Ask HN: Applications or best practices to ensure data security on a Macintosh - <AUTHOR>

I'm a relatively new Mac user, and I'm taking my Mac traveling for the first time.
I'm very interested in how other people keep data secure, backed up, and protected in case of theft.
Do you use Filevault?  Some kind of security application? Mac OS native tools? Rsync backups?
Looking forward to hearing about how everyone is handling this. <comment><USER2> There is a great utility called "LittleSnitch" that is a must have for the mac. It alerts you of all outgoing TCP connections. It lets you know what programs are calling home.

</comment><comment><USER3> Use the Keychain Access utility (/Applications/Utilities) to store things that are really important, and use applications that are aware of the Keychain. This encrypts only a small amount of data, yet the system prompts you when an application tries to access it without permission.

I haven't really given FileVault a fair shot, but after I heard years ago that (the first version of) it had a bug that could make user data unrecoverable, I wasn't eager to try it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Filevault is okay for protecting your data from being stolen when your laptop is. It only encrypts your home directory, so you have no assurance about the integrity of the rest of your system. If you're only worried about getting your laptop stolen, not a big deal. On the other hand, if you're super paranoid that someone came in and tainted your system when you were away from your computer for 10 minutes, maybe you want a different solution.

Of course, usual advice applies (strong passwords, including the master password if you set it)

</comment><comment><USER5> Knox for encrypted volumes. That, and don't put anything on it you wouldn't be okay with losing...</comment>


How can I explain to clients that rankings can't be guaranteed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zGjcf6Snw <comment><USER2> I wonder if anyone at Facebook said: "How are we going to be #1 on google for 'social networking site'?"

<comment><USER3> Good point. And not that Perez Hilton should by any means be a gauge for all websites' traffic, this is telling:

"The analysts at Hitwise claim that celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton now gets more traffic from Facebook than from Google – more than 7 million pageviews from Facebook alone." <http://www.copyblogger.com/facebook-killing- seo/>

Essentially, depending on your (or your clients') business, product, and industry, it may be smarter to optimize for Facebook (or any other site, for that matter) than Google. It all goes back to that big Marketing question: who is the target audience and where do they live?</comment></comment>


Evaluating Amazon's EC2 Micro Instances at DocumentCloud - <AUTHOR> http://blog.documentcloud.org/blog/2010/09/evaluating-amazons-ec2-micro-instances/

<comment><USER2> From our point of view, the real value of micro instances is architectural. For tasks where the load is small but important (queue servers, memcache instances, monitoring), where before we might have had one small instance and a potential point of failure, we can now afford to have two micros, simultaneously providing redundancy and halving the price (micro = 1/4 small).

This is especially important in AWS, as the dirty secret of small instances is that they occasionally vanish without warning -- in our case this has happened 4 times in 18 months.

<comment><USER3> When they vanish without warning, do they take the EBS with them?

Is having your OS on an EBS (as is required for micro) a dangerous thing, because the instance vanishing without warning might result in a corrupted EBS drive, making restoration more complicated than spinning up a new instance?

<comment><USER4> I've had the same experience with smalls as the parent poster. No EBS loss though. The larger instances do seem more stable. No quantitative data to back that up though.

<comment><USER2> I don't know if 75+ instances over 18 months is large enough to count as quantitative data, but we've never lost a large instance (they've had temporary failures). All four of the permanent vanishing-acts were smalls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most important characteristic of a micro instance is not the raw performance per se but how the workload is distributed. It's not suitable for a task where a a steady performance is required, micro instance designed for short but intensive burst. AWS monitors micro instances and degred performance when needed to allow other instances to run. Right now there are not that many micro instances are in use, probably they are not as strict but this will change at the future for sure. For more info check they documentation: [http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/DeveloperGui...](http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/DeveloperGuide/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Take a peek at the "Real" versus "User" numbers in the linked post. We were expecting to see that Micros perform well for short but intensive bursts, but that wasn't the case.

When the Micro went to OCR 51 pages of document text, it spent only 6 minutes of actual CPU time to do it. Unfortunately, those 6 minutes of CPU time were spread over a real wait of 52 minutes, due to either other users on the machine, or Amazon caps. That's not so great for an intensive burst.

Perhaps it would work if the CPU burst lasted for seconds instead of minutes, but I wouldn't bet on it. It would be a nice benchmark to try...

<comment><USER5> In the AWS documentation an optimal burst is like in the 200ms range, not even seconds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for looking that up. I wonder what sort of intermittent CPU-intensive tasks are a good fit for that size of a burst. Are you using the Micros in this fashion?

<comment><USER5> I haven't found an application which is following that pattern yet. Probably running a proxy in front of a bunch of micro instances is a good idea, that will distribute the load evenly why adding the required redundancy and speed improvement over small instances.

<comment><USER6> A website with almost no users is going to need to execute every now and then for only 200ms at a time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Micro instances are great if you want to spend the least amount possible and don't mind sacrificing raw speed. You are paying a penalty of having a quarter of the processing power of a Medium instance. Oddly, though, the CPU in a Micro is about 15-20% faster than the Medium instance, but when looking at the CPU time versus Real elapsed times, you can see how Amazon is holding back the power.

<comment><USER8> Is there any benefit to using ec2 Micro instances over the smaller Rackspace Cloud offerings ([http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers...](http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers/pricing)), unless you need to scale the Amazon way? I'm deciding between both currently to replace a dedicated server for a few of my low traffic sites.

<comment><USER9> Storage. AWS gives you EBS volumes, of practically unlimited size. With Rackspace, you get the size you get, 40GB, 80GB, etc, and have to pay for a bigger instance if you want more storage. There's cloudfiles, but its not as useful as mounted disks.

<comment><USER10> EBS is bounded at 1TB / volume. Then you have to stripe.

<comment><USER11> But the point is that you can do that. With Rackspace, you get X amount of storage, and that's the end of it. If you're getting full, your only option is to get a server with twice the RAM and disk at twice the price.

With EC2, I can have a server half the price of Rackspace's cheapest instance, but with theoretically unlimited storage space. I could use that e.g. for backing up server data, or as an NFS share.

The one major limitation of Rackspace's service is disk space. It's severely limited, and there's not much you can do about it.

<comment><USER12> Small correction: there's a fairly low limit to how many volumes you can attach to an EC2 instance. Available storage is very high, but not "theoretically unlimited".

<comment><USER9> Thats why I said "practically unlimited".

You get /dev/sd[b-p][1-15] as mountable EBS volumes. Thats (15 * 15) * 1TB, or about 225TB. You may even be able to go higher than "p", but I haven't tried. I'm also not sure, you may even be able to attach somewhere other than /dev/sd* .

Either way, after that, your EBS bill is $22,500/mo, just for storage, so you might be able to figure something else out for that cost.

But you CAN attach that to a $14/mo EC2 instance, which was my original point.

Edited to add:

 _Note that the default limit is 20 EBS volumes per EC2 account. You can request an increase from Amazon if you need more._ [http://groups.google.com/group/ec2ubuntu/web/raid-0-on- ec2-e...](http://groups.google.com/group/ec2ubuntu/web/raid-0-on-ec2-ebs- volumes-elastic-block-store-using-mdadm)

Still, 20TB is "practically unlimited", for most applications.

<comment><USER12> In my experience a volume can only be attached to /dev/sd[b-p], so it's a 15TB limit per instance. If what you say is true, that would be great news. I'm testing it right now.

Also, in response to your question: I can confirm that EC2 complains if you try going above sdp, or anywhere else.

<comment><USER9> I know that the Centos and Ubuntu AMIs don't know anything above /dev/sdp, but I haven't tried any others. I have tried /dev/sd1 through /dev/sdd15 and /dev/sde1-4, and that works fine on Canonical's official 10.04 AMI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> the problem with benchmarking a virtual instance's CPU is that how much you get varies quite a bit based on your weight and how much contention you have.

If you have a system with 512MiB ram on a box and a system with 2048Mib ram on the same box, and they each have 1 vcpu, and they are weighted appropriately, when the cpu is idle, the 512 system will have just as much cpu as the 2048MiB system. When there is contention, the weighting will step in and give the 2048MiB system more CPU, though.

(of course, I believe that amazon does not mix instance sizes. Even so, assuming an even ram to cpu ratio, which is a pretty good assumption, the 2048MiB ram system on a system full of 2048MiB guests will have much better worst case performance than a 512MiB guest on a system with a similar ram/cpu ratio, even though if they both have 1 vcpu their best case performance will be about the same, assuming the cpu cores on each hardware are of similar speed.)

Really, if you are going for imperial data, you should do it the way Eivind Uggedal did it. He repeatedly ran a benchmark and recorded results over a very long period of time. Doing it just once is going to get you a pretty random result, and on average, is going to make a small instance look much better (cpu wise) than it is in the worst case, and really, you usually have to design for something fairly close to the worst case.

</comment><comment><USER14> Would be nice to have the output of some simple bash-oneliner that does some simple cpu speed test. So everybody could compare the speed of their VMs on different providers.

<comment><USER7> I provided the command that I used to test the Micro instance on DocumentCloud's server. The only requirement would be to install Docsplit

        sudo gem install docsplit

Then just `time` the runtime and compare.

<comment><USER14> "gem install docsplit" gives me this:

-bash: gem: command not found

<comment><USER7> It's RubyGems - <http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/3>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It was nice to see that someone could test these with real-world usage, but I was disappointed by the quality of the results. I didn't see mention of the number of runs performed on each instance or the standard deviation of the results.

The article made it sound like they only ran it once on each instance, which means there are many factors that could have affected the results such as disk caching, other processes, or high load.

As one of my physics professors uses to say (paraphrased): A measurement is meaningless without an estimate of the error (+/- 0 meaning).</comment>


Pronunciations for hexadecimal numbers (1968) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/lizhenry/status/1165760903809130496 <comment><USER2> In French, and more specifically French as spoken in some areas in Switzerland, there is a very natural way of pronouncing hex numbers:

1 to F are the normal 'un' to 'quinze'. A is 'dix'.

10 is 'seize'. 11 is 'seize et un' etc. Until 1F which is `seize et quinze'.

20 to 2F are 'vingt' until 'vingt et quinze'.

Etc.

70, 80 and 90 are called 'septante', 'huitante' (Swiss-specific) and 'nonante'.

A0 is 'dixante', then we have 'onzante', 'douzante', 'treizante', 'quatorzante' and 'quinzante'.

100 is 'cent', and from there normal rules apply.

Etc.

So B78D would be 'onze mille sept cents huitante treize'.

Note that 'soixante dix' is 6A, _not_ 70.

<comment><USER3> I see no reason this couldn't be applied to English. "-nz(e)", etc. is akin to "-teen", and beyond that it should be exactly the same, with septante/seventy, huitante/eighty, and nonante/ninety being the popular English versions (unlike e.g. Metropolitan French).

B78D: Eleven Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty Thirteen

See also Tolkien's famous hobbit's birthday party.

<comment><USER4> I love this system, but how do you deal with the ambiguity around "ten"?

        9: nine
        A: ten?
        B: eleven
        ...
        10: ten?
        20: twenty
        30: thirty

<comment><USER5>
        9: nine
        A: ten
        B: eleven
        ...
        10: hexTen
        20: hexTwenty
        30: hexThirty
        ...
        100: hexHundred

My issue is that 1000 is hexThousand, but when working with hex numbers, its far more logical to group them in 4s.

0x10000 is a number more deserving of a name than 0x1000.

In effect, I want to call 0x10000 as "hex-thousand" (correlating to the number where 16-bits overflow). And 0x100000000 as "hex-million" (correlating to the 32-bit overflow number).

Of course, that leaves 0x1000 and 0x1000000 as ambiguous.

<comment><USER6> 'Myriad', via Greek¹. (Apparently though, 'myria‐' was a pre-SI metric prefix for ×10000⏨, so I'm afraid someone will come along and insist on 'myribi‐', and I'll have to smack them.)

¹ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000#Name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000#Name)

<comment><USER5> Interesting.

Myriad shares similarities to "Million". So maybe Myriad / Biriad / Trilliad / Quadrilliad will scale into the higher orders.

Hmm, maybe I'll make this a thing.

<comment><USER7> Not to be confused with the long-scale numbers: milliard/billiard/trilliard

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Much less interesting but I've worked in teams where "zillion" is a shorthand for "followed by all the zeroes that fit in a word of the size we're talking about". So 8 zillion is 0x80000000 if we're talking about a 32 bit address space.

<comment><USER9> That's weird because 3 zillion is more than 28 zillion.

<comment><USER10> And one zillion equals ten zillions...

<comment><USER11> And also one hundred zillions, and even one zillion zillions.

<comment><USER12> Yeah ok, we got thay from the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The extra digit names flow well, but I think shoehorning it into the same constructions English decimal numbers use doesn't, mostly because the "-ty"/"-teen" suffixes are too tied both etymologically and phonetically to being "ten". If I say the word "eighteen", making it 0x18 in one context and XVIII in another is close in plausible applicability and far in exact meaning, which is about the worst case for avoiding misunderstandings. In fact I have a vague recollection of my computer architecture instructor back in undergrad warning us about exactly that regarding hexadecimal numbers: do not ever be tempted to pronounce them as though they were decimal, even if all the digits fit into the pattern.

There might be ways to fix that with variants of those suffixes, though my first thought of "-xy"/"-xeen" might be too hard to distinguish in a noisy auditory environment.

<comment><USER14> Isn't an issue what the words for numbers mean?

Does thousand mean the quantity itself or does it mean the decimal 1000?

In other words thousand = 1000 (dec) and 0x3E8 (hex). Are they both pronounced "thousand"? When someone says mix a thousand liters of glycol with ten kilograms of salt, both 1000 (dec) and 0x3E8 (hex) mean "thousand" each of something.

The only way to get around this is if every whole number on the number line had a unique name and could be represented by any numbering system.

<comment><USER15> If someone said to me 'one thousand base sixteen' I would think '=> 1000_16 => 0x1000'; certainly not that they were converting all numbers to base ten solely for the purpose of speech.

Thus, I agree with you, there's value in making digits beyond 9 pronouncable for higher bases (if dealing with them enough to make devising the system worthwhile of course).

<comment><USER16> I would think exactly the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> These are quite silly things. Firstly, why invent words instead of just using the ltters. Obviously A creates an ambiguity with "eight", but other than that, things are fine. Perhaps A should be "aye".

The "teen" suffix is wrong; it specifically means "ten". For instance thirteen means three+ten, so it is inappropriate to pronounce 0x13 as "thirteen". So that is to say, the pronunciation issue does not begin at 1A; we shouldn't call 0x19 "nineteen", but something else.

Similarly 0x30 shouldn't be "thirty" because that word means three times ten.

There shouldn't be any common words between hex pronunciation and decimal that denote a different integer. If we say "hundred" and the context is really clear, it can be understood as 0x100, but the context isn't always clear. Attaching "hex" after every ambiguous wording ("hundred thirty-one hex" for 0x131) is verbose. How about:

       8: eight
       9: nine
       A: aye
       B: bee
       C: cee
       ...
       F: eff
      10: hex
      11: heven
      12: helve
      13: thirex
      14: forex
      15: fivex
      16: sixex
      17: sevex
      18: eightex
      19: ninex
      1A: ayex
      1B: behex
      ..
      1F: efex

      20: twexy
      30: trixy
      40: foxy
      50: fixy
      60: sixy
      70: sepsy
      80: oxy
      90: noxy
      A0: ayesy
      B0: beezy
      C0: ceezy
      D0: deezy
      E0: eezy
      F0: efzy

      100: hent (from "cent")
      1000: hil (from "mil")
      10000: han (from 万 (man))
      100000000: hoku (from 億 (oku))

      0xDEADBEEF:  deezy-ee-hent ayesy-dee han beezy-ee-hent eezy-eff.

      0xF00FCBB0:  efzy-hent-eff han, ceezy-bee-hent beezy.

</comment><comment><USER18> Would anyone please help me understand the benefits of this? :).

This approach (and other approaches proposed in this thread) seems to add complexity but it's not that much better than just reading the characters normally.

> B78D would be 'onze mille sept cents huitante treize'

Or just read it: B, 7, 8, D. To space out a long hex number, read it in group of 4, with a pause.

The approach, other than it's not being shorter, also risks miscommunication due to the receiver might not be familiar with it, or due to the sound system has multiple very similar sounds (but totally will change the meaning when misheard) like -teen and -ty.

<comment><USER19> Don't you think that's a bit of a strawman? The user is explaining how that number is pronounced in their native Swiss French. Clearly nobody is suggesting you have to learn French to say some numbers.

<comment><USER18> I think this might be the disconnect between us. From my point of view as a non-native English speaker, the approach proposed in the tweet and that Swiss French system both requires the user to learn a new system. To me, both of that carry more drawbacks than just reading the hex character by character, in a group of 4.

I can give an example using the system in the tweet:

2F3E: twenty frost thirty ernest -- longer to read, 7 sounds.

2F3E: 2, F, 3, E -- shorter to read, 4 sounds.

Looking at that, I don't see the benefits and trade offs of that new complexity, and that's why I asked for help :)

<comment><USER20> I also prefer just reading off the short version; either in sets of (up to) 4 or 2, depending on the application.

For a mac address I'd not summarize and just read it off in 6 pairs.

For the example representation address on the wikipedia page... 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address) )

Two Zero Zero One Colon Delta Bravo Eight Colon Eight Five Alpha Three Colon (pause) Colon Eight Alpha Two Echo Colon Three Seven Zero Colon Seven Three Three Four.

The part in the middle might need a better way of announcing, but given the double digits in other parts of the address it seems more natural to read it as a string of characters than to alter it.

<comment><USER21> You missed a colon but yeah. (I would just pronounce a single zero in between the colons instead of pausing to be extra clear)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't like this system so much, but there are other systems for hexadecimal pronouncing. I like the hex intuitor system, which uses "tex" for 0x10 and "ten" for 0xA.

I have also seen other systems of representing the digits for hexadecimal, such as Nystrom's system (which also includes pronounciation).

And now, looking at Wikipedia, there are more. (The hex intuitor system I mentioned above is also called the Rogers system.)

<comment><USER23> [http://www.intuitor.com/hex/words.html](http://www.intuitor.com/hex/words.html)

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

Do you have more links?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> See also [http://www.bzarg.com/p/how-to-pronounce- hexadecimal/](http://www.bzarg.com/p/how-to-pronounce-hexadecimal/)

<comment><USER25> I was about to post the same link! In case you didn't click the link it is from the show Silicon Valley and has the following number words:

      0xA_ : Atta
      0xB_ : Bibbity
      0xC_ : City
      0xD_ : Dickety
      0xE_ : Ebbity
      0xE_ : Fleventy

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I totally fail the point of this article. Why not just say A, B, C, D, E, F as the letters that they are? Works perfectly fine.

1F is just a two-syllable word. Just like "fiftysix" is.

<comment><USER27> I agree with you, sort of, in that if we're inventing a new system we may as well make it more intuitive for base 0x10 numbers while we're at it. At the very least we need something like the thousands separator, otherwise something like 0x10000000 becomes very difficult to say. Perhaps just use "word" as the suffix for (2^4)^4 sized groups. [1] And then "biword", "triword", "quadword", etc. So 0x10000000 would become "one aught aught aught word".

But then you start to see the advantage of named systems, because you end up saying "aught" or "zero" a lot to distinguish "0xA" from "0xA0" within words. "A salary of one aught aught word" doesn't seem as easy to me as "a salary of one hundred thousand". So perhaps something ought to be done about 0x10 and 0x100, even if we only use them in situations that can be abbreviated like that. Maybe 0x10 is "hex", so "base 0x10" becomes literally read as "base hex".

[1] Of course this fixes a meaning for how many bytes are in a word, which a lot of people aren't going to be happy with. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> AC is annty-christ

<comment><USER29> Of course it is! I never knew of these.

Such a computing lire, gem. I am going to say these first chance I get.

<comment><USER30> Stay F0 out there...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> That might be one of the earliest examples of someone trying to give names to hex numbers (if I remember correctly, Knuth's TAoCP might've also contained one), but this is one of the earlier pages I remember coming across on the Internet about it: [http://www.intuitor.com/hex/words.html](http://www.intuitor.com/hex/words.html)

</comment><comment><USER32> Remind me of Boby's "bibi-binary" :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibi- binary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibi-binary)

</comment><comment><USER33> It's amazing what naming conventions are used over time. In the 70's/early 80's "~" was (at least in programming circles in the UK) called a swan-hyphen, today it is often called a tilde. Though I'm sure it has many other names that have come and gone throughout the fashion of time.

<comment><USER34> A fact which may be related is that Unicode contains a character which is in effect a lengthened tilde character, called U+2053 SWUNG DASH: ⁓

Therefore, might your "swan hyphen" be a corruption of an original term "swung hyphen"?

<comment><USER33> Interesting, it may well have some bearing upon the UNICODE naming which came about in 1991, which would be around the time that it's usage for "~" seemed to wane out of use.

"#" was another one with many names that have consolidated over time, been decades since heard anybody refer to it as a checkerboard, which was never as elegant and can see why "hash" became the norm.

<comment><USER35> Unless it's on twitter, it's still either a "pound" or "octothorp" to me, depending on context. Hash is a breakfast food.

<comment><USER34> _This list derives from revision 2.3 of the Usenet ASCII pronunciation guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order; character pairs are sorted in by first member. For each character, common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI /CCITT names are surrounded by brokets: <>. Square brackets mark the particularly silly names introduced by INTERCAL._

 _# Common: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; crunch ; hex; [mesh]. Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe; flash; <square>, pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; splat._

[http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/ASCII.html](http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/ASCII.html)

So, according to the above, the most common name for # is "number sign", and the officiall ANSI/CCITT term is "square".

Also, in the 1975 movie _Three Days of the Condor_ , the term "symbol for number" is used, presumably referring to #.

<comment><USER35> I learned # from my father, who introduced me to electronics as a lad by bringing a broken Telex machine home from work. He called it "pound," and it stuck with me.

Also, I remember * being "splat" back in my PR1MOS and Vax days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Some friends and I wrote something similar as satire during undergrad. It's ridiculous, but I was (and still am) pleased how it rolls off the tongue.

[http://web.mit.edu/kade/www/misc/ieee4919.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/kade/www/misc/ieee4919.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER37> Also in 1968, the french singer — and hobbyist mathematician — Boby Lapointe ¹ proposed a graphical representation and pronunciation system for hexadecimal numbers, named bibi-binary ². The pronunciation part is based on the combinations of 4 consonants (HBKD) with 4 vowels (OAEI). It's probably less practical than a system relying on similarities with words for native numbers, but it was probably more of an artsy experiment and it produces shorter (and maybe funnier) results.

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

² [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibi- binary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibi-binary)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'll have to tell my A01C about these.

And while we're talking hex semantics, is it just me being old, or do lower case letters in hex values bother anyone else?

The only time I've been OK with this is when I've had to work with machines that only have seven-segment displays.

<comment><USER38> I tend to prefer lowercase since it reduces the number of confusable characters, especially in handwriting (8/B, 0/D, 4/A), but I can understand that numbers might typographically or semantically _feel_ uppercase, so lowercase A-F creates a MIxEd cASe looK.

Is uppercase the older tradition? I'm ~30yo and I've been seeing both for as long as I remember.

<comment><USER35> In my experience, it was always upper case until around the time CSS was introduced. The article pictured has it in upper case and it's from 1968.

<comment><USER39> HTML was as well, before CSS became commonplace. I still reflexively do it on occasion when writing a root page (html/head/title/body tags).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'll pronounce numbers like 0xF000 as "F thousand"

</comment><comment><USER41> Ok, but I'm still pronouncing DEADF007 as "dead foot".

</comment><comment><USER42> There's got to be some origin for those particular names - were they just lab partners or something? I need to know!

<comment><USER43> Last night I wrote to Robert Magnusson (the author of the 1968 article) to ask him. Hope he writes back!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Did you notice the line "A01C annty christeen". I thought 616 (268 base 16) was that number. We need to talk.

</comment><comment><USER45> Wonder why they let "Ernest" into this scheme, with two syllables when all the others have one.

<comment><USER46> Wonder why they let "Seven" into this scheme, with two syllables when all the others have one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Didn't Malcolm Gladwell talk about how the Chinese names for numbers were were closer to their place values and therefore less confusing for calculations?

e.g. "50" is "five-tens" instead of "fifty"

<comment><USER48> Que? "Fifty" _is_ "five-tens", numerically, semantically, and etymologically.

<comment><USER49> It's no where near as clear as the chinese version which is literally five tens though. To know fifty is 50 and five tens you have to already know both the meaning of number places and what fifty means, really hard to derive from just the name or seeing 50 written out.

<comment><USER48> Well, I'm not a native speaker. All I can say is it was crystal clear to me when I began learning English at age ten.

<comment><USER49> It's not super hidden but you also already understood numbers at that age too presumably so you already had most of the puzzle. As a native speaker I don't think I ever broke the words down like that or had them broken down to me like that (then again this would have been ages ago so maybe it was and I don't remember).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> There was a time when people programmed by hex and punched in code using strictly hex keyboard. I suppose this is what it was, even in the 90's, the heath kits were hex only.

</comment><comment><USER51> This appears to confuse the representation of a number, with the quantity it represents.

</comment><comment><USER52> wondering if anybody gets the hanky code reference in the tweet.

<comment><USER43> Well, a lot of San Francisco did, anyway!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> betty oh-bet

</comment><comment><USER54> this is so impractical

</comment><comment><USER55> this is cursed.</comment>


A practical application of your well-practiced FizzBuzz skills - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVOtH5Uiatc

<comment><AUTHOR> The basic trance problem:

        kick if i%4 == 0
        clap if i%8 == 4
        hat if i%8 in [0,2,6,7]
        bass always, according to some function of i</comment>


Programming for a culture approaching singularity - <AUTHOR> http://lukepalmer.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/programming-for-a-culture-approaching-singularity/

<comment><USER2> I don't think we are seeing any signs of approaching a singularity. However, it is clear we are going through a major technological step change as significant as printed books and mass transport.

I just found this quote which I love:

"A man born in 1453, the year of the fall of Constantinople, could look back from his fiftieth year on a lifetime in which about eight million books had been printed, more perhaps than all the scribes of Europe had produced since Constantine founded his city in A.D. 330"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book>

<comment><USER3> What signs do you think you will see?

I think we are hitting a new reality where people are having a hard time adding value. Over time, I think computers and robots will be able to automate and out perform most human tasks.

Much effort is put on retraining people for new jobs. The problem is that there will come a point where no human will beat the automated systems and no amount of training will fix that. On the top end of the scale, we have brilliant people that are forced to accept low wage research jobs or jobs that have nothing to do with their specialty.

Have you seen the diapers.com automated warehouse video? How long do you think it will take before every non-unionized retail chain has automated the restocking of their stores. How many net jobs do you think that will create?

I'm not saying the "Singularity" is approaching. But I do wonder what the signs would be and if these are some of them.

<comment><USER4> _Useful_ automation is going to lead to more wealth, which mean more free time for other stuff.

However, there come a point that automation approach the point where further investment will yield diminishing marginal returns. People are going to automate so much.

Just because you have a machine that produces 1,000,000 cokes in an hour doesn't mean you're going to make more money. What you will end up is a machine that actually cost a lot to maintain, and produce lot of cokes that will be thrown away due to the bottleneck in other parts of the production chain.

<comment><USER3> _Useful automation is going to lead to more wealth, which mean more free time for other stuff._

Sure, I think this exactly describes our current situation. Ironically, that "more wealth" is very disproportionately distributed between the owner of the automation mechanism and the workers that have been automated away. Similarly the notion of "more free time" is equally disproportionate.

One better go get another job, one can sit back and enjoy life.

<comment><USER4> _Sure, I think this exactly describes our current situation. Ironically, that "more wealth" is very disproportionately distributed between the owner of the automation mechanism and the workers that have been automated away. Similarly the notion of "more free time" is equally disproportionate. One better go get another job, one can sit back and enjoy life._

Only if you care about _relative_ wealth. Do you really care if somebody got awarded a billion bucks while you get awarded a 100,000 dollars equivalent in lifestyle quality increase?

It is a misconception to think that you can just sit back and enjoy life. There is competition from other businessmen after all. They will automates, and continue to drive down cost. One of the reason why some people can do these kinds of thing you talked about is because inefficient markets exists and people are too lazy to challenge the guy. That's not always a problem if it is not too hard for an entrepreneur to recognize and move in.

However, the cost of maintaining a given lifestyle should goes down, as long as people don't keep increasing their consumption expenditure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone who thinks the technological singularity is a viable idea ought to listen to Bruce Sterling's Long Now talk, "The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole".

[http://longnow.org/seminars/02004/jun/11/the-singularity- you...](http://longnow.org/seminars/02004/jun/11/the-singularity-your-future- as-a-black-hole/)

The whole notion is really dreadfully implausible and poorly thought-through. A few computer-centric technologists take their hobby to be the most important thing in the world, as if the exponential growth of transistors on a chip or bits on the web are more important than the (stagnant) power grid, energy and food production, global war and peace, etc.

Admittedly, that's not an uncommon phenomenon in these parts.

<comment><USER6> Biology is making enormous strides as well. I could see that having an impact on energy and food production.

Of course, that's driven in part by advances in computation, just like a lot of other technology. Plasma physics, for example, which could yet make a big difference for energy.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but that's not to discount the main point, which is that singularitarians arbitrarily privilege the importance of computational advancement over the real world. This is probably because computers are the easiest to draw the exponential advancement graph for (and because singularitarians hardly ever leave the basement).

Vernor Vinge predicted the singularity not before 2005 and not after 2030. Will we have crazysauce computers by then? Definitely. Will anything else in the world have caught up with the pace at which we apply transistors to wafers? Probably not.

One of Sterling's points is that the singularity is like dot-com startups in the 1990s: it doesn't have a business model. I think it would be right to say that it doesn't scale, either; there are too many other bottlenecks in the system where we wave our hands and say something about just throwing more metal at it.

Seriously, though, check out the talk, it's quite good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The unix philosophy is along these lines i think, making small tools that do one thing well, and text input/output. Perhaps its time for an update of this for the 21st century.

<comment><USER4> I recall the GNU project being somewhat ambitious about these sort of stuff. If the rest of the world were rebuilt to be like emacs(uniformly customizable, extensible, and self documenting), I'll go totally bonkers.

Suddenly, my playground is no longer limited to emacs, but the entire computing environment. However, this kind of code idealism is unfortunately killed by good enough and the desire of the FSF of going into politics.

That's what _freedom_ to me is like. It's not something nebulous like fighting evil developers or something. It's a world in which users feel like a badass, and which everything is an extension of _your mind_. It's a crying shame that the free software world wasn't able to realize that kind of potential.

<comment><USER8> Do you feel that the Semantic Web concept now leads that charge?

<comment><USER9> The Semantic web isn't the solution IMHO.

The problem with the semantic web is that it forces a narrative based on an ontological approach.

But in my mind the real value in connecting everything is the connections themselves rather then their meaning which should never be settled. In other words the value of connecting everything is that it opens up for multiple interpretations, descriptions and clustering.

We should look at data more like neurons than ontological items. I.e. absent of meaning without context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Singularity talk is reminiscent of the early AI work, everyone thought they were on the verge of creating human level AI. Yeah, that didn't happen(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter>). How's this any different? What makes you so confident it will suddenly happen now? That we have more data, that we are mucking around with our brains more?

I'm with qwzybug, I echo his sentiment.

<comment><USER6> Nobody thinks it will suddenly happen now. They think that Moore's Law will continue for another fifty or seventy years, and that somewhere in there, computers or computer-human hybrids will start to be smarter than unenhanced humans. What happens after that, we're not smart enough right now to predict.</comment></comment>


A tutorial for writing a systemd service in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/torfsen/python-systemd-tutorial <comment><USER2> > _One thing to remember is that in Python, STDOUT and STDOUT are buffered._

That's not really a correct explanation, and not just because it says standard output twice. This is a commonly misunderstood part of running things under service management, and faulty explanations like this just confuse people.

Other than that, almost none of the article is about writing stuff in Python. Which is good, because my initial reaction before reading the article was to think that there's nothing really Python-specific to making a service. Even the language I/O buffering rules that one has to remember are largely shared with some other programming languages. (-:</comment>


FreeDVDBoot – Hacking the Playstation 2 through its DVD player - <AUTHOR> https://cturt.github.io/freedvdboot.html <comment><USER2> Apparently you can use FreeDVDBoot in order to install Free MCBoot, which helps a lot since you would no longer have to find a friend with a Free MCBoot memory card or buy one off of Ebay.

[https://www.psx-place.com/threads/tutorial-fmcb- installation...](https://www.psx-place.com/threads/tutorial-fmcb-installation- with-free-dvd-boot.30211/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't it interesting how these sort of exploits exist for probably every hardware/software out there, just that they are never discovered? Since the amount of people with the knowhow for reverse engineering, discovering, and actually building something out of the exploit is so miniscule.

<comment><USER4> The tooling for this is now free and better than it was when the PS2 was released. Programming is hard, there are so many problems we try to solve, it's nigh impossible to hit all the marks when time is short and the money isn't there to keep testing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious how much manual effort it takes for an individual to break this kind of protections. I understand that you basically try one exploit after another, but is there a smart way to automate this? For example, AFL can give you a lot of test samples, but burning and testing tens of thousands of DVDs for potential code path doesn't seem to be feasible, so ideally one would put many cases - but that can't apply to e.g. DVD headers and crafting the test cases sound like a total pain. On the other hand, if one achieved that, they could do some sort of binary search to figure out which exploits work. Perhaps the trick is to plug in a modified DVD reader in order to automate the process?

I guess that my question is: is there something like AFL, but instead of generating many test cases, tries to create a big one containing as many potential crashes as possible?

<comment><USER6> They say on the page they they used an emulator for testing. No DVD burns required.

<comment><USER4> Well when the PS2 came it out the binary dumps and fully blown emulators weren't available. There are many developments that got this to the state where they could run this on an emulator to debug without running/modding hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it likely that similar exploits can be found in other dvd-playback- enabled consoles

<comment><USER8> The Xbox 360's DVD drive was basically its downfall, people found a way to replace the original firmware by a custom one, Microsoft tried to do a cat & mouse game to detect the custom firmware but they lost.

<comment><USER9> They lost the 360, all the follow up consoles on the other hand...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a great article and exploit. Good job and thanks for the learning experience.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is great news. The PS2 was the last console I ever bought.

<comment><USER12> Mine was the PS3 which is surprisingly easy to modify and their ps1 and 2 emulation works really well. It's a nice little box if you can pick one up.

<comment><USER11> I've been looking for one which can play SACD's and has the hardware emulation, they're actually a bit rare.

<comment><USER13> The launch model PS3 is a beautiful thing. Four USB ports, lots of card slots, hardware PS2 compatibility, plays Blu-Ray/DVD/CD/SACD... and that cool Spider- Man 3 typeface.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sunrise was the best calendar app ever and now I feel lost - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/31/sunrise-was-the-best-calendar-app-ever-and-now-i-feel-lost/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> This submission would have done better if its title indicated that it was a post-mortem by the creator, who talks about how it all got started. Otherwise I would've guessed that it was just another another-service-I-use-shuts-down rant by a TC blogger.</comment>


Ask HN: For SEO Does it Matter if the Domain is .net or .org Instead of .com? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> No. From my experience it does not matter between these three. Previously a lot of people thought that .info domains had been penalized by google as they were abused (cheap domains to buy) but there was no substantial data to backup the claim.

</comment><comment><USER3> For SEO 95% of what matters is lots of quality content and backlinks from respected domains. If you have those, it doesn't mater what your TLD is. It may make a difference when people type in your domain because a lot of people automatically type .com (Android for example as a .com button when entering URLs, but no .net or .org).

</comment><comment><USER4> for a startup, i would not even be worrying about this. i rank them like this-

1\. .com 2\. .org 3\. .net

in the end, if you're launching and MVP don't worry about this too much.</comment>


See pictures of what's happening _right now_ in Japan -- straight from Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://reedmorse.com/live/

<comment><USER2> seems to need a check for duplicates? but otherwise pretty cool

<comment><USER3> I just wrote a Ruby script that does pretty much the same thing: <https://gist.github.com/865841>. I used a simple bloom filter for de- duplication. It's a bit overkill. A simple hash on the twitpic_id will probably work just as well if not better.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's fun about this is it's 100% javascript. No server load :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just to add more context, my little site I try to keep up and running: <http://view140.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty neat, but you could maybe sort/filter with specific hashtags ?

</comment><comment><USER6> heh, I stayed up all night working on one too. Will launch it soon</comment>


The Etymology of 'Shorty' in Hip Hop - <AUTHOR> http://www.mdaniels.com/shorty

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you all think of this design? I used Medium, Exposure.so and Internet.org as inspiration.</comment>


Open Sourcing the Hunt for Exoplanets - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.googleblog.com/2018/03/open-sourcing-hunt-for-exoplanets.html <comment><USER2> I don't get how that didn't catch on here the day it was released... I liked the "brute force" approach of just encoding a time series as a sparse image... :P</comment>


Ask HN: What specs do you have for your Linux PCs, and what distro do you run? - ajc-sorin Feel free to expand on why you chose that specific distro/specifications. <comment><AUTHOR> Specs?

Low end: 2Ghz P4 Celeron High end: 2.4Ghz Xeon

With a couple more resting in between.

Distro: Slackware on everything.

Why Slackware? Partly because it is what I started with when SLS was no more, and a lot because it adheres much more to the Unix philosophy than the rest. The adage of "Learn Ubuntu and you know Ubuntu [1], but learn Slackware and you know Unix" is in many ways true.

[1] Substitute any other "hand holding" disto. of choice for Ubuntu if you like.</comment>


Ask HN: What's a simple online bug tracker for customers without sign in? - <AUTHOR> We are creating a new developer tool and are currently in a private beta. So far we managed all bug reports and feature requests via e-mail. But our users are asking for a bug tracker. They want to be able to open new bugs and see which issues have already been reported, ideally without having to sign in.
We are looking for an online solution, that we don't need to host ourselves.
We spent a couple hours researching, but it seems we can't find something fitting our usecase. So far Github looks like the best solution (needs sign in though). Do you have any ideas? <comment><USER2> Without sign on, how will your company validate that bug reports are generated by people who actually use the software? How will your company reliably attribute multiple bug reports to the same customer/site/version?

While I think outsourcing the bug reporting infrastructure is a good long term strategy, at the early stage of a company, talking directly to the customers on the phone may be more valuable, while outsourcing and/or "anonymizing" the identities of bug reporters increases the odds that a _customer 's_ bug report slips through the cracks.

There's a sense in which the value of bugs is high. They allow the business to connect with customers who care enough to report a bug rather than switching tools.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your remarks!

Have you experienced people reporting bugs that don't actually use the software? I think validating if a user is in fact a customer is not worth the effort.

In order to get a proper bug report with version number, we will just provide a simple template to fill in.

I understand that customers that care enough to report a bug are more likely to keep using the product. Wouldn't that be an argument for letting them post anonymous, because it makes it easier for them?

<comment><USER2> My gut tells me that the value in bug reports is as customer feedback and goes beyond the mere technical issue. For example, a dialog can unearth how the customer is using the tool, what other tools they are using, why they are using those tools, their level of experience, etc.

If nothing else, googling the domain of their email address may provide useful insights. Anonymous bug reports waste the user's intent to engage with the company. That's not to say there's not an argument for anonymous posting...on the internet there's an argument for everything. But anonymous bug reports push the needle toward less customer engagement...and maybe that's the underlying motivation because customer engagement is often harder than writing code and clearing bug reports.

My experience is that any box that anonymous users can type text into gets filled by bots. Authorization is a pretty much a solved problem in so far as it can be easily outsourced.

YMMV.</comment></comment></comment>


Why GPS makes distances bigger than they are - <AUTHOR> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13658816.2015.1086924#/doi/full/10.1080/13658816.2015.1086924 <comment><AUTHOR> From the abstract :

 _Global navigation satellite systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) is one of the most important sensors for movement analysis. GPS is widely used to record the trajectories of vehicles, animals and human beings. However, all GPS movement data are affected by both measurement and interpolation errors. In this article we show that measurement error causes a systematic bias in distances recorded with a GPS; the distance between two points recorded with a GPS is – on average – bigger than the true distance between these points._

</comment><comment><USER2> Brian Hayes did some experiments with running on a track and connected them to this paper: [http://bit-player.org/2015/the-long-run](http://bit- player.org/2015/the-long-run)</comment>


Apple Said to Suspend Effort to Develop Live TV Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-08/apple-said-to-suspend-effort-to-develop-live-tv-service <comment><USER3> Good. This is a bad market for Apple; the content rights owners have all the power and the device manufacturers and distributors have next to none. That's why everyone is trying to get into the content creation game: it's the only way to keep users on your distribution service.

I'm guessing that Apple balked once the strategy evolved to producing its own content. I think they were imagining a market evolving that was a natural extension of the iTunes/App Store, but what they found was that they would need to structure like a media company to make that play effective.

This is ultimately a mixed bag for consumers; because it means that content ownership has won out. That means prices are likely to rise, and another round of media consolidation is in the cards in the near future. But on the plus side, the amount of quality content being produced under this model is amazing: I have probably two dozen TV series on my "to watch" list when I have time.

<comment><USER4> >This is a bad market for Apple; the content rights owners have all the power

Isn't that what people said when the iTunes Store rolled out?

<comment><USER5> It never makes me popular with the Apple fanpeople deigners at work, but I've long maintained that the genius move of Apple wasn't the design of the iPod, but rather than they finally gave people what they were demanding: One place to get (almost) all their music at reasonable prices.

I'm not sure WHY that offends them - that what people wanted was known doesn't mean it was easy to achieve. Frankly, I have more respect when someone solves a known but hard problem than when they come across something that happens to be popular. Given that intelligent design doesn't mean it will be popular, I see one as requiring hard work and the other requiring luck.

<comment><USER6> Well, the iPod came out in 2001, and was already a huge phenomenon when the iTunes Music Store launched in (I believe) 2005.

So you can't give all the credit for why the iPod succeeded to something that didn't exist for those crucial first 4 years.

<comment><USER7> 2 years. The iTunes Store opened in 2003.

Initial models didn't even have USB or Windows support, remember. Incidentally, that came around the same time.

The iPod didn't sell all that well until 2004. It's no coincidence that was after Windows support and the iTunes Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The core problem is the idea of "channels" and schedules. We should just have companies that produce media content and license that content to services that provide access to it.

It's like how Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu each produce their own content. In the future I'd envision something like NBC Productions just producing shows and licensing them. With each show generating it's revenue stream, we'll have a lot more variety of content because a show doesn't have to reach the widest audience, only an audience large enough to bring in enough revenue to cover the cost of production.

<comment><USER3> But then how do you find that content? You mention licensing it to services; so how do you differentiate yourself as a service? Right now, the answer is to create your own exclusive content.

There's a risk pooling problem at play here too: if I'm paying $10/mo for Netflix, how do you allocate the money between the content on Netflix? Spotify faces the same problem: top artists demand higher payouts in return for listing their music on the service. The top artists are what bring the listeners in, but as a result it's almost impossible for someone who's not an international star to make any money from Spotify. Video faces the same issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Media executives have said they expect new TV distributors like Apple and > Amazon to pay more for their channels than existing distributors.

Meanwhile, most people under a certain age are not ever bothering with cable TV. Why would they pay more just to see it via the Internet?

I'm trying to understand the nameless "media executives'" mindset, but all the news I read shows their current business model being dead and buried in 10-20 years.

<comment><USER10> "Most" is an overstatement. The numbers I've seen suggest that ~25% of 25-34 year olds don't have cable although the number is rising.

I was hoping Apple would be able to pull it off because I certainly don't get my money's worth out of my cable TV subscription. Unfortunately, I can get nothing over the air so it's more or less all or nothing and I haven't quite gotten myself to the point where I cut live TV off 100%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder what would happen if Apple bought Dish Network and used that as a wedge to stream local OTA channels to AppleTV subscribers.

<comment><USER12> SlingTV (offered by Dish Network) isn't able to offer local OTA channels via streaming though. The method of delivery (stream/coax) is enough to renegotiate licensing deals. This article provides a good perspective in the areas you're thinking about: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/local-tv-creates- hurdle-to-strea...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/local-tv-creates-hurdle-to- streaming-1441325369)

<comment><USER13> Why not just build digital antenna into SlingBoxen? It could even produce a map with a diagram showing you how to aim the antenna, and what length to configure it to. The app could even display a real-time signal strength display.

This would give fairly good coverage in most of the larger metropolitan areas in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Somewhat unsurprising. ESPN alone is getting north of $6 per subscriber from the Cable networks.

<comment><USER3> And ESPN's subscriber numbers are way, way down as a result. I would say a full 50% of the market places zero value on ESPN, and the other 50% is more likely to use ESPN's web site (no subscription required) than the cable channel.

<comment><USER15> ESPN's premium video offerings require a subscription (whether it's traditional cable or something new, like Sling), so at least 50% of what you said is just wrong.

As for the other half, it seems as if you are implying ESPN has done something wrong aggressively pricing their content and live programming offerings...which is also wrong. For some reason cord cutters believe that disparaging content providers they don't personally enjoy is productive, but these are the parties with both a) the leverage and b) the most to lose by challenging cable companies and other traditional media gatekeepers. They deserve consumer recognition for their efforts, and despite having problems like any other monolith, I support the Worldwide Leader.

<comment><USER3> I dunno, I think ESPN's business model falls apart if they can't force ESPN down everyone's throats. ESPN would cost ~$12/mo if they weren't able to force-bundle it with the cable bundle, and I don't know how many of their viewers would pay that. Certainly some would pay more, but for hardcore sports nerds, ESPN is almost too pedestrian. I think we'll see ESPN fall hard in the next few years -- the gap between hardcore sports fans and casual sports fans is growing rapidly (this is more a function of daily fantasy than anything else; so it's a trend largely independent of media diversification).

<comment><USER16> ESPN has huge issues lately. They've lost over 4 million subscribers and are cutting jobs.

[http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the- covera...](http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/is- espn-a-giant-bubble-about-to-burst-071215)

If only everyone realized that if you subscribe to cable, you're paying for about $6.61/mo for espn to be on your bundle. This is for everyone, not just the sports fans.

I read somewhere that espn alone if only paid by fans would come out to about $34/mo Which if true really throws a wrench into the sports world. If they keep losing viewers there will be an interesting situation regarding advertisements.

Honestly I can only hope, the only reason I have cable tv is so that comcast can still count me as a viewer with their "your bill will be cheaper if you just get a basic package" bs.

<comment><USER3> > Honestly I can only hope, the only reason I have cable tv is so that comcast > can still count me as a viewer with their "your bill will be cheaper if you > just get a basic package" bs.

Look for that to disappear in the next few years. Cable companies have traditionally been ruled by the video business unit, but they're starting to realize that of the $120/mo triple play, consumers only value the video service at about $30-40/mo. That's more than it costs in licensing fees - <USER2> it would be a better profit move to charge $70-80/mo for straight Internet access. They're increasingly willing to sacrifice low-margin (with relatively high marginal cost) video revenue for high-margin broadband revenue.

I've always wondered why the cable companies haven't partnered with Netflix to sell subscriptions. Give the cable companies a cut in exchange for interconnects and cross-promotion. If Comcast were to offer a $100/mo Internet + Netflix + HBO bundle, it would sell like hotcakes.

Also, remember that the target customer for a cable company is a 50-year-old head of household. While "cord nevers" will be a drain on revenue in the future, big cable is still making a good profit targeting people who are far behind the technology curve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> IMHO, simply live streaming the content through Internet is naive and far from enough to make traditional content creators to hand over their content to Apple. To reinvent TV, people need to think out of the box.

<comment><USER12> Recapturing lost revenue from cord cutters is apparently not enough of a value proposition. It would be interesting to give discounts on purchasing the season/series if the user is a customer of the streaming service. Business models will need to change significantly to see fundamental shifts from the industry and the overall services offered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple needs to make a TV that combine TV tuner with tvOS, and just let the App / Channel do the work, not trying to start their own TV services.</comment>


FundersClub: An online platform for making angel investments - <AUTHOR> https://thefundersclub.com/

<comment><USER2> So besides the YC connection, I am genuinely curious what is different / better about FundersClub than any of the other 100 crowd funding "platforms" that have emerged?

These types of exchanges connecting companies with investors have been tried tens of times before, and they always fail because building a two-sided network is hard. People will only invest if good companies are there and good companies only show up if real money is there. Nothing I saw on the site suggested theyve solved this issue.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the Jobs Act but see so many of these platforms cropping up that seemingly don't have a solution to get quality dealflow and quality funders. The key to that IMO is not the fee structure which FundersClub spent a lot of time detailing or ease of the legal process. These are details but the key driver is getting quality startups and check writers on the platform who want to get "hitched". The legal and pricing details are next.

Lastly, the only folks really uniquely positioned to build the required two- sided network are the team at AngelList. I've not heard they're doing this but of anyone, they have the assets it seems to pull it off.

<comment><USER3> The team behind it - these guys have each built multiple successful companies with exits or massive profits - together with the YC spotlight. You're right that being in YC alone won't cut it but as we've seen it definitely amplifies the power of a great team.

The YC spotlight is particularly perfect for this concept because of demo day. They might be the only startup that can get all their most important and prominent target customers (and thought leaders) in one room, very shortly after launching.

<comment><USER2> But demo day really isn't their market is it? Demo day is YC companies with tons of amazing access to capital with pretty great terms (Milner, A16Z and Ron Conway cash) and a group of other attending investors who aren't interested in writing $1000 checks.

If they could convince YC companies to forego the available money and use their platform instead, that would be a coup for sure. But that seems unlikely.

<comment><USER3> Good point. But it is the world's best opportunity to get leading investors on the platform to make an investment or two to give it a level of credibility others have not reached. That itself is a mini network effect problem but having them all in one room makes it much easier.

Having the world's leading angel investors on the platform would be one of the keys to establishing a successful two-sided network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I checked out the video. Was disinterested until 0:50 mark. Once I saw minimum investment as low as $1,000 my interest went up. Kinda lending club meets kickstarter.

Probably a fair amount of people (myself included) would like to be an angel investor. For people who are rich but not one-percenters cutting a check for $100,000 for a risky investment is a high barrier to entry. I'd be more inclined to make 10 x $1,000-$2,000 investments (bets?).

Could be interesting for niche markets if it bring in people with expertise, high income and are also decision makers in their day jobs: doctors, lawyers, small business owners, senior managers, corporate officers, etc.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps eventually. At the moment you need to be an "Accredited investor" in order to actually join and invest. They define an "Accredited investor" as meeting at least one of the following criteria:

\- Someone who has made $200k+ for the past two years and will continue to do so.

\- Someone with joint income with a spouse exceeding $300k for the past two years.

\- Net worth or joint net worth exceeding $1 million.

While this does make sense, it basically means the type of folks who are already quite rich and would be making these sorts of investments just have the tools and ability to make investments at a lower scale, and through a website.

It's definitely an interesting idea, but I'll be more excited about it when the investors they allow get closed to the "average people" in the industry who aren't sitting on a million dollars.

<comment><USER4> My point is those thresholds aren't that high for people like "doctors, lawyers, small business owners, senior managers, corporate officers, etc."

Senior level engineers, accountant, etc could have net worth exceeding $1 million once you factor in home ownership, 401k, stock portfolio, 401k, IRA, etc.

Potentially you'd open up angel investment from the 1-2% to the 5-10%.

<comment><USER6> I think the 1 million minimum doesn't include the value of your primary residence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand why startups would come here versus AngelList or other platforms. The $1K minimum practically guarantees a poor quality investor pool.

Just think for a moment about how conservative an investor has to be in order to (1) qualify as accredited (millionaire or very well paid) while (2) still being unwilling to part with more than $1K.

One of the problems that entrepreneurs have with sites like these is the noise - the folks who like to call themselves "angels" but only invest a random $5K once every year or two. They are more likely to waste your time with numerous questions and less likely to ultimately invest.

</comment><comment><USER8> Discussion from a few days ago about FundersClub: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4294411>

</comment><comment><USER9> game changer. will you let vc's work for you after you crowd out their market?

</comment><comment><USER10> Insider access?? lol</comment>


16-Inch MacBook Pro Said to Launch in September - <AUTHOR> https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-inch-macbook-pro-said-to-launch-in-september-with-lcd-and-3072x1920-resolution.2187096/ <comment><USER2> It will hopefully contain a lot of features people asked for like a better keyboard, Face ID, more connectivity, etc. And just like the Mac Pro the starting price will probably be enormous, I wouldn't be surprised if the base model is $2.5K or more.

And I wouldn't have problem with that at all. My 2015 Macbook Pro has been worth every penny. I used it every day and it's still going strong. Before I bought this MBP I tried every Windows machine money can buy and I always had problems, both hardware and software.

If Apple goes back to making products that are generally without problems, I'll upgrade to the newest model at launch day. The keyboard woes definitely held me back.

<comment><USER3> I'm actually switching back to Linux. Partially because of the issues you cite, I too love my 2015 MBP - where as I don't use my bigger 2017 MBP as a laptop (it's basically a desktop for me).

The bigger issue for me though is price. I love my 2015 not only because the keyboard is great, but because the price was good _(it 's a cheaper model)_. I can take it outside and not fear losing $2k-$4k. My bigger MBP is just over 3 grand, which is a lot to lose due to sea air, outside dirt, etc.

Sure, I could probably buy a cheaper 2019 MBP if they're quality and feel good about going outside, but I want power too. The price just doesn't seem worth it these days. If I go Linux, I can get a powerhouse for the same price as the lower end MBPs it seems _(though I 've not done rigorous comparisons yet)_. I want cheap _and_ powerful.. and it just seems impossible to do that with Apple.

<comment><USER4> I switched to Linux from Mac back in 2009.

While I enjoy the freedom and lately the niceties of NixOS, there are a few things I miss about Apple. Especially hardware.

It sounds crazy, but some Macs were among the best Linux laptops. MacBook Air 11 (Late 12) used by Linus himself. That's my main machine too. Silent, pure Intel, flawless. Other Macs were really nice too. E.g. MacBook 2.1. Great keyboard, and supported by Coreboot. Not so much lately sadly, with non-USB input devices, secure boot and bad keyboards.

People talk about Thinkpads, which are good, but you need to cherry-pick a lot. Some models are quite noisy for example. Outside Thinkpads, it's hit and miss. Currently, I like Surface Go and Xiaomi Mi Air 12. Most other laptop options are not good. Desktops are a completely different business.

Buying from Apple is always very reliable and easy. Pay and go. Everything is fine. Guarantees across borders are fine. Getting keyboards from different locales is fine. With other brands, not so much. I feel that Apple is focused on less products, and this really makes a difference in terms of quality and user experience.

Lately, I was trying to get a US ANSI keyboard in the UK, and the only option that worked was buying a Magic Keyboard (which has really nice latency).

<comment><USER5> > Some models are quite noisy for example.

You can change fan speed curve. NBFC with one is suggested profiles working great for me and my laptop became much less noisy. But nbfc was my only option because my hp laptop has unrecognizable by linux fans so fancontrol cant control it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To be at all interesting, this would have to have a good keyboard (as in the 2015 MBP), and an optional touchbar.

<comment><USER7> I'm perfectly fine with it having a touchbar, if only there was a physical ESC button.

<comment><USER8> Real escape and full row of real F- keys. Just push the Touchbar above it, so we can power it down and ignore it (or run cute screensavers on it while plugged in).

The whole concept makes no sense. "Don't look at the computer's screen when you work, look down at your keyboard instead!" It is like an anti-touch typing gimmick, the tagline should be "become a worse typelist today!"

<comment><USER9> If you want to stay sane with touch bar, buy one of those keyboard covers for non-touchbar models with ESC/Fn keys, pad the Fn keys with some pieces of rubber. Then you can have have some poor man's tactile feedback. The very latest keyboard is improvement both in sound and feel, latest CPUs are very fast, just the touchbar kills the overall impression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's a revolutionary idea in case Sir Jony is reading:

Make it lighter and _thicker_.

Seriously, until it's as light as a phone I don't mind if they keep shaving weight off. But there's very little to be gained by going thinner:

1\. I doubt ergonomics get much better as it approaches typing on a sheet of paper

2\. the risk of bending increases

3\. if it's not as thin they can fit more stuff in there more cheaply: better heat management, longer lasting batteries, faster processors/more memory, stronger antennas, etc.

<comment><USER11> Thermal performance is my #1 issue with the MBP. I have a 2017 13", and it really struggles with even modest sustained loads. I often work outdoors from a hammock, and even in the shade it throttles very quickly when using Docker to spin up a local instance of an app or even tox to run its test suite.

Even just web browsing quickly becomes a problem if the laptop is in direct sunlight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Better keyboard and no touch bar would cause the MBP to be the undisputed champion of laptops. I have a 2019 MBP and love absolutely everything about it minus the keyboard, thank god the 13" has an option without the touch bar.

</comment><comment><USER13> If there's no escape key and inverted-T arrow keys I'm cutting my losses and jumping to Linux after 30 years as a Mac owner.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious what losses there are to be cut? Isn't it as simple as just buying a different product and using that instead?

It's not like my kitchen only fits Whirlpool or my garage only fits Honda.

<comment><USER15> > I'm curious what losses there are to be cut? Isn't it as simple as just > buying a different product and using that instead?

Chances are they have software installed on their machine. OSX has a vibrant ecosystem of independent developer and thus a pretty large number of bespoke good-quality software which might / would have to be replaced. Especially as cross-platform software tends to integrate less than well with the platform.

That goes double for older mac users, which have a higher tendency to use native software.

And of course one needs the time to adapt to different paradigms, shortcuts, facilities, … once again especially for older users of the platform for whom this becomes second nature.

Incidentally the points mix, the second one drives the first, I regularly notice cross-platform software which doesn't respond properly to Cocoa's text- movement shortcuts (even a simple C-a / C-e).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Will this be the first MacBook that will be thicker than its previous gen? I am hoping Apple has realised that they are at the limit of what the current MacBook Pro can do in terms of thermals. I want a laptop that doesn't have its fans spinning non-stop only because I use an external screen or Firefox instead of Safari.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd be curious to know if Apple collects telemetry on touchbar usage. I don't use it. At all. I have it frozen to only show the equivalent physical keys that used to be there (esc and the fn keys). Does anyone use the touchbar effectively and like it? What are the chances of Apple ditching it on some models?

<comment><USER18> I do the same thing and would also really love to know who thinks it's in any way good.

I hit it all the time by accident and suddenly in the middle of typing iTunes pops up, or an IntelleJ config window, vi sort of works but amazingly the escape touch key isn't always sensitive enough and I have to double tap it.

<comment><USER19> > _really love to know who thinks it's in any way good._

I think it's good. Install BetterTouchTool (or analog) and the touchbar becomes infinitely-customisable multi-touch fn-keys row. The only missing thing is any tactile feedback (although BetterTouchTool can "simulate" it using touchpad's linear motor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Korean website The Elec recently reported that Samsung was in talks with > Apple about supplying OLED displays for the 16-inch MacBook Pro, but if the > IHS Markit report is accurate, the notebook will have a LCD instead.

Shame. I was hoping for a much better display. Of course, I won't complain too much until I see it for myself compared to my 2012 mbpr. If there isn't too much of a jump, my wallet will stay closed.

Edit:

I would have thought that Apple's recent push to 4K would have signalled a common push to all devices having a minimum resolution [0].

[0]: [https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=...](https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1557824207)

</comment><comment><USER21> It would be nice if Apple would move to @3x for this Retina screen, making it a tad above 4K. Yes I would pay the Apple tax for that. Also interested in what they're going to do with the 13" one. If it gets a smaller bezel screen will it get more screen or will they shrink the machine a bit further?

I'm not going to hope for changes in the keyboard or ports or the Touch Bar. So far I like the keyboard on the 2018 anyway, but connecting a camera was a bit of a hassle.

</comment><comment><USER22> That's an unusual screen resolution. Are there existing panels at that resolution?

<comment><USER23> All of Apple's laptops use unusual resolutions since they're basically the only company still doing 16:10 displays. They just order custom panels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > As would be expected, Lin claims the 16-inch MacBook Pro will feature a > newer processor. No other details are known.

Didn't they update macbook pro with latest intel CPUs like a month ago?</comment>


Netflix Poison Pill Aims to Thwart Icahn Takeover - CNBC - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/49693329 <comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone explain how this works in simple language. I couldn't follow what was going on.</comment>


iPhone crashing bug likely caused by code added to appease Chinese government - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/iphone-crashing-bug-likely-caused-by-code-added-to-appease-chinese-govt/ <comment><USER2> The original blog post is [https://objective- see.com/blog/blog_0x34.html](https://objective-see.com/blog/blog_0x34.html) and has more technical information.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought Apple was supposed to be the great government-resistant pro-user- rights stronghold.

Why is this code even present on US devices? Is the word "Taiwan" such a bad word in China that, instead of some reasonable action, it crashes the OS? Is the Chinese government so upset about Taiwan they're insisting manufacturers hide the flag from the keyboard?

All aspects of this are mind-boggling.

<comment><USER4> As others noted, it appears Apple was attempting to keep the Taiwan flag emoji (🇹🇼) out of the emoji keyboard depending on localization settings.

This is a well-known cost of being able to do business in China; the version of your product for sale/use in the PRC cannot in any way acknowledge the existence of Taiwan/ROC as a separate entity. Most vendors simply have localization switches which hide/re-label Taiwan in location selectors, use some icon other than the flag to let users select the zh-TW localization, re- label any displayed maps, etc.

IIRC Microsoft got in trouble years and years ago for a mistake in code they shipped, which accidentally displayed either "Taiwan" or the flag in a build of software for use in the PRC.

This has been the case for many, many years. Most HN readers probably just don't deal often enough with localization issues to realize how politically sensitive they can be, and how easily even a small misstep can get you in trouble with a government.

<comment><USER5> Can you list "Taiwan" as an entry if you don't really care about countries per se, but are just making a big list of states/provinces/territories/other small "cultural" boundaries? Whether or not Taiwan is a country, and whether or not Taiwanese is a language, Taiwan is certainly a _place_ , containing a number of people; and those people certainly speak a _mutually-unintelligible dialect_ of Chinese.

Could I get away with listing "Cultures" and "Dialects" rather than "Countries" and "Languages"?

<comment><USER4> Some things seem to get away with "Taiwan, Province of China".

<comment><USER6> Oh, thanks for mentioning this. This phrasing is mostly a rookie developer trap!

We're all so used to ISO standards that we assume they are politically neutral. That's why everyone starts their weekend project with the ISO 3166 country list that includes "Taiwan, Province of China" [1] [2] [3].

 _This list is crap._ It follows UN country names, and the UN is not a neutral entity. It isn't even logical that "Hong Kong" can stand on its own in the list, but Taiwan has to be suffixed with "Province of China". As far as I know, no major website uses this list unmodified. (The airlines that recently bowed to PRC pressure now call it "Taiwan, China").

If you see the "Province of China" label on a website, you should refer its developer to the Unicode CLDR data: [http://cldr.unicode.org/index](http://cldr.unicode.org/index)

The CLDR data is the actual industry standard, and tries to be as neutral as possible.

[1] [https://github.com/rails/country_select](https://github.com/rails/country_select) [2] [https://gist.github.com/DHS/1340150](https://gist.github.com/DHS/1340150) [3] [https://pypi.org/project/django- countries/](https://pypi.org/project/django-countries/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sure, companies have to adapt to markets. But inserting code like this, buggy or not, is a cowardly act by Apple. They should be ashamed, and apologize.

<comment><USER8> I'm having a hard time understanding what is cowardly about complying with Chinese law when selling products inside China. There are many laws in the US I don't agree with, but I'm obligated to comply with them for as long as I choose to live here and remain a citizen. For example, its essentially US law that Apple's officers have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholder's best interests. Not participating in the Chinese cellular market over principle violates that principal of law. If you want Apple to be "brave" then persuade the US Congress to require that Apple not comply with repressive Chinese law; or convince Apple's shareholders to prohibit the same. Short of those outcomes Apple is doing precisely what its supposed to be doing.

<comment><USER9> > Apple is doing precisely what its supposed to be doing.

Such as aidding and abetting authoritarian foreign governments to suppress freedom of speech.

I'm having a hard time understanding why you are having a hard time understanding why this is cowardly, given that Apple is not particularly cowardly when it decided to stand up to US government surveillance.

<comment><USER10> > Such as aidding and abetting authoritarian foreign governments to suppress > freedom of speech.

Over half of all countries have few to no protections on freedom of speech. Is your premise that Apple should only sell its products in about four dozen countries? If we wanted to be really strict about it, only a few nations have strong protections on freedom of speech.

You are aware of just how bad the individual liberty protections are in the bottom 100+ countries, right? Freedom of speech protections are rare, and it's even more rare for them to be regularly enforced.

Major countries as diverse as Turkey, Singapore, Thailand, China, Russia, Venezuela, Sudan, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia - have no or very little freedom of speech. The bottom 40-50 nations on human rights barely have any actively enforced rights protections at all.

<comment><USER11> As a regular Chinese citizen, freedom of speech is at the bottom of list of things I care about, and I would happily sell that for profit if it is sell- able.

I lived in US for quite some time and travel to US regularly. But seriously, I feel much less safe or comfortable when I am in US, and a lot of things Americans care so much about doesn't mean anything

<comment> g-b-r Wow, I would've never thought that being raised in a decades-old dictatorship could effect one's world view...

Also, makes you wonder if China's censorship might play any role in this lack of interest in discussing things... Heck, maybe they're not so stupid these Chinese rulers! But of course that's only for the best interest of the Chinese citizens, right, dear Chinese citizen?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Getting out of China is a move by Google I still admire. Perhaps "the old Google" but they never reversed that decision for the shareholders.

<comment><USER13> I thought they moved out because they were having difficulty getting penetration?

<comment><USER14> Upvoted you. Google is still operating in Hong Kong, which is part of China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Countries like Saudi and UAE have 'similar' software requests. Frequently they will request any map software either blanks out or overwrites Israel.

</comment><comment><USER16> Because of Apple's kowtow to China, human beings will be imprisoned, tortured, and executed from information gleaned from Apple devices. Not just common criminals but political and religous dissidents. I would imagine the other cell phone choices available are just as bad, but does that make it ethical to be part of CCP's surveilance?

</comment><comment><USER17> They didn't even bother to swap the Taiwanese flag emoji with a custom one of the Chinese Taipei flag:

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

</comment><comment><USER18> So hang on a bit here - i'm not an Apple fan, don't use their phones, ditched my MacBook etc.

But this crash is a bit convenient. It smells to me like a teenager complying with the letter of the rules. Their QA, although awful recently, surely would have picked up this crash?

So maybe Apple deliberately made the code crap to telegraph the fact they'd been coerced into writing the code? Assuming they'd been told by PRC to not give specifics of what they had to comply with?

<comment><USER19> Knowing fully that they would be heavily criticized for complying? I think not.

If Apple wanted the world to know, they would simply release a statement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Apple is generally full of shit. They'll refuse to unlock a terrorist's phone in the US but will get on all fours for the Chinese government's absurdly unreasonable requests.

And they'll gladly throw users privacy under the bus in China by forking over iCloud China to a government backed/owned cloud.

The next time they pretend moral superiority over some obviously inane topic, like protecting a terrorist, best get a supeona from China.

</comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of a method found in the SharePoint SDK called HideTaiwan() [1]

[1] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous- versions/office/de...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous- versions/office/developer/sharepoint-services/ms441219\(v=office.12\))

</comment><comment><USER22> Cooperating with China is cooperating with authoritarianism and human rights abuses.

<comment><USER23> So much bullshit. As a Chinese citizen that lived in America for a long time, I found US government being so much worse than China.

<comment><USER24> I'm curious because I don't know a lot about China (other than what Western media reports, which is colored): what was worse in the USA compared to China in terms of government, oppression, etc.?

(I am not from the USA by the way, so don't worry about offending me or anything!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> andy-x As a bonus Apple should add a bug that crashes US-region messenger every time someone types Trump or reads Trump's tweets :)

</comment><comment><USER25> > (his friend's phone specified the region as the US and the language as > English, followed by Chinese.)

I use the Chinese keyboard as a _very_ rudimentary Mandarin speaker. Does this mean the Chinese government was still getting information on my chat history even though I'm a US citizen?!

<comment><USER26> it's not a keylogger -- it's a simple "if" branch to hide the Taiwan flag from the emoji set.

<comment><USER27> do they hide offensive emoji's in other countries? would the hide the Israeli flag for phones sold in Middle Eastern countries? I would love to find a published list of what Apple does censor to accommodate specific country or regional issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple Music literally disappeared scenes and mentions of Palestine from a Vic Mensa music video and interview.

"You got, like, Charlottesville, you have scenes in Palestine, Standing Rock," [0] was edited to, "You got, like, Charlottesville, you have...Standing Rock." [1]

[0] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/post/sa.e79e61c0-f89d-11e7-8829-...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/post/sa.e79e61c0-f89d-11e7-8829-d320c2561bfe)

[1] [https://twitter.com/Beats1/status/952952704564838400](https://twitter.com/Beats1/status/952952704564838400)

<comment><USER28> Now that's plain weird. I mean, I kind of get why Apple pulled the Taiwanese flag from the emoji set (Foxconn etc.), but what kind of pressure does Israel have on Apple?

<comment><USER26> You are looking at it from a leverage perspective, but this is about PR.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Hardware hacker to real product  - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
Primarily a software hacker, on the occasional self gifted day off I enjoy a bit of electronics hacking too.
I have read a lot about starting a software company on Hacker News, but not so much about a hardware one. I have frequently wondered where one would even begin if I wanted to take my weekend Arduino project, and turn it into a commercial gadget.
I have been thinking about this more and more since two of my most recent zany gadgets have my friends and family (and random people in the electronics store) buzzing and telling me it's a great idea
Arduino parts are made for prototyping, so 1st step is designing a purpose made circuit to cut down on cost and weight .. but I'm just a hacker with a working prototype and an idea!
So, there must be some hardware entrepreneurs out there, I'm ready and listening!
I'm based in London - <USER2> <comment><USER3> I'm an Electrical Engineer/Entrepreneur who has done hardware design for small startups.

It sounds like with a working Arduino prototype, you are well on your way.

How is your idea/prototype being received? Are people interested and have you been able to get market research/feedback on what people would be willing to pay?

Redoing the circuit design for a non-Arduino second prototype and doing the mechanical casing/enclosure is not a trivial task, but doesn't have to be exceptionally costly or time consuming, either. Depending on what circuit you are designing and what sort of molded casing you need, you could have a self- designed prototype in a few weeks to a few months for perhaps as little as a few thousand dollars.

The real key in a hardware design is making sure that it is designed for easy manufacturability and low cost when you are ready to build in quantity.

You'll probably want to do you initial runs using a local or regional contract manufacturer, but down the line you may want to do mass production in China, etc. Setting up this pipeline and doing quality control with this is often the most difficult part of the hardware process (just ask the Wakemate guys), but can definitely lower the cost. You have to balance the numbers, though. If the quantities aren't there, I've found it best to fabricate locally.

Regardless, feel free to drop me a line if you are interested in talking more about the process, timelines, and costs involved.

I may be able to help you out with the circuit and meechanical design, as well, if you are interested.

</comment><comment><USER4> >where one would even begin if I wanted to take my weekend Arduino project, and turn it into a commercial gadget

I have no actual experience of this, but ... Personally I'd do some research with the patent literature and see if you can find a patent that covers your device. Espacenet is the easiest of the patent dbs to search IMO, use ECLA/IPC key if you can. If you can't find it then consider patenting it.

Once you have spent time establishing the patent situation you can move on.

If you have patent protection then look and see what you can find close to the product that has actually been sold, if nothing then find a few companies that manufacture devices that are as similar as possible and hit them up letting them know you've got a patent (or pat pending) and take it from there.

Or, are you thinking you want to design circuitry, get necessary certifications, build out cases and advertise and market (b2b or b2c) for yourself?

>" _it's a great idea_ "

Great ideas don't necessarily make great products. But don't let that get in your way, have fun!

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey, I am an authorised Arduino reseller and have also been toying with the idea of a marketplace for Arduino projects. I'm based in London too. Drop me an email (in profile) if you are up for a chat.

</comment><comment><USER6> The two hardware startups on here that I can think of are the WakeMate people and the InPulse watch team. Hit them up, I imagine they'll have some thoughts for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great - thanks!</comment></comment>


Yahoo Releases Beautiful Weather App for iOS - <AUTHOR> http://blog.flickr.net/en/2013/04/18/the-forecast-is-beautiful/ Yahoo releases an intuitive, beautiful mobile app? o_O <comment><AUTHOR> Yahoo releases an intuitive, beautiful mobile app? o_O

 _checks self for signs of illness_

</comment><comment><USER2> the icon looks ugly.</comment>


Show HN: Dovecot IMAP Server Scripting with Mruby - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/matsumotory/dovecot-mruby-plugin <comment><AUTHOR> dovecot included dovecot-mruby-plugin is a programmable IMAP/POP server scripting with mruby like ngx_mruby for nginx, mod_mruby for apache httpd and trusterd for HTTP/2 mruby Web server. Also pmilter is a programmable Milter server scripting with mruby for SMTP server like IMAP command register and pre or post command hook using mruby.</comment>


Fuel Fix » New data show 'meteoric' rise of Texas oil - <AUTHOR> http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/12/03/new-data-shows-meteoric-rise-of-texas-oil/ <comment><USER2> I wish Oildrum.com was still around. They would probably point out that these gains aren't that sustainable as the wells have relatively large drop off rates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where did the increase come from? Is it fraking or technology related?

<comment><USER2> Increased use of fracking technology. These wells do tend to produce a lot initially and then rapidly drop off compared to conventional wells so where Texas will be in five years is an interesting question.</comment></comment></comment>