A Better DMCA Process - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1908-a-better-dmca-process

<comment><USER2> This is interesting because the DMCA process is, as I understood it (as a paralegal working on DMCA issues in a past life), a fairly rigid prescription that provides a safe harbor for providers like GitHub, ISPs, YouTube, etc.

The simplified version of the process:

1\. The party claiming to own the rights to copied content submits a well- formed DMCA takedown notice to the listed DMCA agent contact information of the provider.

2\. The provider blocks access to the content as soon as possible, and informs their customer/user about the takedown notice.

3\. The user may then submit a counter-notice to the provider claiming that they do indeed have the rights.

4\. The provider then re-enables access to the content and notifies the claiming party of the counter-notice.

5\. If the claiming party disagrees, they file suit in court, notify the provider, and the provider generally again disables access.

As long as the provider takes these steps without delay, it is safe from any claims that it is itself in violation of the DMCA.

So here, GitHub is actually stating that they're delaying proceeding from step 1 to step 2. It's certainly customer-friendly, but I wonder if it causes any issues with the safe harbor.

<comment><USER3> Here's the actual relevant text from the bill [1]:

> upon notification of claimed infringement as described in subsection (c)(3), > responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is > claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity

Immediately contacting the repository owner, and asking them to remove the content themselves within a short window of time, sounds like an expeditious response to my non-lawyer ears.

One nitpick as well:

> it is safe from any claims that it is itself in violation of the DMCA

§ 512 of the DMCA provides for immunity from liability for breaking another law, the copyright act. It's not "violating the DMCA", and service providers do not have to take advantage of § 512 safe harbor provisions if they don't want the benefits of doing so. Without this safe harbor, the service provider could be guilty of infringing the copyright of whomevers' property they're distributing copies of on behalf of their user. If they _voluntarily_ opt to meet the § 512 requirements by expeditiously taking down content, then they can't be held liable for that illegal act, even though it did happen.

1: [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512)

<comment><USER4> "Immediately contacting the repository owner, and asking them to remove the content themselves within a short window of time, sounds like an expeditious response to my non-lawyer ears.

Except, uh, you cut out the object of this sentence, which is the service provider, not the user.

That is, github, not the user, is supposed to be the person responding expeditiously _to remove_. Contacting someone is neither "removing" nor "disabling access".

The law is simply not ambiguous here, and github trying to play this game is not likely to go well in an actual court, as much as i'd like it to be the case (i know other companies have been threatened on _exactly_ this point before).

<comment><USER3> If the user doesn't do it themselves within that short window, then GitHub has to. Every web hosting company I've worked with in the last 10 years has forwarded DMCA notices on to customers. They only disable a server if you don't handle the removal yourself. I don't think GitHub is trying anything new here.

<comment><USER4> "If the user doesn't do it themselves within that short window, then GitHub has to."

It sounded like you were claiming otherwise, saying that asking the user is acting expeditiously "enough", and that they can then "not remove" or slow down removal.

If you aren't claiming that, then we have no argument :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Accordingly, from now on we will require copyright owners to investigate and report each fork explicitly in a DMCA takedown notice."

I don't see how there are no legal fears or at least administrative ones here. If one submits a legitimate DMCA takedown and your site allows copies, it might be unreasonable (to a judge) that they must name all copies considering forks can happen between when the DMCA was submitted and the takedown occurs. Of course I don't know of a better way without GitHub annoying forked repository owners and favoring DMCA submitters.

<comment><USER3> Thanks to 17 USC § 512 (c), service providers are not liable for hosting copies of copyright infringing material so long as they don't have _actual knowledge_ of that infringement. Since a fork can differ from its parent, notice that the parent may be infringing is not actual knowledge that the forks are as well. That means Github has, in theory, no legal liability for those copies. It can just point to federal law.

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512)

<comment><USER4> "is not actual knowledge that the forks are as well"

You assert this as if this is how a judge would see it (or as if it is well tested). That seems highly unlikely to me.

It seems to be very easy to make the legal argument that because github knows which forks are copies and which aren't, they have actual knowledge of the ones that are still copies.

<comment><USER6> In order for GitHub to be presumed to know that the forks are also infringing, the takedown notice would have to specify what in the repo is infringing so that GitHub could compare the contents of the forks against the instance that the takedown notice is filed against. If the notice doesn't specify any particular files in the repo, then GitHub can't be expected to remove any fork that has any deletions in its history since the branch. The ease with which the accuser can check the forks for infringement also shifts the burden away from GitHub.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't help but think of the Snapchat breach. Surely the world understands that once something is on the internet, it's there forever, right? Complying with the DMCA is security theater at best, and at worst, stifling to innovation.

I mean, we have many laws centered around the difference between intentionally and unintentionally inflicting harm on others. So for example if you break someone's rib performing CPR, you're protected as a good samaritan. Or if you veer off the road and run someone over because you were texting, you can still be tried for manslaughter because you shouldn't have been typing on your cell phone in the first place. I think we can all agree that it's good we have these types of laws and don't just focus on premeditated crime.

But the DMCA tries to be a moral compass when it's not mathematically possible to do so. It's a bit like setting up a booth on the Grand Canyon that charges money to take pictures. Sure, they can bust bootleggers that set up black market booths without a license. They can even bust scalpers selling photos. But in the end, the Grand Canyon is still there.

Whether someone gets irate about piracy/copying trade secrets or not, in the end, perhaps as a society we should ask if it makes any sense to spend tax dollars trying to stop something that can't be stopped once the cat's out of the bag.

Actually, I think GitHub is in a unique position to not comply with the DMCA. It has nothing to do with the size of GitHub, because no matter how large a private entity is, it is always subject to the laws of its government. It has more to do with the fact that every developer in the world has either heard of GitHub or uses it every day.

In other words, we are the people that form what can be thought of as the technology arm of society, so by extension the technology arm of government. That gives us a seat at the table in matters of technology, the same way that teachers unions are able to influence education or the American Medical Association can influence public health. If we decide that the DMCA is not a good use of taxpayer money and should no longer be enforced (in fact can't be enforced), then it's not up to a court to decide that, since they will side with the law every time (as they should). The law itself is what must be adjusted or repealed, by the people who have the means to do so by virtue of the role they play in society. We have the leverage to repeal it because without our support, there is no expertise to enforce it in the first place.

If GitHub complies with the DMCA and we use GitHub, then we are quietly endorsing the DMCA.

<comment><USER3> > If GitHub complies with the DMCA and we use GitHub, then we are quietly > endorsing the DMCA.

I happily endorse § 512 of the DMCA. Not only is the safe harbor provision a well-balanced law for all parties involved, but it's the only thing that makes startups that host UCG legally viable. Without the DMCA, Github could not exist. They'd be personally liable for every copy of every file they distribute without a copyright holder's permission.

This particular piece of the DMCA doesn't have to eliminate all piracy online to be effective. Take the case of a feature film release -- a $XXXMM investment by the copyright holders into their product -- that could be seriously harmed to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by someone leaking a copy online a few days before ticket sales begin. The DMCA notices can disable the most visible (and most damaging) copies, expeditiously enough to save the film's box office sales. Mitigating much of the harm is better than nothing.

> perhaps as a society we should ask if it makes any sense to spend tax > dollars

This part I don't get. The alternative to the above is an emergency court hearing for every instance of infringement, hoping to attain an emergency injunction, then get it to an ISP before too much damage is done. The safe harbor provision doesn't (directly) cost tax payers anything. It saves us billions. Every day, hundreds or thousands of instances of copyright infringement are handled by an e-mail instead of a taxpayer-funded court hearing.

It sounds to me like you're making an argument against copyright, not the DMCA. DMCA § 512 (the notice/counternotice safe harbor system) is about mitigating the legal liability created by the copyright act on service providers. In its entirety, the DMCA was the US's implementation of the WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties. It is not what created copyright protection itself.

<comment><USER7> I was surprised to get down voted for my comment, but, that's a perfect example of the chilling effect that the DMCA has had upon discussing freedom in the information age.

What the DMCA (and similar IP law) gets wrong is persecuting sharers with "intent to distribute". Copyright law was originally intended to protect creators from other people profiting off of their work by copying it. I'm all for the government cracking down on bootleggers.

But I'm very much against the notion that we should go after people who use or view content that is already publicly available. To use your example, the MPAA could and should go after someone who leaks a movie online. But, they should have to prove that the person profited in some way from his or her actions (and correspondingly, the penalty for doing so should be somehow proportionate to that profit). Individual users who share the movie on BitTorrent are not breaking copyright law, because they are not selling copies. It's really that simple. I personally don't think that it's the government's responsibility to devote resources to tracking down sharers, and certainly not to prosecute them. If we want to consider laws regarding "stealing" intellectual property, we can certainly do that as a society, but that has nothing to do with copyright (trademarks or patents either).

And to be clear, the only thing that new IP laws could address is the potential lost income of content producers. But, there is no way to prove that a sharer would have paid to view that work in the first place. I personally think that this flies in the face of free market economics. The government's role is to create and manage a fair playing field for all players. So if it is going to start prosecuting thought crime, then it needs to remember its duty and crack down on monopolies and the bribery (ahem, lobbying) that props up media corporations with lifetime-length copyrights and the loss of the public domain through the use of paywalls (among other things). So the DMCA put the cart before the horse by not reinstating the Sherman Antitrust Act, not setting realistic limits on copyright and other IP laws, etc. The DMCA has done nothing to increase the income of new artists, and everything to further enrich established media corporations like Disney (I would argue by design).

We need to also consider that courtrooms and juries are the most important link in the legal chain. By not hearing every case in a court of law, we are passing the burden to individuals to prove their innocence against large institutions (by settling out of court, since they simply can't afford to lose). I think this flies in the face of the notion of innocent until proven guilty. Whenever I see another child or elderly person being prosecuted for file sharing, it strikes me as being closer to extortion than justice.

So to summarize, I don't recognize "§ 512 of the DMCA" as necessary or even valid, because ISPs and hosting providers that don't sell the copies they store are not breaking copyright law in the first place. A website that charges money to view HBO Go's stream is breaking the law. A website that provides a storage space for a file is not. So the DMCA was not necessary in the first place, and we should be enforcing the laws that are already on the books before creating new ones.

My hope for the future is that we reduce copyright and patent periods to something reasonable like 5 or 10 years, only cover works by copyright (so physical records, books, paintings, movie reels, etc, not bits), invalidate all process patents (so no software, business or medical patents), make it illegal to create laws regarding DRM schemes (in other words, leave it up to the private sector to fight the arms race against cracking), and force worries about whether a work is fair use to be heard in court (judged by people, not metrics). Then I hope that we bring back the Fairness Doctrine to promote broadcasts that are in the public good (real news, not infotainment), more funding for public television and teaching art in school, and bar prosecution for using works for educational and nonprofit purposes.

I think this is a case of, what you are saying about protections for businesses (both producers and carriers) has some validity, but for me, democracy, personal freedom and liberty come first. I don't want to live in a country where we can be shaken down by corporations because they are worried about their bottom lines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting that this follows on the heels of the Popcorn Time DMCA takedown: [https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-07-11-MPAA.m...](https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-07-11-MPAA.md)

EDIT: Also here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8450145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8450145)

<comment><USER9> If it was actually prompted by something, it would probably be the recent Inspeqtor[1] takedown[2][3][4] by Monit.

[1]: [https://github.com/mperham/inspeqtor](https://github.com/mperham/inspeqtor)

[2]: [https://twitter.com/mperham/status/518796150733033472](https://twitter.com/mperham/status/518796150733033472)

[3]: [https://twitter.com/mperham/status/519164948887257090](https://twitter.com/mperham/status/519164948887257090)

[4]: [https://twitter.com/mperham/status/519326759930454016](https://twitter.com/mperham/status/519326759930454016)</comment></comment>


Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mortenjust/cleartext-mac/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> Am I the only one to find that using only the 1,000 most common words actually makes thing _harder_ to understand? The writer ends up having to use convoluted paraphrases to refer to things where a precise, well defined and well understood word exists but it's not part of the top 1,000.

<comment><USER3> The technique is working quite well for Donald Trump: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2015/09/15/ho...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2015/09/15/how-trump-speak-has-pushed-the-donald-into-first-place/)

> Some of his answers last only a few seconds, some are slightly longer, but > almost all consist of simple sentences, grammatically and conceptually, and > most of them withhold their most important word or phrase until the very > end. Trump's sentences end with a pop, and he seems to know instinctively > where to put the emphasis in each one.

<comment><USER4> He speaks like a child, it works because his base is stupid and they relate. It's not a skill, he just isn't that bright.

<comment><USER5> If Trump honestly believed everything that he says, I would agree that his thinking would necessarily be shockingly _shallow_ on many issues.

But to compare him to a four year old then make a sweeping statement like "isn't that bright" ?

How could anyone think this? Isn't it obvious that there are domains in which he is, for better or worse, exceptionally intelligent within that domain?

<comment><USER6> I think it's interesting to try to identify his domain. I think it's marketing. He is exceptional at marketing, and at generating personal wealth from that. That is different from being a good businessman, or knowing how to run a business (and for his method of wealth generation, may by in opposition to it). I think he's very good a perpetuating his own extreme boom and bust cycles, and coasts along on that. While at the top, he's able to capitalize on the success to extend his brand,

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It should support a few template sentences which _define_ a word, which is then allowed to occur in the remainder of the text.

More useful than a document which uses only 1000 common words is a document which uses only 1000 words, plus words which it clearly defines.

I feel as if I could write almost anything if I have that, and it will be self-contained and accessible to anyone with the thousand word vocabulary, plus the ability to internalize definitions, which is a very basic faculty of the intellect.

<comment><USER8> This idea reminds me of an amazing talk by Guy Steele: [https://youtu.be/_ahvzDzKdB0](https://youtu.be/_ahvzDzKdB0)

He starts the talk by assuming monosyllabic words as his primitives and builds up the words he needs to use to give the talk by providing definitions for them first.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that, I really enjoyed it. Back when Java was new and cool...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A similar editor was made for the book Thing Explainer[1] by Randal Munroe from XKCD. A book that explains all kinds of different things, from space shuttles to microwaves using the top 1000 common English words.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/](https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/)

<comment><USER11> Yeah it's called "thing explainer", but it's more like a "thing convoluter". It's a work humour, not a book of science.

<comment><USER12> Some of the explanations are actually going into a textbook now, to accompany more traditional text. So it seems professionals disagree with you. I will concede that it might have been clearer with the top 2000 words or something, but that's my perspective and plenty of kids might disagree, especially those that have grown up with weird dialects or even sociolects like AAVE.

<comment><USER13> No. He's doing some drawings for text books. There is no chance that the thing explainer 1000 words affectation will be adopted for the text book for the purpose of actual teaching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Would love a slider that would allow you to adjust the words allowed from 500 most common words in English to 10k most common words. Also, it would be great if you could compile a windows version.

<comment><USER15> Or how about the more uncommon the word the more like the background tone it is so that you get instant visual feedback?

<comment><USER16> I like this idea. Maybe a context menu for each word with scored alternatives..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the idea. This could be enhanced with a thesaurus that would offer alternatives to difficult words. It could be a useful tool not only for writing clearer explanations, but also to compose easy readers for English learners.

<comment><USER18> You could build that feature dynamically. When a user tries to use a disallowed word and then uses an allowed word, you could log that word pair. Combine and anonymize those logs and you'd be able to show the most likely replacement words for any word that people often try to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Attempting to type the Gettysburg Address, which is how I usually experiment with word processors and keyboards, is an exercise in futility.

> Eight times ten and seven years ago our fathers brought into the world a new > country, born of free thoughts and doings, and completely sold on the idea > that all men are created the same.

<comment><USER20> Futility? It looks like an improvement on the original:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

"free thoughts and doings" sounds clearer that "liberty", which could mean almost anything - did it have no prisons? I guess they really meant freedom from England's control, which isn't quite free thoughts and doings - that goes to show how poorly worded the original was.

<comment><USER19> Them's fightin' words. If the Gettysburg Address is poor writing, life has no meaning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You guys are missing that this is a joke. This is a reference to this comic: [https://xkcd.com/1133/](https://xkcd.com/1133/).

Which is poking fun at how _funny_ things sound when you restrict yourself to only that many words.

<comment><USER22> A joke that would improve the writing of most people.

<comment><USER23> Sorry, "improve" is not in the list.

<comment><USER22> See? I need to better my own use of words. We all speak and write in ways others can not understand unless we make the effort—especially in a place where not everyone speaks our language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's neat but not very useful. I'd actually be interested in an editor that enforces E-Prime[1] to see if it made writing more clear.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime)

<comment><USER25> [https://github.com/AndrewHynes/eprime- mode](https://github.com/AndrewHynes/eprime-mode)

<comment><USER26> Thanks! My first question upon seeing this post was: isn't there already an emacs mode for this?

<comment><USER27> There is now: [https://github.com/aaron-em/ten-hundred- mode.el](https://github.com/aaron-em/ten-hundred-mode.el)

(There was before, under the name "1000-words.el", but it isn't very good, and it also isn't, and can't easily be made, available via MELPA. So I wrote this instead. The PR to add it to MELPA is open and awaiting review; pretty soon you should be able to M-x package-install RET ten-hundred-mode RET and get it.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Perfect for editing articles in Simple English Wikipedia:

[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

</comment><comment><USER29> The author of the book already made this.

[https://www.xkcd.com/simplewriter/](https://www.xkcd.com/simplewriter/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Joke aside, there are ways to compute a "readability score" for any block of text. This is useful for document writers that need to target particular grade-levels for their docs (eg driving manual is "8th grade"). [https://readability-score.com/](https://readability-score.com/)

<comment><USER31> The readability score is based only on the lengths of words, which I guess is something, but it's not a very good proxy for when you learn the word. The frequency of the word is a much better thing to measure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is a cool project. I appreciate that the creator has shared this with the world. I think its sad that people are (appear to be?) criticizing him simply for making it and sharing it. However....

"If you find yourself on the receiving end of a message that is too hard to figure out, do everyone a favor and insist on a simpler version.

Do _everyone_ a favor? Presumptive.

If I am on the receiving end of a message that is too hard for me to understand due to my ignorance of certain terms, or due to difficulties I have parsing grammatically correct writing, then the _best_ way for me to do _everyone_ a favor is to work on improving my own vocabulary and/or thinking ability.

Then I will be better equipped to communicate well with a larger set of the population, and better equipped to reason well. Improving your own thinking skills is good citizenship. Improving your ability to communicate well with a wider swath of the population can help you to build bridges between communities.

If I were instead to insist that the message achieves 'clarity' by accommodating my ignorance, then I may be helping some but certainly not everyone.

"Maybe one that only uses the 1,000 most common words."

Asking others to accommodate limitations to my vocabulary is likely to increase their cognitive load; most often I'd rather them apply themselves more fully to other tasks. I can just use a dictionary! Also, this runs the risk of resulting in text that is _harder_ to understand, if they trade precise terms for needlessly convoluted grammar.

</comment><comment><USER32> How about a standard translator that takes generally accepted conversions of more complex language constructs into simpler language?

How about a thing that changes less well known words and puts in easier words?

<comment><USER33> If you come up with a way to automagically translate things into easier English you could probably sell it to various UK government / NHS / etc organisations, who all have a duty to make much of their communication available in "Easy Read".

Here's the Equality Act Easy read version: [https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/85012/easy- read.pdf)

And the Equality Act non-easy read: [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents)

Here's a Google search for some easy read documents: [https://www.google.co.uk/search?site=&source=hp&q=easy+read+...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?site=&source=hp&q=easy+read+inurl%3Agov.uk&oq=easy+read+inurl%3Agov.uk&gs_l=hp.3...666.8052.0.8318.104.22.168.0.0.0.410.2468.0j1j5j2j1.9.0....0...1c.1.64.hp..14.3.874.0.4Hy0Gvi2kHQ)

Here's Mencap's (a charity that works with people with learning disability) guide to Easy Read: [https://www.mencap.org.uk/make_it_clear](https://www.mencap.org.uk/make_it_clear)

<comment><USER34> Similarly, in the U.S. there is the Plain Writing Act of 2010 ([http://www.plainlanguage.gov/plLaw/](http://www.plainlanguage.gov/plLaw/)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It would be a huge usability improvement to have autocompletion of valid words. Currently, you have to type each word, and wait to see if it is rejected/removed.

Instead of waiting for each word to be typed, why not show acceptable words as you are typing, so you can tell before you finish typing if it is valid.

</comment><comment><USER36> There is a web version of this which I made a few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11424197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11424197)

<comment><USER37> And this was submitted before as well. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11367972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11367972)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The most annoying application on earth :)

A better application would be to underline words not included in the whitelist and to provide a synonym included in the whitelist upon right clicking.

But as I learned in school: a language's diversity is beautiful, why restrain ourselves in the vocabulary we use?

In particular, a boring text with many repetition is just hard to read, see the discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11131391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11131391)

</comment><comment><USER39> I wrote a simple editor that used Google Translate's web service to round-trip translate the text you enter in real time. I had been thinking about intermediate representations that might assist in the automatic translation of human languages. I wanted to see how one's writing might change to ensure that the round-trip translation was identical or still made sense, thinking this would improve the odds that the translated version actually meant what you intended it to.

</comment><comment><USER40> While this is probably a joke, I would note that a person is rarely writing for consumption by all demographics. Vampire novels, comic books, chemistry textbooks, all have their audiences, and it is naive to say "but one day the whole world may wish to read my book, I must open the gates as wide as possible", because accessibility is not a free.

Don't simplify or complicate your language without reason.

</comment><comment><USER41> Great app, but this still doesn't address the issue of homographs, where a word can have wildly different meanings (some of them uncommon meanings) that just happen to be spelled the same.

For instance, in the live example, the word "Application" is used to refer to a computer program, when the more common meaning likely refers to the verb, as in "The application of a band aid".

</comment><comment><USER42> Check also Rewordify [1], provides suggestions alongside the original text, has "difficulty" settings, and more, very complete website, highly recommended. I spent ages looking for something like this.

1.- [https://rewordify.com/index.php](https://rewordify.com/index.php)

</comment><comment><USER43> I read years ago that the vocabulary used on TV was about 2,000 words. A high school graduate has a vocabulary of 10,000 words, a college graduate 30,000, and there are a million words in the English language.

What was interesting to me was that I could learn a foreign language by only learning 2,000 words!

<comment><USER44> That is interesting. What about languages other than English? Any idea about the avg. word count needed to learn them? (Used on TV does seem like a good benchmark for "learned). Or is it roughly the same for every language, do you think?

<comment><USER45> "being able to read a newspaper" is a typical goal for pre-fluency language acquisition. In most languages I'm aware of the number of words required to do that is something around 1500-3000.

<comment><USER43> Yes. But I read somewhere that a newspaper vocabulary is targeted at somewhere around a 5th grade reading level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> A great idea. See, the point is to be _understood_ by _everyone_. Nothing is gained by making crazy sentences out of words that most people have never heard of. Is that supposed to impress people?

I had a friend who seemed to start replacing dead-simple phrases like "seriously!?" with "are you being facetious!?". Ugh, this doesn't help at all. It will either scream "hey, everyone, I learned a new word!!!" to the people who know what you said, or "say what!?" to anyone else; and they will be too busy parsing your words to hear whatever you say next.

And this advice isn't because everyone you meet will be 6 years old or a high school drop-out. Simple words are: (1) WAY easier to pick up for _everyone_ , and (2) many people are not using their native language, including very smart people in fields where people like big words.

</comment><comment><USER47> Thing Explainer was a nice experiment.... but that's exactly what it was. An experiment... not to be repeated.

English has such a wonderfully rich vocabulary... and no cow is too sacred for the 'innovators' of tech. Everyone: prepare to talk like 6-year-olds!

</comment><comment><USER48> Guy Steele's _Growing a Language+ is a much better model than "1000 most common words" [https://www.google.com/?#q=growing+a+language](https://www.google.com/?#q=growing+a+language)

</comment><comment><USER49> How about modifying it so one can choose to use the 1,000, or 2000, 5000, or 10,000 most common words, for instance? Should be pretty easy and done dynamically (although tuning the number _down_ would require more work).

</comment><comment><USER50> Has no one mentioned Basic English yet? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English)

</comment><comment><USER36> Check EasyWrite: Cleartext alternative for the web: [https://github.com/adeekshith/easy-write](https://github.com/adeekshith/easy- write)

</comment><comment><USER51> The original machine had a base-plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the pentametric fan. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible trem'e pipe to the differential girdlespring on the 'up' end of the grammeters.

</comment><comment><USER52> Oh good, now I can make sure I'm following proper Newspeak!

</comment><comment><USER53> Presumably the list includes the word "gimmick".

</comment><comment><USER54> It would be nice if it there was a setting that would make it not delete a word, but mark it in red. That way I can copy/paste things into it.

</comment><comment><USER55> "At last!" he said. "My good sir! This is remarkable!"

Although in Trob the last word in fact became "a thing which may happen but once in the usable lifetime of a canoe hollowed diligently by axe and fire from the tallest diamondwood tree that grows in the noted diamondwood forests on the lower slopes of Mount Awayawa, home of the firegods or so it is said."

</comment><comment><USER56> As anyone ever written an artistically worthy novel with only those 1,000 words? Sounds like an interesting lipogram.

Also, is there a Vim plugin to do that?

<comment><USER39> Lucy Aikin was an 19th century author who wrote novels using single-syllable words, including versions of Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> The irony that four words in the title are not in that 1,000 (in quotes here)

A "text" "editor" that only allows the 1,000 most "common" words in "English.

As determined by a similar online version that merely underlines words outside the vocabulary :

[http://splasho.com/upgoer5/](http://splasho.com/upgoer5/)

</comment><comment><USER58> _" Use it to tell your family members why their computers act up, or tell people at work why they should pay you more."_

Very clever application. You could use this idea to only describe problems using a dictionary of _known nouns /verbs_ to describe technical problems using a known vocabulary.

</comment><comment><USER59> Delightfully Orwellian.

</comment><comment><USER60> So we can all write like potheads think!

Before downvoting me, and you will, do consider that I have zero scientific evidence for the above sarcastic comment; however, anecdotally speaking, all long-term pot smokers that I happen to know seem to speak with 1000 common words, or less.

</comment><comment><USER61> Hemingway[1] is a good editor too. It does not have word limitations. It does a good job to make sure your sentences are not complex, long, and boring.

1\. [http://www.hemingwayapp.com/](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER62> Oooo I would like to apply this as a filter, for various thresholds, to various favorite works of e.g. fiction. Not with and replace; just a hard filter... very Oulipo...

The resultant word count plots would I am guessing cluster by author, maybe other things (genre?)...

</comment><comment><USER63> A while back a friend wrote an Android app for this:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fallinghaw...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fallinghawks.upgoer)

</comment><comment><USER64> I am reminded of this talk: [https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER65>
      The aim of Newspeak is to remove all shades of meaning from
      language, leaving simple concepts (pleasure and pain,
      happiness and sadness, goodthink and crimethink) that
      reinforce the total dominance of the State

<comment><USER66> Whenever I hear the word "amazing", the association that leaps most readily to the fore of my brain is the word "doubleplusgood".

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I dont understand the appeal of this at all. The first demonstration gif shows how this mangles your text. Maybe this would be good for writing english for audiences who learned it as a foreign language.

</comment><comment><USER68> This might actually be really useful when communicating online with developers overseas who don;t speak English natively. Recently started using upwork and found myself rewriting instruction to use common words.

</comment><comment><USER69> This could actually be useful if it had buildin word2vec dictionary/suggestion function. Dont just delete less common words, suggest simpler one of equal meaning instead.

</comment><comment><USER70> I think this is really great. I have just tasked the people in my company to use this to explain our company in 100 words or less, without losing context and making sense. :p

</comment><comment><USER71> It's interesting to see people criticizing a software tool for it's potential uses and effect on society when that tool isn't cryptography.

</comment><comment><USER72> Man, this thing totally should have been called Newspeak.

</comment><comment><USER73> I feel like this would be much better as, say, a dictionary file for Word; the restriction seems too aggressive (i.e. what if I want a name?).

</comment><comment><USER74> Actually, a version of this as an aspell dictionary would be lovely. Have your favorite editor highlight all the words that don't fit.

</comment><comment><USER75> To make it simple, you would need to use <=1000 words _and_ avoid phrasal verbs. Otherwise it is a kind of cheating (at least, in English).

</comment><comment><USER76> I don't believe this is a good idea. Limiting yourself to the 1000 most common words does not necessarily lead to clarity or simplicity.

</comment><comment><USER77> Unclear on why this is a good thing. Dumbing down language helps whom, exactly? I guess if you want to hasten the Idiocracy this is your app.

<comment><USER78> Writing so that children, people for whom English is a second language, and people otherwise unable to comprehend advanced writing, can understand you is not a bad thing.

I'm considering applying this to my product documentation, even though our users are generally well-educated...we can't afford to have docs translated into a dozen languages, but simple English may be readable by enough foreign language speakers to make it worth the effort. English is a tough language; making it easier for new users of the language is great, IMHO.

<comment><USER79> Agreed. Some people think that big words are good. Me, I think good writing should be like good code; short and easy to understand.

<comment><USER80> Well clarity != short/simple. Which is sort of the joke of the whole book/this idea. It can often take many more words (which just makes an idea more complicated) if you rely on this kind of idea (which yes, I'm aware is a joke) than just using the correct word.

It's also very possible to get the gist of a word, based on where it is placed and the words around it -- even if you don't know exactly what it means. (Obviously I'm not suggesting that for something like documentation writing -- but by the same token I would never think that limiting yourself to a 1,000 word dictionary for something as important as product docs would be beneficial in any way).

<comment><USER78> I strongly suspect there is a happy medium to be found. Maybe more than 1000 most popular words...and maybe just augment a limited dictionary with an addendum for technical terms not in the short dictionary, but that are extremely common for the subject. E.g. in my case, maybe "domain" isn't in the dictionary, but I obviously need it to talk about DNS. I would reasonably expect even foreign language speaking administrators to know this word.

So, it's a joke, but maybe a useful thought exercise, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> There are already enough agents out there trying to dumb us down. And I don't want to be one of them, so thanks, but no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER82> This sounds awful. We need clear grammar, not limited vocabulary.

There's evidence of limited vocabulary and lazy expression in too many venues.

</comment><comment><USER83> What would be interesting is a greasemonkey script that scales the size of words to be proportional to the log of their frequency.

</comment><comment><USER84> They can also include a Toki Pona translator.

<comment><USER85> Have you written anything in Toki Pona before?

<comment><USER84> I was learning it and I could manage to understand some phrases. There are many "neologisms" for everyday items though, requires some thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Isn't this a great opportunity to compress text. I wonder if there are algorithms that use dictionaries.

</comment><comment><USER87> I can see a text compression scheme coming up. Convert a string to a list of numbers, use a lookup table, done.

</comment><comment><USER88> To provide some context, Wikipedia has a version that's written using "Plain English" that's based on limited set of common English words:

[https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Haven't had the chance to use the tool, but sounds like a good first step to making English text easier to read.

</comment><comment><USER89> I guess it must ignore proper names, like Trump and Randall, detected by capitalization.

</comment><comment><USER90> This allows more than the top 1000 words. The dictionaries clearly have 3000 lines

</comment><comment><USER91> Suggestion for the next word would be cool. Since there aren't so many.

<comment><USER6> Oh, with the likely classifications of the word, such as verb, adverb, noun, etc, this could be really useful.

<comment><USER92> A little bit of coding could eliminate the need for the user altogether!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Ouch, that first example. "Hard to figure out for people"?

</comment><comment><USER94> Could this application suggest substitutions from 1000 word list?

</comment><comment><USER95> Don't mean to sound like an insult, but this is the first tool (that I know of) intentionally designed to make people stupider.

</comment><comment><USER96> Joke or not if you haven't check out Vsauce on Youtube the Zepf Mystery it's somewhat related.

</comment><comment><USER97> Trump writes his victory speeches in this.</comment>


One of the most beautifully animated web pages - <AUTHOR>

http://www.slaveryfootprint.org/<p>Scroll to "What?" it's very clever, smooth and usable! <comment><USER2> fantastic, fresh, informative

</comment><comment><USER3> Freaking awesome.</comment>


Show HN: Top 10 Starred JS Repo – JavaScript Variable - <AUTHOR> https://billcccheng.github.io/js-popular-variable-frontend/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all! I made an web app where you can search for variable names and function names used in the top 10 most starred Javascript repos. Any advice and suggestion is appreciated! Source Code:[https://github.com/billcccheng/js- popular-variable-frontend](https://github.com/billcccheng/js-popular-variable- frontend)

<comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this should likely be a Show HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment></comment>


The era of 1TB microSD cards has begun - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/25/1tb-microsd-cards-western-digital-micron/ <comment><USER2> There is roughly 2k hours of lecture in a 4 year degree (15 credit hours * 11 weeks * 3 quarters * 4 years) ~> 1980 hrs. At high quality 500MB/hr this is 990GB. This is worst case, so a 1TB memory card has _more_ than enough space to store the lecture portion and possibly extra tutorials for a 4 year degree.

These cards will be less than $50 in 3 years.

<comment><USER3> I have _SERIOUS_ doubts as to your price projections. Even _IF_ it somehow magically becomes less expensive to actually produce, and completely recoup investment costs for design/production/test in 3 years, it's still subject to economics. Meaning if most people are willing to pay hundreds, it will cost hundreds.

<comment><USER2> 256GB is currently $50. Getting to 1TB @ $50 in 3 years seems inline with historical rates.

<comment><USER4> You are asking for a 4x drop in GB/ Prices in 3 years. How is that inline with _any_ historical rate. And completely ignored the fact that we got 256GB to this price point was a recent avalanche in NAND prices.

Cheapest 512 GB Cost ~$100, 1TB being top dog, lower yield is RSP ~$400. I would be surprised if these MicroSD were sub $100 in 3 years time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am always surprised how small the microSD cards are. It gets even more extreme when you have a 10 year old harddisk next to it. At the same time it can hold most of my data.

</comment><comment><USER6> I had never used SD cards as much as I have used them since working with RPis, at the same time I have never felt less sure about their reliability. I don't think I feel comfortable using them as a secondary storage in my laptop. Does anyone else share this reliability concern?

<comment><USER7> As a cheap primary boot device on a low end computer which experiences frequent power loss, has a horrible power supply, and is commonly overclocked too much no, I'm not really comfortable it'll be reliable. As a high cost secondary storage device on a laptop or in a camera yes, it's pretty darn reliable.</comment></comment>


Managing 400m users, Disqus shares 3 hacks for a better UX in lean startups - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/02/28/managing-400m-users-disqus-shares-3-hacks-for-a-better-ux-in-lean-startups/

<comment><USER2> this followed what was an excellent talk by @ckj. totally blew everyone's mind with their @font-face icon rendering hack they do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, he did a fantastic job. Here's a link to the Disqus blog where Chris talks about @font-face [http://blog.disqus.com/post/2944356158/introducing- houdini-t...](http://blog.disqus.com/post/2944356158/introducing-houdini-the- new-look-of-disqus)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> it doesn't really make much sense...

maybe it would make more sense if there was video or audio along with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not really sure what you're talking about… Did the video not play for you?</comment></comment>


Review my project: TweetSip, Reddit/HN for your Twitter links - <AUTHOR> http://tweetsip.com

<comment><USER2> This needs a public-facing page for everyone's votes (wait a minute…). Let them see and interact before allowing access. Right now, nobody will use it because the splash page gives no indication of what the actual application is like or how much activity is behind the login wall.

<comment><AUTHOR> What would you suggest for the public page. Internally everyone's page is different. Maybe a screenshot?

<comment><USER3> Maybe make an account that follows people you consider interesting (celebrities, web thinkers, etc.), and show the results for that user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The site seems not to recognize URLs that use IDN and/or unicode (e.g. <http://✿.ws/beauty> )

Here's a list of lots of Twitters users using some of them from our service, tinyarro.ws:

[http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%E2%9E%A8.ws+OR+%E2%9E%AF...](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%E2%9E%A8.ws+OR+%E2%9E%AF.ws+OR+%E2%9E%94.ws+OR+%E2%9E%9E.ws+OR+%E2%9E%BD.ws+OR+%E2%9E%B9.ws+OR+%E2%9C%A9.ws+OR+%E2%9C%BF.ws+OR+%E2%9D%A5.ws+OR+%E2%80%BA.ws+OR+%E2%8C%98.ws++OR+%E2%98%81.ws)

</comment><comment><USER5> I wasn't able to log in. I went to your site, clicked the "get started" button, and went to Twitter to log in.

Once I logged into Twitter no link was given to go back to your app. I then tried going back to tweetsip.com and refreshing the page, but each time when I tried to continue I was again asked to log into Twitter. I could find no way to make it work.

I'm using the Firefox alpha (Shiretoko), so it could be me. But I'd double- check the process after you've logged out of Twitter, cleared cookies and cache, etc.

Sounds like a cool idea though.

</comment><comment><USER4> I really like the idea. You need to work on icon display, though because some are huge: <http://pics.gd/2009-05-06_1608.png>

and for long tweets, it's causing the lines to wrap oddly.

I think it makes sense to have the default page show the site in action (below a big "log in" banner). Perhaps displaying the top 100 Twitterers? <http://wefollow.com/top>

<comment><AUTHOR> This should be fixed now, try a Shift+refresh to update CSS

<comment><USER4> The large pic stuff works great now. Still getting the "too much text causes the floats to misalign" problem sometimes: <http://pics.gd/2009-05-06_1719.png>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, I am wary of anything that proxies credentials, and I agree with kaiuhl in that it is even less inviting due to lack of information or screenshots of whatever tweetsip might be. cf. <http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000953.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't proxy credentials, it uses oAuth.

<comment><USER6> Fair enough, but perhaps you should make that clearer ("[1] Log on at twitter.com") for the less swift among us like me. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tried logging in... Twitter said somebody already used that token. Then it loaded a page with "OK, you've denied Tweetsip access to interact with your account!"

Something broken here...

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, perhaps a twitter oAuth issue? I'm using the stock version of the twitter-auth plugin <http://github.com/mbleigh/twitter-auth/tree/master>

<comment><USER3> I would ask the twitter api list about this <http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So points = number of tweets of a link? If so, it is HN/Reddit without the voting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I debated myself over this. If someone tweets a link isn't an implicit vote (similar to voting on HN). I guess I should make it auto-voted up so you can't get double points (one for tweeting and one for voting up)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. Did you make this after Fred Wilson asked for it a couple days ago?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was actually started making it a week or so before he said that. Seeing his tweet made me finish it sooner than I probably would have otherwise though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is the difference between this and actual Twitter?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is just the links, not all tweets. Also discussion is with all people who have seen the story in their feed instead of just the people you follow.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I fire my co-founder? - <AUTHOR>

My co-founder is proving to be a problem. When we started I didn't know his abilities. He came from a top school and is a hard worker so I took him on board.
Now when the rubber has to meet the road, he hasn't been cutting it. Its been one year. He needs a lot of coaching on good quality programming. Does zilch marketing/sales work. Gets frustrated easily. Mostly does a half assed job at most things.
I think many of you may have faced this, so I want to get an idea from the community.
Pros: He devotes a lot of time at work. I don't know why he doesn't get the output though. <comment><USER2> "When we started I didn't know his abilities." - why not? This makes me question you, not him. Were you a poor interviewer? Were you inexperienced? Who signs on with a co-founder without knowing what the other person brings to the table? Did you not look into his prior work, interview employers, etc?

You also don't give me enough background about you/him/situation to give me any insight that could be truly helpful. Are you a great programmer thus able to tell that his output/work is not up to snuff? Or are you the business guy and just unhappy that he's not giving you what you want as fast as you want? Hell, for all we know he's kicking ass working through some insanely hard problems that no one else could have done in half the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes mea culpa. I was inexperienced. First time entrepreneur. I picked him because he was available and willing.

I am a programmer. Not a "great" one. But basically his productivity is at best 30% of mine on a good day. That makes me feel he's a deadweight. Because he doesn't do other activities well either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> First you need to address the issue with him, point out that it is an issue, and give him a specific amount of time to shape up. If he can't do this by the deadline, then you need to cut him lose before he becomes a bigger problem later.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have done this. I have given him specific actionables to try.

I am now at a loss to communicate how to be more productive. I have tried by example, by direct recipe. I have a feeling that either he doesn't get it or he isn't smart enough.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I really hope that the community sees this and I get a few fresh ideas on how to solve this situation. Right now I am struggling every day.

</comment><comment><USER4> Get to the root cause before taking action, the 5 whys or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just read about this. So far I have tried very hard to blame the process and not the person but in a small startup - I don't understand how to not put blame on the person.

Edit: I don't want to bitch or make this sound like a rant. Whenever I have tried to point out weaknesses and areas of improvement, they seem to cause cognitive dissonance.</comment></comment>


BitcoinPlus: montize your websites' visitors by mining bitcoins - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitcoinplus.com/miner/embeddable?

<comment><USER2> It is marked insecure, there is no way mainstream users will mine or even visit a site with a warning like that popping up ...cool concept though

</comment><comment><USER3> Last time I looked into javascript based mining perhaps a year ago, the effective earnings for a site with a few thousand uniques per day was only a few cents. Considering that a CPU intensive background process will impact negatively upon some of your visitors, is it really worth it?

Happy to be corrected if circumstances have changed since.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very cool. But also basically malware.

<comment><USER5> It's not really malware. You're trading some CPU time for content. You do the same thing with your brain when you visit a website that contains ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if it's possible to accelerate this using WebGL?

</comment><comment><USER6> Google marked it an unsecure website</comment>


World's First RAM Chip [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e2SL56FSAw

<comment><USER2> Heh, as a wet behind the ears engineer I worked on the first computer for IBM that switched late in the design from core to solid state. Saw lots of higher density versions of what he is holding in that video.

Back then our field engineers used to fly with small stacks of these for field replacement in the passenger area of planes. They were called "boms" until some passengers freaked out at overheard conversations. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> That's not a chip.

<comment><USER4> You could say it's 4096 1-bit chips wired together.

<comment><USER5> I'd suggest not. These are not semiconductors. They are tiny toroid ferrite cores with two windings around each--one for reading and one for writing.

<comment><USER4> Of course you probably wouldn't get toroids when chipping from ferrite. On the other hand you wouldn't get semiconductors when chipping from silicon either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was annoyed that they called parity _parody_ in the subtitles.

I was also annoyed that whenever I see subtitles I must read them as I watch the video.

But does put things in perspective doesnt it?</comment>


Braid – A team-chat app with a novel UI for better conversations - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/braidchat/braid <comment><USER2> Hey HN! One of the creators of Braid here.

We started Braid internally in the pre-Slack days (we were using HipChat then), because we felt that "chatrooms" didn't promote good async team workflows. They would lead to a lot of FOMO and constant checking, because if you didn't participate in a conversation at the right time, the topic in a channel would have moved on to something else. We liked the async nature of email more, but, email has it's own baggage.

Our team has been using Braid internally for several years and we're very happy with it. But, compared to Slack, it's best thought of as a prototype / experiment / UI-proof-of-concept, because we don't have the polish and maturity of features that Slack has.

We've had interest from some individuals who "get it", but it's often been hard for those individuals to convert the rest of their teams. If any team here is interested in the Braid concept and wants to give it a serious go, I'm at your disposal, and I'd love to get your feedback so we can keep morphing the product.

The use of "hashtags" in our demos is a bit overdone compared to what happens in practice. It makes it seem like twitter #hastags, but, it's really more like Gmail labels. Braid tags serve the same purpose as Slack's channels, except a given thread can exist in multiple channels (ie. go to multiple teams / individuals) and tags can be added over time (ie. more people can be invited to the conversation).

<comment><USER3> > lead to a lot of FOMO and constant checking

An alternative view - you just let go those conversations - saves time :)

Btw, can you please say a couple of words about the tech? (this is HN after all) - I see it is Clojure (not ClojureScript) - so how do you use it for the front-end?

<comment><USER2> Re: letting them go... I guess it depends on how you use chat. For us, most conversations in Braid are bonafide work conversations that are important and can't be skipped (ex. we run our board meetings asynchronously via Braid, discuss major product decisions, etc.)

The way I see most Slack used most of the time, though -- as a digital watercooler -- I can see why it's fine to skip most conversations.

Re: tech; it's clojurescript front-end; clojure backend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I appreciate that the UI is fresh. I'm tired of the trend of desktop apps not taking advantage of larger screens and instead just shoe-horning mobile "feed" designs into a floating window.

Not convinced that tagging is better than channels for large teams. Seems like there would be an explosion of tags to keep track of.

Disclosure: I work at Microsoft but not on Teams.

<comment><USER5> @mentions could include groups/teams, I guess. Not sure about Braid but they are a thing in slack.

I think a conversation-first comms platform is a brilliant idea (though not sure this fits Braid). Instead of channels that can languish and/or have multiple conversations all jumbled up, you get a new window for a new conversation, even if it's the same group of people. With easy searching and archiving I think it could be great. If it isn't a thing in Braid or wherever else maybe I should shut my mouth and start a product

<comment><USER2> "multiple conversations all jumbled up" is exactly what initially motivated me to start hacking on Braid.

Braid's search is certainly something that can be improved. In practice, it's actually pretty rare to have to fish for something in the archives, because you tend to keep relevant conversations open until you're done with them. (We also have "starring", like in Gmail, so that you can move conversations out of your inbox, but still keep them easily accessible).

On a day-to-day, a good "search" experience might actually be more relevant for slicing-and-dicing through your Inbox (ie. triaging the firehose of daily messages), rather than digging up old messages.

<comment><USER5> I use searching in slack relatively frequently for things like snippets for obscure (yet unexpectedly needed again in the future) shell scripts, or small data items like email addresses or Ids that were sent in a message about a bug or other support issue that my manager/colleague is now asking about 3 weeks later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It looks like things would get hectic and cluttered pretty quick, is the UX designed to use side-scrolling to move between open conversations?

The design seems to think that'll you'll be closing chats to keep things uncluttered, but the chat just pops back up if someone else sends a message to it, so I imagine this would turn communication into a game of whack-a-mole and I'd guess that it would (d)evolve into a few relevant persistent conversations pretty quickly.

Honestly it reminds me of GChat in the GMail client, except I don't get to see my emails while chatting and conversations are cluttered with random hashtags.

<comment><USER7> I think all these chat apps fail at UI. I think we need a chat app that uses a mind map UI. As the conversations progress each thread forks off to create a new node. When messages come in the appropriate node indicates there's a new message. You click the node and a message box pops up to interact with then disappears when you're done. It would be easy to recall items you want to find in the conversation because you'd just look at the nodes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been dissatisfied with Slack for a long while, and feel something more like a threaded forum that supports but does not require synchronous communication would fit my mindset better.

I've been curious about Zulip ([https://zulipchat.com/](https://zulipchat.com/)) for a while, but have yet to use it for anything.

The fact that Braid explicitly calls itself an "email/mailing-list/web- forum/chatroom hybrid" sounds promising to me. That's roughly what I'm wishing for, and is how I've described what I want before.

Does anyone here have hands-on experience with Braid?

More generally, are there other tools you've used or heard of that might fall into that category?

<comment><USER9> we're working on what you're describing with pingpong ([https://usepingpong.com](https://usepingpong.com)). all conversations are threaded, mostly geared for async but can be synchronous if desired. would love to get your feedback on it.

<comment><USER10> That looks very nice, but you probably should include a video of some sorts to get a feel of what it looks like !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This UI assumes I have infinite screen real estate. Slack is usually relegated to a sliver of my screen on the side and gets out of the way for easy app switching. This seems like it always needs the full space to work well given the older style docked gChat/FB message design?

</comment><comment><USER12> >get shit done.

Call me prude, but this kind of copy turns me off to the product.

</comment><comment><USER13> How does this scale to larger teams? The problem with tags is they're free form and up to users to decide what tags to use.

As teams scale, this becomes a process and enforcement issue. The video didn't convince me trading memes for the headache of telling Steve to use this tag hierarchy every time and to not snake case is a worthwhile investment.

<comment><USER2> I hear your concern. Would the ability to "disable auto-creation of tags" solve your problem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Their product overview video is almost four years old and the Github repo has not seen a commit in almost 9 months. What's novel about this?

<comment><USER15> Its relevance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seems like it requires a datomic pro subscription to run it. Interesting they opted for a paid datastore as a backend to this, so you get the cons of having to subscribe to this but then also run redis and the UI yourself. Could be interesting to see a data store you could run yourself to back this up in the roadmap but seems they're focussing on the UI/UX.

Since the UI/UX is the biggest innovation here, I somewhat understand the decision but I'm sure it'll limit adoption by the majority of people that want to host their own chat platform.

<comment><USER2> With "Datomic On-Prem Starter", you can run Braid for free.

[https://www.datomic.com/get-datomic.html](https://www.datomic.com/get- datomic.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been looking for a chat application similar to the original slack (prettified / integrated irc, no need for the various integration and all) but free and self hosted or for a fixed sum rather than a sum per user per month, but I have been disappointed in what I found.

The self hosted version of tools that offer a subscription service like mattermost are very limited in search and archiving, the ones integrated in hardware appliance like synology chat are very limited in admistration capabilities (moderation, permissions,...).

Did I miss an offering somewhere or is this a still open area?

Main needs 1-1 chats, channels, permission per user per channel, full logs and search, administrative view and archiving over all exchange

</comment><comment><USER18> Card style chats feel a bit limited in 2020. I'd like to see full-window chats with the conversations I've subscribed to in the left panel. Like Slack but everything is a channel or a combination of channels.

</comment><comment><USER19> The concept is interesting to me, and I'm trying to watch the demo video ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeH-8_PUXPk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeH-8_PUXPk)) and the music is the background here seems like a horrible choice, starting at about 19 seconds, that synth piano noise, is really not something you want as part of a voice over.

I think its a novel concept, that needs a lot of polish, but that video ouch that was rough.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't understand... the novel UI here is multi-window chat?

</comment><comment><USER21> The main website is not on HTTPS. That doesn't exactly instill confidence in the security of the product.

</comment><comment><USER22> This reminds me of TweetDeck, with many many streams opened at once. While the concept sounds interesting, it quickly becomes very cluttered to the eyes. I think the main problem stems from the necessity to monitor chats horizontally but read each chat vertically.

</comment><comment><USER23> I always liked Twist and Spectrum for their threaded first nature. Is the goal of this radical UI choice to make multiple conversations visible at the same time or something else? It looks overwhelming to me while those felt fine for most use cases.

</comment><comment><USER24> That's Facebook's UI for chats. And it's useless IMO.

</comment><comment><USER25> Voice with quality transcriptions is the future.

It keeps the nuance and emotion present, can be async (think leaving voicemails) and is searchable.

</comment><comment><USER26> I feel like "chat apps" have reached peak innovation. It can't get any better than discord/slack/mattermost.

Braid looks like it's trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. If anything it adds more problems than it solves. Instead of navigating to a general channel for "marketing", now I have to remember some hashtag that an intern created to recall that exact conversation.

This is no different than message threads within a channel and just searching by keywords.

<comment><USER27> I haven't used mattermost, but discord at least is awful. It's a battery hog, the VoIP usually doesn't work, and I don't think the actual chatting experience is significantly better than IRC except for inline images which is, I'll admit, a nice feature.

Otherwise the only thing discord has going for it is the network effect.

If image support and emoji are considered "peak innovation" then MSN Messenger beat them to it a decade ago.

<comment><USER28> > the VoIP usually doesn't work

I don't understand this, Discord is one of the most reliable voice chatting applications I've used. Honestly I wish MS Teams would implement voice channels similar to Discord. It would be so much nicer to just drop into a voice channel instead of sending out invites for a meeting.

<comment><USER27> Are we using the same application? I've literally never, not a single time, tried to use Discord's VOIP without either me or someone in the channel being unable to broadcast/hear the others. We're all running bog-standard Windows 10 machines with USB peripherals.

<comment><USER28> Apparently we must not be. I have an Arctis 7 headset and I can take the transceiver and move it from my main rig to my work machine and even my phone... it works straight away and I don't need to configure anything.

Not that I've needed to do it, but have you tried disabling all of your unused audio input/output devices on your computer? If you don't use things like line or mic in on your motherboard, disable them. It gives Discord less things to try to bind to.

<comment><USER27> Does it seem like "peak innovation" has been reached if I have to disable audio devices on my motherboard the way I haven't had to since using the original Teamspeak back in the early aughts?

It's not just me, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As a teenager I played text based MMO and a clan could be several hundred people, all organised via forum irc and IM...

</comment><comment><USER30> How do I get rid of the debug pane on the right? It's a little intrusive when I'm just trying to poke around.

<comment><USER2> Ctrl-H , or, in project.clj, remove the line ":preloads [day8.re- frame-10x.preload]" and restart the REPL.

<comment><USER30> Thank you, I'll try that. Appreciate the response.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Looks like boosted upvotes here

Not really solving any problems I have with chat, seems it actually creates more chaos than slack</comment>


Why Progressive Web App (PWA) Is the Future of Ecommerce? - <AUTHOR> What is the secret sauce of PWA and how it conquered the space of evolving online shopper? <comment><USER2> Within the e-commerce niche, conversions matter the most - how you convert a window shopper into an actual buyer. This means removing all sorts of friction points. Turns out PWA is really good at page load and it works just fine.

Flipkart, a major e-commerce firm in India, increased its conversions by 70% just through their PWA approach: [https://developers.google.com/web/showcase/2016/flipkart](https://developers.google.com/web/showcase/2016/flipkart)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There are several reasons why PWA is gaining more traction in ecommerce these days.

Some of their benefits include its numerous advantage offered for the end- users like no installation required for having the app on a smartphone. It enables to

1) Add the app to the home screen 2) Provides native app-like experience 3) Quick loading in the blink of an eye 4) Less data consumption 5) Offline functionality using service workers 6) Easy maintainable

For getting more info about the benefits: [https://www.purchasecommerce.com/blog/progressive-web- apps-f...](https://www.purchasecommerce.com/blog/progressive-web-apps-future- ecommerce)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Read to know more from here: [https://www.purchasecommerce.com/blog/progressive-web- apps-f...](https://www.purchasecommerce.com/blog/progressive-web-apps-future- ecommerce)</comment>


Ask YC: Would you partner with a domainer for your startup? - <AUTHOR>

Let's say I have an offer from a domainer to use a very, very good domain (worth >1 million) to develop a site. The logic is, it's easier to sell a developed website than just a domain; we would share the profits. I already developed the technology; it would be almost plug and play.
The problem is, he controls the domain, so nothing would stop him from putting his own website full of ads or something once the traffic gets high, leaving me with nothing. It's an issue of trust mainly - I'm not really familiar with contracts and stuff like that.
The startup would require about 5000 USD per month of fixed costs, so it would require VC capital. Do you think this kind of partnership would be seen as problematic for getting VC funding?
Thanks for your help :) <comment><USER2> write up a good contract and have it signed, possibly with some sort of clause to revisit the agreement after a year to see where things are. if its broken, take legal action.

if you're going to require a VC deal, then this won't be a simple case of him letting you use the domain, as most any company worth its salt won't allow such an easy failure point if the domain name plays such a big part of this working. there will be some legal bindings in there for at least some length of time.

</comment><comment><USER3> you should contact a lawyer and put everything on paper ... you will form a company and company will own all the stuff (including domain) - you and your partner will own the shares of the company - it will also say how to split the revenue and who will get how much if the domain is sold out - it will also say about the other exit strategies ... so don't worry, just do it legally with good lawyer involved.</comment>


Ask HN: Life after corporate job - <AUTHOR> I'm a guy, late 30s, 20+ years of programming experience. Active developer in C++, C, Python, Java presently (also Perl, Javascript, PostScript, Clojure, PHP, Fortran, build systems, Linux).
I've been in big corporate (investment bank) environments for 10+ years. Overall, it has been great, I learnt a lot about large-scale systems and governance, traveled the word, all that stuff. I have realized that I'm approaching the end of the road with this line of work, and I want to get back to actual hacking on something more manageable again.
I want to be building up something of long-term value (to me) over time. I have had a few little side-projects carved out over the years where I can just work on one well-defined thing, like rewrite an old system with the same interfaces but 10x faster, and I did well with those projects.
How can I start, or be involved in, something more rewarding? I did start an ecommerce based side-business a few years ago, I learnt a lot, but I think dealing with consumer-facing things, marketing, and customer service issues is not for me.
https://www.edg.com/company https://artifex.com/products-ghostscript-technology/
These are small companies I'm aware of that have an very niche problem that they are the best solution for, and license to bigger companies that deal with all the issues of building and supporting a product for consumers / end user.
I do see problems in my day job that could be solved more efficiently, but not things that seem buildable by an individual or small team. Unfortunately, I've been in massive corporates for so long that the only ideas I get from my day-job are for various kinds of "enterprise software".
I would love to hear about anyone that has made this transition themselves. Perhaps you have an idea you can't pursue yourself, but might suit me. Also, if anyone thinks they can benefit from my knowledge / experience from a corporate environment for their projects in anyway, let me know. <comment><USER2> I've started on a journey like this, and I have settled on the idea of writing short eBooks, guides and eventually full length books. However I am also learning about digital marketing (encompassing social media / SEO etc.) so that I have a chance of seeing some success and sales. I am taking this a step at a time, so I am creating an information site for a popular programming language. I am already finding writing challenging, because I now know a bit more about marketing and I want to make sure I don't just create content, but that people read it! That means that unlike this comment, I will be writing and rewriting and crafting blog posts.

I am finding this exciting because it is different from coding, but I get to use and share my coding knowledge and help other people. Even if I make little or no money, doing this kind of work might help position myself in a better role the next time I need to look for a new job, or help me advance in my current job. So I see it as a form of hedging - I might make an income to quit the job, or if not it will still help me in my career, by improving my written communication and my understanding of programming. The reason it will improve my programming is because you have to really understand something well to write about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's cool, I hope it works out for you! I've thought about this kind of thing too.

I think for most mainstream programming languages, the market for books, blogs, tutorials, youtube channels is pretty much saturated. However, I have worked with several proprietary / vendor products over the years that have perfunctory documentation, not much in the way of a user community, where serious users end up having to experiment + reverse engineer things to get it working well.

I think it could be interesting to become a third party "expert" for such a product, blog about tips and tricks, offer training and consulting, write books, etc. I guess it's the same as what you're doing, just not for a "popular programming language", but for something slightly specialized but still actively used.

<comment><USER2> Yes indeed, while the market for say Python books is saturated, there might be room for a Python for X, where X is some shared characteristic. E.g. Python lessons to prepare for a coding Bootcamp.

The vendor product idea sounds good. I think the money there is from consulting or software products, as the book won't sell in volume. However the book can position you as the expert so people buy other things from you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have a comparable background to yours. More in the architecture / engineering / BPR space. Most of my programming experience came from the earlier days before I worked my way up the ranks. Nevertheless, at first I had similar problems adjusting to not thinking along enterprise systems lines.

I ended up teaching university masters level courses as an adjunct. There is a lack of lecturers with extensive industry experience, especially at enterprise scale. Being in that space has also opened up some interesting consulting opportunities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I have thought about trying my hand at some teaching / mentoring.

How did you get into being an adjunct? I have absolutely no idea how to approach something that, but I would be pretty interested to try it. I don't actually have a CS degree / academic background, would that be much of a problem?

The only things I've seen like this when I've looked have been coding bootcamp or high school level stuff, which doesn't really appeal to me.

<comment><USER3> I have a computer engineering degree and have worked for several multinational companies. And I have previously lectured CS whilst doing a part-time masters - which I didn't complete.

I have no knowledge of what it would take for somebody without some academic credentials to teach. But there is no harm in giving it a go. Universities, in general, are keen to build links with industry.

Your skills, knowledge and experience are far above the level at which boot camp courses are taught. It is very hard for people with advanced knowledge to teach entry level learners, there is just too much that we take for granted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Try looking in the Higher Ed space.

I have a BS in CS&E. My first eight years of employment after college were at a US publicly-traded company. After that, I moved to my current position.

Although the Higher Ed space does not lack the politics that you find in the corporate world, I enjoy the knowledge that you are likely serving a greater good, while still maintaining a steady income. It's also fun going to campus events, and in general watching undergraduate antics from the sidelines (such as [https://twitter.com/californiaKARL/status/723323393353764864](https://twitter.com/californiaKARL/status/723323393353764864)).

For example, check out this position: [https://careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/software- developer-3-...](https://careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/software- developer-3-1461) It's probably too limiting for you, but I know the group that has this position open, and they fill a very enterprise-y need: Taking feeds from multiple "I am the authoritative record of a person" sources, and merging it into an _actual_ source of truth for people and accounts (computer accounts) records.

</comment><comment><USER5> > How can I start, or be involved in, something more rewarding?

Absolutely fascinating question, but sadly not one I personally have the answer to, because I think only you do.

EDG looks very interesting - but I wonder how much business they actually do though? I also notice they do work with Dinkumware ([http://www.dinkumware.com/](http://www.dinkumware.com/)) - God that is a blast from the past!

I guess just keep trying small projects and following interesting ideas and companies - something will grab you in the end.</comment>


A rare interview with the mathematician who cracked Wall Street - <AUTHOR> https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_simons_a_rare_interview_with_the_mathematician_who_cracked_wall_street?language=en <comment><USER2> A longer interview at [http://wn.com/james_simons_(full_length_interview)_-_numberp...](http://wn.com/james_simons_\(full_length_interview\)_-_numberphile)

<comment><AUTHOR> It took me 17 years to achieve a working model...and at the end, it became so simplistic...no need of complex mathematical theorem...the bare minimum... so easy, a 9 year old could process it in a few minutes...</comment></comment>


BlueHost, HostGator and HostMonster down - <AUTHOR>

I have VPS with multiple client websites hosted on HostGator. Should I move or should I stay? <comment><USER3> It's hard to say, but I just did a write up about what we saw in our data: [http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2013/08/03/service- interrupted-...](http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2013/08/03/service-interrupted- a-look-at-the-eig-bluehost-hostgator-hostmonster-justhost-outage-through- twitter/)

tl;dr: companies have outages, big ones seem to regress to the mean. There are companies that are liked a lot more though.

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://twitter.com/hostgator](https://twitter.com/hostgator)

[https://twitter.com/bluehost](https://twitter.com/bluehost)

[http://enduranceresponse.com/](http://enduranceresponse.com/)

Looks like many sites are coming back online.

</comment><comment><USER5> It appears to be a network issue that is affecting all of them, I would therefore assume that it's an issue on their upstream transit providers, or if they share a data centre then it could be a localised network/power issue.

<comment><USER3> They are all owned by EIG and are in the same data center.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Definitely down: [http://mashable.com/2013/08/02/bluehost- down/](http://mashable.com/2013/08/02/bluehost-down/)

</comment><comment><USER6> First: what the heck is going on & how is this possible? Second: Note - <USER2> sites are not down. So who the heck is THEIR server? ; )

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm using HostGator on 1 of my sites, and can confirm it's NOT down. Are you sure it's just you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am pretty sure it's just you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes. Move to a VPS provider that has never been down.

</comment><comment><USER9> JustHost was down as well. It came back online now.</comment>