Ending Poverty through Education - <AUTHOR> http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/ExclusiveCommentary.aspx?id=f6886a5e-628e-411d-89a8-c8f9f0a73f4f

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to highlight an interesting quote for discussion:

" believe we can solve the problems of urban education in our lifetimes and actualize education's power to reverse generational poverty. But I am learning that it is a radical concept to even suggest this. Warren Buffett framed the problem for me once in a way that clarified how basic our most stubborn obstacles are. He said it would be easy to solve today's problems in urban education.

"Make private schools illegal," he said, "and assign every child to a public school by random lottery." Think about what this would mean. CEOs' children, diplomats' children, many would be going to schools in Anacostia and east of the river, where most of our schools are. I guarantee we would never see a faster moving of resources from one end of the city to the other. I also guarantee we would soon have a system of high-quality schools."</comment>


The Capital Gap is Shrinking - <AUTHOR> http://blog.weatherby.net/2007/10/capital-gap-is-.html

<comment><USER2> All the numbers in the presentation he links to ([http://www.peachseedz.com/peachseedz/2007/10/stuck-in-the- ca...](http://www.peachseedz.com/peachseedz/2007/10/stuck-in-the-ca.html)) are wrong by about 2x.

Also, there's somewhat of an omission in the "pre-seed" column. Anyone notice? The original presenter is either completely out of touch with startup funding, or paying us the compliment of counting us as "friends" of startups.

<comment><AUTHOR> In which direction do you think they're off? Are the numbers too big or too small in your opinion?

As for YC, yeah I don't think you are in the original chart. As you've said before that's kind of a new category. Seed I guess, but so early and so much smaller than what people usually think of as seed. What's interesting though is that some of the people involved in these posts are considering a YC-ish type thing in the Atlanta area.

<comment><USER2> They're too big. Angels are willing to invest $50k, and VCs will now invest as little as $1m. There is a bit of a gap, but it is around $300-800k.

<comment><USER3> And even then, some angels invest in that range. Peter Thiel, for example.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Paul Hudak, co-creator of Haskell, has died - <AUTHOR> https://messages.yale.edu/messages/University/univmsgs/detail/121669 <comment><USER2> Deeply moving article[0] submitted a few days ago[1] when it became clear that he was in his last days. My condolences to all those who knew him.

[0] [http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/hudak/journal/view/id/5538...](http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/hudak/journal/view/id/5538f5cea589b4216c04438a)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431017)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've met and knew Paul for a time while I was in high school. Despite my interest then with CS, at that time, I had no idea until now that he was the inventor of Haskell or was involved in Computer Science at all.

Independent to his contributions to the industry that I now love; I knew him as an extremely friendly and energetic person. He was well liked by all who came in contact with him and his absence will be wide felt.

<comment><USER4> Fellow Hamden High grad?

<comment><USER3> Go Green Dragons

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just restarted my investigation of Haskell yesterday. This is very sad news. Haskell is a beautiful language, and while I still struggle to write even basic programs in it I can tell that every time I solve an issue I'm having I am becoming a smarter programmer.

He will be missed!

<comment><USER6> I teach Haskell and I'm working on a book [http://haskellbook.com/](http://haskellbook.com/) with my coauthor. We've been testing with reviewers and it's been going pretty well. We've even been testing with my coauthor's 10 year old [https://twitter.com/argumatronic/status/593845481140133888](https://twitter.com/argumatronic/status/593845481140133888) :)

My guide for learning Haskell is here: [https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell](https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell)

You can get help in the IRC channel if you'd like as well. I don't recommend using LearnYouAHaskell.

I feel a bit bad as Hudak's books were the only ones I hadn't checked out before starting on my book. Rectifying that soon.

<comment><USER7> Can you explain why you don't recommend LearnYouAHaskell? I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER8> He explains in [http://bitemyapp.com/posts/2014-12-31-functional- education.h...](http://bitemyapp.com/posts/2014-12-31-functional- education.html)

<comment><USER9> I am following that guide to get me started. Taking the recommended courses, I finished the cis194 Spring 2013 course and I am getting through the NICTA course, with help from #Haskell on freenode IRC.

Based on my experience the recommendations are good, but when working on material like this on your own it is a slog because both of these courses are designed to be taught live. So beware. However they are probably the best courses available online. It seems someone (maybe me someday!) needs to do an equivalent of "RailsCasts" for Haskell to make this more accessible.

The NICTA course contains hard exercises building various functors, including transformers. It's a mind bender and oddly I had code that worked because the types matched up but I had no intuition as to why it actually worked! But it does raise your game to a new level.

<comment><USER6> >but when working on material like this on your own it is a slog because both of these courses are designed to be taught live. So beware. However they are probably the best courses available online.

Definitely, this is why we're working on a book. We acknowledge cis194 and NICTA course are difficult and designed to be done as part of a class. That's also why we suggest Thompson's book as a fallback.

There isn't a book designed for an independent reader that we're happy with at present.

>The NICTA course contains hard exercises building various functors, including transformers

These things must be covered if you want to use Haskell in anger. One thing I would change in NICTA course if given the option is to make the transformers tutorial have a smoother ramp. State/StateT could be built up to via Writer/Reader and the transformer versions thereof.

That the NICTA course confronts these (Functor, Applicative, Monad, Monad transformers) and is rigorous in covering the basics along with those topics is what makes it so valuable. Most other materials either don't cover them or don't provide proper exercises.

"Show & Tell" is _not_ good enough for getting people comfortable with these tools and sadly that's the mistake a lot of resources for Haskell make. You have to make exercises that make learners manipulate and see the structure of how these things work.

<comment><USER9> Good answers. To be clear I am not complaining. Actually I love it. I love struggling through it and the feeling of triumph when solving those problems.

I think the difficulty is a rite of passage to become a functional programmer, however smoother ramps would help, and I am sure your book will be a great help and is much needed.

<comment><USER6> >To be clear I am not complaining.

Oh sure, I didn't figure you were. I just wanted (other) people to understand that, yes, we're aware of the friction and difficulties and that we're working on it.

>I think the difficulty is a rite of passage to become a functional programmer

Hum. There's some place and purpose for this, such as with professional fields like law and medicine. I'm not sure add'l difficulty beyond what is essential to understanding the material is valuable except as a historic social "glue" for embattled/relatively small programming language communities like Haskell and ML.

>I am sure your book will be a great help and is much needed.

We hope so and believe it'll be an improvement. We've been testing the material pretty aggressively with people completely new to programming. We're going to start testing with people that already code but don't know FP soon.

If the book sells well enough, we've got follow-up books in mind (4+ in the queue).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10>
        Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life.
        The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,
        and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.

<comment><USER11> You're comment made me think of something else I read from time to time that resonates with me when someone passes away, especially if that person has contributed greatly like Paul has:

        No man is an island entire of itself; every man
        is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
        if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
        is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
        well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
        own were; any man's death diminishes me,
        because I am involved in mankind.
        And therefore never send to know for whom
        the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

        –John Donne

[https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html](https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised his Wikipedia page is so sparse. Maybe now would be a good time for someone more knowledgable to expand it?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hudak](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hudak)

</comment><comment><USER13> He was only 62. Bjarne Stroustrup is a couple of years older and Donald Knuth is nearing 80 and he's still productive.

I was reading this a couple days ago: [http://www.macstories.net/stories/life- after-cancer-how-the-...](http://www.macstories.net/stories/life-after-cancer- how-the-iphone-helped-me-achieve-a-healthier-lifestyle/)

It makes me wonder if in the very near future wearables will help give people enough added feedback, etc so they might get a few extra years. I'm sure someone with Paul's abilities had a lot more to contribute.

</comment><comment><USER14> I had the great fortune to have him serve as my senior advisor when I was an undergrad. A warm and wonderful man.

I'll never forget the feeling of awe I had in one of his classes when he showed us that the function `fix`, defined as `fix f = f (fix f)`, could in fact be used to compute things!

</comment><comment><USER15> "In some ways, I think the best way to let go is to hold on. To hold onto the memories and the love that transcends the physical body. To hold onto those around you that have shared in loving the one you are letting go. To hold onto the only thing that is in your control- the actions you take in this unpredictable world."

:-(

</comment><comment><USER16> I first learnt Haskell more than a decade back while working on a project at the Indian Institute of Science. Profoundly changed my perspective on programming.

</comment><comment><USER17> I had the fortune of meeting Paul a couple of years ago. He was a really nice guy & a very inspiring person to talk with.

</comment><comment><USER18> I had the fortune to work down the hall from Paul a couple of years ago. There was some confusion as to whether he had died yet when I got an email about the link I posted a few days ago, so today I find myself mourning for a second time over the death of a truly bright light who touched many people's lives.

</comment><comment><USER19> I read his paper, "Conception, Evolution, and Application of Functional Programming Languages," and used it for work on a project while getting my master's degree.

If you're interested in functional programming, I highly recommend it. It explains many of the things that you've heard about FP, and it very well written.

</comment><comment><USER20> Here's his eulogy from the Yale Daily News:

[http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/04/30/hudak-spirited- sayb...](http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/04/30/hudak-spirited-saybrugian- and-cs-prof-succumbs-to-cancer/)

</comment><comment><USER21> We lost a good one. I've been struggling with learning Haskell for awhile now, and this is even more motivation to put my nose to the grindstone and learn how this mans brain ticked.

</comment><comment><USER22> Beyond the memories of his friends and family, he'll live forever through his great work. I would think that's what most of us strive for.

</comment><comment><USER23> Heaven will become beautiful now. I don't know more Haskell than I learnt at university, but even from that alone, I saw it was something special. I'll never forget that and the impression it made on me.

I particularly remember a short application I had to write down on paper on the exam; I did it well enough and I thought what I wrote was so beautiful and simple... I think Haskell developers will know what I'm talking about. The best applications almost look like magic.

If Haskell was a traditional writen language, I think it would have been pretty well known and studied, like hieroglyphs or some other language carving out its own niche. Sometimes I feel like this whole programming world has so many interesting, exciting, and thought provoking things going on within it that the rest of the world will never come to know. Haskell was one of those things to me and I think it's unfortunate that it's such a closed world.

</comment><comment><USER24> Paul has been a huge inspiration for me. For a time, I would read printed copies of his papers during the ride home. He was also kind enough to make time for me when I emailed him with a question about his computer music code.

I believe I am better off because of Paul and I am sure many more feel the same way.

</comment><comment><USER25> RIP Paul, very sad. He has achieved what I have been trying to achieve my entire life (seemingly) an eternal memory or creating something great that will be remembered for generations to come. You will be missed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Would you advise Haskell to someone who has just started programming (working on Learning Python the hard way) and is interested in learning mathematics (from the high school level onwards)?

P.S. I want to study algorithms too but I'm just a beginner and the priority is mathematics (as it's one of the few subjects I seem to be able to concentrate on). I found a secondhand copy of Professor Sedgewick's book for ten euros, it's the manual for one of his MOOCs , should I go with it?

<comment><USER27> Haskell is an amazing language. I've only spent a brief amount of time with it, but I've seen what others can do with it, and I'm very impressed.

That said, I don't know that I'd recommend it to someone who has just started programming. I think that it'd be harder to appreciate it, since a lot of the rules that Haskell breaks / puts in place aren't things you've run into too often.

I'd recommend becoming at least relatively familiar with normal programming paradigms and then giving Haskell a go. It certainly deserves your time, but without proper appreciation of what exactly it does, I think its unforgiving nature could become discouraging.

edit: Of course, if you find normal paradigms boring / uninteresting, Haskell may be just the place for you. It's also really, really good for mathematic applications.

<comment><USER26> Thank you, I guess trying won't hurt, nobody has ever regretted learning anything after all. As for feeling discouraged, being stupid (in various degrees) is part of the learning process I believe. Couldn't say I'm learning anything otherwise. I will try Haskell alongside Python to see how it goes.

<comment><USER28> If you don't mind feeling stupid, Haskell will be very well suited for you. :)

<comment><USER26> Don't worry, I've been living with the feeling for a long time ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "The family of Paul R. Hudak created this Life Tributes page to make it easy to share your memories"

[http://www.siskbrothers.com/obituaries/Paul- Hudak/](http://www.siskbrothers.com/obituaries/Paul-Hudak/)

</comment><comment><USER30> An amazing man. Amazing pianist, and just awesome person.

</comment><comment><USER31> His paper "An Algebraic Theory of Polymorphic Temporal Media" has been a constant source of inspiration for me for the last few years.

</comment><comment><USER32> I shopped one of his classes...quite sad, he was still young.

</comment><comment><USER30> A wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful man.

</comment><comment><USER33> R.I.P.

</comment><comment><USER34> Apparently, Haskell had a side effect.

RIP. What a great mind =/

</comment><comment><USER35> _The Haskell School of Expression_ is a beautiful book that I recommend to anyone that wants to learn Haskell, or to just appreciate functional programming.

Also, I motion for a black bar.

<comment><USER36> what is a 'black bar'?

<comment><USER37> On HN the top orange[1] bar is sometimes changed to black when someone significant[2] to computing dies.

[1] orange unless you've got enough karma to set it to some other value

[2] significant to computing is not the right phrase here, sorry for clumsiness.

<comment><USER38> Perhaps just: "someone significant to the community".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Black bar anyone?

For those who don't know, a black bar is for people that die that HN honors by changing the `topcolor` color to black. You can do it yourself in your profile.

Fun history trivia: A few years ago the black bar used to be on top of the topbar. [0,1] Now it looks like this [2]

[edit] I can't find any very recent deaths that confirm the change so I may be wrong. Whoops.

[0] Steve Jobs, [http://web.archive.org/web/20111006185350/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20111006185350/http://news.ycombinator.com/news)

[1] Dennis Ritchie, [http://web.archive.org/web/20111013063604/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20111013063604/http://news.ycombinator.com/news)

[2] Tampermonkey Script [https://gist.github.com/ultimapanzer/68f601ef9ab7f599d3ce](https://gist.github.com/ultimapanzer/68f601ef9ab7f599d3ce)

</comment><comment><USER40> Paul Hudak died after making a huge contribution to the world. The research field he set in motion will keep on benefiting people for decades to come.</comment>


Show HN: faasd 0.8.1 – lightweight Serverless with containerd and CNI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/openfaas/faasd/releases/tag/0.8.1 <comment><USER2> Wow looks cool because faasd is a self contained OpenFaas equivalent without Kubernetes.

OpenFaas is awesome if you want to run Lambda-like serverless containerized functions on your own cluster, or run functions longer than the AWS limit of 15 minutes, or use more resources than AWS Lambda, with nicer CI/CD support.

</comment><comment><USER3> Every product @alexellisuk has ever created is awesome; `faasd` is no exception!</comment>


Stop Using Else in Your Programs - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/better-programming/why-you-need-to-stop-using-else-statements-5b1fd09dea9e <comment><USER2> The Specification Pattern could be considered a software anti-pattern.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specification_pattern#Critic...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specification_pattern#Criticisms)

I think the author got it right with the simple and clear guard clauses, which don't require useless patterns and unnecessary OOP for its own sake.

</comment><comment><USER3> The specification pattern can also be used to replace multiple IFs. If you look at Wikipedia, they propose a quite full-fledged and complex specification pattern, but it is possible to make a more lightweight one for your needs.</comment>


Stack Overflow: Time to take a stand - <AUTHOR> http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/342440/time-to-take-a-stand?cb=1 <comment><USER2> "Tech companies helped stop SOPA through coordinated messaging to users DIRECTLY through their services.

It's the only industry that has so much leverage for so little cost (free effectively)

Let's put it to use."

I love this idea, especially the follow up about pointing out the contributions of the involved countries and their diaspora.

</comment><comment><USER3> That should have been a blog post

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Always interesting how the so community reacts to posts though.</comment></comment>


Neutrino Asymmetry Passes Critical Threshold - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutrino-evidence-could-explain-matter-antimatter-asymmetry-20200415/ <comment><USER2> So... would this mean neutrinos are for sure not Majorana fermions? Because you'd think that a particle couldn't be its own anti-particle if it's anti- particle has different properties, but quantum mechanics has surprised me before.

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

<comment><USER3> Well it's tricky, see. Normal science might try to solve a paradox logically, but maybe this is the universe solving a paradox by multiplying both sides of the equation by a reciprocal paradox? The different properties of the anti- particle result in a remainder which is where all of the something rather than nothing comes from.

<comment><USER3> I guess my metaphor was a little too fast and loose and lost some key detail. I don't want to misrepresent the science so here's a link that explains the math better than I can.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > ...further explaining why anything at all exists today, since matter and > antimatter in equal portions would have mutually annihilated.

Shouldn't this read 'how' instead of why? I am far from an academic so please enlighten me. I presume 'why' to question reason and 'how' to explain means.

<comment><USER3> I agree. "Why" implies or presupposes such reason or reasons exists. "How" is more about context, explicability, understanding, justification, verification, and proofs. That's just my reasoning anyway.

It's a matter of the "why's" of ontology versus the "how's" of deontology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That 12 story tank looks amazing.

<comment><USER3> Am I the only one who finds megastructures like this surreal? It's not agoraphobia per se, but sometimes when I behold things like this tank or especially when I gaze upwards at a skyscraper, I get this sense that of not- rightness that it exists and that I'm so close to it to be looking at it from this angle. Vertigo maybe? It happens even in pictures so I'm sure it's something about my mind thinking something is amiss somehow but I don't know why. I actually am quite fascinated with megastructures like these but have a hard time appreciating them sometimes while grappling with the extrasensory overload that viewing them can induce.

<comment><USER6> I had something like that in NCY a few years ago. The upper parts of the new world trade centre building were always so far away they lacked parallax, so it was like looking at a skybox in a sprite-based FPS.

I don't get the effect with pictures of big things, but in addition to not finding the lack of parallax confusing in that situation, I also know that is part of my mind getting the scale wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would this also imply that even today new mass could be created? Similar to how Hawking Radiation assumes virtual matter/antimatter pairs getting created all the time would it be plausible for neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts to pop into existence without fully annihilating each other?

</comment><comment><USER8> A question to particle physicists: I've always thought that matter and anti- matter qualifications applied only to charged particles. Neutrinos have no charge, so how can it have an antiparticle? Does there exist an "anti-neutron" as well?

<comment><USER9> Not a physicist but I can answer this.

Antineutrinos have opposite lepton number compared to neutrinos. Lepton number is preserved by all particle reactions[1] so for example beta decay must produce an antineutrino (L=-1) in addition to an electron (L=1).

Antineutrons also exist. Neutrons are composed of three quarks, uud (u has charge 1/3 and d had charge -2/3), while antineutrons are composed of two up antiquarks (charge -1/3) and one down antiquark (charge 2/3). And as in the case of neutrinos, neutrons have baryonic number 1 like protons and antineutrons have baryonic number -1 like antiproton a. Hence, for example, a beta decay will always turn a neutron into a proton and an antineutron into an antiproton (though the latter is theoretical).

[1] More precisely there is a lepton number for each generation (electron/muon/tau) and all three are separately preserved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How does this square with the idea that antiparticles are particles traveling backwards in time?

<comment><USER11> That's not an idea, it's what some of the math in the standard model looks like.

The fact that we are here tells us there are fundamental differences between matter and anti matter, otherwise the big bang would have created exactly equal amounts that would have annihilated.

CP asymmetry is an observational fact, measured also bei LHC.

<comment><USER12> Is there anything in the science about locality? That is, is there anything that says there might be somewhere that has an abundance of anti-matter exactly offsetting our abundance of matter?

<comment><USER11> [https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4186](https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4186)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@moskovski/i-used-lamp-to-make-a-saas-with-3700-mo-profit-heres-how-1c47033900e9#.ik5zvaj7l <comment><USER2> "Anyway, I always hated manual labor and decided to make a little tool to help me scrape the posts of my competitors and publish them to my group on a regular basis."

Other things you must hate: morality and ethics.

<comment><USER3> > I'd also removed the posts that were obviously copyrighted.

I'm not a lawyer, but in American copyright law, anything published is assumed copyrighted by _someone_ , though it may not be clear exactly who.

I'm especially not an international copyright lawyer, so I can't say how typical that is. Point being, you'll get in _legal_ trouble for doing this. You _might_ win a lawsuit if what you are scraping is not copyrightable (raw facts).

Anyway, OP might not be in the US, so maybe all this doesn't apply, but it's generally good manners to ask someone before you copy their work, yes.

<comment><USER4> Because of the Berne Convention[1], that's how it works in the vast majority of the world.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This simple story (I know the whole story is not simple especially ones can make profit) gives me some hope. I am building a service by using elixir/phoenix (yeah it seems an opposite direction to the OP's) and is very frustrated from making decision in every module or line of code because my obsession of good practice!

Thank you for sharing. I will be relaxing, writing shit and getting the service done.

<comment><AUTHOR> The responces like yours give me immense satisfaction. That's the reason I wrote it.

Thanks a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please don't listen to the naysayers here. You saw an opportunity and acted on it. The problem of copyright here is of Facebook itself, they deliberately allow this to happen to increase their engagement numbers. It is well- documented at many places.

<comment><USER7> The OP was on VK, a Russian platform where full downloads of copyrighted movies and songs were available until very recently (much as was the case in China with Baidu and Youku/Tudou). Actually I think Baidu _still_ offers copyrighted MP3s and PDFs and charges for it.

It's true that FB (and previously YouTube) played fast and loose with US copyright laws, but it doesn't even come close to what is standard in Russia or China.

I don't think it's any fairer to pile on and attack a _person_ playing within the rules of their local culture that it would be to attack westerners for how most of their meat is produced or how many cars they own. So many things in the world beg for moral outrage—I'd rather save mine for actual suffering rather than Russian social media marketing getting scraped.

<comment><USER8> VK still offers almost any MP3 you can imagine, slightly less than than Movies and PDFs, and much more than that adult video content. At same time 90% of Russia using VK. You don't need to imagine that, it is reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky > The top cause of death for indie startups is failure to delegate the tasks > you're not good at and being overtaken by more social players.

Lesson learned.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's too bad that it took me 2 years to learn that one. Oh well, better late than never.

<comment><USER9> Kudos to your success. Refreshing to see a SAAS that generates enough revenue for you to live off of instead of an overvalued SV company with no profit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! And I think you're absolutely right, people got a bit tired of all this unicorn nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> OP don't listen to the jelly haters. If you were making $100k/mo each of these hypocrites would get knocked off their high horses and copy you. Well done, congratulations!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Totally lost here.

What service is this SaaS actually selling? What are people paying money for?

<comment><USER12> I'm equally lost. I can't tell what exactly the service is offering for sale or the point of it. Usually when I see these low sales service posts (small side projects), I expect to see something clever or unique, that's the only reason to pay attention to something yielding a small amount of sales. If you're going to tell me all you did was scrape and clone with a routine LAMP setup, I don't get the point of the post.

<comment><USER13> AFAIK, the point is that you can make money just by scraping and cloning using a routine LAMP setup.

I found that interesting just by virtue of the idea that people would pay just to get more useless "content" for their groups.

I suppose it's just automating a curated list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So you steal content and publish it as your own. You might as well torrent movies, music and books, and sell them on your website. Way more profitable.

<comment> angry-hacker It is profitable. Go ahead and do it, not all countries have same laws about copyright.

All the big companies break laws and are unethical.. Youtube and copyright, Uber and 'disruption' . Some small guy does shady things it's unethical and worth pointing it out so many times in this thread?

</comment></comment><comment> blubb-fish The title consists of two parts:

1\. irrelevant information

2\. bragging

No way I'm going to read this ...

<comment><AUTHOR> But how are you supposed to know the full story and hate me afterwards then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting project and a good lesson in why careful data tracking is so valuable. Thanks for sharing and congrats on the traction!

</comment><comment><USER16> Much more than LAMP was used. I know LAMP and cannot use it to make $3700/mo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, good point. But I'm sure you will, it's just a matter of time and the number of attempts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> OP, thank you for the story you have shared with us. It inspires me and other idie devs for creating small to medium size SaaS.

</comment><comment><USER18> How did you handle user signup / authentication to your service? Did it piggy- back on VK's authentication?

</comment><comment><USER19> Plagiarizing and stealing content is immoral and unethical. "This is just how we do things in Russia" is not an excuse. We shouldn't be promoting this behavior. Anyone with half a brain can make money stealing stuff and serving it via an API.

<comment> happy-go-lucky The other day I was following this thread:

Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016) (youtube.com) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13605599](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13605599)

I'm reproducing a part of a comment from there:

> One could say the evolutionary process is based on this principle.

> Copy. Paste. Improve. Repeat.

What have I just done? In no way am I supporting or suggesting that plagiarism or content theft is a model to follow, but I do believe that people learn from what others do and build on that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very true.

Running this SaaS lead me to the idea of launching a service where authors can sell their content for social networks. It's going to be super hard doing this in Russia but it's worth the try.

But some people simply can't understand the incremental evolution. They demand turning a desert into a garden at once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> TL;DR "I scrape content from others and sell them without any credit to or rewards for the original creators" AFAICS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kindly read the article.

<comment><USER20> I did:

"[I] decided to make a little tool to help me scrape the posts of my competitors and publish them to my group on a regular basis."

And

"I had created a spicy mix of public domain content, some supposedly copyrighted content from unknown authors, [...]"

I found this particularly striking:

"Usually it was the content of some authors that were difficult to track and attribute to. Sometimes it was blatant plagiarism."

So you were/are well aware of the problem. But instead of Doing The Right Thing (find out source, ask for permission) you just declare that to be difficult (and yes. It is. Full ACK).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you're right. But my point was that it's not difficult to address this issue. It's impossible in the Russian market.

That's why I asked you to reread the article (sorry, I should be more precise on the reason).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Threat Hunting Using Forensic State Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://www.infocyte.com/blog/2017/2/14/threat-hunting-using-forensic-state-analysis <comment><AUTHOR> This post defines forensic state analysis through the DFIR lens for threat hunting and differentiates it from behavior analysis.

Background: I work for Infocyte (we are a cybersecurity startup). One of the challenges has been clearly communicating how we do things differently than everyone else. I'm looking for feedback on clarity of messaging or any questions on our approach. Thanks is advance!

Sharif

</comment><comment><USER2> Chris did a great job level setting some hunt nomenclature. Congrats to our team for being SC awards finalists!</comment>


Is this the perfect city? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151211-is-this-the-perfect-city <comment><USER2> Clickbaity title, but it compares Chandigarh with other well-designed cities such as Brasilia, Milton Keynes and Palmanova.

<comment><USER3> Is Brasilia well designed? Nice buildings and layout (all I know about it is reading here and there). But as the article points out, its working class live in shanties ringing the city. Perhaps that's the norm in Brasil, I don't know. Perhaps that was even expected by the designers. But I think there are problems when workers can't live in the city they work in, either because there is no affordable housing where they work or no work where they live.

<comment><USER4> Never been, but I've always heard Brasilia brought up as an example of why planned cities typically suck. Looks good from the sky or as a tiny architecture model, but awful on the ground. The common complaint is that it's designed for cars and has horrible walkability.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is Node.js Streams so underused? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I'm not quite sure they are underused, but that's a relative judgment. Streams took a while to get right in node, and even now they're a _little bit_ clunky. Not terrible, but not "pick it right up and run with it" easy. (If you want to use them, you probably should look at Mississippi [https://www.npmjs.com/package/mississippi](https://www.npmjs.com/package/mississippi) because that simplifies a lot of common tasks.)

AFAICT there used to be more energy in the community for them. Gulp.js was conceived as more powerful build pipeline that used streams ([https://github.com/gulpjs/gulp](https://github.com/gulpjs/gulp)), and that's the last time I remember anybody getting psyched about streams as "more elegant" than a nonstream version (in that case, Grunt).

Now, I think people tend to reach for streams when there's a performance-based reason for it, since streams can do things like faster time-to-first-byte, and less memory overhead.</comment>


Hackathons and Why You Should Attend Them - <AUTHOR> https://shamdasani.org/index.html#little-on-hackathons <comment><USER2> I've never been to a hack-a-thon because I figured they were for high level programmers. I might try one now. Hopefully it's as fun as the article made it out to be.</comment>


I'm Not Employable, But That's OK - <AUTHOR> http://brewerhimself.posterous.com/im-not-employable-but-thats-ok

<comment><USER2> _When I program, I'm playing chess with the computer. The board is wide open and there are tons of moves to make, but which move is the right one? Typing commands into my terminal to compile and run my latest masterpiece is just another turn. A runtime error means I've lost a pawn. A cryptic, nonsense compiler error? The computer just took my Queen._

Wrong analogy, I think. I would say when you program, you're expressing, or describing, an idea/design/thought to a computer. The computer is your ally and 99.999% of the time it does exactly what you tell it. I think, on some philosophical level, that this matters. The computer isn't out to get you, steal your pawns or whatever. It's sole purpose is to bring your ideas, however flawed they may be, to life. And yours is to harness that power and learn to express your thoughts as effectively as you can.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand what you're saying, and I agree that a computer should be your ally, but that isn't usually how it feels for me. For me it usually feels more like the computer is trying to do everything it can to best me, which I can't allow to happen. Perhaps that speaks to my (in)abilities as a developer. :)

<comment><USER3> If you stop thinking about programming as a competition and instead internalize your perception of it as a collaboration, your abilities will improve.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll work on this. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was in a slump. Then I worked on my own project and published it. Something I'd never done before. Almost immediately after I was given a nice contract paid in full up front for what amounted to not even that much work. Shortly after I published something great on github and it got forked a ton of times.

Sometimes you need to take a break and worry about _your own_ projects. Those are the ones you'll definitely have to show for yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mind sharing what the project was? Just a general idea would be great if you don't want to give out the product's name.

<comment><USER4> It was a fairly simple Android app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good post, but I'll say this: You are _very_ employable and your concern about lacking a Stanford or MIT degree is laughably misplaced. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that silicon valley start-ups are the entirety of the programming employment world, it is far from the truth.

</comment><comment><USER6> With the state of the current job market, if you can code, you pretty much need to be an ax murdering psychopath who has publicly bad mouthed previous employers to be unemployable. And there are companies who will overlook the ax murdering so long as you keep it off company time.

<comment><USER7> > _...be an ax murdering psychopath who has publicly bad mouthed previous > employers..._

And in that case you just found your own company and go straight for your series A, the VCs'll eat that up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Each win reassures me that as long as I refuse to give up, I can never lose."

I can totally identify with this. Nothing is sweeter than the taste of victory after slaving away on a problem for hours. In fact, minutes ago, I just had one!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm taking a break from my Clojure adventures for the night. I'll get some sleep and hop back on for another win tomorrow. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I enjoy programming. I was a developer working several years for different companies. I partnered in a software company where I was the technical guy.

I lost fun in programming and now I'm a freelance project manager. For programming I didn't had a off switch. When there was a problem to solve I solved it even if it was until 3 in the morning. When having a wife and kids this is not what they expect from a husband or father. As a project manager as soon as I'm home the switch is off.

Lessons learned is that what you do with passion can consume you. Which is not for everyone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Staying up until 3 am working on something describes me perfectly. I can't sleep until it's done or I just pass out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > I've been programming on and off -- mostly off -- since I was 12 years old > and I continually find myself in situations where programming is just > downright boring to me.

> I will continue to program but, from now on, it will be purely for fun.

No need to put pressure on yourself. The market is crying out for talented and enthusiastic people. Don't know your job history but imagine if you're willing, there is a job or project out there to keep you motivated.

<comment><AUTHOR> I worked with a computer science professor a swarm robotics project last summer. Aside from that, I have no professional experience. I work in retail sales. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The good news is that indeed many companies nowadays would show interest based solely on a GitHub project. But you do need the ability to finish things off.

The truth is that many of the bigger coms out there have multiple requirements, and will care more about your degree, problem solving ability and familiarity with formal computer science. Perhaps because they get so many applicants, they need to rely on metrics at some stage to cut down the bulk.

Even so, these things are worth knowing anyways and, speaking from experience, you can pick them up comfortably outside of a CS degree.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am planning on picking up a copy of The Algorithm Design Manual soon. Unfortunately, my local library doesn't stock it so I'll have to fork over the cash, but it's worth it.

<comment><USER11> Haven't read that one myself, I learned mostly from Introduction to Algorithms and online tutorials. I would suggest having a go at TopCoder problems. It's a bit of a pain to set up, but once you have, there are practice rooms with problems from past contests. Written up solutions are available too. It helps you learn to design algorithms for unseen problems, which is ultimately what we're after. There are a lot of essential small tricks and methods that these problems contain and algorithm books don't get to cover at all.

Also, competing is a good idea. It helps you evaluate yourself and there's more motivation to do well. Having a rating of 1500, say, would place you in a good position to crack even the most competitive phone interviews.

I did TopCoder for a few years in high school, and now I can confidently and quickly get most of the algorithmic questions that companies ask. It takes a while to get there, but it's worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will get CLRS eventually, but I think I want something a bit softer to get started with. The Algorithm Design Manual has a lot of little anecdotes thrown in that I think will be fun to read. :P

I've heard of TopCoder before, but I never bothered to give it much attention. I'll give it a shot though! Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "So here we are. I'm sitting here, with a cigarette in hand (I said slowly), pondering what makes me tick. It's a weird feeling. You think you know yourself, but the truth is that people lie about how they feel so often that they end up lying to themselves without realizing it. And, maybe, that's what happened to me. Maybe I've been kidding myself all along"

You have been lying to yourself and you are living in denial. That cigarette is killing you. Your health is _everything_, why put it at risk.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did mention in the article that I'm working on my health. I didn't put much emphasis on it in the post, but, believe me, it is an important goal. I will have better luck if I slowly ween myself off of the nicotine. Thanks for your concern though. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is more or less where I was a couple of months back. I still am a lot skeptical on my marketability as a programmer. But I am in a better mental position than where I was only because I was able to launch something, albeit small. I am happy and feel a bit more confident in my abilities and see myself working on what I love.

<comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to give me a shout on Twitter at @BrewerHimself. I'd love to chat.

<comment><USER13> Sorry, I don't have a twitter account. My only social online presence is at github (<https://github.com/davyjones>). I just started following you there. Cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Just started following you! Sorry, my internet connection dropped right after you posted this. Actually .. I lost it when I tried to open your GitHub page. H4x.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You don't have to go to the Valley if you don't want to. I'm sure that, with a little time spent building and shipping code representing what you're capable of, you'd be perfectly able to find a job writing code in Jacksonville, assuming you're interested in staying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't get me wrong, Jacksonville is a beautiful city, but I'm not interested in what the software scene here has to offer. There seem to be a lot of business/enterprise software companies and that's just not my jazz. Hashrocket looks legit though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> you should have a plan B, no matter what.

<comment><AUTHOR> My current job is plan B. Like I said in the post, I'm not bad at what I do and I enjoy it. I'm perfectly content where I am until something better comes along.</comment></comment>


Sex Tech for Long Distance Touch – SayberX.com - <AUTHOR> http://sayberx.com/ <comment><USER2> What a great concept!</comment>


Google to launch new Gmail design in the coming weeks – The Verge - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17224320/google-gmail-design-update-features <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16811926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16811926).</comment>


Bill Gates says technology could 'accentuate' the gap between the rich and poor - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/14/bill-gates-defends-the-rise-of-the-robots.html <comment><USER2> Why care about the gap between rich and poor ?

What matters is to have a good life.

If necessary, parts of the limited land surface of Earth must be taken from "rich" and given to the "poor" as humane space to live.

Eventually money will become useless as automation will end the "work for money" paradigm.

<comment><USER3> Which limited land surfaces you have in mind and who might do the taking?</comment></comment>


Elon Musk calls for Amazon breakup - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/elon-musk-calls-for-amazon-split-after-alex-berenson-claims-censorship.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23420046](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23420046)

</comment><comment><USER3> I know the Overton Window has shifted, which will make what I'm about to propose sound even more crazy, but how about Nationalizing Amazon?</comment>


Selenium Rectifier - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium_rectifier <comment><USER2> "During the 1960s they began to be superseded by silicon rectifiers, which exhibited lower forward voltage drop, lower cost, and higher reliability.[6] They are still manufactured for exact replacement purposes, but are not designed into new equipment."

I wonder what kind of equipement is still running 50 years later. Subways and power plants maybe ?

<comment><USER3> Maybe audio gear. There's people who really love the tube-era stuff.</comment></comment>


How Putin Controls the Internet and Popular Opinion in Russia - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2015/09/08/how-putin-controls-the-russian-internet/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is the excerpt that is exceptionally relevant to the crowd here at HN:

"These "specialists" didn't just understand the technology — they were willing to use their knowledge to serve the state's repressive machine. Borogan and Soldatov show precisely how those who enable censorship and surveillance justify their participation. Among the many people interviewed for the book is a Russian engineer who developed speech-recognition technology used by a number of repressive regimes. "If governments listen in on people's conversations, it's not the microphone's fault!" he says."

Don't play dumb about the end-result of your engineering. Don't participate in compartmentalized projects, as they are designed to ensure you are blind to what you are really doing. Don't hide under the "just doing my job" fallacy.

</comment><comment><USER2> Geeks are secretly wishing this is possible. A medium scale singularity, if you will. BTW have you ever listened to Pussy Riot? and how much they suck?</comment>


What Gets to Be a 'Burger'? States Restrict Labels on Plant-Based Meat - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/07/23/744083270/what-gets-to-be-a-burger-states-restrict-labels-on-plant-based-meat <comment><USER2> But language tradition is important here.

People have been calling it a "veggie burger" for decades now.

Saying it can't be a burger is ridiculous -- it's a _kind_ of burger.

 _But_ , I fully support packaging requiring word(s) beforehand in an equal- sized font -- "burger" reserved for beef, while "black bean burger" and "veggie burger" and "quinoa burger" are all fine.

What's bizarre is that beef burger makers see this as a threat worth addressing... like, nobody's accidentally buying veggie burgers.

<comment><USER3> > What's bizarre is that beef burger makers see this as a threat worth > addressing... like, nobody's accidentally buying veggie burgers.

I think that's exactly what they're worried about, though. There wasn't much chance of confusion before, so it wasn't a big priority. Now that vegetable alternatives like the Impossible "patty" are becoming indistinguishable from beef, they're more concerned. If McDonald's or some other giant purveyor of beef could switch and save money, they would. They're rightly worried about a loss of market as the meat alternatives get better at mocking the real thing.

<comment><USER2> People keep saying "indistinguishable from beef" but oh boy... I literally don't know what burgers these people have been trying.

I've tried them all, including the newest versions, and they're still not even close. They're _fine_ , but still completely different... kind of like how soy milk is fine but certainly doesn't taste anything like cow milk. And I'm certainly not a supertaster or anything...

I'm personally of the opinion we'll have self-driving cars long before we come up with a non-meat burger that is actually as satisfying, in the same ways, as a beef one.

<comment><USER3> I agree, it's not that Impossible is anywhere near a good real hamburger, but when it comes to fast food, the bar is low. With all the low-grade beef, fillers, and flavor science involved, I bet I couldn't tell the difference in, say, a White Castle burger or a Taco Bell burrito. They might not be there yet, but they're damn close. That's the market the industry is rightfully concerned with.

<comment><USER2> I think people underestimate the quality of meat in fast food.

At least for McD's, for example, it's 100% beef and salt, no fillers or flavor science needed, just browning reactions from a hot griddle. The quality bar is actually pretty high for, say, a quarter pounder, and the flavor of the sandwich is predominantly the beef itself -- flavors like American cheese, raw onion, ketchup and bread are quite weak in comparison.

Taco Bell is a little different -- it's about 10% seasoning and 90% beef because that's what taco meat is supposed to be, but again the browned beef is the primary flavor component of the taco -- no amount of cumin will make up for it.

I'm not sure where people get the idea that fast food beef is somehow tasteless, low-quality, or engineered in any way that, say, home hamburgers aren't. It seems like it's just this urban myth that perpetuates itself because it's fun to believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Note the irony of these nominally conservative, pro-free-market states being more than willing to introduce burdensome regulation when it tips the scales in favor of industries they deem worthy of protection.

<comment><USER5> Mis-labeled food laws have been around in all these states for a long time, without, I think, much objection.

<comment><USER6> I'm 100% in favor of consumers not being misled. Truth in labels.

But veggie burgers have been around for 20 years and nobody has been "fooled" into thinking they are beef. The word burger doesn't mean "cow".

The purpose of these laws is transparent, and it's not "consumer protection".

<comment><USER5> That's a pretty sweeping claim. I have accidentally bought "Chik'n nuggets" before so it's not much of a stretch to believe some people might make mistakes.

<comment><USER6> I absolutely support the label being clear. There should be no pictures of chickens on the label and no need to try to trick people into thinking there is chicken in there.

But to say the word "nugget" is restricted to only chicken products is just anti-competitive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps labeling these non-animal products as something other than meat might be a good thing.

Long term, I think we animal-eaters are on the wrong side of history. Providing humans survive the climate crisis and collapse of civilization, maybe a couple of hundred years from now the people will look back at us and wonder how we could consider ourselves civilized while killing and eating animals. A bit like Roman gladiator fights. It will seem very shocking to them.

The alternatives, lab-grown meat and whatnot, will be the norm and only psychopaths would kill and eat animals. With that in mind, if these products start to distance themselves from real (killed-animal) meat now then they are getting a head start on marketing. They won't have to remind people later that they were the good guys all along.

<comment><USER8> Not disagreeing, but providing a different perspective. By maintaining labels that associate lab-grown or plant-based with the "real-deal" (not a "fake" or new/different) meats, perhaps more people would be willing to try the alternatives. People are resistant to change and many stick to what they "know". It's part of why the milk industry is fighting for nut-milks to not be labeled as "real" milk. If the alternative has that "other"/"outsider" label, there's more resistance from the customers.

<comment><USER9> That milk issue is ridiculous. Nut milk has been referred to as such since the middle ages or earlier.

<comment><USER10> In France you can't label nut milk as such, so they call it "nut based drink".

It doesn't matter. Customers call it nut milk. Recipes call it that. Restaurant menus as well.

It will be the same with burgers. It doesn't matter, and it's just a waste of time and resources.

When Napster came out with an alternative to the CD, the industry mocked it, then attacked it, but never tried to learn from it. As a result, GAFAM arrived and took the whole market.

When youtube came out, TV did the same. As a result, the Valley arrived an took the whole market.

The meat industry is doing the same with vege alternatives. They first mocked it. Now they are in the fighting phase. But these products are already as tasty as the average meat (not speaking of high end steaks, but that's not what people eats every week). The difference is that IF and BB can provide consistent quality across the entire production. And since it's made from plants, it will scale way better than real meat, from sourcing to production, so it will get cheaper. Because of the green trend we currently got, not to mention the ethics surrounding the topic, it will be an easy way to get a guilty pleasure while feeling you are doing the right thing.

I understand why Gates has invested in it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To open, a few weeks ago I went to Fatburger to get another Impossible Burger. It had been a while, but I remembered that it was good. Fatburger must have gotten their grillin' chops down, because the whole time I was eating it I wondered if they didn't mistakenly give me real meat. I didn't remember it being that good. Whatever, I'm not not _that_ much of a hard-core vegetarian.

But I need a repro, so I went back a week later. That's when I saw the sign saying, "Meat. Made from plants. <cutesy blurb>". Vegetarian Me says "yea!". Truth-in-advertising Me says, "meh, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that". OTOH, I knew full what they mean.

Oh, and Fatburger didn't make a mistake the first time. Impossible Burger is just _that_ good.

<comment><USER6> There's a vegan restaurant in town that has "pulled pork sandwich" listed on it's menu. That's misleading when there is no pork in it.

No one needs to be tricked to eat these delicious plant-based proteins.

<comment><USER12> I think the problem is that they are trying to create an alternative to pulled pork, but have no idea what to call it. I have a vegetarian in my family and I have made "vegetarian pulled pork", which is using shredded jack fruit as a meat substitute and cooking it in a pot or pressure cooker. Coming from a family where "pulled pork" means slow cooking a pork shoulder for 8-12 hours, cooking "vegetarian pulled pork" is absolutely nothing like real pulled pork, but what else would you call it? I guess BBQ Shredded Jack Fruit is more accurate, but it doesn't sound nearly as appealing (even though it's actually really tasty!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fuck 'em.

Call it a "Vurger".

Let lazy phoneme substitution take care of the rest.

<comment><USER14> Visited one of these vegan restaurants. Took me a little while to realize everything on the menu was misspelled. They didn't have cheese they had "cheeze", they had "porc" instead of pork, etc. Immediately it felt quite dishonest, but I admit it would be obnoxious to have to qualify everything in a vegan restaurant.

<comment><USER15> > I admit it would be obnoxious to have to qualify everything in a vegan > restaurant

For cheese I can understand, but pork is pork. How can you call a non-pig product pork?

<comment><USER13> Cheese is as specific as pork as far as constituent ingredients.

You're just attempting to replicate the sensory experience. Sweetness, texture, moisture, etc. As in, say, beef vs pork barbecue. Beef vs pork steak.

Jackfruit probably mimics pork better than beef - not all substitutions are equivalent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "If [plant-based makers] can't say that it's a black bean burger by using > 'burger,' how are they to describe to the consumer what the product is?"

The same way meats intended for burgers are described -- patties.

That's right, you can buy "Beef Patties" right now.

</comment><comment><USER17> We're obviously moving from the "then they laugh at you" stage to the "then they fight you" stage.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20511902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20511902) ("Tofurky takes Arkansas to court over the word 'meat')

</comment><comment><USER18> The meat makers must really be afraid of substitutes when they are lobbying for regulations like these. In Germany they were successful in pushing a new regulation that says that vegetarian sausages must not be called sausages.

</comment><comment><USER19> The ONLY factors that matter when it comes to food are taste, health and price. You can call it a shit sandwich for all I care.

A lot of traditionally foreign foods that have been Americanized are not their authentic version either. For example I'm pretty sure california sushi is not "real" sushi. Such is culture and language. It is not static.

<comment><USER20> I think the rise of plant based meat has shown that ethical sourcing is a huge factor for many people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> We don't let margarine be called butter.

Why is it suddenly ok/desirable to let corporate interests randomly assign words to highly processed* foods?

Today you think its a great thing that these magic mystery pastes can lie to other people about their contents? Those other people are dumb so it's OK to lie to them about the contents of their burgers?

Tomorrow? Oh we let words not have meaning because we wanted people to eat more plants....now the word chickpeas can mean anything because... oooops.

Create unique product names that aren't lies. Let people seek them out because they taste good and they are better for them.

* I've worked hard to get rid of highly processed food and I'm highly skeptical of adding back these highly processed industrial pastes that vegetarian startups are pushing.

<comment><USER22> Your post history shows that you do this a lot. Just wanted to let you know:

> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or > phrase, put _asterisks_ around it and it will get italicized.

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

<comment><USER21> Thank you, I'll watch that.</comment></comment></comment>


SureFly –  a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight - <AUTHOR> http://workhorse.com/surefly <comment><USER2> A part of me thinks this is really cool tech and it would be amazing for anyone to be able to just hop aboard their personal helicopter and fly wherever they want, but then another part of me thinks of the future this would create, skies no longer clear, filled with objects buzzing around and what hell that would be, on top of the already stressful and crazy life we have now.

It's the kind of situation where I think I'd actually rather the tech never exist.

<comment><USER3> I empathize but I think that attitude is an artifact of the age we grew up in. I'm sure equestrians felt the same way when those rackety automobile contraptions started zooming around.

<comment><USER4> I think everyone must have felt this way about automobiles. And by and large, it's worked out just as horribly as they imagined: our communities are divided by dangerous moats we call "roads" \-- death traps which we must painstakingly teach our children to avoid, if we dare let our children wander outside on their own anywhere near them in the first place.

<comment><USER5> I don't get the point - are you suggesting we'd be better off without automobiles? Would we go back to horses? What about global logistics? Agriculture?

<comment><USER6> We'd be better off with dense cities where automobile is not the primary means of transportation. Like e.g. NYC or many European cities.

Cars and large trucks should _mostly_ belong to highways and country roads.

<comment><USER7> NYC is a _very_ far way from being a carless paradise. Yes, lots of people walk or take transit. But, especially in Manhattan, many streets are choked for a good chunk of the day.

<comment><USER8> Far more people use the subway than drive to work.

Only 28% of people in NYC commute by car/truck/van. 55% take public transit and 10% walk, 1% bike, 4% work from home, and 2% take a Taxi or other. [https://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-york- commute](https://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-york-commute)

PS: The van thing is also closer to a bus than a private car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm very skeptical of their claims of "unparalleled safety". Thanks to "autorotation"[1] regular helicopters can safely land in most situations even with complete power failure. The claims of safety of this craft seems to derive from N+1 battery redundancy which isn't that impressive. They say they have 8 independent motors, but don't say how many are needed to stay aloft.

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

<comment><USER10> Small "personal" helicopters like the Robinson R22 are quite difficult to autorotate safely in a real emergency, due to low rotor inertia. [0]

For the SureFly, Hypothetically if loss of several motors caused the aircraft to be unable to maintain altitude, the aircraft would not suddenly drop like a brick, but drift down to a controlled landing.

[0] [http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/robinson-r22](http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/robinson-r22)

<comment><USER11> No, worse. That thing would turn into the tumble dryer from hell with partial power. It has no blade pitch control (like a helicopter does), requiring power on the motors in all four corners to maintain stability.

The real emergency situation to worry about would be a total power failure. Failure of the individual electric motors will likely be _extremely_ rare but a battery fire or controller failure could send this thing falling like a rock due to the lack of auto-rotation. It has a BRS chute but that won't do anything in the critical ~500ft band above ground level, too low to deploy normally. Additionally, I hope they've figured out how to guarantee safe chute deployment while inverted because of the tendency to tumble with no/partial power.

<comment><USER12> BRS parachutes have been tested as low as 260' AGL at 187 knots (several times faster than this craft would ever go) and individuals have reported successful deployments below 100' AGL[0] The question of course is how quickly it can be deployed in this craft as the vertical speed will likely be much faster than a Cessna or Cirrus in the event of total power failure.

[0] [https://www.flyingmag.com/g00/how-it-works-brs-aircraft- para...](https://www.flyingmag.com/g00/how-it-works-brs-aircraft-parachute)

<comment><USER11> I can't imagine an inverted deployment at 100' would end well...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For drone-style helicopters, I find the Volocopter ([https://www.volocopter.com/de/](https://www.volocopter.com/de/)) the most intriguing concept. The designers of the Volocopter took extreme care for redundancy. It can keep flying with up to 6 of the 18 rotors failing. Even the electric system and the controls have multiple redundancies. The first craft already got licensed for flying in Germany.

<comment><USER14> Much prefer the Volocopter as well. Better redundancy, further down the line (manned flights since 2016, negotiations with regulators progressing), not vapourware, more visually pleasing (though that's subjective, obviously).

In this design, I like the compactness (foldability), counterrotating rotors (for efficiency), the fact that the rotors are not in knee-height (like in this eHang 184 abomination), and the electric/fuel hybrid system.

BTW, I like PEVA as a name for this type of vehicle: Personal electric VTOL aircraft.

EDIT to add: Volocopter and eHang 184 have been around for years, and SureFly "reinvented" the helicopter? Right...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Video "tour" here (still doesn't show it flying): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elhiaxMiRuY&t=19s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elhiaxMiRuY&t=19s)

Also, the inaugural flight at CES was scrapped due to a "light sprinkling" of rain: [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42616034](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42616034)

<comment><USER16> It's frustrating, and a bit strange, that there's no (easy to find) video of it in flight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Couple of people mentioning the Robinson R22 (a 2-seater small helicopter that costs about $280k.) I didn't see any mentions of the Yo-Yo 222 though, which seems very interesting and only costs €135k. The SureFly is substantially slower and has a lower payload compared to both.

It's worth noting, though, that any small aircraft will have very similar payloads (300-400 lbs max.) This will almost certainly not get better in the near future, even with battery improvements (you'll note that all current light aircraft, including this one, are gasoline powered.) Speed is also difficult to increase for VTOL aircraft like this one.

I build custom VTOL (and sometimes horizontal) aircraft, typically electric, usually smaller than this one. If anyone else here builds VTOL aircraft/large drones, send me an email! I'd be curious to talk to other HNers doing the same thing. (And if you're just curious about the subject in general, feel free to send me an email also - it's in my profile.)

</comment><comment><USER18> > 1 hour of fuel

> 70 mph speed

This means that the maximum legal range with FAA-mandated fuel reserves is 46 miles (assuming no wind). Also despite shots of it on a driveway, it would most likely be impossible to actually take off or land on your driveway due to local ordinances in most cities. Oh and it doesn't appear to be properly equipped for IFR, so clear weather operation only.

<comment><USER19> Rotorcraft fuel requirements are different from airplanes. Under VFR it's first intended point plus 20 minutes, day or night.

<comment><USER18> thanks, will edit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Flying fixed-pitch copters is risky. The question is: more risky than driving in traffic? More than taking the bus or swimming or eating fatty foods or a hundred other things we do without blinking?

Still, it'll have to have a measured safety record before I'd want to fly it. Better yet, automate it to go from heliport to heliport in a crowded city, a sort of aero-lyft. So I don't have the chance to screw anything up. Because I'm thinking the human operator is going to be the root of any accident stats. Imagine a swarm of these over your city, with humans in control.

<comment><USER21> I think it'd be interesting if it were semi-automated. For example: Get in, start it up, hit the "Go" button, and it automatically hovers vertically to minimum cruising height (i.e. above all the houses, trees, power lines) before granting further control to the pilot^Wuser. Then, either GPS-powered destination selection or mobility with computer-stabilized limited degrees of freedom.

The fewer decisions the human in the seat has to make, the safer they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can anyone verify if this thing is actually built and not just some rendering? The shallows in some of their pictures don't seem right so I was wondering if those are pictures of an actual craft or just a Photoshop.

<comment><USER23> There is a video of it at a trade show on YouTube. The craft definitely exists, whether or not it flies is a different question.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll-3jDTibSQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll-3jDTibSQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Yet another really big personal quadrotor-type drone. Its a lot like the eHang 184, from 2016.[1] That flies, but they don't trust it with a live passenger yet.

Here's one with a passenger, but they don't want to get any altitude.[2] There are five or six projects like this. Few have flown with a human on board yet.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPARvS31Oq0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPARvS31Oq0) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3pi4HfQ0Gc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3pi4HfQ0Gc)

<comment><USER25> If they wanted to prove the design, why can't they offer package delivery services with the drones and ramp up volume to at least 100 flights a day until it's proven?!

If they've proven it works, they should get the money necessary to test it and deploy it. They need to _get to market_ and see if it sells.

I think the problem is crashing over populated areas, even if it's not occupied? Hard to make deliveries if you can't fly over actual people.

But in any case, let me know when they are doing at least 10 flights _per day_ (no days off for bad weather, they should be testing in multiple locations and climates too).

<comment><USER26> It would be difficult to get FAA approval to offer cargo delivery services with a large drone due to the risk it would pose to manned light aircraft flying under VFR. They would have to carve out controlled airspace in a specific area and temporarily ban VFR flights there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wait:

\- Curb Weight: 1100lbs

\- Max Takeoff Weight: 1500lbs

So... you, your passenger, and any cargo combined can't weigh more than 400 pounds? That's a pretty serious limit for people hoping to transport multiple adults. And "precision agriculture" or the sorts of practical uses they discuss all go right out the window.

<comment><USER28> The BMI chart maxes out healthy weights at 192. So unless you have two NBA players or something, it should work well for most but perhaps not all healthy people.

<comment><USER29> Average weights (no median, sorry) from the CDC ([https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body- measurements.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm)):

>Men: 195.7 pounds

>Women: 168.5 pounds

So this could carry an average man, average woman, and under 36 pounds. At that point, the weight of your clothing or a bottle of wine becomes _very_ important.

<comment><USER28> Yes, I did say _healthy_ , which a good half of the USA isn't.

but that still implies a 100m person market, _just_ in the USA, and people in other developed countries tend to be closer to the "healthy" range. There are lots of healthy people out there.

In short, I don't think this will be the make-or-break for flying cars...

<comment><USER30> > a 100m person market

No, not really. Only extremely wealthy people can buy this. It's more like a 10,000 to 100,000 person market in the US I would guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I thought gasoline turbine generators are sort of here (used in hybrid buses), womder why they stuck with piston generator.

Also, any ideas what battery pack you'd need to do the same 70miles?

<comment><USER32> My best guess is fuel efficiency at small size scales and is probably the same reason that make them economical in large buses, but not small cars. The usual intuition is explained using the Reynolds number, a dimensionless quantity that can help to predict the possibility of maintaining laminar flow or wether the flow breaks down into turbulence in the generator, drastically reducing efficiency in the compression-combustion-expansion cycle. As a side note, when I did a type rating on the Eurocopter AS350, I learned that the gas turbine could also run on normal automobile gasoline instead of Jet-A 1 for a limited amount of time in emergencies with drastically reduced limits on altitude, torque etc...

<comment><USER33> It's my understanding that most gas turbine engines can be convinced to run on a _wide_ range of flammable liquids, with some impact to performance and longevity. That the AS350 is actually designed to do so is interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It is cute to show it in a parking lot, but with those unprotected blades it is unlikely you will be able to operate it anywhere but on an airfield, helipad or private land, for safety reasons. And with four sets of contra- rotating blades (small, therefore turning fast) and a gasoline engine, it will be noisy as hell.

</comment><comment><USER35> Guaranteed vaporware. If these guys had even a fraction of a clue they would have gone with a 6 rotor design.

<comment><USER36> I'm almost sure this is a champion satirical comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm skeptical of a company that is doing so many different projects, and none of them seem particularly well developed, far along, or consistent within the framework of some core vision.

That being said, I'm jealous. Where do people actually get money to finance these pet projects?

</comment><comment><USER38> dumb question, but why would it not be a good idea to enclose the blades so anyone walking up to it won't be hurt? (just a simply loop / bumper arrangement?

on a side note, I hope to be around where a Blade Runner like Spinner is a thing or at least a possibility

</comment><comment><USER39> What is the benefit of more, smaller rotor blades over fewer, larger ones?

I thought that the area of air that the blades worked on scaled with pi-r- squared, which favours fewer larger rotor blades, as seen on most helicopters?

<comment><USER40> I can't think of any benefits of this layout other than reducing the size of the landing field you'll need. And I guess less complexity on the part of the rotors, no tail rotor with associated dangers etc.

I can think of some significant downsides though.

1\. This is fixed pitch, not collective pitch. That means any change in the attitude of the aircraft requires one or more sets of rotors to change their speed of rotation. This means that you need top notch electronic control systems, gyros etc. to mediate between pilot input and what the aircraft does. These electronic systems are sensitive and fragile and degrade with time. And when they let go, it's spectacular.

2\. A loss of any one of the 8 motors is a Jesus Christ, yank the ballistic parachute moment. This is likely a hull-loss event as there will be all sorts of load-bearing parts with the job of absorbing the opening shock of the parachute. These will at minimum require inspection prior to the aircraft being certified airworthy again.

3\. related to 2 above, this aircraft has no capacity for autorotation whatsoever. A traditional rotary-wing helicopter with collective pitch can autorotate safely in to a controlled landing in the event of an engine failure. If you lose an engine in this, and your ballistic chute tangles or doesn't deploy properly, you are proper fucked.

It's cool, and quad-copters are fantastic cargo and gp platforms. But I would never fly in one.

<comment><USER41> Expanding on your point #1: The inertia of large props means they can't change speed quickly, so there will be lag in the control inputs. (In toy quadcopters, electric motor torque is so high vs prop inertia that lag is a non-issue.) Collective pitch controls don't exhibit this lag. Electronic controls can compensate for inertia lag to some extent, but they have to be carefully designed using control theory, and if they fail the copter will likely be uncontrollable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just reading through the _about_ page... Where is the aircraft/rotorcraft experience in upper management? There are _many_ reasons that helicopters are dominant at the scale of human transport (some of which have been brought up in this comment thread) and multicopters are prevalent at smaller (drone-size) scales...

All of this is to say I'm extremely skeptical.

<comment><USER36> All that is missing is mention of blockchain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The fully electric Lilium out of Germany is a far more interesting project. Without a gas engine, the noise and cost problems are greatly mitigated.

I don't know how far away it is from commercialization, but it would appear that the the proof of concept is coming along nicely.

[https://lilium.com/](https://lilium.com/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Most of the work of the helicopters I see involve long flight times and/or the ability to carry some sort of not-insignificant payload (camera/sensors/pesticides/people).

This doesn't seem to address either of those situations very well. And with 1 seat to sell, you aren't going to be getting many short charter flights.

<comment><USER45> The rest of your comment seems right to me, but the title says "personal helicopter"; charter flights are not personal use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Is there any data on the sound profile of this thing? As the rotors become smaller the disc loading increases, making them much louder and more shrill. If that's effectively mitigated here, this looks really cool; if not, I think it will be hard to negotiate take off and landing rights with most communities.

<comment><USER36> As well as being higher pitched, contra-rotating designs also produce more noise.

The sound field is non-uniform (mostly axial), and there are claims of being able to reduce it through special phasing of the two rotors, using different numbers of blades on each, etc. But I wouldn't be particularly hopeful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> How am I supposed to "store it inside a standard garage" if it doesn't have wheels to move it in?

<comment><USER48> A lot of light helicopters are transported on dollies or trailers.

<comment><USER26> Robinson light helicopters have mounting points on the skids where you can temporarily attach small wheels to move them around on the ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Why this and not single-rotor collective pitch? There's no good explanation in the marketing material.

<comment><USER14> That's the whole point of these drone-like copters: instead of one engine and main rotor with mechanically complicated collective pitch, you have many fixed-pitch variable speed rotors sitting directly on an electric motor. The complexity thus wanders from hardware to control software.

<comment><USER49> Having written both (albeit only at a hobby scale), I'd argue that the control software for a collective-pitch helicopter is substantially more complex than for a quadcopter, and especially this style of over/under counter-rotating octocopter. To me this almost seems like an effort to simplify the automation and control software at the expense of safety and efficiency.

I do agree that the mechanicals are much simpler. I can see some maintenance and inspection safety gains but the airframe as a whole seems more dangerous. The over/under counterrotating prop design is both inefficient and prone to cascading failures mandating deployment of the airframe parachute.

<comment><USER14> Interesting. Now, clearly, humans can (with considerable training) fly helicopters with controls that influence the mechanics fairly directly (cyclic, collective, rudder, thrust).

Can humans fly quadcopters with controls that influence the mechanics fairly directly, or do they always require mediation via complicated control software?

Come to think of it, presumably you can (as you have 4df in the controls, and you could have rotors next to each other rotate in opposite direction, and then control the sum of all speeds (=height), sum of left vs sum of right (=lateral movement), sum of front vs sum of back (=forward movement), and sum of diagonal 1 vs sum of diagonal 2 (=rotation) independently, thus translating human inputs into your 4df. Nice!)

> simplify the automation and control software at the expense of safety and > efficiency.

At any rate, I continue to think that the much simpler mechanics and motors are the main drivers. Let's see how the accident rates turn out, but I'm optimistic.

> The over/under counterrotating prop design is both inefficient

How is it inefficient? I understand that over/under counterrotating props are more efficient, inducing less air rotation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Neat!

Although I think it only goes about half the speed, half the flight ceiling and a third the range of an average helicopter. Maybe if these guys get some market traction a ton of other entrants will come and the dream of personal flight will finally "take off".

I wonder what maintenance requirements will be like.

</comment><comment><USER50> > target price: $200,000

That's 148,019.4 GBP. The average wage here corrected for a proper living standard is about 22,000 GBP give or take.

If everybody that could afford this took that money and gave it to homeless foundations, what a world we could live in...

<comment><USER51> price could go down if more affluent people buy, eventually it can become something the average people could "afford"...there are of course other arguments against everyone owning their own flying machine.

<comment><USER50> Is that even the ethical approach here, though. If you can afford a flying machine, you can afford to keep a roof over a family for 3 years (Assuming two earners earning 22,000 GBP / year (Which is far more than my parents ever earned in their lives)). Or you could pay 6 people's expenses off for a year.

If you have that much disposable income, and you spend all of it on something that benefits only yourself, what does that say about you as a person?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> 2 props per arm, contra rotating. Eight motors...Gasoline Piston Engine drives dual generators...Dual Lithium Battery Pack...Full computer and electrical system redundancy...Ballistic Parachute...

for simplicity

</comment><comment><USER53> > Flight ceiling: 4000ft

I'm wondering if that's the absolute service ceiling or it's legal operational ceiling due to its classification.

I suppose they won't be selling them in Denver if it's the former.

<comment><USER19> I don't recall there being anything special about 4000' from a regulatory perspective so I suspect that's the service ceiling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm always extremely skeptical of these things. The engineering is difficult, but the person at the controls is an even larger problem.

</comment><comment><USER55> "One hour of flight time available per tank of gasoline"

So like what, $70 round trip commute? Hmm.

</comment><comment><USER48> I have to say, I've never worried about being hit by a helicopter while riding my bicycle.

</comment><comment><USER56> Is this the next Uber vehicle?

Or Amazon delivery "drone"?

</comment><comment><USER57> So what sort of fuel mileage does it get?

</comment><comment><USER58> Well that's going to kill someone.

</comment><comment><USER59> So cool, it looks like a huge drone.

</comment><comment><USER60> As both a rotorcraft and fixed wing pilot, I really don't want this to succeed. Most people have no business on the road, let alone in the sky.

That's without even getting into the safety issues with this thing that are being conveniently glossed over in the marketing material, which would lead anyone who didn't know better to think a BRS is some kind of foolproof sure thing.

</comment><comment><USER61> electric transmission vs mechanical and 8 tiny inefficient props?

1 hour flight with 30kg of fuel?

I can make something more efficient in a garage...

<comment><USER36> Well, Colin Furze can make it in his garage.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soxxPyaAT1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soxxPyaAT1k)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone using Discord in a business setting? - <AUTHOR> I've been using it lately for communicating with some open source projects, and it seems like a pretty good competitor to Slack, with a few more features even. But I haven't heard of anyone using it in business; was wondering if that's due to some functionality or SLA type of thing, or just lack of awareness. <comment><USER2> that seems unwise.

By uploading, distributing, transmitting or otherwise using Your Content with the Service, you grant to us a perpetual, nonexclusive, transferable, royalty- free, sublicensable, and worldwide license to use, host, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display Your Content in connection with operating and providing the Service.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that verbatim from the ToS?

<comment><USER2> yes.

[https://discordapp.com/terms](https://discordapp.com/terms)

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn, I guess that pretty much disqualifies it for use in any business venture

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A client who is in a field vaguely related to gaming has mentioned we could use discord (I'd never heard of it before) instead of Skype for calls/chat.

Given how much Skype has failed lately, it might be a good option to try.

Anyone know of the mac app is a proper app and not just an electron hobgoblin?

<comment><USER3> Welp, despite this claim:

> Minimal CPU Usage

It appears that it's Electron. So much for that plan.

<comment><AUTHOR> It may be electron but it's super smooth. It feels more native than Slack on my mac</comment></comment></comment>


SimplyInsured (YC W13) Pulls In $1.75 Million In Seed Funding - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/20/y-combinator-backed-health-insurance-startup-simplyinsured-pulls-in-1-75-million-in-seed-funding/

<comment><USER2> Thanks</comment>


Top German official infected by spy trojan with NSA ties - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/top-german-official-infected-by-highly-advanced-spy-trojan-with-nsa-ties/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunate how people tasked with protecting information so often still use Windows.

</comment><comment><USER3> From the original Spiegel article in English concerning Regin: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/regin-malware- unma...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/regin-malware-unmasked-as- nsa-tool-after-spiegel-publishes-source-code-a-1015255.html)

      "Pursuant to our technical analysis, QWERTY is identical
      with the Regin plug-in 50251," Raiu says. In addition, the
      analysis revealed that Regin is apparently an attack
      platform that can be used by several different institutions
      in several different countries. Kaspersky published its
      findings in a blog post on Tuesday.

      The new analysis provides clear proof that Regin is in fact
      the cyber-attack platform belonging to the Five Eyes
      alliance, which includes the US, Britain, Canada, Australia
      and New Zealand. Neither Kaspersky nor Symantec commented
      directly on the likely creator of Regin. But there can be
      little room left for doubt regarding the malware's origin.

      The source code excerpt published by SPIEGEL comes straight
      from the Snowden archive.

      Regin was also apparently involved in the attack on the
      Belgian telecommunications firm Belgacom. And Belgacom, as
      SPIEGEL reported in the summer of 2013, was a target of the
      British intelligence agency GCHQ. Ronald Prins, head of the
      Dutch security company Fox IT, which analyzed the attack on
      Belgacom, told SPIEGEL ONLINE in the summer of 2011 that
      Regin appeared to be a tool belonging to the NSA and GCHQ.

      There are also additional clues pointing to Regin being a
      Five Eyes tool:

      - In the QWERTY code, there are numerous references to
      cricket, a sport that enjoys extreme popularity in the
      Commonwealth.

      - There are many similarities with the cyber-weapons system
      that the intelligence agencies call "Warriorpride" in the
      Snowden documents.

      - The targets thus far known are consistent with Five Eyes
      surveillance targets as outlined in the Snowden documents.

      A serious cyber-attack on the European Commission in 2011.
      The deputy head of Germany's Federal Office for Information
      Security, Andreas Könen, told SPIEGEL at the end of last
      December that, "we have reconstructed that; there are clear
      congruencies."

      The Austrian newspaper Der Standard, citing anonymous
      sources, reported last November that malware code from the
      Regin family had been found in the network of the
      International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna.
      Germany's Bild newspaper also reported a Regin infection in
      the computer of a member of the department for European
      affairs in Angela Merkel's Chancellery. According to the
      paper, the malware was found on the woman's private
      computer. The Federal Office for Information Security says
      that Regin has not yet been found on official German
      government computers.

      It seems likely that more Regin discoveries will be made.
      Kaspersky alone, says Raiu, has found the malware in
      computers belonging to 27 international companies,
      governments and private persons.</comment>


Guides for Getting Started with Computer Vision, Deep Learning, and OpenCV - <AUTHOR> https://www.pyimagesearch.com/start-here/ <comment><USER2> I'd used OpenCV with C++ in the past but this site is my go-to for OpenCV usage from Python, highly recommended!

</comment><comment><USER3> Adrian's site is fantastic resource for OpenCV with Python.

I am not a huge fan of OpenCv itself though.

OpenCV is riddled with gotchas(ie this algorithm does not run out of the box because someone has patented it/trying to patent it).

I suppose the fault is not exactly with the library itself.

<comment><USER4> what is your alternative to opencv?

<comment><USER3> There really isn't a good one.

For heuristics(non ML) based stuff you could try BoofCV which is written in Java, so for Python there is a wrapper [https://pypi.org/project/PyBoof/](https://pypi.org/project/PyBoof/)

[http://boofcv.org/index.php?title=Performance:OpenCV:BoofCV](http://boofcv.org/index.php?title=Performance:OpenCV:BoofCV)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a huge fan of Adrian's opencv blog. His tutorials are awesome and go deeper than most. I highly recommend his book too.</comment>