A Tale of Two Londons - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2013/04/mysterious-residents-one-hyde-park-london.print <comment><USER3> My 8x great grandmother was actually born in 18thC Knightsbridge. She stole some clothes and a spoon (which she tried to dispose of in her "privvy") and was sent as a convict to Australia on the First Fleet in 1788.

Ultimately, she would bear children to 3 men across 3 convict colonies - <USER2> of the guards on the ship en route to New South Wales, my 8x great grandfather who would become the first hangman of Norfolk Island, and a freed convict in Tasmania.

In modern London, as opposed to the London she left, that would probably earn her a reality tv show.

<comment><USER4> Just curious, how did you manage to recover her story?

<comment><USER3> In my case, I was lucky enough to connect with a distant relative who had done a lot of the research, and then confirm parts of it (I was at uni at the time - love a large library and databases!).

Her being a convict helped with the record keeping, of course - court records, ship records, habitation records on the ground. And even by the time she was freed, these were all tiny colonies* so recording everyone was pretty easy.

*How tiny? Well they evacuated the ENTIRE colony of Norfolk Island in about 1807, shipping them all to Hobart which was in need of a larger population. Even then, her daughter (my 7x great grandmother) was something like the 143rd wedding in the colony (now state of Tasmania). Compare that the USA circa 1807 which had 17 states in the union and a population of about 6 million.

<comment><USER5> The USA was settled much earlier and has turned out to be a much richer ground for british institutions -- particularly agriculture -- to flourish in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article link points to the print page, which only displays 1 out of the 5 total pages. (I think qb was trying to spare of us popup & advertising hell which I appreciate, but it looks like it didn't work quite perfectly this time)

Here's the default page: [http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2013/04/mysterious- residen...](http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2013/04/mysterious-residents- one-hyde-park-london)

(btw this pagination system -- while nice that it doesn't reload pages -- is driving me and my eyes insane!)

</comment><comment><USER7> The property prices, and thus rents, are why Silicon Roundabout will have a very hard time building a true startup ecosystem in London. Young people just starting out are paying most of their monthly income on rent. How can they be encouraged to take a financial risk when they have such crazy outgoings? How can people from the regions be attracted to London to build businesses when they can't get digs within easy reach of the hacker spaces?

The City is a whole separate problem - they pay very _very_ well for good IT talent, siphoning a lot of good people who would otherwise be ideal for the startup market. You could go into finance for a few years, build up some security before starting your business, but who will you be able to hire when you do?

<comment><USER4> All of the above is also true regarding Silicon Alley in New York. Just visit expatistan.com and do a comparison. Housing is actually slightly more expensive in New York. As for your point two, Wall Street pay is not what it used to be while software engineering salaries outside of banks have been increasing steadily for a couple of years. Nobody doubts NYC status as a startup hub anymore.

Point one is also increasingly true for the SFBay area itself, but there are not enough banks there for them to be a problem for startup recruiting. You could also do a comparison on expatistan.com and see that housing is only 7% less expensive in SF than in London. However, IT salaries there are probably the highest in the World.

If current trends in London continue: startups start to pay more and banks keep laying off people. This is probably a good thing.

<comment><USER8> >Point one is also increasingly true for the SFBay area itself

This might be one reason why Seattle continues to thrive: its rent, although rising for the usual reasons related to land regulation, is still far lower than SF or NYC, it already has two very large tech companies there, it has no income tax, and it's a fun place to live.

Google and Facebook are both steadily expanding their Seattle-area offices for reasons that make sense to me: moving from the SF area to Seattle means a de facto 15 - 25% pay raise for people making $100,000 or more a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is what happens in democracies. The local councils and city governments open their doors and drool over anyone willing to buy property. Property price rises and thus increases the revenues they can bring in any play with. There is almost no incentive for a government to keep housing affordable. Then we end up with disenfranchisement on the scale of London's: Londoners and actual British citizens and residents are told kindly to screw off while the billionaires build their playground and stash away their dirty money. You see this in Vancouver, Sydney, Hong Kong, New York; the list goes on.

<comment><USER10> Well Tory boroughs sold off a lot of the social housing stock and in at least one case where caught trying to use it to gerrymander - there are senior torys hiding out in countries with now extradition to the UK to this day.

Ironically one of the recipients of this council housing sell off in Westminster I worked with was a very left wing lesbian - She had great fun at election times with the Tory election canvassers.

<comment><USER11> They sold the housing stock off to the people that were actually renting the council houses, increasing home ownership and enriching a generation of working class people.

<comment><USER12> Which is all well and good if the council replenishes their stock of council housing. I.e. if they use the sale money to buy or build more, so having it be a permanent mechanism to help people lift themselves out of poverty.

But they didn't. What they did instead was sell them off without getting any more, and used the money to cut taxes. Which is fine for the generation who benefited from that round, but means the safety net is no longer there for future generations.

<comment><USER11> Well, steps are being taken to free up council houeses now - EG fixed duration tenancies (rather than council houses for life), kicking out union Fat Cats like Bob Crow [1] and other people that could afford to live in private accommodation.

[1] [http://metro.co.uk/2011/04/03/bob-crow-gets-taxpayers- help-w...](http://metro.co.uk/2011/04/03/bob-crow-gets-taxpayers-help-with- rent-despite-earning-145k-a-year-648306/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As an aside, the article points out how the City of London is a separate entity from greater London, but doesn't go into a lot of detail about it. This video does an effective job in explaining how things work: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?internalcountrycode=NL&v=Lr...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?internalcountrycode=NL&v=LrObZ_HZZUc)

<comment><USER14> That's interesting, but it doesn't address to what extent someone in the City of London could skirt British laws or taxes as the article implies. In 1771, the aldermen of the City of London were able to bar Parliament from entering the City of London to arrest a newspaper publisher who had broken the law by publishing transcripts of Parliamentary debates. Does the City of London still have that kind of autonomy?

<comment><USER11> No. It has a separate police force, but I don't think the boundaries are as strict as they are for, say, state boundaries in the US. Pretty sure a Met Police Car wouldn't stop a pursuit because it entered the city.

//edit//Although in Victorian times I believe it did inhibit attempts to capture Jack the Ripper.

<comment><USER15> Indeed, all Police Officers in the country have their powers throughout the whole country, regardless of which Force they belong to. There are courtesy's that are usually observed when crossing into another force area in pursuit of a criminal, the control room of the other force is informed (and usually asked for help), and local officers will often take over or lead the pursuit if they are available, though this is more because they know the area better. Upon arrest, the criminal will usually be "booked in" at the local police station but then transported back to one of the original force's police stations for processing. Criminal law is the same across the country, so there is no sense of different jurisdictions. There are some more formalities going into Scotland, which has slightly different criminal laws, but nothing that stops a good chase! Theres no benefit to the criminal of "getting across" internal borders (akin to state lines in the US). Getting across a border externally means crossing the sea, and even then co-operation between European forces is getting better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've always wondered how much of this is paid for by oil money. How much of it is the result of middle eastern sheiks needing to find a place to store the oil wealth they've plundered from their countries?

<comment><USER17> "Perhaps the most striking fact about One Hyde Park and the London super-prime property market is what it tells us about who the world's richest people are. Many people think the greatest winners of globalization today are financiers. A decade or so ago, that may have been true. But today another class sits above even them—the global commodity plutocrats: owners of mineral rights, or dominant players in mineral-rich countries in sectors such as construction and finance that benefit from commodity booms. Hollingsworth notes in Londongrad that the oligarchs he studies became rich "not by creating new wealth but rather by insider political intrigue and exploiting the weakness of the rule of law." Arkady Gaydamak, a Russian-Israeli oilman and financier, explained his elite view of accumulating wealth to me in 2005. "With all the regulations, the taxation, the legislation about working conditions, there is no way to make money," he said. "It is only in countries like Russia, during the period of redistribution of wealth—and it is not yet finished—when you can get a result. . . . How can you make $50 million in France today? How?"

Russia's former privatization czar Anatoly Chubais put it less delicately: "They steal and steal. They are stealing absolutely everything."

London real-estate agents confirm that these commodity plutocrats dethroned the financiers some time before the financial crisis hit. "I can't remember the last time I sold a property to a banker," says Stephen Lindsay, of the real-estate agency Savills. "It's been hard for anyone to compete with the Russians, the Kazakhs. They are all in oil, gas—that is what they do. Construction—all that kind of stuff."

Even the Arab money has taken a backseat to the new buyers, says Hersham. "The wealth of the ex-Soviets is incredible," he says. "Unless you are talking about [Goldman Sachs C.E.O. Lloyd] Blankfein or [Stephen Schwarzman], the head of Blackstone, or the head of one of the very big banks, there is no driver from the City of London at these levels anymore."

<comment><USER18> The ironic thing is that with the "exclusivity" of neighbours like that, you'd have to pay me to live there.

It's disappointing how little interest the government has taken in taxing the ridiculous capital gains resulting from the high-end London property bubble; these "investors" probably contribute less to the British economy per pound earned from their speculation than anyone else, and in many cases it's a similar story in their homelands

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article is good, but its structure keeps the meat until the end. It's not well-thought out in that respect. The payoff, that it's not the bankers who have the money, but the oligarchs and privatisation thieves and bandits from Russia is surprising. I want more data, more analysis, more stories, more evidence than this, about what ahnd how, and what geosocially this means for the next 30 years. A laundry list of who might actually live in one expensive building is no good unless you tell us who they are and then do some numbers on it, using these statistics to inform us the more. Poor outcome to this article and it missed several tricks, even while mostly still engaging us in the ownership envy that this piece really represents.</comment>


Akamai buys cyberfend - joe-bot https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/news/press/2016-press/akamai-acquires-cyberfend.jsp <comment><AUTHOR> Great news for Sridhar and his team. Well done!

</comment><comment> joe-bot What does cyberfend actually do? Is the solution based on Behavioral analysis? couldn't find any data on them online..</comment>


RaspiReader: An Open-Source Fingerprint Reader Facilitating Spoof Detection - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.07887 <comment><USER2> Wow this is amazing! I love these kind of open source projects.

I'll give a brief summary: they use two raspberry pi cameras (5MP) and a prism to capture images of a finger print. Then they use a new fingerprint spoof detection schema (that they developed) through the extraction of highly discriminative fingerprint spoof detection features (color local binary patterns) to determine spoofs vs not spoofs. Compared to traditional systems they have pretty high spoof detection rates.

Here is a video link if you are too lazy to read the pdf: [https://youtu.be/sY4Yf4roEsI](https://youtu.be/sY4Yf4roEsI)</comment>


Ask YC: outsourcing.asia - invest or bail  - <AUTHOR>

It is land rush => auctions on .asia domains.
outsourcing.asia is at less than 10K USD. I expect it would close at 12-13K. I saw this happening with careers.asia which again I could have bid.
I would have wanted to invest and put up something on these domain. But have been tight on investment - time and money.
If any of you are interested I am ready to trade.
PS: During .asia land rush in Feb, I booked a couple of domains on GoDaddy. But all of them have ended up in an auction on pool.com, so they were all popular ones: careers(sold), trade, buy etc.. <comment><USER2> I can't really see the upside to speculating on a domain name that doesn't end in .com.

If you have a product in mind, you can use pretty much any name. I don't see you getting a lot of natural traffic on a new TLD just because of the domain name.</comment>


Microsoft's Anti-Android FUD Campaign in Full Swing - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/23872/Microsoft_s_Anti-Android_FUD_Campaign_in_Full_Swing

<comment><USER2> This is not surprising. Ballmer doesn't like the idea of losing his job in disgrace and Windows 7 Phone, while competitive, is still based on Windows CE. If you ignore the GUI, the underlying OS is every bit as sophisticated and modern as... Symbian.

These are the patents Microsoft mentioned to the International Trade Commission. They may or may not the the patents mentioned in the Motorola lawsuit.

5,579,517: Common name space for long and short filenames

5,758,352: Common name space for long and short filenames

6,621,746: Monitoring entropic conditions of a flash memory device as an indicator for invoking erasure operations

6,826,762: Radio interface layer in a cell phone with a set of APIs having a hardware-independent proxy layer and a hardware-specific driver layer

6,909,910: Method and system for managing changes to a contact database

7,644,376: Flexible architecture for notifying applications of state changes

5,664,133: Context sensitive menu system/menu behavior

6,578,054: Method and system for supporting off-line mode of operation and synchronization using resource state information

6,370,566: Generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device

I wonder what Google could do to invalidate these patents...

<comment><USER3> From what I read as part of the comments in the article, it seems Google already licensed some if not all of these patents (for Nexus one) and hence kind of validate them.

<comment><USER4> Is it only for exchange server support? Or did they license some of the more general/ridiculous patents?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This really seems doomed. Yes, Android's "free" status got it traction. But it appears that people like it. So if Win7 can't surpass it on that measure, manufacturers are still going to want to use what their customers will buy.

I mean, even if there are patent fees, that just means the phone is a bit more expensive, right? And you'll pay more for something you want than for something you don't want, right? Price does not seem to me to be the driving factor in the handset market.

</comment><comment><USER6> Microsoft is championing this FUD, but I think it's worth remembering that it didn't start with them. Apple and Oracle have set the "hidden cost of Android" conversation in motion with their lawsuits.

Redmond actually has some room to make this kind of case since some of these patents have already been licensed by HTC and (from what I read here) Google.

Go figure.

</comment><comment><USER7> If WM7 is so important, why is it that Microsoft explicitly does not support syncing with 64-bit Outlook? This has led me to conclude that they've already given up, and when my PocketPC dies, I'll be looking for an Android.

<comment><USER8> > syncing with 64-bit Outlook

How is that even _a problem in the first place?_ I really will never understand some of the situations Microsoft gets themselves into.

<comment><USER9> I have no idea what causes this particular problem, but Office is notorious for just writing in-memory data structures to disk and calling it a "file format", which would make 32-bit and 64-bit incompatible.

<comment><USER10> I've heard people say that, for example, the fact that a Linux system is made of pieces from a million different projects is beneficial to its evolution because doing this kind of crap simply isn't an option. Solid, well-defined interfaces between components are a _must_ (and if they aren't an absolute must, they won't exist - not necessarily because of laziness but because of deadlines) in systems that are made from lots of independent groups' components.

<comment><USER9> I think there is some merit to that idea, but Linux may have taken it too far when adding a syscall is like negotiating a multilateral treaty between the kernel, glibc, and applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't this like taking out a giant ad saying win7-mobile is so technically poor - we have decided the only way to compete with Apple and Android is in court with software patents?

<comment><USER12> No. It is more like taking out a giant ad and saying we own lots of patents and rather than sit on a wall with a plaque we intend to extract value from them, because that is what our shareholders demand.

<comment><USER11> So one business model = Apple

Another = Unisys

Looks like the beginning of the end....

<comment><USER13> Apple was one of the first to sue Android, followed by Oracle, and now by Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Microsoft used to say that Linux TCO was lower than Windows. Clearly that argument it totally inapplicable to consumer phones. Their choices are very limited at this point, so I expect the patent shakedowns to continue. So far, it is working like a charm... Amazon, Salesforce, HTC, etc. I see no reason why they'd stop.

Oh sure, they could try competing based on the quality of the product. But I think they realize this is too difficult for them to pull off now.

</comment><comment><USER15> Windows Phone 7 is a really good vapor-ware. And ridiculous patents + broken patent system are the key to success

<comment><USER12> vapor-ware? seriously? The OS has shipped to OEMs already. It actually does exist.

<comment><USER15> Ok, ok, it's just crapware.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How will my employer know if I use their resource to build my project - <AUTHOR> As a software engineer, I'm aware that some companies have IP laws that mean "we own whatever you build if you use our resources to build it"(edited). I have also known people who build out an MVP while working at another company and after some time get sued for IP rights because they used company resource like the Internet, hardware etc.
My question is how will the company know if I actually used their resource to build my MVP?
Say I have a private Git repository and I work on my project secretly and push to this repository and I never use company proprietary technology. If no one ever sees/notice me working on this, how will they ever know I used company resource.
I'm really curious about how they find out because of course, they don't have access to private Git repositories and unless anyone is actively tracking your hardware and scanning for side projects I doubt if they will ever notice.
How will they ever know? <comment><USER2> I'm not a lawyer, and this is the sort of thing that could vary among jurisdictions, but whether they'll know is probably irrelevant. What will matter is whether they can prove it to the satisfaction of the court if they take action. Your employer doesn't need to _know_ you did something--they just need to present it as likely that you did to a greater degree than you, with fewer resources, can prove you did not. This is the kind of thing that would generally be a civil matter, not criminal, and so the standards of criminal prosecution wouldn't apply (e.g. no presumption of innocence).

Never mind the questions of ethics and professionalism. From a legal perspective, it just doesn't seem worth the risk. The deck is stacked against you, and it doesn't matter what you think of the rules of the game.</comment>


Reanimating UUCP - <AUTHOR> http://hypernets.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/reanimating-uucp/

<comment><USER3> _Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway._

I always thought that was an Tanenbaum quote? The Wikipedia[1][2] citations use the word tapes but I seem to remember that DLTs was used instead of tapes.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet>

[2] <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andrew_S._Tanenbaum>

<comment><AUTHOR> This is why I labeled the quote "(apocraphal)". :) I first remember hearing it during the early days of Netflix---and I think it was Reed Hastings who said something similar to that effect as a quote of someone I can't remember now. I went with [http://www.bpfh.net/sysadmin/never-underestimate- bandwidth.h...](http://www.bpfh.net/sysadmin/never-underestimate- bandwidth.html) as the reference for Dennis Ritchie's variant of the quote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This whole article is based on the premise of bandwidth scarcity. I don't buy it.

I also don't buy the complaint that suburbs are already suffering from too much interference. I live in a dense urban environment, and while I can see a lot of networks, I can easily get enough wireless bandwidth to max out my upstream connectivity.

Yes, radio spectrum is a scarce resource. But we keep getting better and better at using it. While there's an upper bound on the amount of data that can be sent over a shared medium, you can redefine the medium. Imagine if your wireless router only broadcast a low-rate unidirectional rendezvous signal, and then targeted each associated device with a focused high rate beam. Etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> This only presumes that you have line-of-sight or uncanny luck to have a reliable Fresnel zone to bounce signal through---but this is still constrained by distance. I used a "Portland, ME to Portland, OR" example to emphasize that these links aren't the kind that you can use allocated low-power radio spectrum to connect as in WiFi. You may be able to max out your upstream capability with local radio, but you can't supply bits to the other side of the city, state, or country. Unless everyone has the same exact interests as you, you won't even have the bits they want---this is what the pub-sub mechanism has to address on top of the content-network. Some people will specialize in carrying the bits that everyone wants and at every step of the way, nodes will have to look at subscription demand and throughput to decided which bits are sent in a batch. Yes, we can imagine our wireless routers as a low-rate signal system with focused high-rate beams, etc, but the probability that you will reach an interested audience from your radio is low. This is why FM/AM radio licenses are so valuable, and this is why having a content channel carried by all the regional cable monopolies is so valuable and vulnerable to censorship---there are many people who would love to watch Current.tv or Al Jazeera but cannot get it in their own regional cable systems. However, radio and cable are still synchronous mediums, which I'm suggesting we should back away from.

Using radio always assumes that there are other nodes interested in what you're sending. In nearly every case of radio-based Internet Service Providers I've been able to find, users always find that the service is "great" for the first month and thereafter totally sucks in every imaginable way: slow speeds, down-time, and bandwidth caps. There's only one tower and enough bandwidth for so many users, after that, there is no upgrade path because almost all the spectrum is allocated. This is guaranteed to happen for any homebrew WiFi network or municipal WiFi network---remember that you only get three separate frequencies without overlap ( <http://www.bridgingthelayers.org/channel_overlap.html> ) The limits are obvious with FM and AM radio is regulated by the FCC to prevent channel interference between cities---you never get "new" stations, you only get "different" stations when a broadcaster changes format. My favorite example of a broadcaster changing "format" is WHFS in Baltimore, MD---one day it was a progressive rock-radio station and the next morning a spanish-pop-radio station, without warning. (The DJs working there had no idea this change was coming.) By redefining the network medium to "bits via matter" instead of "bits via energy" (SD cards in my example), and relaxing our attention-spans to something less than "instant", you get more bandwidth by adding more cards to the network as needed. We may be getting better at using radio spectrum, but it will always have a political limitation of how it is used when it has real reach to many people---in short, if you can touch many people via a medium, more than a few people will always seek to control that access for their own interests. Bandwidth for information transmission via energy I still believe is scarce and will always be scarce for any situation where you wish to send to many people over long distances. The medium has to be redefined away from energy to matter---and perhaps, just to throw a huge monkey wrench into the mix and stir the pot more---this is what newspapers (which in their print format are already sending matter instead of energy to your household) need to add to their offerings to save themselves. Now, imagine receiving a 4GB SD card with your morning newspaper every morning while the paper-person retrieves old cards during delivery---and what would happen if you were uploading back to everyone else on those same cards? 8GB/day in and out becomes 56GB/week becomes 2.8T/year of data transfer, one SD card at a time. Relaxing our need for synchrony could make newspaper profitable again.

Subscribe to two newspapers and you double your network bandwidth and no one needed to climb on a roof. :)

<comment><USER5> Large data transfers are still best done through physical shipping of encoded atoms. Take a look at AWS Import/Export for one real-world example. But the threshold for that being useful is rather high. Have you worked out the breakpoint for where a person moving cards is more effective than a network connection? What information, other than DVDs, would be appropriate for this?

Why do you focus on radio-only connections? The highest bandwidth devices can easily be plugged into a wired connection. Why do you assume that bandwidth will get more congested? I think instead that there will be a move towards smaller cells, with lower power. The network provider could have an antenna on every other streetlight or power pole, where each only handles a few dozen devices in range.

Your comment about suburb wifi congestion doesn't feel right. The most cluttered wifi I've seen has been in big apartment buildings, where the transmitters are much closer to each other. One possible solution there is to move towards per-building based cells rather than per-apartment ones. Though this would mean that the hardware has to be as reliable as the building wiring, which isn't yet true.

Where I've heard uucp being useful is for things like "drive-by wifi" for rural parts of the world, for example <http://www.firstmilesolutions.com/> .

But the idea that "relaxing our need for synchrony could make newspaper profitable again" is just strange. If people want their news less frequently then that just gives more time for their local network aggregator to download that news. Where's the cost savings or revenue boost for the newspaper?

<comment><AUTHOR> I focus on non-radio solutions because I'm looking to see how we can do it without radio, period. So, there is no "live" connection for aggregators to download from. News is perhaps a bad name for the kind of content, think about it more in the sense of magazines or programs that aren't strictly time- sensitive, but entertaining and informative.

This is kind of related to the "Slow Web" movement I just read about in <http://blog.jackcheng.com/post/25160553986/the-slow-web> . I'm not interested in seeing regional radio-ISPs blanket cities with smaller radio. I'm coming from this with the view point that some people won't have an "active" Internet connection, period. This can be very rural or situations where the density is just too low to bother with radios---who's going to build a network for 5 customers? The networks create their own scarcity of bandwidth because they're only profitable where there are enough people---where there are enough people, there isn't enough bandwidth to give everyone a good experience. A asynchronous hypernet is something that is "instant-on" for any location where people desire to have it---there's no permitting required, building agreements to negotiate, pole rights to acquire, or hardware to buy-install-maintain. If you want it, a few SD cards, a USB SD card reader and software similar to UUCP to manage it will make it happen for everyone---the cost to start is less than $50 or even $25 for anyone wanting to start a node.

Instead of being potentially online 24/7, I'm imagining these asynchronous hypernet users are /never/ online with the Internet. What they receive is what comes on the memory cards or other mediums. If some content does come from the Internet, it's because someone elsewhere on the asynchronous hypernet is providing a gateway for it. For a news paper that isn't increasing their readership of physical papers and struggling to convince readers to pay for the online version (again, only useful to users of synchronous networks), a daily memory card of batched data will be attractive in any area where the local Internet monopoly starts charging significant money for GB of data above their "approved" threshold. If the newspaper can deliver data cheaper to the user than the synchronous Internet provider can, people will use it. If the newspaper makes their own original audio/visual content (which is already happening at newspapers like the NYTimes) and makes it available only via the cards, they have content that people can't get anywhere else---and a reason to subscribe.

<comment><USER5> That "drive-by wifi" shows one way to get internet service to rural parts of Africa and Asia, without other internet access. One proposal I heard had a guy in a motorcycle going from place to place with a wifi connection to do uucp transfers once in range of each destination. The other related technology you should consider is "delay-tolerant networking."

We can get wired electricity to just about all homes in the US, and it looks like there's telephone service available to 98%. Adding wired internet isn't that much harder than those other two, and there is a Federal program to promote rural internet service. Who's going to build a network for 5 customers? Us, through our taxes.

Iridium and other systems offers global service, it's just very expensive. I find numbers like $5/MB.

So you're talking about at most a small number of American homes which won't be able to have basic internet access if desired.

Of those, how many are interested in New York Time's data delivery service over newspaper delivery? I can't come up with any number which makes it interesting to the NYT - nor any other newspaper - to provide this service. Your point about caps doesn't affect things because the NYT iPad app takes between 1 and 20 MB per paper, depending on the number of sections read. Even daily reading of the entire paper is only about 0.5 GB and an order of magnitude or two less than the caps I've heard about. Print media just doesn't take much bandwidth.

Even worse, your numbers only possibly might make sense for newspapers with a reach into large amount of rural areas. That might work for parts of Alaska, but it won't help, say, the Burlington Free Press in Vermont. 95% of Vermont people have broadband access at home, leaving very few left who 1) want it, 2) can't get the print version, and 3) can't get the broadband version.

You say "where there are enough people, there isn't enough bandwidth to give everyone a good experience." In my experience this is rare, even in apartments where I've seen a dozen or more access points. ef4 confirms that observation. The link you gave also states that there is overlap but "This artifact has relatively little impact on the majority of 802.11 functions." Can you point to real-world cases where people are having problems because of too many access points? Can you estimate how often that occurs?

Overall, I think you're having fun with ideas. That's great. But you're letting your vision of what you want - you want people enjoying the slow web, perhaps - take precedence over what people really do want, and trying to back- fit justifications without a back-of-the-envelope estimation to see if those justifications are approximately right.

Suppose I live in rural Wyoming with no internet access, but wanted it. The first question is why? If I'm a farmer who wants to get better market information, then a slow internet won't help - the information might come too late. Okay, you can fix that - have someone come by every day. Is that the postal service? Will postal service holidays and interruptions cause problems to a farmer?

Perhaps I'm a writer, who needs occasional literature lookups. Perhaps then I could use the service well (assuming interlibrary loan and similar services aren't enough). But who's going to set up that sort of service, with the research staff on the end to find a literature reference?

But as described, your proposals are wildly off the mark, because people don't work that way.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you want Internet access for news, research, and other "real time" information in rual Wyoming, of course you don't want the Slow Web experience, so this idea doesn't even apply. If the Slow Web is brought to you via postal service, you don't expect it everyday and its not a hardship if service holidays and interruptions occur. Do you complain for 29 days a month that your favorite magazine didn't arrive in your mailbox? No, you just wait for it, and enjoy it when it arrives that month. This is where most of the conflict I'm seeing with proposals for different kinds of radio-management are coming from. I know people don't "work" this way, but this was never an idea for the Fast Web to begin with.

The reason why I'm suggesting this is useful for newspapers isn't because this is how people would receive the newspaper, and only the newspaper, they would be sending and receiving any other content from the network (as in not- original-content by the newspaper) but instead from everyone else connected to the network via the newspaper. Newspapers are already suffering from the Fast Web/Slow Web problem, a newspaper on paper is slow-web and the newspaper online is Fast Web, and with so much freely available Fast Web content, they have a hard time convincing people to pay. News goes stale faster than the speed of rumor, so let the Fast Web have it, and make long-lived content that people want instead, enjoying it on their own time.

If access points no longer have the issues I observed 4–5 years ago, that's great, but they don't solve the problem of network coverage over larger geographical areas and I'm pretty sure that few or no access point systems can handle the load if someone fires up a popular torrent or watches a streaming movie on the shared network, but then, no one wants them to do that, that's a violation of the Fast Web Etiquette—but receiving an hour television show you subscribe to on a 4GB SD card is going to be a much better experience in terms of video quality and the lack of buffering should there be any hiccups with the Fast Web. In that respect, newspapers can become the "store" for other desired content and save their collective asses.

<comment><USER5> My point was to ask you describe the sorts of information which are best sent via the slow web. I gave some examples where it wouldn't work, because of the need for timely responses.

Your example of receiving an hour television show on a 4GB card does not work, because we already have that. It's called Netflix. I mean, it's a perfect example of what you're wanting, but it's already a solved problem built on top of the postal system, and not based on uucp nor your proposed slow web. There's nothing stopping you right now for implementing this via the postal service - so my question to you is, which types of people would want this sort of system, why would they want it, why will there be a long-term demand for this sort of service, and why doesn't it already exist atop the postal system?

It looks like you propose that the newspapers could leverage their delivery system in order to deliver the data. But surely the postal system is the better fit, given that newspapers don't deliver to place with "only five people" and instead charge more so they can mail the newspaper.

The other problem I have is that you keep coming back to "radio-management." That's not important. We can wire 99+% of US homes with wired connection - <USER2> did that with power and are nearly there with phones. Why is radio important if you can get 14.4K wired to your home? Assuming a rather low value of 1KB/sec over twisted pair, that's 2GB per month. If you also want local wireless for the house, that's under $100. I set up that system 10 years ago for myself.

To emphasize, 1KB/sec is fast enough to download the entire NYT in 6 hours.

So the potential users, after removing the Netflix factor, are 1) those people who can't get any network connection, and 2) those people who are restricted to dialup but want more than 2GB/month, and don't care about 'fast web' responsive access. Both are small and decreasing in numbers.

Oh, and how does someone signal which 4GB of data they are interested in? I tried but completely failed to come up with any solution which doesn't require a large majority of the sites in the world to rearchitect their interface for this tiny minority - and that's not going to happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be short: Netflix doesn't accept uploads from customers via postal mail—so it doesn't exactly match the example. Most people want content that requires more than 2GB/month. Yes, NYTimes is much less than 2GB/month, but this wouldn't be about receiving "just" the NYTimes---the newspaper delivery service would work as a "carrier" of bits. Users signal for the data they're interested in via what they upload. Publishers of bits upload indexes to the content network. It can be implemented now with the postal service, by sneakernet in communities of people, or it could be something that newspapers implement, it doesn't matter who does the physical work of bit-moving. And finally, I'm not interested in supporting the "large majority of the sites" because they're all Fast Web. If they want Slow Web, they can add it, but they don't have to, it's not mandatory and its not expected of them.

<comment><USER5> My examples were all meant to show areas where a slow web would not be effective. Who are the people and what are the use cases for a slow web, and why doesn't it exist now on top of the existing postal system?

The newspaper delivery service would not work. Period. Delivery service only covers the local service area, where there is a high enough density of subscribers to make a special delivery service worthwhile. These people can get broadband and/or cell service. Otherwise newspapers use the postal service, and charge a premium to those customers who want that service.

Now you say that "upload" is important. Yes, when my wife was deployed in Iraq, we mailed USB sticks back and forth, containing music and video files. So that service exists now for point-to-point, and scales decently well to several people. Who are the people who want one-to-many data broadcasting via the slow web? What do they want to accomplish?

And I return again to mechanics. How does one "signal for the data they're interested in via what they upload?" If I send videos of our baby to family, do I get baby videos in return? Or do I get ads for baby products? I can't think of any mechanism which would handle what you are describing, other than having a human concierge service - and that's expensive.

If there are no adapters to make the slow data resources which are available on the fast web available to the slow web, then why would people use the slow web?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Be part of the slow network movement? I was so excited when a friend agreed to connect to me and bring in email and usenet via UUCP. Good memories, but I like the real-time fast food world a lot better. Though for interplanetary communication it makes a lot of sense.

</comment><comment><USER7> All of this has happened before...

Actually, Usenet worked amazingly well even under the limitations of computers and networks in the 80's. Shared information streams strike me as superior to isolated data motes and walled gardens.

</comment><comment><USER8> We use UUCP at work to send POS data from some of our stores to head office.

</comment><comment><USER9> Every Linux system has a uucp account for no other reason than it's been there so long that removing it is proving more than a bit troublesome.

It seems like some kind of monument to the past at this point.

<comment><USER10> It used to be the case that device nodes for serial ports and lock files for those were owned by that user/group. Historically uucp (uucico - uucp call in call out) was the only sensible thing to use the modem for anyway...

Personally, I never used uucp over serial links, but for several years fetched my emails via uucp-in-tcp. It was a homegrown system with sendmail, later qmail, later exim and it worked very reliably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had a UUCP feed through the early 90s. Fun times!

</comment><comment><USER12> Sneaking SD-Cards might also be a nice alternative of communication in times of increasing online surveillance.

<comment><USER12> Encryption would of course be mandatory. Maybe even enhanced with steganograhy.

"My dear photo sharing friend, enclosed you'll find the collection of my latest pictures which are simply to huge in volume for my crappy internet connection. Enjoy and keep sending pictures in return. PS: I love your artistic subtle casual picture style."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any chance cjdns will be ported to BSD?</comment>


I hate Redux, so I write my own State Management in the weekend - <AUTHOR> https://codeburst.io/i-hate-redux-so-i-write-my-own-state-management-in-the-weekend-7a7b159c81c7 <comment><USER2> What is it the you hate about redux?</comment>


Sketchy Maps with Geometry Smoothing - <AUTHOR> http://mapbox.com/blog/sketchy-maps/ <comment><USER2> Very reminiscent of the work Stamen is doing; I'm a big fan of both.

Here's Stamen's watercolor map: <http://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#12/37.7706/-122.3782>

<comment><USER3> Gorgeous, but painfully slow to render. The price we pay!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought this was going to be the Bing napkin sketch style for directions:

[http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/06/bing_destination_ma...](http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/06/bing_destination_map_automatic_napkin_sketching_of_maps.html)

Love the end result of the bezier curves shown on the map of the Caribbean, but really thought the napkin sketch feature was fantastic for directions.

<comment><USER5> As one of the comments at your link shows, this was originally developed at Stanford:

<http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/routemaps/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's something very pleasing about dedicating so much technical attention to something that is so artful. I love seeing map styles like this- not sure where I'd use one myself, but I sure want to...

</comment><comment><USER7> Tangentially related, I like this _really_ simple experiment with map simplification from a few years ago: <http://adamsmith.as/blurry_maps/>

Obviously not nearly as involved as this, but a nice example of what a really simple transform can do aesthetically: It just median-filters Google Maps, which has the effect of removing text, simplifying boundaries, and producing large flat color areas.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love that slippy maps are a commodity such that people can making art and craft them in new and wonderful ways.

There's already a nice collection of other twists on the slippy-map-as-art thing here. One more is Stamen's Pretty Maps, which does the heavy lifting in SVG and combines Flickr shapefiles in very interesting way: <http://prettymaps.stamen.com/>

</comment><comment><USER9> This is so beautiful.</comment>


CommaFeed - Simple, bloat-free, opensource RSS reader - <AUTHOR> http://www.commafeed.com/ Google Reader inspired self-hosted RSS reader, based on JAX-RS, Wicket and AngularJS. https://github.com/Athou/commafeed <comment><USER2> Hi, you are claiming that is open source, where can we find the source code? I could find on the website and I'm not talking of the page source... Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> <https://github.com/Athou/commafeed>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does it have a strong enough back-end? Newsblur is an open-source "clone" of Reader, too, but last I checked (around the Reader migration) it barely worked.</comment>


Facebook admits using two-factor authentication phone numbers to target ads - <AUTHOR> https://www.eyerys.com/articles/news/researchers-found-facebooks-ad-targeting-shadow-profiles-facebook-admits-it <comment><USER2> What do you think needs to happen for non-techies to start being concerned about this topics?

I find at least one new scandal article every day regarding privacy in big software companies, but I rarely hear any complains or concerns from non- techies.

<comment><USER3> They have to be credibility convinced there is some issue and that the problem is not beyond their control. Many people wrongly assume there is nothing they can do because we need to act collectively and they have to be shown the real potential and current harms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> But why would they think the end justified the means? It's a high risk / low value move.</comment>


ICANN Approves generic top-level domains - <AUTHOR> http://www.icann.org/ <comment><USER2> Meh, I doubt it'll have any major effect.

The vast majority of TLDs that are introduced fail very quickly (.name, .biz, .pro, a range of ccTLDs whose country's citizens opt for the 'big 3' - .com, .net and .org - regardless, etc)

All that'll happen here - IMO - is that a few of the bigger names will waste $185k on their unique TLDs, realise that their users get confused by them (never underestimate the ability of big companies to misunderstand it's users..) and either switch back or stick ridgidly to using them with no positive effect.

So yep, I'm not too concerned about this. ICANN aren't a great organisation, and they seem to mainly bring out new TLDs to get more money.

</Rant>

<comment><USER3> I think you're missing the significance of this change. It's not clearly stated in the announcement (in fact, nothing is) but in section 1.3 of the Applicant Guidebook[1] it shows that for the first time it will be possible to have IDN gTLDs, that is, gTLDs in any standardised script. Latin1 is gone. This is big.

Sometimes the anglocentrism (and USA-centrism) on this site worries me.

[1] [http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp- clean-30may11-e...](http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp- clean-30may11-en.pdf)

<comment><USER4> The anglocentrism on this site is nearly entirely because the overwhelming majority of developments in the computer industry, from the Mark I to the iPad, have been created by Anglophones.

<comment><USER5> The majority is actually not as overwhelming as it appears at first sight if you think of people like Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum or Bjarne Stroustrup.

BUT, I think most IT folks who are not natively anglophone have wholeheartedly embraced the english language as the lingua franca of the industry and of science in general. The practical advantages of having such a lingua franca are simply overwhelming, and I really think that any step towards localization is a step backwards for everybody.

<comment><USER4> Very good point. The development of Linux I think of as an English-speaking effort, but that's because Linus conducted all the discussion about it in English (because, as you say, English is the lingua franca of the technology world).

So I guess the actual truth is that the vast majority of technology developments have come from people who speak English (some Ruby stuff excepted), not necessarily native English speakers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder who's going to register "localhost" or "mail"? ;-)

EDIT: There's a list of reserved TLDs that won't be allowed to be registered. It includes localhost (but not mail)!

AFRINIC IANA-SERVERS NRO ALAC ICANN RFC-EDITOR APNIC IESG RIPE ARIN IETF ROOT- SERVERS ASO INTERNIC RSSAC CCNSO INVALID SSAC EXAMPLE* IRTF TEST* GAC ISTF TLD GNSO LACNIC WHOIS GTLD-SERVERS LOCAL WWW IAB LOCALHOST IANA NIC

(example and www have asterisks next to them because " _in addition to the above strings, ICANN will reserve translations of the terms "test" and "example" in multiple languages. The remainder of the strings are reserved only in the form included above._ ")

<comment><USER7> .mail would be excellent, really. All we need is $185,000, a stomach for paperwork and an established company looking to expand into the registry business.

<comment><USER8> Shame they aren't allowing www - then we could have had com.foo.www to remind us of JANET addressing.

<comment><USER9> or java package names

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How possible would it be for an individual to register one of these, assuming they had the $185k figure I've seen floating around in articles related to this? I doubt it would be a useful or smart investment, but I just wonder how theoretically possible it would be for someone (or a small company they setup, if ICANN requires that) to buy one for personal use (e.g., for myself, me.grantpaul or something similar). _Edit: this appears to be impossible, according to the guidebook: "Established corporations, organizations, or institutions in good standing may apply for a new gTLD. Applications from individuals or sole proprietorships will not be considered."_

Or, alternatively — could a (funded) startup buy one? E.g. could AirBnB buy .bnb and then have sanfrancisco.bnb direct to the relevant San Francisco AirBnB page?

<comment><USER11> I've done my best to skim over the (huge) Applicant Guidebook and as far as I can tell, you don't need any reason _per se_ to be granted a gTLD.

You have to be a corporation or organization with good legal standing and financial stability, and you have to slog through an epic and expensive beurocratic process. Your application can be rejected on various specific grounds, some technical and some political.

But I don't see anything that explains the _purpose_ of gTLDs. So essentially, if there is no particular reason for you not to have one, you can have one.

<comment><USER12> Can I get .movie and sit on it until the movie industry pays me millions for it?

<comment><USER11> It does at least say that you need to run a registry. So you can't just squat a gTLD. But I don't know, in general, how the prices and policies of the registrar are evaluated and enforced. It might be in there somewhere but it didn't jump out while scanning.

<comment><USER13> Registry fees alone will cost you a minimum of $100k a year even if you sell no domains. You also need to submit business plans and "proof" of economic viability; without those your application will be rejected. One factor that most people aren't aware of is that ICANN will require you to have enough money in reserve to keep the registry alive until a new buyer can be found in case things go bad; this can be as much as $4 per domain sold in cash as reserves. If you predict you'll sell 4 million domains you'd better account for the fact you'll need to keep $16M in the bank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe I'm just a hippy at heart, but that $185k really rubs me the wrong way. It's a step back to the bad old days of broadcasting licenses that only big companies can afford to buy — and given the stagnation of old media that makes me a bit glum.

<comment><USER15> So $185k buys what essentially amounts to the right to "broker" a gTLD suffix. This is building into the system a prohibitively high barrier to entry, which almost guarantees that the interests of the conglomerates will once again trump the small, innovative and more efficient.

More details on why the $185K -- <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13835997>

<comment><USER14> My fear is that brokers won't be the ones to buy it: For example a big media company could get ".movies" to control a domain space and use it as an anti- competitive tool against indie film makers who don't even get in the front door. Look if Disney wants ".disney" I'm cool with that, but I don't like the idea of Disney owning ".animation".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We might as well just go to an AOL Keywords system.

<comment><USER17> For a disturbingly large percentage of the population, Google _is_ that system.

<comment><USER18> Why is that disturbing?

<comment><USER17> I like to live in a fantasy land where everyone understands the basics of how the Internet works. The reality that many people don't have the faintest idea how to use a computer beyond the very, very basics -- and probably never will -- is unfortunate, IMO.

<comment><USER19> They do have an understanding of how the internet works. You type what you want into google and you get it. Maybe its not how the internet worked before, but hey its nice to have to not keep downloading HOSTS.TXT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Alright, who has the cash for .yc TLD? Let's do news.yc, paul.yc for all our yummy essays, apps.yc for applications, and search.yc for the purrfect HN search.

Srsly ICANN will make more bank than it ever has now.

<comment><USER21> Isn't 2-letter for countries? I think other TLDs have to be 3 or more.

<comment><USER8> yc evaluates to yyc so you could use that

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_combinator#Y_combin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_combinator#Y_combinator)

<comment><USER8> Actually, I got that wrong: yc -> cyc and you couldn't really use that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Losing the latin-1 restriction is a mixed bag.

The main advantage is that it's respectful to folks of other writing systems.

The main disadvantage is that unicode characters that look visually identical, but which are logically distinctive, will be inevitably be used for more elaborate phishing attempts.

<comment><USER23> With a tld? These get individual approval, with pretty strict scrutiny. No ones going to let me register a new tld '.cоm' where the 'о' is cyrillic.

<comment><USER22> Give it time. The safeguards will be steadily eroded by money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> if you used regular-expression to validate websites (and/or emails), you better be prepared.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm going to miss the Chrome (IE9 too) combined search/address bar. No more will I be able to type in "haircut" or "bank" and have my browser know to kick off a search as there's no clear distinction from TLDs anymore.

</comment><comment><USER26> From a purely marketing perspective, non-standard top-level domains (heretofore referred to NG AOL keywords) are a problem. If I see an ad for <http://cameras.canon>, I'm not sure I recognize that as a URL.

If your email address is email@example.com, I'm not sure people are going to understand it. Oddly, if it were just three character gTLDs, I think people would be fine by it.

Still, I want .local. That way I can break every Mac on the planet all at once.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder what the process for getting a new one approved would look like. For example, would Google be able to say, hey, we've got a large online presence, can we have the "google" gTLD?

If not, we have problems like it being possible to continuously create new TLDs and domain-squat on google.whatever or such.

If so, well, that's interesting, I actually can't wait for Google's url to be <http://google>. Maybe one day even //google.

Good times, good times.

<comment><USER6> From [http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/factsheet-new- gtld-...](http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/factsheet-new-gtld- program-14apr11-en.pdf)

> _How much is the evaluation fee?_

 _The evaluation fee is estimated at US$185,000. Applicants will be required to pay a US$5,000 deposit fee per requested application slot when registering. The US$5,000 will be credited against the evaluation fee_

> _Are there any additional costs I should be aware of in applying for a new > gTLD?_

 _Yes. Applicants may be required to pay additional fees in certain cases where specialized process steps are applicable, and should expect to account for their own business startup costs. See Section 1.5.2 of the Applicant Guidebook._

And the guidebook ([http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp- clean-30may11-e...](http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp- clean-30may11-en.pdf)) mentions a number of different fees.

<comment><USER7> I was trying to determine: what portion of that, if any, is refundable should an application be turned down?

<comment><USER28> If you withdraw after the 1st phase of the application (application submitted and all applicants are visibile for that TLD) then you are entitled to 70% refund, the second phase (once all eligible applicants have withstood the examination process and survived contention) 30%, when the bidding starts - nada.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> First thought: will have to rewrite my email regexps...

<comment><USER30> If you have to rewrite them to accommodate new TLDs, you did them wrong in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The question is will the consumer buy into any new TLD's?

Seems to me that this is in part just a mechanism for ICANN to setup new revenues for all concerned. And let's not forget with search engines trying to make you, the average consumer, forget about TLD's altogether it seems a battle is shaping between TLD's and the search engines.

</comment><comment><USER32> Are we applying for .hacker or .yc? it'd be cool to be able to identify all yc companies instantly by domain.

</comment><comment><USER33> Doesn't linking to icann's front page mean that nobody can submit it again without being sent to this item id?

<comment><USER34> The dupe checker only checks the cache, and stories expire fast enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> So much for neat and clever url hacks. Now everyone can do something like del.icio.us or script.aculo.us. :(

<comment><USER36> Everyone with $185k anyway.

<comment><USER37> which for many big companies is a drop in the bucket for marketing... :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> "The Board approved a plan to dramatically increase the number of Internet domain name endings [..] from the current 22, which includes such familiar domains as .com, .org and .net"

Where do those 22 come from? doesn't each contry have its own TLD?

<comment><USER39> Countries have ccTLDs which are "different" from TLDs. The 22 are generic TLDs: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_doma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_domains#Generic_top-level_domains)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> So for a few hundred thousand dollars I can actually buy clownpenis.fart ? Of course i'd have to hit the lotto first and even then saturday night live might sue me... maybe i should have gone into IP Law?

</comment><comment><USER41> This would be a good thing if new TLDs represented the types of organizations, e.g. .news, .reviews, .cars, .health...

I'm afraid the real TLDs will be either more random and meaningless or trademarked.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anyone think it's a coincidence that ICANN does this just after plans are announced by major browsers to eliminate the URL address bar? Are they rushing to sell-off?

Also, what about the possibility of disputes? What if both Facebook and twitter want to purchase '.social'? Who will resolve the dispute and on what grounds?

<comment><USER43> The meeting in question was for final approval; ICANN approved plans for opening up gTLD's back in 2008.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/26/icann_approves_custo...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/26/icann_approves_customized_top_level_domains/)

This didn't suddenly happen overnight; everyone was informed three years in advance. Just to illustrate how long ago that was in internet years: the first Windows public beta of Google Chrome wasn't even released until after ICANN's initial announcement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The necessity of this, the price for which it is offered and all those other matters aside...

Iirc if you run your own DNS-server/bind-instance (for DNS lookups, not just responding to internet DNS requests), you have a options file which contains references to forwarders for all the TLDs.

How will managing new TLDs from a server/bind-perspective play out? Will there be a new, hidden ".global" TLD you can forward, or "default" forwarder you can configure to handle this?

Basically I'm not sure how this will play out with my bind-setup and if it will require any action from me as a server-admin, apart from "apt-get update". Anyone here have any inside info?

<comment><USER45> Your DNS server will simply ask the root servers. _Those_ are listed in a file (root.hint on BIND) and will tell you which server is authoritative for the TLD in question.

I'm not aware of any setups explicitly storing the TLD servers themselves (of course, they'll be in cache.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> ...Brought to you by ICANN(R), the organization that managed to make misspellnigs a viable business.

</comment><comment><USER46> Cool, they have just broken most of email regexps.

<comment><USER47> Funny, but email validations should already just check that the address contains an @ symbol and leave it at that.

<comment><USER48> uh, nope. Email validation should check there's a valid MX record for the domain in question, and leave it at _that_.

<comment><USER49> Or a valid address record. Mailers fall back to 'A' records in the absence of a 'MX' record.

<comment><USER48> yes, and we could continue into checking something is actually listening for mail there, etc. But you get my point :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any startups founded by Indonesians (esp. in Bay Area)? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, i am originally from Indonesia, and just curious on how many tech-startup founders that are Indonesians (since Indonesia is not well-known for CS).<p>I've met quite a lot of Aussie founders (the country where i spent the past 6 years of my life) but, so far, never meet a single Indonesians founder. <comment><USER2> Marvell was founded by Indonesians:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvell_Technology_Group

I think a brother of the husband or wife might have been a founder too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Still interesting although they're no longer startup. Only 1 out of so many years?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Bad co-founder breakup, what to do? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN, I'm in a sticky situation now and thought I'd reach out and see what you would do.
I did about 3 months of work (and managed several contractor jobs) as a technical cofounder for this guy and the new direction for his existing company.  Our original verbal agreement was very explicit that I would be an equity partner.  Even though I pushed several times for formalizing our agreement, he never had time for it and we never had a contract (I should have stopped work after this red flag).  Now, he has decided to have someone else handle the development aspect, which I'm OK with and in agreement because over the course of the 3 months that I worked for him, he departed from the strategy and vision that inspired me to join.  While I am OK with not continuing the work for him, there are two "loose ends": first, he is avoiding reimbursing me for the contractor work that I paid for (and normally he has been reimbursing me); second, I feel that my own 3 months of work ought to receive some compensation - and it probably makes more sense for that to be in the form of cash rather than equity.  So now I am out over $5,000 of reimbursement, and also have received absolutely nothing for my 3 months of time.
Any advice?  What would you do?  I already know there are lots of things I should have done to prevent getting in this situation in the first place.
By the way, word of advice for my fellow HN... the guy was super nice, friendly, and easy-going, which made it easy to not recognize the red flags (no contract, delaying contract, slow reimbursement).  Don't get into my situation. <comment><USER2> Every story has 2 sides.

The code still belongs to you, so you can keep on working whatever inspired you. He didn't take anything from you, he just left. You should carry on. The vision inspired you, so maybe after your product hits big this $5k will seem small, half of which you were willing to pay anyway.

Your only loss to me here is $2,5k over 3 mths, and that is not even a loss, because you got work done the way you wanted for it, it;s just that you didn't expect to pay twice as much. On the other hand all the profits from future sales will be yours.

Note: The sky is never falling.

</comment><comment><USER3> An official letterhead letter be a cheap way to demand reimbursement. The letter can say "<person> wishes to cease employment and requests reimbursement for $<amount> for <work> by <date>. Please avoid delays otherwise there may be further costs." The employer can then settle to avoid further costs for both sides. I don't believe that such demands mean you are required to take them to court. So, it's like a legal bluff.

That said, the work you gave them belongs to you unless you stated otherwise (look through your logs). If the employer uses it, then you can send them an invoice for a license to use your IP with a notice that there'll be annual charges starting <date>. The employer will want to come to you for a full IP release. Otherwise, send an overdue notice then later send the unpaid invoice to collections after the overdue date if the employer refuses to pay.

Or release the code/work to GitHub or similar. You own the code (unless waived otherwise).

Note: The employer sounds quite charming to you, you'll need to plan out what to do before meetings including attempts to 'understand your plight' for lower but legally binding settlement (eg undesirable $100 reimbursement). But most important: stick to your objectives, not theirs. Maybe bring someone who can provide strong support which you can say they are present 'as a witness'. Maybe take a look in seduction ;)

IANAL, you should seek your own answers from someone more local at least. There's many ways to go about it like I listed above.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nasty situation to be in. I would suggest talking to him in a friendly way and just outlining everything you said here. If he's not a dick, he should be happy to award you some equity. It's not fair to have 50% but you should get something.

Getting a lawyer involved immediately really escalates the situation and can make things quite hostile. I would only suggest it as a last resort.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I agree that lawyers can quickly escalate the situation. His email to me was already pretty hostile, but I am trying to keep it cool unless there is no alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Usually in this sort of situation you would withhold all IP until he's made good on his verbal agreement. Is that possible?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not, I deployed everything live, and he has access to everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just move on. Lesson learned. Get things in writing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Collection agency

</comment><comment><USER8> Get a lawyer.

<comment><USER9> That he'll have to pay $5000 or more for?

<comment><AUTHOR> so painfully true =(</comment></comment></comment>


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<comment><USER2> "80 percent of life's most defining moments take place by age 35."

Even if they've somehow statistically observed that to be the case that doesn't mean it's required.

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