The Financialization of the American Elite - <AUTHOR> https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/the-financialization-of-the-american-elite/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting article.

I think what a lot of these articles lack is a discussion of the role that monetary policy plays in the financialization of the American (and, indeed, global) economy. While I agree that there are other factors that lead to the rise of shareholder primacy, I think the most important one is the distortion of relative capital proportions in the economy largely caused through the mechanism of monetary inflation.

I find it odd how there is so little literature on this apart from books and papers from the relatively fringe (but no less accurate) Austrian school of economics. Inflation is _not_ something that happens everywhere in the economy at the same time (the Cantillon effect). Inflationary central banking policies benefit those who are closest (relatively) to the money printer, and in modern Western economies this is almost always financial firms and those who marshal capital. Large inflows of money (inflows that have vastly increaed sinced 2008 after the advent of extensive quantitative easing) allow those close to the central bank to have a larger purchasing power than the rest of the economy as inflation has not "trickled down" yet. This allows said financial firms to purchase assets, invest in companies, and capture value in ways they would otherwise not be able to do and in scales that are _completely_ unnatural. And yes, this includes venture capital firms (for many of us who work in startups, we are among those who are relatively closer to central banks, hence the ridiculous salaries). As there is much more money flowing in the system but less "real" wealth, much of this money heads to equity markets to chase returns, and the result is what is described in the article.

This distortion of the capital base allows financial firms to hold and direct more capital than they otherwise would, so it is no wonder that the financialisation of the American economy and increases in general economic inequality globally largely began after the gold standard was abolished in 1971 and central bank printing presses were set free.

Indeed, I would go so far to say that the real fix to this problem is to abolish inflation targeting (and by consequence the central planning of the money supply through central banks).

<comment><USER3> I think the firehose we have now of unconstrined fiat currency will go down in the history books as an aberration in the history of money. Money and the economy are part of the bedrock of modern society and the human interactions that happen on a macro and micro level. When you get down to it fiat currencies like the USD became uncoupled from reality when it went off being pegged to a physical amount of gold/silver. I always see a lot of hand waving when I bring this up. I am betting that our current system of fiat is smoke and mirrors and we will return to money based on something concrete.

<comment><USER4> The Class of 1982 was special in graduating at the very inception of what has become a nearly 40-year bull market in credit, which is mostly a story of monetary and regulatory policy.

When the books are written 100 years from now, they will explain this period as a hyperinflation that our HBS-trained leaders in government and finance managed to trap mostly in financial assets, all the while counter-intuitively justifying their money-creation activities based on a theoretical _potential_ to leak gradually out to the broader economy. Hyperinflation here to maybe generate useful inflation there, but really useful primarily in creating robber-barrons and oligarchs, who perpetuate the system through 'soft bribery' and 'reputation laundering' described in the article.

This article and the speeches etc. discussed in it should be a clarion call for folks to accelerate imagining what will come next, which may well go beyond increasingly cosmopolitan admissions and instruction at HBS.

<comment><USER5> > they will explain this period as a hyperinflation

No, they won't, because it wasn't.

<comment><USER4> Ok, ok, asset price inflation measured by the S&P 500 has been about 9% annually from $123 in 1982 to $2,920 in 2019. In addition, the availability of debt amplifies increases. For example, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased from 100 to 220 between 2000 and 2019 (about 4% annually), but owners often leverage 80% at the start, and they actually have a 13% annual return (less carrying costs)-- lets say double the nominal return.

If high finance generated a ROI of 9% x 2 on average since 1982, through asset price gains magnified by leverage ... that would be 64% every 3 years, on average for almost 40 years. That's a remarkable inflationary event, however you choose to define 'hyperinflation.'

<comment><USER5> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation)

<comment><USER6> Exactly. It fits for the world-wide inflation.

> In economics, hyperinflation is very high and typically accelerating > inflation.

> It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all > goods increase.

This is in process. You seem to think there's a specific periodic minimum that is absolute. If the period is decades, it looks the same.

> This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as they > usually switch to more stable foreign currencies, often the US Dollar.[1] > Prices typically remain stable in terms of other relatively stable > currencies.

Given this has affected every currency (not counting some closed off systems like NK) the flight currency is property/land/gold/etc

<comment><USER5> > This is in process.

Right. And Jesus is coming back any day now.

Part of the _definition_ of hyperinflation is that it happens fast. Price increases that take place over decades is not hyperinflation, it's just regular old inflation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I rarely buy the "deeply flawed messenger" argument. Here, he's basically criticizing short-term business thinking, which he also took advantage of as an investor. Should we therefore put him in a hippo crate?

Few people in the tech community say "This guy exploited a security bug. Therefore, we shouldn't listen to his bug reports."

In fact, you can't really understand a bug except by trying to exploit it. I suspect the same is true in business. Everyone agrees vaguely that there's some kind of short-term thinking problem in big American business. But this guy understood the problem deeply enough to exploit it, while everyone else just is just waving their hands.

I think PoC||GTFO applies to business advice too.

<comment> word-reader It's demonstrated later in the article that he continued to take advantage of short-term business thinking with probable bad externalities all the while and after he was trying to repair his reputation with his Harvard donations and conciliatory speeches.

In particular, the argument is that the critiques offered in conferences like this are insincere and aimed at preserving the insiders' status rather than actually changing any of the things they're talking about: "His career tells us how he would advise those beginning their careers to navigate these challenges: Loudly criticize political dysfunction, but make no effort to explore its structural causes or remedies...[his] prominence conveys that incongruence between words and actions is tolerable, even desired." And further, that it would be "foolish to listen" to said finance people's self- serving political solutions.

A closer equivalent in the tech community would be more like "this guy has spent decades running shady adtech and addictive gaming companies, and continues to traffick personal information and addict kids to pay-to-play games, but is now also running an organization dedicated to digital privacy and is building a reputation as an expert in parenting in the digital age and voluntary gaming regulation".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _A considerable amount has been written about the financialization of the American economy. Less understood is the financialization of America's business talent. Klarman, his alma mater, and its peer institutions are all part of this story. What we confront today—a business elite dominated by financiers and their squires, presiding over a disordered economy gutted of both its productive energy and the ability to generate mass prosperity—is a direct result of this economic and cultural evolution._

To some degree I think we see this in the startup world where a lot of the aspiration seems to be: Operator -> Angel Investor (on the side) -> VC.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hmm...this article, along with Elizabeth Warren's recent proposals make me think that maybe the answer we ought to be looking at is something quite simple: Provide significant tax advantages to compensating employees with equity. If the problem is that employees are losing at the expense of shareholders...well, let's make them shareholders.

<comment><USER10> It's a bad idea to put both your money and your career into the same basket. Either the employees will immediately sell the equity, which will essentially make this just a tax cut, or (if they can't) they'll be in a dangerous position and the next recession will be devastating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> He's missing a big change since 1949 or 1974 - the demise of communism. It's not that communism was all that successful, but _it was competition for capitalism._ Capitalism had to do better for the voters than communism.

From about 1920 to 1980, American business was scared of communism as an alternative system. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the USSR looked to be surging ahead, there was heavy PR about how capitalism delivered a better life for workers. (Some period cheerleading from when the USA really was #1: [1][2]) Businesses were in fear of being broken up, having executives arrested for price-fixing, or even being taken over by the government. The British government took over and ran big parts of the steel and railroad industries. British telecom was government-owned already. US businesses feared that might come to the US.

This fear, and fear of unions, kept wages going up, and prices stable. It wasn't perfect, but there was a major force pushing back against corporate greed. With that threat removed, capitalism has a monopoly, and now acts like one.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/4050_Meet_King_Joe_01_19_26_08](https://archive.org/details/4050_Meet_King_Joe_01_19_26_08)

[2] [https://archive.org/details/Productivity- KeyToPlenty](https://archive.org/details/Productivity-KeyToPlenty)

<comment><USER7> Suppose you could create a system to compete with capitalism. What would it be like?

<comment><USER12> We don't need to create a new system. Capitalism is perfectly fine with a few tweaks.

<comment><USER7> I think Animats' argument is that capitalism isn't getting those tweaks because there's no competition. Capitalism as a system has a near-monopoly. Back when it had serious competition from the Soviet Union, people tried much harder to make it work better.

So the new system doesn't have to actually be better overall than capitalism, it just needs to provide some competition to light a fire under policy makers.

<comment><USER12> I guess we will have to learn how to live without a competitor that brings people together. Otherwise where can we get a replacement for the Soviet Union that scares people enough? China?

<comment><USER13> To me, China looks more like the logical conclusion of capitalism than some competing economic system.

<comment><USER11> Too early to say. The "Asian tigers", Korea, Singapore, Japan, etc. had a similar trajectory. If you believe Pikkety, that type of growth levels off at the level of developed countries once catch-up is achieved. Which is not a bad place to end up. There are then stagnation problems. Japan hit that first.

The countries that have hit stagnation, other than the US, tend to build good public infrastructure. This pumps money into the economy, but not through the banks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Hedge funds, private equity firms, and investment banks are just the first order players."

Aren't these all basically the same thing?

<comment><USER15> Quick rundown:

\- Private equity firms invest in businesses that are not publicly traded. For example, they invest in startups that are seeking to grow and eventually IPO.

\- Investment banks help existing firms undertake financial transactions such as issuing new debt or new shares, and serve as brokers for e.g. sales of small businesses to new owners.

\- Hedge funds make speculative bets on existing financial assets they believe are over- or under-priced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought this was going to be an interesting article. Then I read

>At first glance, this is sound—even admirable—advice for aspiring business leaders. But a closer look at Klarman's remarks, as well as the origins and trajectory of his career, suggests a deeply flawed messenger.

And I realized this was just another article which refuses to engage ideas and falls back to ad hominem. I don't care if the messenger is flawed, or what somebody thinks his or her motivation is for delivering a particular message. I want to hear a critique of the message itself.

<comment><USER17> The majority of the article is about shareholder primacy and the disingenuousness of the messenger _and_ his message, as demonstrated by his actions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> contextual background on the publication itself?

[https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-trumpist- maga...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-trumpist-magazine- debuts-at-the-harvard-club)

<comment><USER19> A Trumpist magazine extolling the virtues of Elizabeth Warren's platform? This seems to be the classical criticism of analysts that look at Trump's policies instead of painting anything he does as anathema.

Being BFF with Peter Thiel is a black mark, I'll give you that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Capitalism is a system that sounds great on paper, but doesn't work in practice.

<comment><USER21> Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.

Especially not generic ideological comments, which tend to lead to generic ideological flamewars, which we want to avoid because they're so predictable.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER20> I felt it was substantive; lots of people worship the market blindly and this article is an excellent deep-dive into exactly what's wrong with that mentality. I was also drawing an analogy to the common refrain about communism, which is true in that case as well. The world's most prosperous societies know how to strike a balance.

<comment><USER21> If you had posted that instead it would have been a fine comment!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have to say, these three particular sections are able to finely articulate what I've been thinking as I watch rich people try to run the United States.

> "At bottom, when many of our country's wealthy citizens say "democracy," > what they really mean is "our class's way of life." If they respected > democracy as fervently as they worship the "invisible hand," they would see > that the popular discontent simmering across the world today is the direct > result of decades of elite hypocrisy and greed, hidden behind a façade of > neoliberal economics.

> "The "center" is not where the best policy is made, or where public opinion > converges; it is a place where political activity is fully dominated by > financial elites and thoroughly subordinated to the market."

> "These are the same people who have left us with an upside-down economy and > a weakened social fabric. Income inequality, financialization, and a > socially inefficient distribution of both capital and talent are the > legacies of shareholder capitalism. Although these elites now mourn the > erosion of the political "center," they actively participated in the > erosion of the American middle class. To add insult to injury, they insist > on telling us elaborate stories about their entrepreneurial spirit and good > intentions, and invite us to celebrate their virtue when they give back a > tiny share of their captured wealth."</comment>


Ask HN: Should I buy the new Macbook Pro with Touch Bar or the previous model? - <AUTHOR> I've seen a lot of discussion of the new Macbook Pro with Touch Bar here at HN, but most discussion revolves around comparisons of the new Macbook and other brands of laptops. I'm about to buy a new computer and I want to stick with a Macbook Pro.
The Touch Bar in itself seems annoying. However, the new model has some upgrades. For example, – 2.70 gHz (vs 2.20) – 8 MB CPU cache (vs 6 MB) – 512 GB storage (vs 256 GB).
So, given that my work includes the occasional fairly heavy-weight computation, and speed is important, should I buy the "old" MJLQ2KS/A model or upgrade to the Touch Bar model MLW82? Money is an issue, and the difference is almost 1200 dollars. What would you do? <comment><USER2> > The Touch Bar in itself seems annoying

Based on what? People who haven't used it commenting on HN?

The comments I've seen from people who _have_ used it, are overwhelmingly positive.

I would recommend you actually try one for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personal experience. You ignore the fact that there's a touch bar. A bit of getting used to it though. Especially muscle memory when pressing esc.

In the end it's still a machine that gets things done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the input. So, ignoring the touch bar for now, is the (hefty) increase in price justified by the other differences between the models?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't there a new model without touchbar? I'm pretty sure I've seen it in one of the stores...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, but it seems there's only 13' version of that.</comment></comment>


New ebook DRM will change the text of a story to prevent piracy - <AUTHOR> http://paidcontent.org/2013/06/14/new-ebook-drm-will-change-the-text-of-a-story-to-prevent-piracy/ <comment><USER2> I would like to see companies prevent sharing, if they want to, without using the government to charge people fines. This seems like a step in that direction, however, changing words won't really cause anybody to stop.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would absolutely refuse to pay for a book where the words have been changed.</comment>


The Strength of Weak Ties (1973) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/the_strength_of_weak_ties_and_exch_w-gans.pdf <comment><USER2> On a bad day I feel that this is a racist track about how Italians are inferior to Jews and the kind of people who work at Harvard and it belongs in the same category as "Moral Basis of a Backward Society".

I grew up in New England in a time when it was much more important what kind of black or white you were than if you were black and white and I would say that you'd have the same problem getting into Harvard if you were French- Canadian, Italian, Irish or Polish as if you were Jewish except (i) you wouldn't try and (ii) you wouldn't fight over it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I naively thought it was about chemical bond.</comment>


Even if you're asymptomatic, the coronavirus can do damage - <AUTHOR> https://elemental.medium.com/even-if-youre-asymptomatic-the-coronavirus-can-do-damage-4ab22451161a <comment><USER2> I wouldn't be too cocky if you're healthy. I got hit with a nasty flu in the early 2000's and never recovered. It was like someone flicked a switch and I went from young perfectly healthy to a low grade off an on flu since then. This happened with SARs in 2003 and is well documented. For the first year you think you are just run down, but then it never improves for decades and you just sort of miss out on your whole life.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3071317/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3071317/)

<comment><USER3> Doesn't lyme disease have similar long term issues? Do we know why certain disease cause these long term debilitating symptoms?

<comment><USER4> Another similar example is EBV, commonly known as mono, which is often associated with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. Viral infection occurs, followed by a prolonged period (sometime years and years) of flu symptoms.

I would guess there is nothing special about the virus aside from it being "high intensity". My best hypothesis is that the symptoms are the result of a maladaptive "freeze response" which results in the symptoms. Viruses don't actually cause pain, it is your body's response to it.

If you want to avoid this scenario with COVID, probably the best thing you can do is to reduce your stress level as much as possible, as I think that is a key risk factor. Exercise is good, but overdoing it is a form of stress!

<comment><USER5> Viruses can absolutely damage and destroy human cells. That alone can trigger a pain response.

<comment><USER6> But not influenza viri. They are harmless. What is problematic is the immunosystem overreaction, the T-cells destroying everything around. Called cykotine storm.

Also the bacterial infections caused by such rampage. Like pneumonia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sure there used to be this idea that content should be, or at least solidly _start_ , above the fold. In this case, I observe _two whole screenfuls of meaninglessness_ before the content begins. And on a 1920×1080 display with typical OS/UA chrome, it'll be about 2½ screenfuls. This is grossly excessive.

<comment><USER8> The idea that every news article and blog post needs a cover image is one of the worst things to happen to the Web in terms of information density and bandwidth usage.

<comment><USER9> It is my understanding that posts with images generate longer time on page and more engagement. People like pictures, and are afraid of "walls of text".

I haven't seen the data, but this is what I have been told, and it's quite plausible. I don't use header images on posts on my own site because I agree with you, but unfortunately oftentimes things that seem bad or ugly are such a way for a good reason.

It's the same thing about big ugly pancake buttons and people's close up faces on landing pages.

<comment><USER7> Yep. I hate stock imagery, because it's 100% overhead and conveys nothing of value, and by dint of its uselessness and irrelevance, cases where imagery _is_ relevant are less likely to be heeded; but because of human psychology, _stock imagery works_.

<comment><USER9> I guess that's my point: if it works, it's not irrelevant.

<comment><USER7> By "irrelevant" I mean irrelevant to the content, which is entirely accurate. It's psychological trickery in the presentation of the article, not part of the content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > In one of the studies included in the review, these lung abnormalities were > present in 54% of asymptomatic people with Covid-19.

Do we know what the usual rates for GGOs in regular people?

</comment><comment><USER11> That's by definition _not_ "asymptomatic." It's extremely mild/unnoticeable symptoms, but it's still not asymptomatic

<comment><USER12> The author is using the term in the way that most laymen use it. In this context, asymptomatic means not showing any noticeable symptoms and/or being completely unaware that one has contracted the virus.

The author is not oblivious to this as he puts the word asymptomatic in quotes in the article.

<comment><USER13> As used in medicine, a symptom is by definition something that the patient notices and can report. If they don't notice, it's not a symptom, it's a "sign".

[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/341611](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/341611)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not that this isn't important but it's certainly not robust research by any stretch of the term.

This type of panic selling--which this article is a light variation of--have forced me to be less and less willing to believe it when I read it. The boy who cried wolf is in full effect when it comes to covid.

 _"Ground-glass opacities are very common — we see it all the time and there are many things that can cause it," says Adam Bernheim, MD, a cardiothoracic radiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City_

But go ahead and throw a scary headline on it to drive clicks.

<comment><USER15> Why did you leave out the remainder of that paragraph?

"But while GGO's are common, the ones that are turning up among Covid-19 patients are distinctive. "If we see this very round shape and peripheral distribution, that's atypical of other types of infections but it's something we frequently see with [Covid-19]," he explains."

<comment><USER14> If it's something that's common and "there are many things that can cause it", what exactly do I need to be worried about? Serious question, give me some context writer. For all I know GGO's are extremely common, come and go, and could be caused by something as routine as sitting around a campfire.

 _" We've seen patients with mild GGOs that heal completely, whereas others develop scar tissue almost like a skin injury, which is permanent"_

Awesome. Zero help. But thanks for planting that seed of fear.

Calling fire when there is no fire is as bad as not calling fire if there is a fire.

<comment><USER16> >>Awesome. Zero help. But thanks for planting that seed of fear.

It is a pandemic. We absolutely need to be fearful, because it will encourage us to take extra precautionary or avoidance measures we otherwise would not have taken.

This is why "they are just trying to scare people!" is not a valid criticism in this context. The entire reason the pandemic is re-surging is because people are _not_ scared.

<comment><USER17> > This is why "they are just trying to scare people!" is not a valid criticism > in this context.

It absolutely is.

Fear is not conducive to prudent decision-making. Fear is what brought us the inane toilet paper shortage a few months ago. No news outlet is being level- headed with its reporting -- whether on the left or on the right. This, combined with zero accountability for needless flame-fanning by pieces like the one linked, creates an environment where it's hard to discern what's true and what's not.

<comment><USER18> A rapid shift from a toilet paper supply chain optimized for workplaces and retail to a sudden spike in demand on the home-focused supply chain caused the shortage. People actually needed that toilet paper because what they normally used was locked up at their workplace and they didn't have enough supply at home.

<comment><USER17> This is categorically untrue. It's well documented that people were hoarding[1] due to (and I quote) the "influence of perceived threat."

[1] [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234232)

<comment><USER18> Two things can be true:

1: People were hoarding because of the media hype

2: The supply chain was strained from a sudden and completely reasonable shift given the circumstances

Does your link address 2 or compare the impact?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those of us in the US, the range of symptoms of Covid infection combined with the very real possibility of having insurance denied because of pre- existing conditions sounds like a really bad combination.

If insurers are allowed to not cover anything related to a pre-existing condition, it seems natural they would screen for Covid antibodies as part of any routine work. Then any condition that's been correlated to Covid infection would be denied.

Universal health care can't come fast enough to the US.

<comment><USER20> Because of the ACA insurance providers cannot deny people based off of pre- existing conditions [0]. There have been several challenges to this point coming from the right centering around how the individual mandate may make the entire law unsonstitutional [1]. But as far as I know this hasn't been decided yet in the court system.

[0] - [https://www.hhs.gov/answers/affordable-care-act/can-i-get- co...](https://www.hhs.gov/answers/affordable-care-act/can-i-get-coverage-if- i-have-a-pre-existing-condition/index.html)

[1] - [https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/01/08/7940809...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/01/08/794080996/stakes-high-for-democrats-and-republicans-in-bid- to-rush-aca-to-supreme-court)

<comment><USER21> The SCOTUS is about to hear a case brought by the administration and some states to strike down the ACA in its entirety, which would also remove that provision, so the parent has a point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am curious to know the number and demographics of people who survive Covid and have no apparent after effects. Haven't really seen this data anywhere.

<comment><USER23> Without widespread antibody testing, we'll never know.

<comment><USER24> There are enough people who were PCR positive that antibody tests aren't necessary for this kind of study.

<comment><USER25> Not that I have any knowledge of whether anyone is running PCR tests on valid random population samples, but I suspect the concern is that this isn't happening, and that any followup study you could do on these positives will have biases that are hard to correct for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I love how Medium is bragging here about making a blog article available to read "for free" on the Internet.

<comment><USER27> "We act as a needlessly centralized hub for information on a medium which is traditionally decentralized, and we do it without charging you!!"

Wow, thanks so much...</comment></comment>


Alternate Histories [interview with author/journalist John Nichols] - <AUTHOR> https://thebaffler.com/latest/alternate-histories-stephenson <comment><AUTHOR> Henry Wallace's essay from 1944, cited in the article:

[https://www.nealromanek.com/danger-of-american-fascism- henry...](https://www.nealromanek.com/danger-of-american-fascism-henry-a- wallace/)</comment>


Building the XNU kernel on macOS Sierra - <AUTHOR> https://0xcc.re/building-xnu-kernel-macosx-sierrra-10-12-x/ <comment><USER2> XNU open source bits from Apple are always a tiny subset of the actual kernel code. Plus, long gone are the people who Apple hired from the FreeBSD world who believed in it enough to push internally for it. So who knows at this point what is filtered out at publish time.

Don't get me wrong, it's great to read how file drivers really work, and read how XNU manages virtual memory, but other than that, it's a pretty crappy drop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea personally I'm mostly fascinated with the semi microkernel architecture. I don't really mind that the rest is closed. And yea, I've suspected they lost some good people after seeing all the new security issues in the kernel the past years.

If only wayland was more mature, and the Linux world would have put down X11 once and for all, I would be back on Linux a long time ago :)

<comment><USER3> > If only wayland was more mature, and the Linux world would have put down X11 > once and for all, I would be back on Linux a long time ago :)

I'm curious why Wayland changes things for you. X11 is warty as hell, but that's generally not something visible to the user. I don't go "Eww, they didn't bother framing the graphics message packets properly -- I'm going to use another OS".

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, well it's not only X11, but it's one of the main reasons. Other reasons are that for my usage and work, it just "works", no hours of configuration in dotfiles. Also it's convenient as a cross platform developer, since I can just crosscompile to Linux and Windows(mingw) via Docker. However, without the Mac, you'll have to break some licenses with a hackintosh. I think the project is cool, but in work related situations I can't do that because of legal reasons.

This also reminds me about a cool project I've found, but not had time to test yet; [https://github.com/shinh/maloader](https://github.com/shinh/maloader)

<comment><USER4> Yeah. Linux is not like that any more.

Try Linux Mint. The only configuration you will do is to enter your username and password.

<comment><USER5> And then again when their site gets subverted and you have to reinstall since you might have a rootkitted binary. I loved Mint for its incredible usability. Just can't recommend a supplier whose security was that bad.

<comment><USER4> Nah. You can't hold a 'maintainer transgression' which happened two years ago against them forever.

They have indeed implemented solid checks and offer a Shaxxx-sum file for every iso file they publish. Not only that, bt publicly "soul searched" and went to great lenghts to assure the community and its users that such mistakes would not be repeated. Now verifying the authenticity of the iso file actively encouraged, on the download page.

They made a mistake, took solid steps to improve, and the show has moved on. You should too, instead of smearing the project far far down the line. (I'm being retorical, I know)

<comment><USER5> The project's security sucked across the board. They didn't care or know how to do it. One hacker here even appeared to hack them in mid-discussion and post database credentials that showed they were using defaults. They then implemented a mitigation after bad press and soul searching. The thing I'm doing isn't smearing the project: it's letting people know not to trust its security without 3rd party verification (esp pen tests). That's because (a) it's a sane default for any project and (b) this one failed hard on the basics at least once.

So, I advise caution until I see a 3rd party evaluation showing their security is good now. You apparently followed them carefully. Did any security professionals look at their site/db/whatever after the fixes and give independent confirmation? That's all I'd need to stop reminding people of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Excellent! PureDarwin [1] is still plodding along slowly.

1: [http://www.puredarwin.org/](http://www.puredarwin.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I got surprised they didn't have more documentation, at least updated.

<comment><USER6> Contact details are in my profile - if there's anything in particular you're looking for I can ping a few people from the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, but I actually talked with the people in the project a few years back, and have on my todo list to do it again soon :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there a better approach for experimenting with filesystems than editing the kernel sources, recompiling and then running in a VM? e.g. A C library providing the necessary interface for the sources to drop into a kernel eventually, but also allowing you to run tests, set breakpoints, etc within an IDE.

Of course you can get a long way accessing a block device directly with FUSE, but ultimately you end up developing a FUSE library, not something you can use within the kernel.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm sorry but I stopped reading because you've chosen to break lines mid-word (reading on mobile). Justified text would be a lot easier to read.

edit: It looks like Safari's reader mode fixes things.

<comment><USER9> I thought this was a petty HN UI comment but no. Readying the post is painful nearly ever other line ends in a split word on mobile.

<comment><USER8> I really tried to read it before whining. Glad to see it's much more readable now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> OpenDNS in my office is blocking access to the site because of "malware".

I can't tell if that's a legitimate warning, or it being paranoid about what else is on the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahaha, yes I just found out my own comany's firewall does the same. I suspect it's the hex domain :)

Online services says it's clean and I know how to secure my own webserver/services :) [https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/0xcc.re](https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/0xcc.re)</comment></comment>


Check Out What Happened When I Unsubscribed From Groupon's Email - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/check-out-what-happened-when-i-unsubscribed-from-groupon-coms-emails/

<comment><USER2> Speaking of which, I had a very pleasant account cancelation experience recently. I used to subscribe to SEOMoz but didn't get much use out of it in the last year and decided to cancel. They sent me to a very nice rescue page which combined a good last-effort attempt to save the relationship with an honest, upfront, easy click here to cancel workflow. Major points from me on both counts. The last stage of the cancel workflow was "You account is canceled but will run until $ANNIVERSARY?_DATE. We'll give you a last week totally free if you take our exit survey." (They also had some language to make clear they were not pulling an AOL on you and that you'd be canceled after the week ws up.)

That was so brilliant that if I had a service which could be canceled I would have implemented the minimum version of it in the spot.

<comment><USER3> I'd like to second this, my account cancellation with SEOMoz was handled wonderfully as well. In my case, I simply sent them an email, and got a very nice response back within minutes letting me know everything was taken care of and I wouldn't be billed again.

Its really important to me how a company handles parting ways. Because their cancellation experience was so easy I am more likely to reopen my account again in the future.

Note: SEOMoz's Pro service is a great deal if you need the tools it provides. I canceled simply because our workload shifted, but would re-up in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ShopItToMe is really smart about retaining users that want to unsubscribe: <http://emailmarketingvoodoo.com/blog/tags/tag/unsubscribe>

<comment><USER5> The _take a break/less often_ features are killer. I wonder if Constant Contact would jump for something like that (or already has).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's nothing I love more than having fun with something most companies try to convolute and make impossible. Great, honest mechanisms that in some cases reverse the negative process.

<comment><USER7> I'm looking forward to seeing that being copied excessively all over the place so much that it becomes cliché and boring...

<comment><USER8> Maybe this happens for most but for those companies who can take this concept, iterate on it and make it work it's a good move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Direct example link:

[http://www.groupon.com/minneapolis- stpaul/unsubscribed?mid=9...](http://www.groupon.com/minneapolis- stpaul/unsubscribed?mid=96988&email@example.com)

EDIT:

Something's funky there. It worked earlier this AM when clicking from here:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/b1fyl/this_is_wh...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/b1fyl/this_is_what_happens_when_you_unsubscribe_from/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm getting a 404 on that.

<comment><USER10> The entire site is down right now: <http://www.groupon.com>

Sucks when something goes viral and I can't visit the site to find out more about them.

<comment><USER11> Must be a odd discussion to have in the office... "servers went down due to an over-welling demand for our unsubscribe page -- subscriptions are up 3000%"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can't view the video on phone - can anyone summarize?

<comment><USER13> "Derrek" wanted you to read the newsletter. Because you didn't want to, you now have the chance to "Punish" him. Clicking on the "punish" button leads to a video of Derrek receiving a hot coffee to the face and sinking off the chair.

After your punishment, they asked you if you wanted to make up for being mean by resubscribing.

Inventive, if cruel.

<comment><USER12> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's really that the message they want to send? "If you unsubscribe, it's like you kicked that guy in the nuts! Hope you're happy now (jerk)!" Even being satire, that has some creepy connotations of emotional blackmail.

Well, at least it's optional.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think this is just brilliant. Better than getting something for free. This actually makes me want to resubscribe.

</comment><comment><USER8> brilliant marketing one to copy cat in some form for sure

</comment><comment><USER16> There is no drink in that drink. :(

</comment><comment><USER17> This made my day.

</comment><comment><USER18> I like mixergy, but the advertising is a real turn off.

<comment><USER19> I don't understand this big hold up about advertising. He's making a living. As long as he provides excellent content, what do you care? I have advertising on my blog as well and it pays a lot of my bills right now and helps me work on my startup more, but none of my readers have mentioned that the ads annoy them because I always have good content. For example I live-blogged Startup Riot 2010 on wednesday <http://paulstamatiou.com/live-blogging-startup- riot-2010>

<comment><USER20> Agreed. The ads are really relevant too: Wufoo, grasshopper, and shopify are all very useful resources for entrepreneurs. I actually want more ads, because I trust the services + recs that Andrew puts up.

<comment><USER8> As long as I'm not being sold on "how to get ripped in 1 week" or have ads shoved down my throat I think it's fine. The interview starts off with 10-20 seconds of ads and there it is.

Did you guys notice Andrew monetized the site now? With a "how much would you pay model" where the users can choose what to pay per month.

(pay to access older interviews)

<comment><USER18> See that I appreciate. Much better than hear the same message about the same company every time. We all know about shopify. It's all the buzz. I don't need a shopify, i have paypal. I don't need woofoo. I have skype already.

Let the companies create a video and submit it to play and pay $20 for the spot. Spice it up. Make the advertising entertaining.

Does he even really need the advertising? Why not use the time to talk about a startup in his community?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


IMVU's CallStack API Now Open Source (super useful if you ship software on windows) - <AUTHOR> http://aegisknight.org/2009/04/imvus-callstack-api-now-open-source/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you haven't seen Chad's excellent series on how to capture all the different ways a process can terminate on windows, I highly recommend the previous installments:

[http://aegisknight.org/2009/04/imvu-crash-reporting- plugging...](http://aegisknight.org/2009/04/imvu-crash-reporting-plugging-the- vc-runtimes-escape-hatches/)

[http://aegisknight.org/2009/03/crash-reporting-in-imvu- last-...](http://aegisknight.org/2009/03/crash-reporting-in-imvu-last-chance- exceptions/)

[http://aegisknight.org/2009/02/reporting-crashes-in-imvu- c-c...](http://aegisknight.org/2009/02/reporting-crashes-in-imvu-c-call- stacks/)

[http://aegisknight.org/2009/02/reporting-crashes-in-imvu- cal...](http://aegisknight.org/2009/02/reporting-crashes-in-imvu-call-stacks- and-minidumps/)

This is some advanced mojo. I think it's a huge lost opportunity to ship internet-enabled software but not have it report back on exactly what went wrong when it crashes.

</comment><comment><USER2> Analogous thing on Linux: [http://tombarta.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/c-stack- traces-with...](http://tombarta.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/c-stack-traces-with- gcc/)

But all this is all moot for production code since there's Google Breakpad: <http://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get it.

Instead of "Let's get C++ easier to debug"

why not:

"Let's only write performance intense parts in C++", and have the rest in an interpreted scripting language, where things like this (and more) come much cheaper?

<comment><USER4> They might well be going for "Let's only write performance intense parts in C++, and make those bits easier to debug"

<comment><USER5> Bingo. Most of our application is Python, but all of the 3D stuff is in C++.</comment></comment></comment>


Apt-metalink – Take advantage of multiple package mirrors simultaneously - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tatsuhiro-t/apt-metalink <comment><AUTHOR> From the project's description page:

      apt-metalink makes apt-get faster by downloading Debian/Ubuntu packages from several servers concurrently.
      apt-metalink uses python-apt to interface apt infrastructure and aria2 for download backend.
      Metalink is used to feed package list to aria2.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it better to build out your own back-end or use an online service? - <AUTHOR>

I'm doing some research and curious about the differences time wise and money wise. Anyone have advice? <comment><USER2> Could you give us a little more context? It's hard to make recommendations when we don't know what kind of product you're building, the potential size of your audience, the industry involved, the importance of it, etc. etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not specifically for me building an app it's for a User Guide I'm putting together for our content on our company's website. That being said, in what specific situation would it be useful to use a backend service and what type of situation would make it better to create your own? Or does this depend more on the developer's experience maybe? I'm also interested in cost differences overall.</comment></comment>


Richard Dawkins questions Ahmed Mohamed's 'motives' and sparks backlash - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/20/richard-dawkins-questions-ahmed-mohamed-motive-backlash <comment><USER2> It does feel a bit like the raising of this material provides people with a way of legitimizing the grievances of the Muslim community. Whether he built the clock or not, police arrested him over its similarity to a bomb, yet didn't evacuate the school as if it were one. Clearly the point isn't whether this kid made the clock or not.

<comment><USER3> Maybe it was just a propaganda stunt to discourage domestic terrorism and push the learn to code movement? Maybe this kid doesn't even exist.</comment></comment>


Prehistoric Parents Used Baby Bottles Made of Pottery - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/science/prehistoric-baby-bottles.html <comment><AUTHOR> It apparently ties into a "baby boom" in neolithic population growth - <USER2> cups as the birth of modern civilisation.</comment>


Calibre version 1.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://calibre-ebook.com/new-in/ten <comment><USER2> Calibre (and the plugins to remove DRM) is the only thing that makes e-books worthwhile, despite still being overpriced. I wouldn't be wasting money on e-books if I couldn't use them as freely as physical books.

iPad, Kindle, Nook etcetera, it's all the same incompatible DRM-crippled crap. Without the existence of Calibre it's pretty much impossible to have your own virtual library.

This software should get way more credit and support. Especially from publishers that support DRM-free books, like O'Reilly.

<comment><USER3> I find e-books very convenient to read, but am annoyed that it is harder to lend them to friends (if they themselves don't have a reader), and that I have nothing to put on my shelf.

What I really wish for would be someone to offer physical books at price X and the combo physical book + DRM-free ebook at price X+0.50€ or X+1€ or something small like that. (I can understand that e-books by themselves are not dirt cheap, since most of the cost goes does not come from the printing and physical distribution process. But in a bundle with a physical book that is already paid for through the price of the physical book, so one just needs to tack on a little bit to make a nice profit). I'd take that option everytime, turning the small extra into almost 100% profit.

<comment><USER4> > and that I have nothing to put on my shelf.

Why do you need anything to put on a shelf?

I, for one, am glad that books don't need to take up physical space anymore.

<comment><USER5> _Why do you need anything to put on a shelf?_

Because it adds to the room. I realize this is very much a question of personal taste, but I find that a room with a wall covered in books can be a beautiful design detail that adds warmth and character to a room. Plus physical books are pretty awesome in their own right.

<comment><USER6> I get it is asthetic taste, but I _love_ whenever I move somewhere and I literally have _nothing_ but white walls, bare floors, a desk, a bed, and a few drawers of clothes and necesssary accessories.

It feels very clean to me. I don't like cluttering up space for no reason than to occupy it.

<comment><USER5> As I said, it's all a matter of taste, but I love 'clutter'. As long as it's my clutter placed by me to my exact specifications (other peoples clutter is different matter all together). I find it really hard to concentrate or relax in a too sterile environment.

<comment><USER7> Same here. I especially like being surrounded by books. This is probably why I have WAY too many books in my apartment (it looks like the apartment of the book guy in that movie _Unfaithful_ but more cluttered) and why I often go sit at the Barnes & Noble cafe to work, as opposed to going to, say, Starbucks or Panera Bread.

I'm a fan of e-books and definitely think they have their place (I've purchased a total of 3 Nook devices over the years), but I am not ready to wholesale walk away from dead-tree books either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been using Calibre for several years now. It's managing my ebook library on every machine and I have yet to encounter a bug in any of its features. I use it to sync to my Nook, handle book metadata, convert from format to format, all without a hitch. In any ebook community Calibre has long since become the standard application. Many of the question are simply answered "install Calibre, it has what you need".

Kovid Goyal, the creator of Calibre has been, for me, as much of a poster- child of FOSS as Firefox or Linux. He has a point release every week, and you could just update the software without worry - nothing would break. He's open and frank about the development process - nothing hidden, or "thrown over the wall" no open-core features to abuse the power user, no excuses for stuff that isn't ready to release.

I have no idea why only now he reached 1.0 - it's been feature complete for my needs for a couple of years now. But as it stands, I wish to congratulate him for reaching the milestone and to thank him and everyone who supports the project - by submitting code, patches, bug reports, helping in the forums, donating money, and using the software.

<comment><USER9> I have to admit I was soured on the development when I read the how security issues were handled:

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/885027](https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/885027)

<comment><USER10> LWN did an analysis of the bug and response [1]. This issue aside, what I don't like about Calibre is it trying to be a library and device management solution, with a small amount of conversion on the side, while all I am interested in is the conversion. (I use a dropbox folder for library management.) The device management is what led to the suid security holes in the first place.

[1] [http://lwn.net/Articles/465311/](http://lwn.net/Articles/465311/)

<comment><USER11> I think it is rather unfair to criticise Calibre for being a one stop shop for all things ebook. For none technical people who I would assume are the majority of people reading books this is exactly what they need. Trying to get them to use different applications for different aspects of ebook library management will be a nightmare for whoever is trying to help them out into the world of ebooks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I use Calibre and it's great to see how far it has come. That said, let's not pretend it's all kittens and rainbows.

It has all the problems people associate with GUI based FOSS. The UI is pretty terrible. It looks and feels like FOSS from seven years ago. It has about a million prefs / settings buried many layers down in a very confusing series of prefs dialogs. It shouldn't take you 3 hours to configure an ebook reader. It should just come with sane settings out of the box. As someone else remarked the UI often feels slow / sluggish.

The app is 253MB (OS X version)! Is it just me or is that crazy?

<comment><USER13> The beauty of FOSS is you can take your criticism and turn it into action by contributing to make it better!

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure if this was sarcasm, or simple platitudes about open source, but this whole "contribute to make it better" is really a hit-and-miss affair. Best case scenario is that the code is clear, easy to update the UI, and the only reason it hasn't been done is because no one cares about the UI. That seems incredibly unlikely (the caring part - someone built it, maintains it, and will probably be upset if you "fix" it).

On other projects, you first get a huge range of code complexity/quality, making contributing perhaps simply not feasible. After that, you can run into all sorts of stuff. My real world experience:

      "We won't take this because we use linked lists, not hashtables, because <original maintainer> likes linked lists."
      "We won't fix this broken XML parser because this code is fast."
      "Why did you fork and create those modules without telling us? That's really rude to all of us that spent so much time on this." (In response to an announcement a company had ported a project to another platform, and wanted feedback and was going to open all their work. They ended up just keeping it internally.)

And some of that is on projects that are actually very friendly otherwise and to which I've contributed large and successful pieces. (To those involved if you happen to read this: you already know my criticisms ;)).

In short, the whole "hey it's open so go fix it" is a rather trite simplification. It does not reflect the usual or even possible experience for the majority of users.

<comment><USER13> It wasn't really sarcastic, but it was my intention to point out that, unlike closed source, if your complaint about open source software UI means _that much_ to you, you do have the option of actually putting your time where your mouth is, and helping solve the problem that is bothering you.

Your personal anecdotes are less about the software being open source and perhaps more about a lack of coordination with the existing developers. Every time I've contributed to an OSS project, I've opened a dialogue with the existing team ahead of time and had my ideas vetted before I put in a bunch of work. That or (now in the Github era) they were tiny/trivial patches where I wouldn't mind if my pull requests get ignored.

With closed source software that has shitty UI (and there's lots of that too), you have to just live with it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Now, the real question is whether or not Kovid Goyal (the maintainer) releases his iron grip on development. For years, seemingly any bugs are features, EVERY TIME. Good luck getting a commit accepted! You'll probably get an incredibly passive aggressive reply about why he doesn't see a need for it, no matter how obvious and simple to execute.

Can we get a real UI, autoupdates (and without needing to download the whole giant binary every time), a database that doesn't choke on realistically large libraries? How shaving some time off of the 45 seconds the application takes make an Amazon API call to grab metadata and a tiny cover image? These are just the obvious, major issues that have been present for years now.

Calibre is already that half-assed community project cliche. One that has so much potential at first, but falls apart since no one can see the forest among the trees. Has been for a while now.

<comment><USER16> A great example of this (IMHO) is the networkmanager bug:

[http://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=668899](http://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=668899)

[http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125693](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125693)

I gave up on calibre largely due to the irratation caused by this bug. Sure the UI is not great but I could deal with the UI. I keep networkmanager installed on my laptop to keep some oddball VPN profiles available. 80% of the time I have NM disabled, pidgin and a host of other apps have no problem with NM being disabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Calibre is pretty awesome, congratulations to the team.

"Unfortunately" most of my books are non-fictional/science/textbooks etc. For the few fiction books I read, I pretty much use ebooks unless it's a comicbook or maybe some fine leather collectors item.

My main problem is that I scribble in, marker (multiple colors), take note, underline and do all kinds of stuff with my non-fiction books. I researched and the options to do all that were pretty underwhelming last time I checked. If any of you know about good "texbook tools" I'd be all ears.

I think for textbooks I'll never get used to ebooks. I also like being able to flip through them quickly, scan the content on a quick flip and so forth. The one major advantage of ebooks for my typical use cases is full text search (and theoretically links to other books on quotes and so forth).

<comment><USER18> I use goodreader on the iPad the same way you use textbooks. Only on the PDFs, but you can type, highlight, write, scribble draw all over the PDF. One feature that I like is I can then export just the typed up notes, so I have my own kind of cliff notes version of a book. Good if you follow the 'How to read a book' methodology.

<comment><USER17> This sounds interesting. I'll check it out...have been thinking about an iPad anyways because it has good support for virtual baordgames :)

Thx

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have liked Calibre when I have used it a few times, but the GUI is pretty slow compared to most software these days. I attributed it to using python, but maybe thats not the case? has anyone else found some speed hacks that make it easier to use? (or maybe its time for me to upgrade the machine it resides on?)

<comment><USER20> There are plenty of blazing fast GUIs written in python; that's not the problem.

<comment><USER21> Such as... ?

<comment><USER22> Sublime Text 2 & 3.

<comment><USER23> Sublime Text 2 is written in C++

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Any way to automatize updates on Mac, every time I open Calibre there is a new version and going on the site, download and manually installing is so 199X? :)

<comment><USER25> One way to get over that is to simply not bother updating. Make a reminder for every three months or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't use Calibre to manage my library, I just use the News option, every morning at 7am it downloads rss/websites, parses them into a book, and emails them to amazon, so my kindle downloads them. Does mean I hardly ever get around to reading actual books though.

</comment><comment><USER27> I just wish it would not insist on forcing the user to use its library and only its library. Just like my music I prefer to organise my ebook files myself. With calibre that is not possible.

<comment><USER28> You can export files into customizable directory structure.

If you want to arrange files to directories, you can export documents into arbitary directory structure determined by big number of attributes and even tags.

<comment><USER29> Content library tools that refuse to index arbitrary content should be considered broken. The mindset that you can only index content if the canonical copy of the data is in your database is just awful.

It's also at least a little bit problematic that there is little support for treating source books as special, which would be a nice feature given the fact that the convertors are not yet perfect (and last I looked they didn't work very hard to make semantically sensible conversions, which makes knowing the source book that much more valuable...).

<comment><USER28> Calibre is not just indexing. It's also modifying data.

Of course, if Calibre would have source book concept, it could treat arbitrary directory as sources and map converted and massaged documents and metadata to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Calibre is not only great for ebook management but an excellent command-line tool for converting between several ebook formats. It is like the swiss-army knife for managing ebooks.

</comment><comment><USER31> On a related note, they now accept bitcoin: [http://calibre- ebook.com/donate](http://calibre-ebook.com/donate)

</comment><comment><USER32> Calibre accepts Bitcoin: [http://calibre-ebook.com/donate](http://calibre- ebook.com/donate)

</comment><comment><USER33> I've used Calibre over 5 years. It's being with me from Windows, then Linux, and now OS X, and always one of the first software installed when I setup a new computer. Thanks for your very hard work, Kovid Goyal and other contributors.

Despite its first 1.0 hit, for a long time, the project has been developing too actively for me to update every minor release (every week less or more).

</comment><comment><USER34> This looks worth a look : [https://register.blib.us](https://register.blib.us)

It currently only supports PDF books (search/share/...), and is broader than a book library (includes photo album support/openid/...), something related to Calibre.

<comment><USER35> Python again, sadly. I understand the appeal but I'd really like to see such an app written in a faster language.

<comment><USER34> Most of this code is actually C/C++.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Could someone help me understand why there is a x64 version? Naturally thats great, but I don't quite see why its a priority for an ebook tool.

<comment><USER37> The conversion with heuristics enabled benefits from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Seven YEARS! Finally.</comment>


Microsoft prevents competitors' employees from attending their event - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitalwpc.com/WPC2013/Registration/Pages/Registration.aspx#fbid=HX5tWS6uyHN

<comment><USER2> Why? After all those who could go but are banned are top resources for the HR department of Microsoft...</comment>


5 Reasons Not to Barhop Ever Again - <AUTHOR> http://onestepforcoders.blogspot.com/2013/01/5-reasons-not-to-barhop-ever-again.html

<comment><USER2> While I think the first 4 are subjective, the money argument has always been deeply flawed to me.

Did you do something that wasn't imperative to your ongoing survival today? Did it cost you money? WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!

Money is a means to an end, and once you're done with the necessities in life, that end should be enjoying yourself.

That said, the rest of the article reads like a miserable shut in, to be honest. "I hate bars so noone should go to them ever".

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't agree with all of these points, but I also don't understand why people go to clubs. The music to too loud to socialise, the drinks are often poor and expensive and it takes a long time to get served. Unless you really like dancing, it's not really worth it.

I do love pubs though, especially ones that serve real ale (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cask_ale>) and that don't play background music. A much nicer way to go for a pint or two and a conversation with a couple of friends.

</comment><comment><USER4> Best reply to that has got to be: "You're doing it wrong"

A pub crawl as we call it in the UK is definitely fun, you get to explorer a wide variety of pubs, drink a variety of drinks and if a place doesn't have an atmosphere you can move on quickly.

The difference it seems to the USA's approach is that there is generally no entry fee and most towns have a large variety of pubs offering very different drinks.

Clubs are a different beast and you shouldn't hop between them, they should be used because you like the music or you want to pick-up a hot girl/guy that likes to dance without the pressure of having to find a common interest. Music is something you should feel to your bones every so often.

</comment><comment><USER5> The title should really be "5 Reasons not to go to shitty, over priced clubs ever again" as it has nothing to do with bars in general.</comment>


Cardboard Bicycle Can Change the World [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.newslook.com/videos/498717-cardboard-bicycle-can-change-the-world-says-israeli-inventor

<comment><USER2> Some problem playing the video, in both Chrome and IE10.</comment>


Tell HN: Dropbox just wiped out several hours of work - <AUTHOR>

Just a heads up, not sure if this is happening to other people, but Dropbox just wiped out several hours of work.
I use dropbox to keep my main development machine and my laptop in sync so I can move between the two seamlessly.  For some reason, though, it decided the stuff I was working on was older than the stuff on Dropbox and overwrote everything.
I do use git, but not in time this time apparently.
FML. <comment><USER2> Check the previous versions for each of those files. Dropbox has always been good to me with conflicting versions of files, and at the very least I've always been able to revert back to older versions.

</comment><comment><USER3> You say you're using Git, but how is it that you had several hours worth of work that was not committed to a remote repo? Does your workflow usually have such large gaps between commits/pushes?

<comment><AUTHOR> When I'm doing a sizable refactoring, then yes. I typically don't commit until I get a clean compile.

<comment><USER3> Ah gotcha, that's fair enough. I must admit I do partial commits (which can be a little messy) simply because I'm worried about exactly what happened to you...</comment></comment></comment>


Net emission reductions from EVs and heat pumps in 59 world regions over time - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0488-7 <comment><AUTHOR> Abstract: The electrification of passenger road transport and household heating features prominently in current and planned policy frameworks to achieve greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. However, since electricity generation involves using fossil fuels, it is not established where and when the replacement of fossil-fuel-based technologies by electric cars and heat pumps can effectively reduce overall emissions. Could electrification policies backfire by promoting their diffusion before electricity is decarbonized? Here we analyse current and future emissions trade-offs in 59 world regions with heterogeneous households, by combining forward-looking integrated assessment model simulations with bottom-up life-cycle assessments. We show that already under current carbon intensities of electricity generation, electric cars and heat pumps are less emission intensive than fossil-fuel-based alternatives in 53 world regions, representing 95% of the global transport and heating demand. Even if future end-use electrification is not matched by rapid power-sector decarbonization, it will probably reduce emissions in almost all world regions.

DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0488-7](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0488-7)</comment>


Jq - a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor - <AUTHOR> http://stedolan.github.com/jq/

<comment><USER2> It'd be great if the help text contained some examples rather than simply a pointer to the website, and if you added a man page. When you're in the middle of a terminal session, switching to a browser can be really disruptive.

Also, if you tag releases with a version number and make them available as downloads on GitHub, you'll have an easier time getting Jq into Homebrew, the OS X package manager. I wrote a formula for you, but AFAIK you'll need to add in a real version number before submitting a pull request to Homebrew: <https://gist.github.com/3928074>

<comment><USER3> Arch PKGBUILD would be much easier with a version number too...

<comment><USER4> They exist now!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice tool! I'm getting syntax errors from the Twitter examples though (and everytime I try to use underscores):

<edit>Created an issue on Github</edit>

      curl 'http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=json&rpp=5&include_entities=true | jq '.results[] | {from_user, text, urls: [.entities.urls[].url]}'

      error: Invalid character
      .results[] | {from_user, text, urls: [.entities.urls[].url]}
                        ^
      error: syntax error, unexpected IDENT, expecting '}'
      .results[] | {from_user, text, urls: [.entities.urls[].url]}
                        ^^^^
      2 compile errors
        % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                       Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
      100  5970  100  5970    0     0  11969      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 23050

<comment><USER4> (author here) That bug was fixed a while ago, but I forgot to upload new binaries. Try again, they should be working now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> See also, underscore-cli <https://github.com/ddopson/underscore-cli>

<comment><USER7> Also see also RecordStream: <https://github.com/benbernard/RecordStream>

Someone mentioned jsawk in a sibling comment, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > You can download a single binary, scp it to a far away machine, and expect > it to work.

Not if my machine is x86 and the server is SPARC.

Cool utility though.

<comment><USER8> Git clone and make, then. As long as you have a C compiler. And if you don't, you probably aren't using JSON.

<comment><USER9> Actually I bet there are a ton of people using JSON that don't have a c compiler. The technologies are spaces by several decades and I would imagine the majority of JSON people are using much higher level languages than c.

If I want to munge JSON I find it easier to do so in python, just convert it back to data structures and manipulate them and serialized it back to JSON.

<comment><USER8> I would usually use some other language with a JSON library as well, but this utility is conveniently one-function, after Unix fashion. I like composability. Also, a C compiler is usually on hand whether you use it or not; even if none is, they're not exactly hard to obtain.

<comment><USER10> "they're not exactly hard to obtain"

Except, of course, in Mac OS X where you have to download (a couple of gigabytes) Xcode from Apple and install it to get GCC :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, this compiles fast. And the Flex and Bison files are there. This seems hackable. Nice work!

My only questions are (they are always the same with any purported sed/awk "replacement"):

1\. what was the problem you were trying to solve where sed and awk failed you, and

2\. does this program operate line by line or does it read entire files into memory?

I had to deal with some JSON a while ago and threw together some sed like this just so I could read it:

        sed '
        s/,/&\
        /g;
        /^$/d;
        s/^[{][^}]/\
        &/g;
        /\"/s/,/<##eol##>/g;
        s/ *//;
        ' |tr '\012' '\040' |sed '
        s/<##eol##>/\
        /g;
        s/\[/\
        &\
        /;
        s/\]/\
        &\
        /;
        s/,  /, /g;
        '

But any difficuly I have dealing with JSON I attribute to the pervasive use of JSON, not sed.

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

1\. I think your example shows sed/awk's failings with JSON data :) I don't want to write a JSON parser by hand every time I want to pull a field out of an object, and parsing recursive structures with regexes is never a good plan.

2\. It reads JSON items from stdin into memory, one at a time. So if the input is a single giant JSON value, it all goes into memory, but if it's a series of whitespace-separated values they'll be processed sequentially.

It's cat-friendly: if you do

        cat a | jq foo; cat b | jq foo

then it's the same as doing

        cat a b | jq foo

<comment><USER11> 1\. But those are general statements. Opinions. What I mean is give me a specific case. A specific example, a specific block of JSON and a specific task. Once I have that, then I can ask myself "Is this something I would ever need to do or that I have to do on a regular basis?"

Sometimes I need to write one-off filters. There is just no getting around it. I have to choose a utility that gives maximum flexibility and is not too verbose; I don't like to type. Lots of people like Perl, and other similar scripting languages for writing one-off filters. But Perl, _out of the box_, is not a line-by-line filter. It's unlike sed/awk; it needs more memory. That brings us to #2.

2\. If I understand correctly, jq is reading the entire JSON block into memory. This is what separates your program and so many other sed/awk "replacements" from sed and awk, the programs they purport to "replace". sed/awk don't read entire files into memory, they operate line-by-line and use a reasonably small buffer. Any sed/awk "replacement" would have to match that functionality. Given that sed/awk don't read in an entire structure (JSON, XML, etc.) before processing it, they are ideal for memory constrained environments. (As long as you don't overfill their buffers, which rarely happens in my experience.)

Anyway, so far I like this program. Best JSON filter I've seen yet (because I can hack on the lexer and parser you provided).

Well done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also see App::PipeFilter - <https://metacpan.org/module/App::PipeFilter>

The module is a framework/collection of shell pipelines which include JSON processing:

      curl -s 'http://api.duckduckgo.com/?q=poe&o=json' |
      jsonpath -o '$..Topics.*.FirstURL' -o '$..Topics.*.Text' |
      grep -i perl |
      jmap -i col0 -o url -i col1 -o title |
      json2yaml

Output:

      title: Perl Object Environment, a library for event driven multitasking for the Perl programming language
      url: http://duckduckgo.com/Perl_Object_Environment

Other structured data can be added to this module (Looks like Ingy maybe adding YAML - <https://github.com/ingydotnet/app-pipefilter>)

</comment><comment><USER13> Got the following compile error when running make (Lion + XCode 4.5.1):

      bison -W -d parser.y -v --report-file=parser.gen.info -o
      parser.gen.c
      bison: invalid option -- W
      Try `bison --help' for more information.
      make: *** [parser.gen.c] Error 1

<comment><USER4> (author here) I haven't tried to build on a mac in a while, bison there seems to support fewer options (must be an older version).

For now, I've just checked in the autogenerated parser, so that bison won't have to run when you build master. git-pull and try again :)

<comment><USER13> Works great now, thank you:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> FYI if you have python installed (and most do) you can just do

curl '[http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=json&rpp=5&i...](http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=json&rpp=5&include_entities=true) | python -mjson.tool

</comment><comment><USER15> Very nice tool, congrats!

This is something everyone ends up needing at least one time, and we always end up using a language specific tool.

Nothing beats the command line piping

</comment><comment><USER16> See also, jsawk: <https://github.com/micha/jsawk>

</comment><comment><USER17> When doing the tasks this seems to be targeting, Jansson has worked well for me.

<http://www.digip.org/jansson/>

</comment><comment><USER18> Built for Windows using cygwin, works a treat.

<comment><USER19> Builds with MinGW as well, although I did have to manually edit a header file because I couldn't get sed to work properly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> See also jsontool, <http://trentm.com/json/>

</comment><comment><USER8> We periodically have to munge JSON at work—will definitely be trying this out.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is awesome. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thanks; very nicely done. :-)

</comment><comment> vhost- I vote for a man page!

<comment><USER23> <http://stedolan.github.com/jq/manual/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> D. DQ,-"l</comment>


Monoprice Recalls Ethernet Cables Due to Fire Hazard - <AUTHOR> https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2020/monoprice-recalls-ethernet-cables-due-to-fire-hazard <comment><AUTHOR> I got an email about this from Amazon. Guess whose entire home is wired with this stuff :(</comment>


Amazon Accused of Cheating Customers Through Shipping Costs - <AUTHOR> http://gma.yahoo.com/amazon-accused-cheating-customers-shipping-costs-210708580--abc-news-personal-finance.html

<comment><USER2> I think the obvious answer is that this isn't FREE shipping. Nothing is FREE. "Free" shipping is nothing but marketing speak, and if this is illegal so is "Buy one get one Free" or "Buy one get one half price" since the discount is built into the business model.

My wife is an Amazon seller and yes when she ships prime she must pay for shipping which would force her to lose money on each shipment so she builds the cost of shipping into the cost of the item. The cost of her taxes are in the item. The cost of her employees are in her item. The cost of software licenses are built into the item.

The only thing you get with FREE shipping is a receipt that doesn't include shipping as a line item. Someone has to pay the driver, buy the truck, and put fuel in it, pay for the insurance, etc, etc, etc. It can't possibly be free.

<comment><USER3> I don't think anyone doubts that the shipping costs money to someone, but the assumption many people might have is that Amazon themselves would be the ones paying the shipping costs to your wife behind the scenes because the customer already paid Amazon in advance when they paid for a Prime membership.

It is news to me that this is not the way things work.

<comment><USER2> eBay is doing the same thing. They are pushing sellers to offer free shipping which simply means don't line item your shipping costs. The sellers still need to pay for shipping. Amazon still needs to pay for shipping too. It is built into their model.

I mean really people, I hate to sound condescending, but... when you do a "buy one get one free" do you really think you got something for free?

Maybe one day we'll all get free healthcare and free schools and freeways too. Don't kid yourself, you're paying for them.

<comment><USER4> eBay and Amazon is different. Pushing shipping fees into the item cost is a profit driver for them. When you pay shipping explicitly, those costs usually aren't driving profits.

Remember the classic EBay scam back in the old days? You'd sell some widget for $5, with $25 shipping. Commissions were calculated on the item cost and excluded shipping.

Also, Amazon is making rule/practice changes that are eroding the benefit of Prime. In 2010, they would send products to me that weren't in east cost warehouses via 2nd Day air. These days, they usually just deliver it late.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, this. The other thing the $.99 item with $5.99 shipping does is allow refund scams - you would of course be able to return this item, but only if you paid return shipping costs and then you only get refunded the $.99 item price meaning you would generally lose money on a refund.

Building shipping into the cost like Prime however, might do the reverse and expose a seller to over-refund issues where they would lose more on a refund if it must include the total item price without shipping. (When shipping is "free" and built in to the item price.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I caught amazon pulling this a while back and it was disappointing. Screenshots: [http://imgur.com/a/fiPnD](http://imgur.com/a/fiPnD)

Notice it's the same exact item#

        Not logged in : $19.23 + 6.99 shipping
        When Logged in: $27.85 + free shipping

<comment><USER7> However, you should also note that the cheaper item is sold by an affiliate, and not by Amazon itself. When you are logged into your prime account, it defaults to showing prime-eligible items by default. Your screenshot does not show Amazon adjusting their prices based on whether you are logged in or not.

<comment><USER8> Both are being sold by the third party PUR

<comment><USER9> No, the item is _made_ by PUR.

In the first screenshot, it's being sold by Infutech, Inc. In the second it's being sold by Amazon themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I realize this is the media playing out this story as well as possible, but this article focuses entirely on "free shipping" and never bothers to mention the fact that prime is "free 2-day shipping." The distinction is pretty major.

eg - The example used in the article is $10 + $3.99 shipping, vs $13.99 on prime. What they fail to mention is that $10 + $3.99 for 5-8 day shipping is not equivalent to $13.99 for 2 day shipping.

I'm not saying I love it, but I never once believed I was paying upfront for free shipping when I bought prime. I was paying for an upgrade to 2-day shipping. The 2-day upgrade may not seem like much now, because items ordered on Amazon often still show up in 2-3 days without it, but that was not the case a few years ago when items normally took 5+ days to show up on my doorstep.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ugh, I hate lawsuits. Amazon often clearly states under the price "Note: This item may be available at a lower price from other sellers that are not eligible for Amazon Prime."

<comment><USER12> No this is about it being available from the same seller for a lower price not on Amazon Prime. This means that Amazon Prime is getting you no benefit on this purchase. Amazon are saying it gives you free shipping and charging you money for the that service therefore _IF_ true Amazon is defrauding customers.

<comment><USER13> So are you saying that there are cases where you have a choice like this?

1\. Buy the item from Vendor X for $19.99 with Prime "free" shipping (fulfilled by Amazon) 2\. Buy the item from Vendor X for $14.99 with $4.99 shipping (not fulfilled by Amazon)

If so, then I would still choose the Prime option. Items that are fulfilled by Amazon fall under Amazon's support and return policies, which are excellent. Third-party sellers not selling under those terms tend to have much less favorable customer protections.

Obviously those protections (and the integrated shipping) come at a cost, but my point is that there is more to it than just "free" vs. non-free shipping.

<comment><USER14> Great points about customer service and return policies. Also that third party probably isn't shipping is 2 Day either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anecdotal, but lately, I've noticed that items I purchase do not ship immediately from Amazon, so while the shipping time itself may be 2 days, I get the product several days later which kinda defeats the purpose of Prime.

Not to mention that several of the items that I purchase are 'add-on' items, which means that I need to accumulate $25 worth of items to ship them (which is pretty much what every non-prime member does too)

<comment><USER16> I have a friend who works as an area manager in one of the bigger fulfillment centers and he offered a good reason for the processing slowdown after Christmas (although it doesn't explain how the issue is still alive).

Staffing a warehouse requires a lot of foresight. Overhead has to be kept lean and demand is very seasonal. Amazon forecasted their largest holiday season ever and staffed accordingly but the information they used to forecast the post-holiday slowdown assumed trends would be roughly similar to previous years. It turns out that this holiday season was a sort of tipping point for consumers acceptance of online purchasing and post-holiday demand barely dropped. All that seasonal labor had been let go but they needed to bring on a large number of permanent employees which takes time.

I don't think it takes ~3 months to find the necessary workforce but I think it explains some of the issues Amazon has been experiencing lately.

<comment><USER17> Ah ha! I was wondering why one item I ordered Prime 2 day was shipped 1 day UPS. A warehouse bottleneck would explain it.

As for permanently bulking up, I can think of at least several factors:

First Amazon has to realize there's been a permanent change in behavior, vs. e.g. more people doing late holiday shopping.

Then they have to figure out how to address this.

And there are no doubt classes of temp employees who wouldn't be interested in permanent jobs; I'm particularly thinking of the ones who travel around in RVs and stop by an Amazon warehouse for the Christmas season for that sort of work. Many if not most are probably gone by now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm cancelling my Prime membership when it's up but not because of the price. Over the last six months I've received exactly ZERO orders within 2 days. Start calling it 'free 5-14 day shipping'.

<comment><USER19> Did you complain to Amazon? They are pretty good at making it up to you, given that it is guaranteed 2-day shipping, and them not delivering on that is essentially fraud.

<comment><USER20> Well, no...It's "2-day" shipping not "guaranteed 2-day" shipping -- the theoretically maximum time in transit, assuming no issues, is 2days.

<comment><USER19> OTOH, if they are choosing to use services that are regularly not meeting the 2-day shipping goal, then it's false advertising to call that "2-day" shipping.

<comment><USER20> No it isn't. They're buying 2-day shipping from UPS or FedEx, both these companies make a "best effort" to deliver the package within 2 business days. That's not always possible without greater expenditure than the companies consider 'reasonable' (and their terms speak to), that's why there are guaranteed next-day and 2-day air freight options from both.

<comment><USER19> The complaints are generally not about UPS or FedEx. They are about when Amazon thinks the shipping distance is close enough that they can use any service at all to meet the 2-day goal, but the services end up being terrible and unprofessional. Like LazerShip which is just a dude with a car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is interesting. I'd like to hear what HN's take is on this. I noticed that about 30% of the time products take 3 days, not the advertised 2 to get to me. I live in SF so they really have no excuse. Didn't bother me to much but never the less annoying when paying for the feature.

Another slightly off-topic gripe about prime I haven't seen much flak regarding is shipping things like a roll of duck tape in a 12x16" box full of packaging bags. I'm guessing they shipped from a different warehouse from the rest of my order but still wasteful, what can you do though?

<comment><USER22> If their delivery time is off from their stated delivery time (what you get in your email), you can get an extra month of Prime out of that[1].

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201117450)

<comment><USER19> Thanks, I didn't realize they had this policy in writing, as opposed to just being something the customer service could give out when you complain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So it appears the real benefit of Prime isn't FREE SHIPPING, it's 2-day shipping (rather than standard shipping) at no additional cost.

<comment><USER5> Pretty much, except for the whole $79 additional cost of prime membership. =)

<comment><USER14> Yes. I forgot the upfront premium you pay for the opportunity to buy things and get 2 day over standard shipping at no additional cost (at the time of purchase).

The other thing we all are forgetting is that prime membership is more than just "free" 2 day shipping, it includes Instant Prime Video streaming. something many people don't seem to care about. Perhaps Amazon needs to break the two offerings out? Prime Shipping ~ $59 / year, Prime Videos ~ $59 / year, Prime Both ~ $99 / year?

<comment><USER23> There's also the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, which even less people remember. I borrow a book every month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hm I haven't noticed prices being higher when I'm logged in with my Premium account so far on Amazon.de. Also the delivery is super fast. Sunday night I ordered a camera and it arrived monday evening. I'm pretty satisfied with Amazon Prime.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't understand the complaint and the article's description is wanting.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've actually noticed this myself. Kinda defeats the purpose

<comment><USER27> I've had it happen as well.

My wife and I were comparison shopping around and she saw something on amazon (she wasnt logged in) but when I loaded that item on my computer (I was logged in) the price jumped up $10 and was available with prime shipping

It was still the cheapest we found, so we bought it anyways. But now we comparison shop more.

Such a PITA of a dance to compare Amazon, Costco, and local grocery/big box</comment></comment>


US lost $433,982,548 because of daylight saving time switch - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/u-lost-433-982-548-because-daylight-savings-003341030.html

<comment><USER2> Okay. So the cause is fatigue. So lets compare to Super Bowl Sunday, St. Patrick's Day, and the 4th of July when it falls on a Sunday through Thursday.

</comment><comment><USER3> this is incredibly stupid</comment>


US Government Site Hosted on Amazon EC2 - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/10/restore-the-gulf-us-government-site-hosted-on-ec2.html <comment><USER2> Interesting, but this isn't the first time any major government site or webapp has been hosted externally.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was under the impression that generally official websites of the US government had to pass stringent reviews, be them hosted internally or externally. Be that as it may, it's important because you can tell your customers "Hey if EC2 is good enough for the US government it's good enough for you!" :)

<comment><USER2> Good point. However, <http://www.restorethegulf.gov/> (which this article is about) doubtfully needs to pass as stringent a review as, say, something containing more sensitive data that was a little more complicated and crucial than a small Drupal site discussing something that the media considers yesterday's news, even if it is important.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't go assuming one of the world's largest bureaucracies practices that sort of common sense.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The 70 word email that got Calacanis to respond (and invite us to Launch) - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetingburner.com/blog/2013/04/24/the-70-word-email-that-got-calacanis-to-respond-and-invite-us-to-launch/

<comment><USER2> SSL Version:

We're sorry, the page you are looking for was not found. The MeetingBurner™ support team has been made aware of this issue.

Thanks for your patience as we resolve the issue!

Your MeetingBurner™ Support Team

</comment><comment><USER3> > (Jason likes Bulldogs. Who doesn't?)

I can think of some folks [1]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean,_Old-Fashioned_Hate>

</comment><comment><USER4> Short and sweet emails to break through the clutter and noise. Everyone has overloaded inboxes so giving people something easy to scan works better than lots of info.

</comment><comment><USER5> Bulldogs - the conversion optimizer's best weapon.</comment>


The world's first social book breaks down barriers between online and print - <AUTHOR> http://karmamedia.eu/2012/04/

<comment><AUTHOR> Quoting: 1\. "Readers of the 400-something page cyberpunk-inspired rant about technology and its interfaces in our everyday lives will find QR-codes placed on every single page of the book. Quite fitting to the book's main theme, the digital solution of Karmamedia enables readers to interact with the printed material through these codes, via their smartphones."

2\. "Called social book, as it also allows users to scan the codes and leave comments linked to the individual pages. Comments can be added, just as someone would comment on a friend's Facebook status or blog entry."</comment>


Show HN: Replacement for CoinMarketCap JSON API: now with fiat pairs - <AUTHOR> http://cryptomarketplot.com/api.json.gz <comment><AUTHOR> I linked the gz version (6.5k) but there is also the plain JSON (39k), and the brotli version (4.8k) on [http://cryptomarketplot.com/api.json.br](http://cryptomarketplot.com/api.json.br) \- recommended if you want to follow the updates every minute.

The API now features fiat pairs so you can do conversion. Currently supported, sorted by reported volume on the last 24h:

\- BTC/USD (US Dollar)

\- BTC/CNY (Chinese Yuan)

\- BTC/JPY (Japanese Yen)

\- BTC/EUR (Euro)

\- BTC/GBP (Pound Sterling)

\- BTC/RUB (Russian Ruble)

\- BTC/KRW (South Korean Won)

\- BTC/ZAR (South African Rand)

\- BTC/AUD (Australian Dollar)

\- BTC/TRY (Turkish Lira)

\- BTC/SGD (Singapore Dollar)

\- BTC/BRL (Brazilian Real)

\- BTC/HKD (Hong Kong Dollar)

\- BTC/NZD (New Zealand Dollar)

If you like the plots, you can now hotlink them: cryptomarketplot.com/120-days/bitcoin.svg is about 3k.

The plots are still inlined in the homepage to keep it fast. It is still below 100k compressed, so that seems acceptable.

Please tell me if you have latency issues or if any part of the browsing experience feels slow.</comment>


Path to Success for One Palestinian Hacker: Publicly Owning Mark Zuckerberg - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/facebook_hacker/

<comment><USER2> If nothing else I hope this guy gets to continue what he so clearly loves doing and doesn't have to switch back to hard labour to make ends meet.

Facebook dropped the PR ball on this one (again). A simple public acknowledgement of the security hole, $500 sent to the ethical hacker and a thank you note from Mark would have been sufficient.

<comment><USER3> funny how getting $500 from a multi-billion company is pulling teeth, especially when it's an easy PR move</comment></comment>


The FCC has received 128,000 identical anti-net neutrality comments - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/net-neutrality-comments-are-being-spammed-with-anti-obama-boilerplate/ <comment><USER2> I look at this issue in two perspectives.

1\. Who is the party responsible for posting the comments?

Clearly it is the FCC itself (or possibly some coordinated entity) posting this comment. The response is directly in line with the President's agenda. It is doubtful that any real person agrees with the concept of destroying net- neutrality.

2\. Why are they posting the same comment over and over?

It seems to be an attempt at influencing behavior by the FCC. They think that people visiting the site to leave a comment will be for net neutrality. If the visitor sees a bunch of comments that are attacking their position their reaction is to counteract the bot by leaving a coherent argument disputing the bot's message. What the FCC doesn't want is people leaving trolling comments like 'My body has been modified to run on internet privacy, why are you doing this to me?'

</comment><comment><USER3> Well that means that the FCC only has to read the one comment. This is a request for comments, not a vote or popularity contest. People abusing the comment process are really just wasting their time. The FCC comment system is not a way to do an end run around the normal political process. This is all a distraction from the actual politics here.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty much exactly what we speculated would happen. Someone uses a bot to submit tons of anti-net neutrality comments, Pai says, "My proposal received _tons_ of support!", and enacts a move that goes flagrantly against the will of the American people.

<comment><USER5> Seems like a waste of time. I see no evidence that the FCC cares a whit what the public thinks. Just as the EPA raped their own website without public comment and on and on.

Why bother trying to explain a coverup when they don't care what anyone says in the first place?</comment></comment>


Dan Ariely: The Significant Objects Project - <AUTHOR> http://danariely.com/2009/12/25/the-significant-objects-project/

<comment><USER2> Very cool. I guess J. Peterman knew it all along :)

I've a question to people following Ariely & co's work: Is there anything there that might help explain why people have no problem paying a few bucks for coffee at Starbucks, but not for, say, an iPhone/Android app?

(I use the Starbucks example since most consumers don't hang in the coffeeshop, so no experience or particular quality involved, just a cup of coffee that lasts a few minutes)

<comment><USER3> While you're drinking the cup of coffee, people see you drinking the cup of coffee: that alone is enough to allow for socially-constructed value to be passed along. On the other hand, most things we do with our phones, we do staring into them where others can't see what we're doing, so although the phone itself might get admired, the apps won't. (There are a few exceptions—games with unique and outwardly-recognizable input mechanics, for example, like marble tilting or the Ocarina app, or apps that interact with the environment outside of the user's personal space, like Shazam.)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This blog post is from a year ago, but I think there are a few useful & relevant ideas within w.r.t. getting users, customers and investors to try, buy and invest in your product. Narrative is important.

Also probably some relevant tips for giving good gifts. It's holiday season after all.

</comment><comment><USER4> I did this with a few Everquest accounts when I was in high school. Unfortunately, it was not strictly allowed under the ToS, so the first one ended up getting banned when I didn't think to change the name.

It's still the closest I've been able to come to explaining the added value of quality copy.</comment>