese.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment><comment><USER18> Doesn't handle punycode :P

<http://ƒ.arelikefacebook.com/> <http://xn--3ha.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment><comment><USER19> <http://social.networks.arelikefacebook.com/>

Well this one's actually true...

</comment><comment><USER20> Anybody know where they're pulling images from?

<comment><USER21> Bing Images, I'd say (based on the few I've tried).

Edit: more evidence (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4657577>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting: <http://stallman.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment><comment><USER23> <http://ostriches.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment><comment><USER24> <http://moobs.arelikefacebook.com/>

</comment><comment><USER25> They should add a 'print this t-shirt' button there.

</comment><comment><USER26> before: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4657487>

</comment><comment><USER27> fun stuff... It's quick little projects like this that make me smile.

</comment><comment><USER28> Arrays are like Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER29> It's the wrong typeface.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any investment in pilotless planes? - <AUTHOR> I am referring to big commercial planes carrying passengers (or cargo), not drones.
There is so much hype on driverless cars, but I would imagine that is technologically simpler to build and deploy a pilotless plane. Comparing to a car on a road, the traffic and encounters with other vehicles are much more predictable (and avoided), terrain is much more known and permanent, and there is much more external monitoring (from the ground).
It may piloted remotely or even self-piloted by a computer.
Is there anything I am not aware of? Being it around technical challenges I did not antecipate or serious investments already happening that I don't know about? <comment><USER2> IIRC autopilot is so good that current planes are almost pilotless, but passengers will get extremely nervous.

Pilots do an exhaustive checklist before starting the flight. I'm not sure how automatable it is.

(Perhaps it may work for military transport outside war zones. You can just order the soldiers to use the planes.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently met the founders of [https://www.daedalean.ai](https://www.daedalean.ai), it's more focused on personal aircraft than on big commercial planes though.

</comment><comment><USER4> You mean a drone?</comment>


Cracking Go (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/cracking-go <comment><USER2> Here's the relevant quote:

" _Nevertheless, I believe that a world-champion-level Go machine can be built within 10 years, based on the same method of intensive analysis—brute force, basically—that Deep Blue employed for chess._ "

A question: I was under the impression that AlphaGo's techniques would not be classified as "brute force", and if this is the case, is this indicative of how this field has shifted in thought since 2007?

Also, how relevant are the techniques described in the article nowadays? i.e.:

" _When human players search through the Go game tree, they generally check the live-or-dead status of each stone only once, then in effect cache the result in their memories. In other words, they don 't check again unless they have good reasons to do so. _" (seems like memoization)

<comment><USER3> AlphaGo used Monte Carlo methods, which I believe qualify as "brute force"—you generate a bunch of random positions, since the full game tree is way too large.

<comment><USER4> AlphaGo uses neural networks trained on human play to generate candidate moves, and then Monte Carlo Tree Search to evaluate them deeply. The neural nets are a strong player by themselves.

AlphaGo primarily refutes this essay, rather than supports it. Prior to AlphaGo we had many Monte Carlo bots, but none of them approached professional level of play, much less world-class play. A strategy other than brute force was required to get there.

\---

AlphaGo's loss in game four is interesting, by the way; I'm not sure how you would fix it in their model. It appears that it lost because it failed to predict the (creative, unusual) wedge move in the neural nets, did not spend enough time evaluating it in MCTS, didn't give a strong response to it (which was available through MCTS if it had looked), and didn't understand afterwards that it was now dramatically losing the game and played some very strange moves.

<comment><USER5> Actually AlphaGo found that move and it rated it at a 1:10000 chance of being played. Possibly because of that it didn't evaluate the possible continuations. However it also took almost another ten moves before the value network decided that it was losing the game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The comments here are really missing the forest for the trees. The point is: _here is one computer Go researcher predicting computer Go dominance would be achievable by 2017_. I keep reading in the media that "Go experts thought it would take decades," but the fact is it's hard to find actual quotations from computer Go experts.

You can easily find many professional Go players who didn't think Go programs would surpass humans for decades, but these people aren't engineers. This would be like asking a human off the street for predictions about AGI.

It doesn't really matter whether or not the researcher predicted the exact methods of AlphaGo (he didn't - while AlphaGo uses tree search methods very extensively, just as important were the policy/value nets). Does anyone really believe that the people with predictions about the timeframe of AGI are going to predict the exact methods used in AGI?

<comment><USER7> Here is a 2013 paper that tried to empirically estimate the rate of improvement of Go playing software: [https://intelligence.org/files/AlgorithmicProgress.pdf](https://intelligence.org/files/AlgorithmicProgress.pdf)

>Go programs have improved about one stone per year for the last three decades. Hardware doublings produce diminishing Elo gains on a scale consistent with accounting for around half of all progress.

They don't give a clear prediction for when it was expected to exceed the best humans, but AlphaGo was clearly a discontinuous jump in ability.

According to this article, experts were extremely skeptical of this even a year ago: [http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer- go/](http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/)

>After the match, I ask Coulom when a machine will win without a handicap. "I think maybe ten years," he says. "But I do not like to make predictions."...

>Even with Monte Carlo, another ten years may prove too optimistic. And while programmers are virtually unanimous in saying computers will eventually top the humans, many in the Go community are skeptical. "The question of whether they'll get there is an open one," says Will Lockhart, director of the Go documentary The Surrounding Game. "Those who are familiar with just how strong professionals really are, they're not so sure."

<comment><USER6> Right. The only quotation is "I think maybe ten years," by Remi Coulon. Obviously the community was mixed. But if you believed the way the media has been spinning it, you'd think _the computer Go community as a collective thought it would not be possible_.

Otherwise, the opinions of human Go players at the time (that were not developers of computer Go programs) aren't relevant, nor is the opinion of a WIRED article writer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here I was hoping someone was anouncing major vulnerability results for Go language or runtime. Another time...</comment>


Active learning is more effective, but students don't think so - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/college-students-think-they-learn-less-with-an-effective-teaching-method/ <comment><USER2> I don't know why "lecture" exists anymore. Doing problem sets was painful, yes, but the only way to make things stick.</comment>


Obama moves to split cyberwarfare command from the NSA - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-moves-to-split-cyberwarfare-command-from-the-nsa/2016/12/23/a7707fc4-c95b-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html <comment><USER2> It does seem logical to separate offensive and defensive cyber warfare agencies in order to prevent overreaches in the name of defense.

<comment><USER3> It does, but I'm very skeptical the NSA has the right "defense" culture. Throughout most of its life it has been a very offense-heavy agency.

The article says this:

> _The NSA also has a defensive mission — to protect the government's > classified networks — but is better known for its role in conducting > electronic spying on overseas targets to gather intelligence on adversaries > and foreign governments._

So even the very tiny defense focus it has now (protecting classified networks), while ignoring the _vast_ majority of networks and databases of the federal government is still overshadowed by the fact that its main purpose is to spy on everyone in the world...(gather intelligence on "adversaries" and foreign governments - good joke, WashPost!)

If the U.S. government is actually serious about "cybersecurity" then it needs a new agency that is in charge of implementing modern security best practices and keeping all systems up to date from the least important government network to the most critical infrastructure that would wreck havoc if it was to be hacked.

The NSA is definitely not the agency to do that. And it also lacks the culture to do so. For instance, implementing backdoors should be a big NO-NO in the culture of such an agency. The NSA seems to prefer backdoors and secret access over strong security, because its main mission is spying, not cybersecurity.

So all in all, still a good move that the most ruthless of US government's cyberattacks won't benefit as much from NSA's vast spying capabilities, which could lead to less abuse in the future, but it does nothing to increase cybersecurity in the US (unless you believe the "deterrent" argument, but so far I haven't seen it work _at all_ when it comes to cyberattacks, and the deterrent is useless against random hacking groups anyway).

<comment><USER2> Right, the NSA should be focused solely on the defense of American (public/private) networks whereas the US Cyber Command should be used solely for offensive purposes. That way the NSA cant justify going on the offensive to probe for targets or meta-data when they should be focused on securing infrastructure.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Smocker, a simple and efficient HTTP mock server for functional tests - <AUTHOR> https://smocker.dev/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys :)

My colleague and I just released Smocker[1][2], a mock server we use at our company to write functional tests of our microservices.

Smocker is tailored for our main use-case: a microservice environment.

After a few months of use in production, we're pretty confident in its stability and proud of its main features:

\- Mock declaration as code in YAML instead of JSON. It's very handy to declare JSON payloads because you don't need to escape anything,

\- Great user interface, extremely useful to figure out what's going on at any point, in the call history,

\- Dynamic responses system, to compute mock responses dynamically using templates or Lua,

\- Session system, to be able to import and export the current history and mock state, a very useful debugging feature.

\- Proxy feature, when some calls don't need to be mocked but simply forwarded,

\- Nice documentation[1], we tried to polish it as much as possible,

\- Good overall performances, we used other solutions before and sometimes had latency or crash issues from the mock server.

We hope it can be useful to others!

[1]: [https://smocker.dev/](https://smocker.dev/) [2]: [https://github.com/Thiht/smocker](https://github.com/Thiht/smocker) [3]: [https://www.mock-server.com/](https://www.mock-server.com/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice</comment>


React team drops Slack for Discord chat instead - <AUTHOR> https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2015/10/19/reactiflux-is-moving-to-discord.html <comment><USER2> Technically, Slack dropped the React team. :)

("Slack decided we were too big and disabled invites.")

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I guess both are true :-)</comment></comment>


Added file operations to Fexl - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chkoreff/Fexl/commit/ae6534fc36da574ef703b1ef561f5ff45c60e833

<comment><AUTHOR> This was very straightforward, and I'm amused I didn't do it sooner. The new "file.c" is just 113 lines, and includes wrappers for fopen, fgetc, fputc, and fwrite, along with a handy file_string function which reads the entire content of a file into a single string, using the very efficient buf.c technique.</comment>


Show HN: PublishSoSimply - <AUTHOR> http://publishsosimply.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's by a friend of mine. They're just starting so I'm helping'em out.</comment>


30% of the world's illiterate population is in India & I am helping them - <AUTHOR> http://marketplace.unreasonableinstitute.org/ventures/view/36/GYAN-Mobile-Education-Learning-for-the-masses GYAN platform provides cost effective learning solutions to rural population and student communities over mobile using SMS ,Voice & GPRS. <comment><AUTHOR> 100s of Entrepreneurs from over 60 countries are competing for 25 spots at the Unreasonable Institute. They narrowed it down to 50 finalists and now the 1st 25 Finalists to raise funds from 100s of people will be accepted! Please vote for me if you liked the concept. :)</comment>


Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has stopped the lawsuit against Nginx - <AUTHOR> https://www.interfax.ru/russia/714277 <comment><AUTHOR> Foreign language; can't read: The investigation of Nginx authorship has been finished and found no evidence against Sysoev et al. The case will be closed if the government body which opened it will accept the results.</comment>


US President could be granted power to shut down the Internet under new bill - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/obama-internet-kill-switch-proposed-20100618-yln6.html <comment><USER2> Should be good for companies that lay cable. The parts of the world that most of us live in will now want to ensure that we do not rely upon traffic flows through the USA for the efficient operation of the Internet. (It is just a tad bigger than the President of the USA)

</comment><comment><USER3> As far as I understand the military power in Sweden is able to cut traffic in and out of Sweden if it would be necessary.

It is not that difficult to believe, since they have the right to eavesdrop that traffic, so their fingers are in that cookie jar already.

Imagine if we had designed internet to be resistant against governments as well, instead of only nuclear bombs.</comment>


"Deep Work" by Cal Newport Is Available - <AUTHOR> http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's not a promo, I have no connections with the author. I just started to read it today while travelling. So far I like it, it makes me think about the way I approach my work and study, and how it can be improved.</comment>


Is Induction Cooking Ready to Go Mainstream? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/dining/07induction.html?hp

<comment><USER3> Finally something I can comment on, as I like to cook, and I upgraded to induction about a year ago.

Upside: It's like cooking with gas, without the risk of fire. It looks slick. If you get a good and powerful model, the install footprint is small and cooking on it is very reproducable... (setting 7 on burner 3 with this pan is always the same). You can also get maintain lower temperatures than you can with other stovetops, negating the need in some cases for a double-boiler and making it easy to keep food warm - there are a plethora of other technical coolies too - like how as soon as I lift up the pan to dump the pasta, the power to the element shuts of. It's more efficient. The cat can walk on it and even though he hits the buttons, he can't turn it on - elements are reactive, they won't activate if they don't sense enough ferrous material above them.

Downside: It's ceramic. Don't drop stuff on it. Downside: It's ceramic, if you like to sautee stuff by lifting up the pan and/or sliding the pan around, it will just scratch up your cooktop.

A professional restaurant, for this reason, would probably benefit from both gas and induction at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do not confuse "induction cooking" with "cooking by induction." The latter often goes something like, "well, you cooked dinner _last_ night..."

</comment><comment><USER5> I didn't realise they still make non-induction stoves. I haven't heard that anyone that I know of has bought an old-tech electric cooktop in the past five years. But this is scandinavia, so I guess it's like living in the future.

<comment><USER6> Here in Belgium & the Netherlands all new kitchens in the medium to upper price class (read: non-rentals) are sold with induction plates, too. I love ours, perfect control over pot/pan temperature, warms up really quick, cools down very fast too, easy to clean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's all fun and games until somebody sticks their hand in the field while wearing a steel watch.

<comment><USER6> Actually, I have an RFID tag implanted in my hand, and I was rather worried that it would blow up or something when I would put my hand on our stove. Turns out it's no problem at all, I have tried everything possible to get a tag to explode, break, get warm or even just stop working, but I haven't been able to find a way.

<comment><USER8> Stupid question, why do you have an RFID tag in your hand?

<comment><USER6> Mostly for the body hack value of it, at this moment I only use it to log on to my computer. There's a book out there ('RFID toys') that describes how it could be used to unlock/start a car or unlock a door. Maybe if I ever have a spare weekend or two (heh) I'll make something like a 'hidden' safe, a seemingly normal wall that springs open when I wave my hand past it. Maybe put a gun safe in there or something. If I ever build another house for myself I will try to put some hidden areas like that in it.

Overall and right now it's of limited practical value. Still makes for a cool story and discussion starter on transhumanism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd like to nomminate the article for the "stupid metaphor of the year" award, though. I mean, why would I want to by a stove that only allows me to cook meels tested and approved by as well as procured through the stove manufactuer? Or what is the character sequence "iPad of the kitchen" meant to signify?

</comment><comment><USER10> Ugh, I hate induction for cooking. We have one at home (UK) and it is a pain - you have to be on the ball _all_ the time when making a meal.

I prefer gas or standard electric hobs personally; more fine grained control and actually a little more predictable in my experience.

<comment><USER11> Can you explain why you have to be on the ball all the time?

<comment><USER10> It heats faster for one thing - I used to be able flick on the gas at my Uni flat and dump something into it then get distracted for a few minutes chopping/cutting etc.

<comment><USER3> That implies either you have it turned up too high for the task at hand (finer control is one benefit of induction - maybe your unit is really cheap?) - <USER2> possibly that it's way overpowered for the typical use you use it for.

They aren't really much faster than gas - just a lot more energy efficient... I know mine is faster than previous gas stoves that I purchased, but I also went out of the way to make sure I had high-powered elements because I hate waiting .

If it's so fast - why wouldn't you just turn it on after you chop everything? No need to pre-heat when things heat up so fast....

<comment><USER10> > why wouldn't you just turn it on after you chop everything? No need to pre- > heat when things heat up so fast....

We'll that's an essay in itself - it's quite an inefficient way to cook, I went through a stage a while back where I quite religiously prepped _everything_ before beginning to cook a meal. Not fun.

> They aren't really much faster than gas

Example: I find doing sauces a lot easier on gas (particularly things like white sauce or gravy) because the heating is generally a lot slower and more gradual. It is a pain with induction having to tweak up the heat every few minutes to make sure it doesn't heat too fast.

Control with gas is as granular as induction I would say (we had an electric hob a few years ago that had a dial - but only 4 actual settings...)

I personally find our induction hob heats faster than gas - could just be particular circumstances though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can you use cast iron on an induction stovetop?

<comment><USER13> tl;dr? Yes. The article indicates even enameled cast iron works well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Have been using for 1.5 years and never thought about it as some future technology…

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting fact: induction heater plates are pretty much standard here today in Sweden when buying a new kitchen - you just won't find any kitchen appliance reseller in the country featuring the normal conductive hot plate stove as the major presence in their full kitchen kits. Conductive hot plate stoves are still the standard presence in normal rental apartments, though.</comment>


Enki: Level-up your dev skills in 5 minutes every day - <AUTHOR> https://www.enki.com <comment><USER2> I can't actually try it yet, since it's invite only, but it's an interesting concept.

I mentor a lot of people learning programming, and one of the key problems they tend to face is that a week between sessions gives them plenty of time to forget what they've just learned.

This is potentially one arrow in the quiver of slowly building up and reinforcing that knowledge in a passive way.

<comment><USER3> I requested a code on the site and was told I was "at position 1163 in the queue." I received a code three days later.

I can't comment much on the app yet since I've only done one session so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 'request an invite' is setting yourself up to fail to start with. Much like what happened with Ello, it catches your attention, I'm reading this article, I'm aware of it but if I have to request an invite and wait 3 days I'll have forgotten all about it by then and won't be interested anymore!</comment>


China killing religious, ethnic minorities, harvesting their organs, UN is told - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-religious-ethnic-minorities-uighur-muslim-harvest-organs-un-human-rights-a9117911.html <comment><USER2> I hear a lot about the prisoner organ harvesting in China, but something seems off. There are more that 1m prisoners in China. About 7,000 people on the organ donor list die each year. I would think that if the organ harvesting was as real as the news makes it seem, it would be common for people on the donor list to go to China and get the surgery. I am pretty confident that using the dark web and Bitcoin I could buy drugs, wives, weapons and other illegal products. Yet I can't see how to buy organs. My guess is because the organ harvesting is much less common than the news makes it appear.

(PS, just in case someone reads this wrong, I don't think it is good that China does any amount of forced organ harvesting.)

<comment><USER3> I would imagine that people requiring pretty much urgent organ transplants, or those who are recovering from transplants, would not be fit to fly. If you need to spend an extended amount of time in a foreign country, that is probably quite hard to juggle with existing obligations like family and job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If fully true, how terrible. If only partially true (or partially accurate), still terrible and confusing to know how to respond.

<comment><USER5> My money is on "partially true". China is killing lots of people, be they Han or not, religious or not. So it's "technically correct", but saying it as if they exclusively targeted minorities is misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps legislation needs to be passed so people found having gone to China for organ transpants would be charged with murder

<comment><USER7> Supposedly they would need the organ transplant to stay alive. Saying that they should have the common decency to just die already without bothering us or China and labeling them "murderers" (instead of China) strikes me as incredibly tone deaf and unethical.

<comment><USER8> If I'd pay a hit-man to kill a donor I wouldn't get away with it, despite the urgency. If I knowingly visit a country who kills people for donation I am an accomplice. Where I come from this has the same term as the deed itself.

Outside being attacked you can't kill people for self-preservation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this not a forbidden topic of discussion on HN?

When I brought it up a few months ago, I got flagged, downvoted, and lectured by a mod [1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20032085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20032085)

<comment><USER10> There are 168 hours in a week, and there appear to only be two moderators. So there are probably large windows of time during which various forbidden topics can make their way to the front page.

Having said that, I find HN to be enjoyable because there _aren 't_ many political or religious discussions here. Presumably there are many subreddits for topics like these (I say presumably because I spend almost no time on reddit).</comment></comment>


What the Future of Working at Home May Look Like - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-future-of-working-at-home-may-look-like-1448248050 <comment><USER2> The zoning laws are real but in places like Denver there are a _lot_ of mixed residential/commercial spaces. I tried to get a loan to redevelop an older motel once into a combined living/working space, where adjoined rooms would be Office on one side and living accommodation on the other. Sunnyvale was a bit dubious but willing to give it a try, but at the time I couldn't swing the whole loan weight (challenges of being a "new" development company as opposed to an established one, I could of course partner with one but they all wanted 33% off the top which made it a really expensive proposition.)

As someone who occasionally does work from home the biggest challenge was getting the rest of the family to treat you as being "at the office" even though you were in the office over the garage.

<comment><USER3> Wait was it really called "Sunnyvale" or did you just make the most veiled Trailer Park Boys reference ever?

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

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3757674/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3757674/)

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnyvale,_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnyvale,_California)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> IMO in most cases architectural "secret sauce" is not going to do anything for a person working from home. That said, I really do love the idea of the underground studios for musicians.

</comment><comment><USER6> Unfortunately, expansion of the working home concept will be slowed substantially by the slow change of zoning laws, which are decided at a very low level and rather hard to overturn. This economic space needs an Uber or Airbnb to push those changes through. I don't know what their economic incentive would be, though.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure which jurisdictions you are thinking of. Most places I have lived allowed small business from the home. It was more of an insurance and licensing issue than zoning, which are also solvable problems. Even if you do need a zoning change, it doesn't need to be a change to your entire city... just to your property. So talk to your city planner/council, submit a plan, and move forward.

Now, if you are talking about building entire factories next to your home, and changing a residential neighborhood to allow industrial, yes, that would be hard. And unwise on multiple levels. In those cases, again, talk to your city - you may be able to reverse the plan to get a residence allowed in an industrial area.

Really, most cities want to encourage business within them... you just need to be willing to make some calls, listen to feedback on your plans to be sure it doesn't negatively impact the neighbors, and do some paperwork.

<comment><USER8> GP may have been referring to TFA, which was getting into medium scale hybrid residential-commercial developments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of New Zealand's most prominent architects did something similar with their house in the 70's I think. They built a sprawling complex on the hills above Wellington harbour where they lived and housed their practice offices. It's a pretty phenomenal building.

[http://thepapercity.tumblr.com/post/42588584865/athfield- hou...](http://thepapercity.tumblr.com/post/42588584865/athfield-house- athfield-architects-wellington) [http://citygallery.org.nz/news/house-ath- built](http://citygallery.org.nz/news/house-ath-built)

</comment><comment><USER10> An excellent example of emerging Neo-Feudalism! Workers (Programmers, IT, Accountants - any white collar worker) will be housed in the same location as the Owner of the business. It is strikingly similar to Medieval times where Apprentices used to work for employers - usually the Owner. Zoning laws will be changed to suit the businesses. It won't be an issue as long as the businesses are making enough profit to keep people employed and can generate taxes.

<comment><USER11> Random capitalization is like scare quotes -- it distracts from the message and focuses the reader on whatever underlying motive or mindset the writer might have.

<comment><USER10> I did not randomly capitalize. The capitalization has been made for a reason.

<comment><USER12> Pedantry is an excellent way to deliberately miss the point.

<comment><USER10> Language is a tool to be used effectively. The implications of a particular choice of words (or the capitalizations thereof) might make people uncomfortable. But conciseness is a virtue of its own.

<comment><USER13> > Language is a tool to be used effectively.

Which you are failing to do, thus the meta-discussion about your weird capitalization. Were your choices effective, no one would be mentioning it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Working at a startup in Venice (near Google LA) already looks like this. There are tons of work/live lofts around the area that house small teams.

<comment><USER15> Same thing in SF, startups renting the bottom of duplexes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me of my idea: [https://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/](https://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/)</comment>


Ask HN: Rate my mac+web app, Screendocs – Upgrade that wall of text. - <AUTHOR>

Hi HackerNews,
About a year back, I asked you to review my mac+webapp, called Freshlog Storyteller:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1347513
After receiving a good bunch of feedback from you, I have conducted many iterations on the app to something I use myself on a daily basis, and I am deeply grateful for this community :)
The app has since been (hopefully more meaningfully) renamed to Screendocs:
http://screendocs.com
I humbly once again would like to seek your feedback in several areas:
1. Is it very difficult to market a native mac + web app bundle that needs each other to work? What's the best channel to do this? Do you know of examples? Does "mac+web app" sound awkward?
2. Is it immediately apparent how Screendocs can be beneficial? Would you be disappointed if I pulled Screendocs from the face of this earth?
One more thing, one of the posters in the previous HN thread mentioned that he learnt that it was possible to do annotations in Preview.app through one of my examples, so here's a sample screendoc to teach just that:
http://screendocs.com/messages/333
Looking forward to hearing from you brilliant folks =) <comment><USER2> It looks nice. I can easily see how useful it is. Seeing the sample page was much more informative to me than your landing page though. I would try to integrate the two and show off more of your product on the front page.

Why do you require the Mac app? You should offer both read+write access on the web, with the client app just being an optional bonus. Eliminating that requirement would solve a huge chunk of your marketing problems and open the tool up to many more users.

Nice name change, by the way. :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Good thoughts on integrating the sample page onto the landing page, I'll see how I can do that.

The advantage of the Mac app is that it makes the process of snapping and creation of the screenshot document very very smooth, saving a lot of time. Your question makes me think that I probably need to emphasize this a little more.

Thanks for taking the time to look at it dmpatierno, deeply appreciated! =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really love the idea. I do a lot of instructing, so just as your app is designed to do, I find myself copying/pasting images in to a document and numbering the steps. This is cumbersome in document composition apps because the steps are not treated as distinct units as they are in your app. There's definitely a lot of utility there.

Where I fall off is the pricing. Even at $15/month, I don't think I could stomach it. In my mental model of software, this falls under the category of utility; similar to screencasting software. Tying this to a subscription model, I believe, will be very difficult.

Utilities like this are used to create information that is useful for a very long time. By committing to $15/month at a minimum, you're asking for $180 a year to host a very small set of data, which I can't ever take with me. I think there are other pricing models that would allow you to capture revenue in the utility software market, as well as serve customers who are interested in a bundled solution.

iShowYouHD is a good example. Under their model, I buy their software for a fixed price ($30-$60 depending on version), which I'm happy to pay, because it's great software. In general, I think Mac users are happy to pay for good software, but I digress. Once I've purchased the software, I can record my screen and share the video by exporting it, or automatically uploading to social media video sites like YouTube. The key is, they also provide a "One- click-publishing" option, which I can pay for by purchasing credits. From their pricing page:

==BEGIN</comment><comment></comment><comment>

Hosting credits

In order to use the service, you must purchase hosting credits. Hosting credits are consumed in two ways:

1\. Storage – You are charged for the amount of data you store per month (on average, calculated daily) at a rate of 24 hosting credits per GB of data stored. e.g: If you store 10GB of data (on average) for one month, you'll be charged 240 hosting credits.

2\. Transfer – Hosting credits are consumed at a rate of 24 credits per GB of transfer. So if use 5GB of data viewing videos, you'll be charged 12 hosting credits.

Lets say you upload a video 50MB in length. It turns out to be super popular and you have 50 views per day for a couple of weeks. That's a total of ~ 3.5GB of transfer, or 8.4 hosting credits. In dollar terms that's just 0.35c (USD). Pretty cheap eh?

==END</comment><comment></comment><comment>

Storage + transfer. That's pricing that fits the product. Obviously, Shinywhitebox sees this feature as a value add for their core product, not a revenue center, but I think you could be a little more aggressive with your credit pricing, turn a profit, and still satisfy customers' need for value.

I would happily pay $20 (maybe even $30-$50 depending on features) for an app like yours, but I'd want the ability to use it without a subscription for a couple of reasons:

* An app like this is frequently used to create a knowledge store; knowledge stores have a tendency to persist for a long time, so marrying my knowledge to a single vendor at what I would consider to be a high price significantly diminishes my perception of value

* Knowledge documents are frequently tied to other products; there is a good chance that I would want to integrate the content created in this app in to an existing website for my own product, rather than having it hosted at a third-party URL

At a very basic level, if the app were able to export HTML and PDF without a subscription, I'd value it at around $15.

With the ability to publish a "project" to a collection of HTML files with some preset/customizable fonts & colors, and I'm feeling more comfortable at the $20 price point.

Create a "Pro" version, that gives me the ability to export single pages or projects/collections using a documented templating system, as well as "raw data" export in JSON with an "assets" folder, and I'm on-board for $40.

Tie in your hosting service at every price point so that I can buy credits similar to iShowU HD, and can "publish" with a single click, and you'll see money from me on a monthly basis as well; just not $15 month :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a standalone Screendocs client that works with Dropbox, which might be what you need:

<http://screendocs.com/dropbox>

It works just like the Screendocs client, but generates the HTML in your Dropbox Public folder where you can immediately share it online.

The credit system is interesting, I'll explore that.

Very detailed and thoughtful, thanks! =)</comment></comment>