Apple's Plan to Own the Entire Music Industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2016/7/12/apples-plan-to-own-the-entire-music-industry <comment><USER2> I disagree with Exibit 1. Apple Music came much later than Spotify, when paying a subscription fee for music (or movies/series) was much more accepted than when Spotify started. I don't think you should compare the two like this.

<comment><USER3> Thats how Apple works. They never truely innovate, they latch onto an existing idea and then market the hell out of it. This works because Apple seems to have a special attention within the media business, and thus end up being written/talked about in non-tech circles. Thus the public get the impression that Apple did it first, even if it has been going on for ages below the proverbial radar.

<comment><USER4> They identify an existing market and try to do it better than the existing players. It's not _just_ marketing. That's an unfair statement.

<comment><USER5> name one thing (with the exception of macbooks) that apple did better than anyone else

<comment><USER6> OSX, Messages (SMS relay in particular), phone hardware, iOS security, privacy, and battery efficiency.

<comment><USER7> Trackpads too. Laptop displays. The original iPhone for sure.

<comment><USER8> Seriously it took PC MFGs until 2015 to get trackpads to be not awful, when Apple had great ones like a decade before. The clickpad was copied by basically every PC laptop maker and I didn't use one that wasn't terrible until last year. For better or worse, everyone rips off what Apple does, even if Apple didn't do it first, and the rip-offs are generally really bad. People buy them thinking that "it's the same thing".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Overall, this article is actually pretty poor analysis. It tried to be analytical but doesn't actually provide compelling evidence or analysis. Instead, it just presents a 4-step strategy without causal links between the steps. Worst of all, there's no justification for why Apple would _want_ to "create an environment for independent artist sustainability" as their end goal.

I completely disagree with Exhibit 1 (the growth chart) signaling a positive trajectory for Apple. Tellingly, it looks like the exact opposite of the Spotify chart: huge initial growth which is rapidly tapering growth. In contrast, Spotify's growth follows that of a traditional viral product: growing exponentially up and to the right.

Moreover, I don't think Apple is positioning themselves to succeed. Their software quality is near an all-time low. [0] They're doubling down on human curation while Spotify has been doing amazingly with Discover Weekly.

Just look at user reviews. On Android, Apple Music has 3.3 stars. [1] Spotify? 4.5 stars. IMO, Spotify is even able to deliver a superior product on Apple's own platform. Apple Music continues to be buggy, error-prone, and significantly less than delightful every time I try it.

[0] This drove me to finally sell my shares after nearly a decade.

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music&hl=en)

[2] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotify.mu...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotify.music)

<comment><USER10> I agree, sadly. Between home and business I've spent like $750k on Apple in the last couple of years, and won't buy anything but an iPhone right now.

Apple software for photos (you cannot order different size prints in the same order) and music is half complete crap.

They can't ship a decent new Mac. They can't do incremental updates on old Macs. Even the most inept competitors (HP) are catching up hardware wise.

They need to ditch Jony and Cook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apple could just _buy_ the entire music industry. Total US revenue for the music industry is $15 billion and dropping. (Revenue peaked in 1998 around $38 billion in current dollars.) Apple revenue is around $225 <strike>million</strike> billion.

Music can only be a side business for Apple. It's just not big enough.

<comment><USER12> Also, all this talk about streaming being a new model is pretty silly. Rhapsody started its unlimited music streaming service in 2001. Apple started offering paid music downloads two years later. Streaming isn't something new that's going to revitalize or destroy the music industry, just an old well- devleoped model that has been growing as people got better mobile speeds.

What Apple needs music for is the branding. Apple attached itself to music because the industry had the mindshare of cool locked down for generations.

<comment><USER13> I've noticed a big difference in coverage over just the last few years. Before then there were large swathes of content that just wasn't licensed to any streaming services, unlike today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think this article is onto something. I've recently switched over from Spotify to Apple Music subscription. While it's not perfect, I'm finding the user experience much better. Also, if a song is not listed in iTunes library, I can add the mp3's from my computer to playlist and it will automatically show up on my iPhone as well.

What I would really love to see if a single stream platform that has roughly 99.99% of all music available for streaming. None of this exclusive content nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why does the Spotify graph look like the bottom of a sigmoid and the Apple graph look like the top of a sigmoid. Just a statistical quirk? Or does free + paid have a higher top line?

How does Spotify's ad-supported free play compare to FM/AM radio, back in the 70's? How much did the artists benefit from radio play, back then? Direct revenue or promotion?

<comment><USER16> I think Apple was able to front load a lot of the growth with the Apply Music free trial. It was long enough that enough subscribers forgot to cancel before they became "paying" and started getting billed.

Also curious that the writer could talk so much about iTunes while skipping over how critical free/pirated mp3s were for the iPod success. No MP3s, no iPod ; without the iPod, it would have been Winamp not iTunes.

The iPod had an advantage in being a very good MP3 player as consumers made their first step in to getting their music from the internet rather retail stores. It appealed to all listeners except those that couldn't stand compression loss. How Apple Music is or isn't accessed from non-Apple devices along with what incentives there are will make this more or much less like their original foray in to music.

<comment><USER15> It's interesting how the medium has played out: radio -> vinyl -> cd -> mp3 -> p2p -> iPod -> iTunes -> radio (as Spotify, Beats, et al)

<comment><USER17> Minor quibble, but you forgot tape :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Most of it seems far-fetched and conspiracy theorylike. Also, it seems this is the only topic this blogger is writing about? Talk about a niche.

<comment><USER19> Why is it like a conspiracy theory? Surely most companies have ambitious plans to take over their industry. Obviously most of these plans don't hold up as the competition responds to them, but that's just the nature of business.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apple has proven very capable in executing multi year strategic plans leveraging in one area to establish a new product or service in another. Apple has also proven adept to managing Eco systems along a vertical value chain - making sure a lot of the spoils go to them but also making sure their suppliers can manage.

Apple is at the moment lagging in music streaming despite huge investments in iCloud, Music Match and an entrenched iTunes (getting pushed in my face every time I plug my phone in). UX matters and iTunes is not convincing. But this can change. Developing a streaming client is not rocket science if a team would freed from backwards compatibility concerns.

Apple has a lot it can leverage in the music industry and not by accident:

\- Headphones, Beats Playlists

\- Audio supplier relationships

\- Music, Movie and Book publisher contracts and relationships

\- iTunes client

\- App/iTunes customer billing relationships

\- iPhone platform - leading in higher income customer households

\- App store - monopoly on iOS and growing on OSX

\- Brand

\- War-chest

Apple is in a tricky position here politically. They got their hands slapped when trying to establish a pricing regime in the book business while being far from dominant Apple was working with dominant players (who each controlled a large set of IPR artwork monopolies). The big hurdle is regulatory. Anti trust law allows building monopolies organically but frowns on using power like acquisitions by industry leaders or leveraging one strength into another industry with aggressive loss-leading pricing etc..

Why are we talking these days about setting prices here in a free market in the first place? Considering the power on the distribution side almost all artists have not enough power to make level deals. That was always the case but for a long time artists were free to take their business elsewhere. Then publishers concentrated. Now streaming channels take in part their place. Their number is not large either.

Apples proposal for higher payment for artists may make sense for artists and the whole value chain up to our ears. It is very problematic for newcomers like Spotify who rely on low costs to acquire new customers. Their lure is the free tier. Apple does not need this as much as it has already a billing relationship and less "free" drives demand. Also let's be clear there is no real "free". Spotify is loss leading by VCs, advertisers in case of radio or fees in case e.g. Germany.

Apple can't be happy. Unlike a minor new player like Spotify they would get into regulatory hot water with aggressive loss leading streaming. Changing the rules to higher streaming fees would shift everything towards paying platforms. Apple demands a 30% cut and so far has held the line and has forced Amazon and Spotify to sell their media content outside their App. That again is something regulators will look closely at. It will be interesting to see whether Apple can square the wheel.</comment>


GAO suggests using GPS to track electric vehicles for taxation - shawn-butler http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-77 GAO believes road surface maintenance should be paid relative to damage inflicted by travelling on it.  Currently revenue for resurfacing is raised mostly by fuel taxes.  Heavy commerical trucks are not found to be paying their fair share for the damage they inflict due to loaded weight and high-efficiency hybrids and electric vehicles pay much less and nothing respectively.
GAO suggests a pilot study of gathering revenue per mile travelled using mandatory GPS tracking.  One interesting consequence I found would be using the data to "meter" use of roadways by time of day to minimze congestion.
Full report [pdf]: http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/650863.pdf <comment> shawn-butler GAO believes road surface maintenance should be paid relative to damage inflicted by travelling on it. Currently revenue for resurfacing is raised mostly by fuel taxes. Heavy commerical trucks are not found to be paying their fair share for the damage they inflict and high efficiency hybrids and electric vehicles pay much less and nothing respectively.

GAO suggests a pilot study of gathering revenue per mile travelled using mandatory GPS tracking. One interesting consequence I found would be "metering" use of roadways by time of day to minimze congestion.

Full report (pdf): <http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/650863.pdf></comment>


Xcode as a Prototyping Tool for Designers - <AUTHOR> https://robots.thoughtbot.com/xcode-as-a-prototyping-tool-for-designers

<comment><USER2> Origami from facebook is also very nice for prototyping, perhaps to nice as it allows you to easily to do things that would be difficult to code with the mobile ui frameworks we have currently.</comment>


PracticalAI 2.0: A New Platform to Learn ML Using Python, Keras and Tensorflow - <AUTHOR> https://practicalai.me/ <comment><USER2> I chose one of the Colab notebooks and followed through the text and cells on my phone. Looks well done, nothing that you couldn't find elsewhere on the web but here the material is well organized.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty awesome, does anyone have something similar but talking about data pre-processing explicitly. I always had trouble with this, let it be RNNs or R-CNNs. It's really hard to figure out how to structure your data if you want to fine tune/transfer learning the weights for your own data set

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a target date for the "coming soon" stuff under Production ML?</comment>


Show HN: NPS tracking for startups - <AUTHOR> https://circleshq.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> One of the developers here. We built Circles due to the same problem I encountered in previous projects after releasing the apps: how do you automate outbound communications with your users for the lifecycle of the product?

This initial version automates NPS tracking for post purchases/subscriptions (i.e. active users) for Stripe with individual and bulk replies. We plan to cover additional lifecycle stages (e.g. trial user, prospective user, etc.) with pre-built surveys like this one.

There is a free version so please try it and give me the good, bad and ugly</comment>


Ask HN: How about a free copywriting audit? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to add a service to my existing freelance work in the guise of https://copywritingaudit.com (see clickable below).
It offers an affordable audit and re-write of your site copy, with a view to boosting conversions and sales.
I'm looking for 3 suitable SMEs/startups to offer free audits to in exchange for testimonials and feedback on any immediate results that might occur.
More detailed information is available on the site. Please use the contact details on the site to get in touch. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: [https://copywritingaudit.com](https://copywritingaudit.com)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> PS - if you've taken a look and decided it's not actually what you want, I'd like your feedback if you had a second!

PPS - Just 2 spots left now, if you'd like to take part.

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: One spot left. Drop me a line if this appeals!</comment></comment>


WPA2 vulnerability found  - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/wireless/2010/072610wireless1.html

<comment><USER2> Expert analysis here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1541729>

Jennifer's a friend of mine who knows her stuff when it comes to 802.1X, NAC and WiFi. It looks like it's only related to broadcast traffic, and you have to be authenticated. Also, I can't tell, but it sounds like it might be restricted to radius-authenticated networks (WPA / WPA2 Enterprise, not PSK like you'd find in a coffee shop)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow. If this is legit, this one is really bad. It covers this case:

1) Bob and Alice go to a coffee shop that uses WPA2, but gives the password to paying customers.

2) Alice uses the exploit to acquire Bob's PSK.

3) Alice records and decrypts all of Bob's traffic.

<comment><USER4> That's always been possible - you can just enter the network password in Wireshark and watch everybody's traffic on a PSK network. You just have to capture the initial key negotiation traffic for a particular client.

WPA(2) largely just made it more difficult to brute force network passwords (vs WEP) but did nothing for privacy of the users. Unless you're using certificates for authentication, everything you do is visible to anyone else who has the password.

It's a shame, because it would have been very easy to address by just using Diffie Hellman when determining the session key.

<comment><USER5> Agreed that shared secrets are not really that secret.

"it would have been very easy to address by just using Diffie Hellman when determining the session key"

Since WPA is implemented in hardware you must add gates to support Diffie Helman. This adds cost, resulting in a cost/security trade off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Basic concept:

Unicast traffic has safeguards against spoofing. Multicast does not. Spoof yourself as the AP, send out multicast traffic, and clients respond with unicast traffic _with their key_.

OK... seriously? _Session keys!_ If you never send them out after negotiating them, the attacker would never get the key, and all your past traffic would still be secure.

The state of "security" with wireless communications continually strikes me as an ass-backwards place... wtf keeps going wrong? A couple standard, basic security techniques would seem to resolve nearly every cracking problem, and a large number of MITM ones too (certificates!).</comment>


Patent Stockpiling and Positioning for Patent Fights - <AUTHOR> http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202444656758&src=EMC-Email&et=editorial&bu=Law.com&pt=Law.com%20Newswire%20Update&cn=LAWCOM_NewswireUpdate_20100226&kw=Verizon%20Patent%20Case%20Marks%20a%20First%20for%20Intellectual%20Ventures

<comment><USER2> _IV wouldn't say whether it sold or simply loaned the patent to Verizon for its TiVo fight._

You could _rent_ a patent just long enough to clobber your competition?! The sheer diabolical genius makes my head hurt. Its like netflix, but for trolls.</comment>


Show HN: Material Icons search with alias - <AUTHOR> https://materialicons-alias.today <comment><AUTHOR> One of my issues with the Material Icons search is that you can't search for aliases, so I created this site and a few aliases for each icon.

Hopefully people will submit PR's to improve the quality of the aliases and maybe Google will merge the alias list with their own project at some point.

Let me know what you think or if you find any bugs! Thanks</comment>


SoftBank's Masayoshi Son is investing to make the 'Singularity' happen - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/25/softbanks-masayoshi-son-is-investing-to-make-the-singularity-happen/ <comment><AUTHOR> > Son said that he teamed up with a Saudi Arabian group to raise a $100 > billion investment fund as part of a plan to move to the next stage.

Also see: "SoftBank and Saudi Arabia plan $100bn tech fund" [https://www.ft.com/content/0370a5f4-9191-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a...](https://www.ft.com/content/0370a5f4-9191-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923)</comment>


Facebook discontinues support for its Python SDK - <AUTHOR> http://bugs.developers.facebook.net/show_bug.cgi?id=17429

<comment><USER2> It seems crazy how nonchalantly they discontinued support. I really wouldn't have thought the suggestion of appointing a community manager would be too much trouble.

</comment><comment><USER3> Honestly, this is not even funny.What is wrong with those people. It's not like it's a lot of work to maintain it. Right now I'm really hoping G+ will have awesome set of API's, and gdata package gets updated to include them.</comment>


The Pyramid-Like Shape of Linux Authorship - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/who-are-the-authors-of-the-linux-kernel-f4a0b286512e <comment><USER2> fork, or stop whining

<comment><USER3> For me it looks like an analysis, I don't see any whining.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Disrupt the dental industry? - <AUTHOR> I still can't believe a veneer treatment for one tooth alone cost me my half-month salary. It would be nice if it to be added to YC's RFS list.<p>Or is it already been disrupted that I'm not aware of? <comment><USER2> Come to Europe, it costs (private care, outside the state healthcare system) way less. Dental industry is OK, your healthcare system needs a disruption (and I'm really not saying that it should be government-ran).</comment>


Letter to Parliament requesting promised amendments to Anti-terrorism Act,2015 - <AUTHOR> http://bloggerbust.ca/2016/12/21/accounts-of-companies-advocating-netizens-online-privacy-rights/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

This is an update to an earlier post which did not include a letter to Parliament. If you read the original blog post than your browser may show you the cached version. If you do not see the letter to Parliament then please refresh the page with Ctrl-F5 to view the latest content.

Cheers!

Trevor.</comment>


Bloggers Leave LiveJournal as Servers Move to Russia - <AUTHOR> http://www.metafilter.com/164293/LiveJournal-represents-social-media-without-borders <comment><USER2> Understandable if you are a dissident that's working against Russian interests. Not understandable otherwise, as everything you post online is available for anyone to do with as they choose anyhow.

<comment><USER3> > Not understandable otherwise, as everything you post online is available for > anyone to do with as they choose anyhow.

Russia is a country that heavily censores the internet and opresses its own people. That's a good enough reason.

<comment><USER4> It's China that _heavily_ censores (sic) the Internet.

Russia just censors, but it's on par with the US, India and other countries. They just don't get their fair of TV coverage.

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

<comment><USER5> In what way does the US censor the Internet at all?

<comment><USER2> In some ways freedom of speech can be used as a tool of surveillance. You say that people can say anything they want, and then you let them tell you who you should be watching via your sophisticated surveillance apparatus.

<comment><USER6> Answering a question about censorship with a response about surveillance is a pretty big non sequitur.

<comment><USER2> What it boils down to is that we don't censor things, well the reason we don't censor things is because our government does not feel the need to censor things to continue to function. That's because we have methods of dealing with people saying things that we don't want to become common opinion, i.e. we have very sophisticated propaganda tools to sway public opinion that until now were working pretty well. So we don't have to censor. Regimes where they don't have those type of tools have to censor, otherwise they lose power and legitimacy and things become chaotic. You can't control people.

To a Western secularist who basically has a covenant with the State called the Constitution, so it's a religious sort of deal. When the reason is not religious as to why states do this, they don't do it because they are bad or evil people. They do it because they feel that they have no choice and because that's how things in their country with their people.

For the Western States which have destabilized and destroyed many States in the Middle East using this sort of rhetoric, of saving them from a government oppressing its people, they don't have a leg to stand upon. They are not good because they are saving people from an evil dictator that does not follow their covenant. They are in fact at times evil and sociopathic in destroying and destabilizing those states that can not run properly without a dictator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If anyone is looking to jump ship, DreamWidth is a fork of LiveJournal.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Edited the title to better describe what the post was about. I hope that's OK.

<comment><USER8> I don't know what you had edited it to, but the current title is both true to the title on MeFi and doesn't really tell the gist of the story, which is "LiveJournal servers now located in Russia; purge of dissident accounts alleged" or something like that.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it was changed back to original title by mods, it seems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If the Russian state wants to mess with your blog, they will regardless of the geography it's hosted in. Case in point - the recent DNC email hacks.

This post assumes livejournal is somehow working with the state to facilitate censorship or surveillance. That seems a little presumptuous.

<comment><USER10> Disappointed with the down votes. A company is not the same as the country it operates from</comment></comment>


Adwords outsourcing - <AUTHOR>

I have all my campaigns on adwords and it is time consuming to improve & manage. I would like to outsource it.
I am looking for someone that can improve the keywords/campaign/ads so that I can see an improvement in my CTR/conversion.
It would be an on-going project where the person I hire would have an incentive based on the sales generated. How can I find such worker? How about in India or elsewhere? Is it possible to find someone on Elance type of sites for this?
If I give them my account info to manage the ad, how do I make sure they do not change the budget per day or mess up with my credit card? <comment><USER2> Also, try Trada.com.

Here's how it works: You set the PPC price you are willing to pay, and PPC experts on their platform compete to get PPC rates below that price. Their payment is the spread between the price you are willing to pay and the price they get.

I talked with one of their sales reps, who informed me that your monthly PPC budget has to be around $1500 (if I recall correctly) for you to join their platform.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can definitely outsource the management of your campaigns.

Google provides the My Client Center for Adwords experts to manage the accounts of their clients.

I have personally used someone in Russia that I can recommend if you are interested. (Contact me at <http://aymeric.gaurat.net/index.php/contact-me/>)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How do you pay them? Based on performance? How to find them?</comment>


DNA traces origins of Iceman's ragtag wardrobe - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37094141 <comment><USER2> Not really hacker stuff, but really cool science nonetheless.

<comment><USER3> For me, the coolest part was this bit from the end of the article:

 _When Oetzi was discovered in 1991, famously well preserved in the ice of the Italian Alps, this type of ancient DNA analysis was impossible.

"25 years ago, the study of ancient DNA was in its infancy," Mr O'Sullivan told BBC News. "It would not have been possible to infer, to the same extent, the species of origin or how domesticated the leathers were."_</comment></comment>


The best document store ever built: RethinkDB - <AUTHOR> https://rethinkdb.com/docs/quickstart/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hyperbole aside, the confluence of features, usability, simplicity and correctness in RethinkDB is amazing. Every time I come back to it I'm impressed by how straightforward and convenient it is to use.

I don't understand (also hyperbole, their founder actually did a writeup on why the business venture failed) how such good software could exist and not have a thriving company behind it.

I just went through setting up HA RethinkDB on my kubernetes cluster and had more trouble with kubernetes (granted I am new to kubernetes) than I did with the database. Literally just start the first one and start the second one with just `rethinkdb --join <the first one>` and you're done. Want to shard/replicate a specific table? port-forward to the HTTP admin interface, click the table > click re-configure > enter number of replicas (and check out the cool visualization that tells you where your data is going)</comment>


Using Artificial Intelligence to Write Self-Modifying/Improving Programs - <AUTHOR> http://www.primaryobjects.com/CMS/Article149.aspx?k=hn

<comment><USER2> I have a problem with the article using the term "learning" when this is just smarter brute forcing.

"Learning" should involve being able to extrapolate the solution to other problems, which is not what it does.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bootstrapped Intelligence. I like it.</comment>


3 Simple Rules That Will Make You a 'Superstar' Developer - <AUTHOR> http://coderoom.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/3-simple-rules-that-will-make-you-a-superstar-developer/ <comment><USER2> A smart accountant once told me that the answer to "How much money did you make?" is always, "Who wants to know?" If it's an investor, the answer is "A lot." If it's a customer, the answer is "A little." If it's the IRS, the answer is "None."

Same thing here. The answer to "Who is a superstar developer?" is always, "Who wants to know?"

To a project manager, the programmer who hits every deadline (regardless of quality) is a superstar.

To a customer, the programmer who solves their problem quickest is a superstar.

To a business owner, the programmer who makes them the most money is a superstar.

To a PHB, the programmer who makes them look the best is the superstar.

To a journalist, the programmer who tells the best stories is the superstar.

To a junior programmer, the best mentor is the superstar.

To another programmer, the programmer they are most likely to want to go into battle with is the superstar.

<comment><USER3> This deserves it's own blog post.

<comment><USER4> Why? He made his point in much less space here.

<comment><USER3> Because a lot more people would probably see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like sour grapes over bad team members being considered "superstars" by incompetent management. What the appeal of these bitter sarcastic articles? If you have a problem with a colleague, passive-aggressely blogging about it is going to serve no one, least of all yourself.

<comment><USER6> I just posted a comment similar to yours. I browsed over the comments here really fast to be sure no one said exactly what I did first, but I must have overlooked yours. I do not understand the appeal to do this either. It seems a bit pretentious in a way to make satirical articles such as the ones demonstrated here.

<comment><USER5> It just may be the killer app of Twitter though, now that I think about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Re: Just rewrite the lot as you think it ought to work. Call it refactoring if anyone asks.

I recently worked on someone else's code that was... terrible. Just really terrible. State information was stored as strings like "B13" to indicate that you are in part B step 13, everything was driven by line after line of twisty nested if statements.

My first inclination was to rewrite everything. I could have cut the size of the code in half, maybe more - but this was an existing, working system. Sometimes the right decision _is_ to rewrite everything, but sometimes the right decision is to fix only what's broke. It takes experience to tell which situation you're in.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Postscript for the naive: This post is a mild satire on programming in teams. These three rules, while undoubtedly effective, are evil. They harm overall project progress for your own benefit. They don't make you a better programmer intrinsically, only compared to the rest of your team. You may, like I and countless others, have done something like this completely innocently in the past, when you didn't know better. Now you know better." -- Quote at the end of the post

</comment><comment><USER6> I am beginning to dislike articles such as this. Satire every once in a while is fine, but if you have nothing positive to contribute during it, I really do not find it fun or interesting. I did not get much out of this article in terms of entertainment or knowledge even though it appears to be positioning itself to try to do both.

</comment><comment><USER9> What about the developer that is considering the readability of the file AS A WHOLE? They would also fit under this category as they tend to re-jig/re- write/refactor a lot of code.

I find quite a few developers on the team I'm working on fix bugs without considering the overall readability of what is going on, making the code harder and harder to read with each fix.

</comment><comment><USER10> _Benefit 2: Although you'll introduce lots of new bugs like this, it'll be several months before they start showing up, by which time your reputation as an expert programmer will already be assured._ I've seen a lot of people trying this approach but no one of them succeeded :D

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't know. Unless anyone actually tells me this person is in fact a "superstar developer" I may not believe it.

 _Rule 3: Don't take time to document your code, or add little comments explaining potential pitfalls in modifying some of the less clear statements you've introduced. You don't need them, you wrote the code._

Gosh. I understand the rule "Code is twice as hard to debug as it is to code, so never code as cleverly as possible" because one wont be able to debug his or her own code, but saying no comments? I do NOT know the structure of the program I made five years ago. If there were no comments, it would take me a little while to edit something- build in a feature, ect. Who the fuck says you need to stop documenting to become a superstar developer? Not even that. It's one of the three rules to becoming a superstar developer? I can't believe it is true. I see so many things wrong with the statement.

<comment><USER12> I think you missed something.

 _Postscript for the naive: This post is a mild satire on programming in teams. These three rules, while undoubtedly effective, are evil. They harm overall project progress for your own benefit. They don't make you a better programmer intrinsically, only compared to the rest of your team. You may, like I and countless others, have done something like this completely innocently in the past, when you didn't know better. Now you know better._

<comment><USER11> Awww Damn. I hate when I'm the idiot =/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Its his page on the net and he is clearly venting , that's his right.

However, this is nothing new and has been there in various forms for ages , HN could do without this submission.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like Uncle Bob's rule: Leave the code in just a little bit better condition as when you checked it out. If everyone does that, it does wonders over time.

</comment><comment><USER14> Can get you fired if you have a smart boss.

</comment><comment><USER15> I really hope that this author is portraying sarcasm at the expense of so- called 'superstar' developers that are on his/her team.

<comment><USER16> He does italicize a postscript at the bottom of the article indicating it's satire.</comment></comment>


The Real Reason Why U.S. Startups Produce in China (Hint: It's Not the Cost) - <AUTHOR> http://www.honeybuns.co/blogs/news/the-real-reason-why-startups-produce-in-china <comment><USER3> As someone who has experienced a similar process through a relative of mine, is really interesting to hear a detailed story that not only talks about the process but also about the feeling of manufacturing outside of your home country. Finding the company that fit your product and your quality standards is extremely time consuming but once that serendipity happens you start feeling the snowball effect of the next items in the list. It really is all about finding the right match for your product.

I wonder if the Kaizen philosophy ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen)) applies for Chinese people as well. Can someone comment on this?

<comment><USER4> Yes - it does feel like there is some serendipity involved. I think my likelihood of getting lucky increased when I let go of the geographic limitations. Curious about Kaizen philosophy in China as well...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a great read! As a consumer,this is making me reconsider the stigma attached with China-manufactured products and that I should just write-off certain products that are China-made when shopping.

<comment><USER4> I felt the same way before actually going there, meeting the workers and factory owners and seeing the work that they do. In my personal experience their drive and perfectionism is unmatched. Thanks for your comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really surprising to hear that luxury brands are already using China for manufacturing - I was definitely under the assumption that luxury fashion was primarily manufactured in Europe and the US...

<comment><USER4> It's a fairly well kept secret. Chinese manufacturing isn't suffering too much, but it's unfair to deny them credit for the great work that they are doing because Italian brands don't want to admit that their products weren't 100% made in Italy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hello Everyone, I'm the author of this piece and would be happy to answer any questions other founders might have about factory sourcing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great article! Do you think that China is the only country or are there other countries that dominate manufacturing in the apparel space?

<comment><USER4> That's a great question - I've talked to a bunch of other physical product startups in both apparel and hardware. China is not the only good option - <USER2> Lanka, for example, is great for lingerie. I've also heard good things about central and South American countries for knitwear. China seems to dominate in hardware, but I'm sure there are other places doing good work in that area.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk's Neuralink Gets $27M to Build Brain Computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-25/elon-musk-s-neuralink-gets-27-million-to-build-brain-computers <comment><USER2> I really don't see what a neural implant gets you that an AR headset doesn't provide. It's trivially easy to saturate a human brain with visual stimuli. Elon keeps saying there's a bandwidth issue, but I just don't see it.

<comment><USER3> It hopefully gives input and output. Also eyes can run instructions. Maybe it can, but I've never seen an image/video that can force limbs to move or sensations in an efficient way.

<comment><USER4> Input?

If you control the input, at that point can't you hack a human mind?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have big hopes for this fascinating area! :-)

Bring on Ghost in the Shell!

</comment><comment><USER6> Is the point of this more to understand exactly how the brain processes things like memory than for allowing us to control machines through thought? Thought- control has its uses, I suppose, but personally I'd much rather have a way to influence memory than anything else.</comment>


$20 Out-of-Stock Items Are Being Sold For $900 on Amazon.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/Summit-2408106-Backyard-Safari-Magnifier/dp/B003AQBBPE <comment><USER2> Sold and offered are NOT the same ;-)</comment>


"But I'm not a lawyer. I'm an agent." - <AUTHOR> https://davidsimon.com/but-im-not-a-lawyer-im-an-agent/ <comment><USER2> That was a very interesting read! Honestly, it seems like Hollywood is due for some very serious criminal and civil investigation. It seems to have a very ingrained culture of corruption and fraud (see also: Hollywood accounting).</comment>


What's the best font for the Web? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/200806/1494/

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly, Verdana and Ariel are winning. Sadder still, there aren't any better options. :-)</comment>


Internet Explorer 9 demos set for March MIX conference - <AUTHOR> http://www.betanews.com/article/Internet-Explorer-9-demos-set-for-March-MIX-conference/1266426157 <comment><USER2> As a web developer I'm keenly interested in any new IE releases. I can't help but wonder, however, why Microsoft need's to mark each release as a major version (7, 8, 9).

Microsoft itself has made it clear that everyone should upgrade to the latest IE version, yet uptake has been slow. Couldn't they just bury new rendering engines in service packs and leave the version numbers alone? IE users would enjoy a better web experience, Microsoft wouldn't be stuck supporting old browsers for as long, and I could avoid going prematurely grey.

<comment><USER3> They can't "hide" an update to IE because too many corporate apps (not on the Internet) depend on IE6 behavior.

<comment><USER2> While they certainly can't break old releases, it seems that with IE 8 onwards they could implement something like that, doesn't it?

<comment><USER3> Oh, I see what you mean.

Yes, that seems like a great idea!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As 'blah' as the release of a new IE is, it's nice to see that there's some progress being made. It's still far too painful to fix code that works identically between Firefox and WebKit and breaks in weird and wonderful ways once IE is in the picture.

I hope their focus on correctness is as strong as the focus on matching JS speed in the other browsers, however. You can't do all the cool stuff that speed enables when you spend half the time figuring out when your elements need layout.

</comment><comment><USER5> All that 2D stuff sounds fascinating, but unless they fix all the stupid things that even ie8 renders wrong, unless they implement svg, html5 and a good js-engine, nobody cares. Microsoft is still trying to "lead" the web instead of just admitting they suck at web and doing their homework good (i.e. fixing everything up to the level when it works 'fine').

Of course I realize, it's probably a part of the plan - hold back the industry as long as possible in an attempt to give less advantage to the competitors. But it doesn't seem to work, because people always find workarounds, don't they?

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the big deal about IE9 is the major improvement in Javascript performance. Given that, emulating some of the various web standards IE lacks using Javascript will become more practical.

<comment><USER7> I particularly hope that <canvas> can be implemented using the Direct2D engine they're touting so heavily. It would be beautiful to use a proprietary standard to forcibly implement an open one. :)

<comment><USER4> Is that Direct2D engine developer-accessible? From my understanding, it's just a rendering technology for HTML/VML (a la Cairo for Firefox).

<comment><USER8> It looks like it's a proprietary competitor to canvas which microsoft doesn't like.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure it's just a rendering technology - not a canvas competitor. Even Firefox will be supporting it:

[http://www.osnews.com/story/22543/Direct2D_Acceleration_Fire...](http://www.osnews.com/story/22543/Direct2D_Acceleration_Firefox_Measures_up_to_IE9)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sadly, just like IE8, IEx doesn't matter until IE6 is gone. Unless they allow IE9 to emulate IE6 on command so corp IT departments can install it without fear of breaking old apps. Like Windows XP mode in Windows 7 but for IE>

<comment><USER10> I'm always curious as to what these apps require that newer browsers can't handle or rather handle differently, does anyone know of any examples off hand?

<comment><USER11> Examples are usually at any big non-tech corporation: engineering firms, insurance companies, etc. They are typically found in their reporting tools or HR tools, or even the internal company website. I worked at a place where everything revolved around IE6.

I couldn't even browse the company websites in anything non IE. They must have checked the useragent, or used only ActiveX specific code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Web developers attending the conference will need to see how the new browser functions, especially with respect to its all-new support for Direct2D rendering (a Windows-only feature that has potential to flatten its competition), as well as improved support and functionality with Silverlight (a cross-platform feature)."

Read:

"We know the house has no foundation, but it's okay, because look at all the sweet shit we added! There's a windvane on the roof, and we gave 'er a new coat of paint, and we even added on a sexy garage in which you can only park Ford cars! Cool, huh?!"

<comment><USER13> To be fair, Direct2D and Silverlight are actually potentially quite useful features:

Direct2D is a hardware acceleration layer for 2D graphics. If it's fully integrated into IE that means we might finally be able to get a full quality <canvas> implementation in IE (Even if we still have to build it ourselves with JS) - way better than the current VML based hacks.

Silverlight also gives developers a nice alternative to Flash if all they need to do is get access to things the browser doesn't expose yet. It's still not as good as pure js/html, but it's at least got functioning open source implementations (unlike Flash).

<comment><USER12> Yes, but Direct2D is proprietary and Windows-only, and Silverlight has <50% adoption...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> All that waffling on and a mention of whether it's HTML5 compliant and whether it supports the <video> tag at least.

</comment><comment><USER15> SVG and canvas support would be awesome - and it sounds like SVG at least is likely.

<comment><USER12> (from <http://processingjs.org/blog/?p=77>):

F1LT3R[13:10] asked the experts: So the IE development team are officially doing nothing except listening to users re: the Canvas at this time?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert)[13:12]: We're doing lots of stuff :)

Seems like they're dodging the question, as usual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That chart of sunspider performance tests makes me laugh every time. The scale is so skewed by IE7 that IE9 actually looks competitive. They should have just thrown in IE6 numbers to really flatten out any differences.

</comment><comment><USER17> Internet explorer's version of progress is not even close to caught up to what's already out there. It is slower and less compliant than browsers that have been out for almost a year. And 32% on the acid3 test? Seriously? You can tell exactly where their priorities don't lie.

</comment><comment><USER14> All that waffling on and a mention of whether it's HTML5 compliant and whether it supports the <video> tag at least.</comment>


How to choose a good mobile ad network | Developer Economics - <AUTHOR> http://www.developereconomics.com/choose-good-mobile-ad-network/ <comment><USER2> What a useless article, it just state the obvious "Experimenting with various solutions to find the ones that best match your needs is critical"

"Experiment with various" means, for each network: 1) register 2) install their sdk 3) test the app to see if the ad network is REALLY working, each ad network has specific requirements. 4) wait for ALL your users to update your app(s!) to the newest version 5) wait at least 1 month to have some meaningful data</comment>


US court rejects Magic Leap claim that Nreal founder stole mixed-reality secrets - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/us-court-rejects-magic-leap-claims-nreal-founder-stole-mixedreality-secrets-120537120.html <comment><USER2> > In fact, Plaintiff's complaint is devoid of any allegation as to what > specific "confidential information" Plaintiff believes that Xu used to start > Nreal or to create and promote the Nreal Light. In the absence of any > specific allegation, the Complaint conclusorily recites the "breach" element > of Plaintiff's breach of contract claim, which is inadequate to state a > claim for breach of contract.

Whilst the court upheld that the contract on intellectual property was sound, it looks like Magic Leap was completely unable to say how the IP was even used in Nreal.

> Although Plaintiff need not spell out the exact details of Plaintiff's > confidential designs in order to adequately plead breach, Plaintiff must do > more than simply state that Xu breached the confidentiality agreement by > disclosing confidential information.

It seems like Magic Leap were hoping to prove the assertion all based on discovery, but discovery is not a fishing expedition - you need to have actual evidence and not just aspersions. Though, the court has given them room to amend their claims and try again, so this might not be over - though they only have 30 days to get their paperwork in better order than it has been so far.</comment>


Spotmap: A 3D spatial index rendered and described - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/strainer/fancy/wiki/Spotmap <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I see there is good activity on Show HN. Ive got some more tidying and documenting of the project to do yet to feel its ready.</comment></comment>


Why is Tim Cook sacrificing the Mac at the altar of the iPad? - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2015/11/12/ipad-pro-vs-macbook/ <comment><USER2> I would argue that this has less to do with "people that require laptops" vs "people that require laptops _for work_ ".

The iPad pro seems to be a direct competitor or option for companies that previously bought Lenovo or other Windows based laptops - including the Microsoft Surface.

The specs on the new Macbook lines are the only things that make it feel weird. If you take that out of the equation it starts to make more sense.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't believe Cook was referring to Macs when he said "PCs".

He'd like to see iPad Pro cut into the Windows market. I don't think it'll happen without big improvements to iOS.

Meanwhile, the Mac will continue to do just fine. :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Because it's better to disrupt yourself than have someone else do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Doesn't that presuppose that tablets will disrupt PC sales.. if iPad 2010-2015 hasn't done it, what makes people think 2016 is the year?

<comment><USER5> Except that it did, and tablets in general. Or perhaps you missed all the hand wringing press about how laptop sales were down to flat while tablet sales were growing. (like this quoting IDC : [http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048650/tablets-dominating- te...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048650/tablets-dominating-tech-market- as-consumers-drop-pcs.html)) but there were many such articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Tim Cook is not a visionary.</comment>


0day vulnerability in firmware for HiSilicon-based DVRs, NVRs and IP cameras - <AUTHOR> https://habr.com/en/post/486856/ <comment><USER3> When you see how small some of these devices are it makes you realize how easy it would be for a malicious actor to bug just about anything you own. A simple cell phone charger becomes a listening device that could have an LTE modem hiding in it.

People are worried when they find a raspberry pi sitting in the network rack - and rightfully so - but fail to realize that you can achieve pretty much the same thing by hiding in plain sight.

Imagine how much you could fit into a 6-port commodity surge protector.

<comment><USER4> Without ruining the main use case - is there some way to sterilize or nuke things like a basic cell phone charger when it should have no radio-frequency capability?

<comment><USER5> Nope. Even USB cables now have active electronics and a microprocessor in them.

<comment><USER6> They don't have to. USB is four wires.

<comment><USER7> ...and 500 mA maximum. Anything above that, and things get Complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nothing surprising about it. These cheap Chinese cameras are just like that: buggy, default telnet passwords, silly vulnerabilities, crashing ActiveX plugins. Dahua/Xiongmai/Herospeed/whatever doesn't matter, everything is awful.

Using these devices outside isolated VLAN with only RTSP tunneled to trusted client is just bad idea.

<comment><USER9> > buggy, default telnet passwords, silly vulnerabilities, crashing ActiveX > plugins

This pretty much happens with any equipment. If it's very cheap there's no reasonable expectation that they put too much effort into building and maintaining it. If it's expensive there may be other interests involved.

The difference is what your nationalism dictates: When you hear of a Huawei vulnerability you think "spying", and when you hear of a Cisco one (or five [0]) you think "bug". In the end the choice is to buy cheap and have all the careless bugs, or to buy expensive and only have the by design ones. And whether you think they are malicious or not depends on where you come from relative to the product.

[0] [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cisco-backdoor- hardcoded-a...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cisco-backdoor-hardcoded- accounts-software,37480.html)

<comment><USER10> Or the semi-third option; firewall the living hell out of everything with something you either wrote yourself or can read yourself. No guarantee there either but you can avoid the garbage fire that is a lot of this. I'm sure the NSA has exploits for everything tho.

<comment><USER11> And that third option is only technically available to at most 10 percent of the population, and most of them have neither the time ("day jobs") nor inclination to spend their time in that effort. And that is discounting the fact that the majority of the buggy appliances you encounter are developed by that very 10 percent in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love these HiSilicon boxes, take a look at the OpenIPC project if you want to secure your device. It's open source firmware for these boxes, I want to give a big shoutout to Igor Zalatov and Flyrouter for all their support when working on these boxes [http://openipc.org](http://openipc.org)

</comment><comment><USER13> I know I am probably too forgiving (and generous and honest [https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/439593613603376622/](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/439593613603376622/)) but dumb companies have left backdoors in everything from heart monitors to factory equipment.

I understood that the Huawei threat is not "dumb shit" but "clever shit we don't notice until the cyber portion of the combined arms full scale attack is launched"

If we cannot trust one hardware company we cannot trust any of them. Open source hardware seems like the Nash Equilibrium for this problem - <USER2> finds a way to make sure everyone can verify the hardware in their network...

<comment><USER14> It is _both_ of those things.

And why wouldn't it be? Huawei is a large organization and, like all large organizations, will consist of a multitude of different groups all trying to achieve the same goal in different ways. Some will want to rob the bank by tunnelling quietly into the vault at night, some will want to walk through the front door with a sawn-off shotgun.

<comment><USER13> Fair enough - see my edit above. The only protection against dumb or clever shit is some means to verify SoCs are what they claim to be (yes very hard, but a future with Open source SoCs, and supply chains where you can inspect enough to be confident - that future can be glimpsed from here and it's a future where everyone wins)

<comment><USER15> > The only protection against dumb or clever shit is some means to verify SoCs > are what they claim to be

That's only protection from clever shit. Dumb shit will have security vulnerabilities due to being made by programmers who don't care, pushed to do it faster by managers who don't care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Someone should just sell a camera and make the code open source, they'd quickly eat all the market

<comment><USER17> Open source has near-zero appeal outside of the hacker niche. The vast majority of people only care about price and maybe customer support.

Open source isn't feasible for any of the mainstream systems anyway. It's not up to the camera makers. The silicon vendors would have to open-source license their chipset drivers and firmware source, which isn't going to happen any time soon.

<comment><USER18> I think some Allwinner SOCs have blob-free mainline linux. If there are solid drivers for everything (camera, ISP etc.), not sure. V3s is even QFN with onboard ram, so easy to make a board for. Or use a board like this: [https://licheepizero.us/](https://licheepizero.us/)

But, yeah, I think you're right, you'd struggle to compete on cost and features with mass-market players.

You could offer open source firmware for some existing cameras.. I think some people do do this.

<comment><USER19> > I think some Allwinner SOCs have blob-free mainline linux.

Have they finally stopped doing all the GPL violations and published the code?

If no: then it is still a blob, only a linux kernel blob with unknown changes.

<comment><USER20> What blobs did you find in mainline Linux?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > UPDATE (2020-02-05 17:28+00:00): Other researchers and habr users had > pointed out such vulnerability is restricted to devices based on Xiongmai > (Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology Co, XMtech) software, including products of > other vendors which ship products based on such software. At this moment > HiSilicon can't be held responsible for backdoor in dvrHelper/macGuarder > binary.

This was an interesting update, especially the last sentence.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder what the solution to this sort of thing is. Open source hardware maybe? Force publication of firmware for all hardware sold?

<comment><USER23> 1\. if the device name contains "smart" -> always assume it is vulnerable.

2\. put all IoT devices behind firewall/NAT router and never allow any traffic from WAN to the IoT. (Allow only South->North traffic)

3\. Never allow east-west traffic between IoT devices.

<comment><USER24> OK but what does the general public do?

<comment><USER25> Separate WIFI/network for IoT devices. Do not route to the internet in any way (skip buying anything that requires it). Connect to windows (or other OS) PC only, non-routable. Disable all connections from that network to the PC.

<comment><USER10> You wish. People are not going to go to their local PC (if they even have one) to use their smart lights. Likewise people are not going to change wireless networks everytime they need to change a smart item.

The best combo I have found is non-cloud smart devices and a solid firewall. I'm confident enough that my lightbulb isn't going to hack my Mac/Windows machine, and I can still control it when I'm at home with my phone. If I want outside control, then it's vpn time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So if device is behind firewall - attacker cannot sent TCP request to it?

<comment><USER27> Being behind a nat, without _any_ firewall, is more than enough to protect against this. In other words, you need to work hard to be affected by this "backdoor".

<comment><USER28> > Being behind a nat, without any firewall, is more than enough to protect > against this. In other words, you need to work hard to be affected by this > "backdoor".

So long as the device does not utilize UPnP and get the gateway to forward traffic to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Full disclosure format for this report has been chosen due to lack of trust > to vendor. Proof of concept code is presented below.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Client opens connection to port TCP port 9530...

Good thing they are not opening a connection to UDP port 9530. Imagine the horror...

</comment><comment><USER30> Flagged for misleading title.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is this Bloomberg and SuperMicro all over again?

<comment><USER32> No, there is proof of concept code.

from the article: [https://github.com/Snawoot/hisilicon-dvr- telnet](https://github.com/Snawoot/hisilicon-dvr-telnet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The title is misleading. HiSilicon is responsible for the SoC, but the backdoor is part of the Linux-based device firmware made by another company called Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology Co. There is no clear connection between Huawei and Xiongmai.

You can find the clarification about the firmware maker (Xiongmai) towards the end of the article.

<comment><USER34> > There is no clear connection between Huawei and Xiongmai.

If Xiongmai firmware runs on HiSilicon SoCs, there must be some kind of connection, even if just via a third party that paid HiSilicon for the hardware and Xiongmai to write the firmware for it. Unfortunately, the writeup doesn't clearly identify who that could be.

<comment><USER35> This argument proves too much. By this reasoning, "Qualcomm-owned Cisco" is "injecting backdoors" into their chips as well.[1]

The real title of the article is "0day vulnerability (backdoor) in firmware for HiSilicon-based DVRs, NVRs and IP cameras" and the word Huawei doesn't even appear in it.

If OP wants to claim that Huawei are involved, maybe they should write their own article. :/

[1][https://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-weve-killed-another- crit...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-weve-killed-another-critical- hard-coded-root-password-bug-patch-urgently/)

Edit: the title changed. criticism retracted.

<comment><USER36> > This argument proves too much. By this reasoning, "Qualcomm-owned Cisco" is > "injecting backdoors" into their chips as well.[1]

I would not consider this to be past my belief ...

<comment><USER37> CISCO has not only a long history of creating backdoors, but have also been marketing them as features. They even wrote an IETF proposal (RFC 2804) for a LI backdoor:

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2804](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2804)

[https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- dc-10/Cross_Tom/Bl...](https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- dc-10/Cross_Tom/BlackHat-DC-2010-Cross-Attacking-LawfulI-Intercept-slides.pdf)

Edit: Schneier wrote in 2018: _" We don't know if this is error or deliberate action, but five backdoors have been discovered [in CISCO] already this year."_ and linking to this article: [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cisco- backdoor-hardcoded-a...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cisco-backdoor- hardcoded-accounts-software,37480.html) (the final count went up to 7 actual backdoors discovered in 2018.

From May 2019: [https://www.scmagazineuk.com/cisco-firewalls-routers- switche...](https://www.scmagazineuk.com/cisco-firewalls-routers-switches- compromised-thrangrycat-just-dont-call-backdoor/article/1584822)

<comment><USER38> The IETF proposal you linked is not for a backdoor. It's IETF refusing to set rules on future IETF standards including, or not including wiretapping.

i.e. It states that whether a standard includes a wiretap or not is irrelevant to it being an IETF standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Why is the title sensationalised. There is no "injects backdoor into their chips".

It's a debug console on a busybox build. One would have to be on the same lan to exploit it.

<comment><USER40> > One would have to be on the same lan to exploit it.

For what it's worth, DNS rebinding attacks are commonly used against embedded devices, and remove this restriction.

<comment><USER41> Speaking of rebinding attacks... does anyone know why cloudflare's 220.127.116.11 resolver doesn't enforce this? It's the only "big" public one I know of that happily resolves RFC1918 IPs.

<comment><USER42> That's a terrible idea. For one, RFC1918 addresses are perfectly fine IP addresses, and as such are perfectly fine to put into DNS, but also, if your security depends on this, you are not secure, because rebinding attacks work just as well with non-RFC1918 addresses if that's what you happen to be using on your local network, so devices and software have to be secured against rebinding attacks with a non-filtering DNS anyway.

Plus, it just breaks things. More than once have I had the problem of trying to serve files to other devices on a LAN I was visiting, only for their idiotic local resolver to helpfully refuse resolving the host name of my laptop because, oh surprise, it resolved to an address on that LAN!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Isn't this just telnet? Like last time people claimed huawei "injected back doors", nothing is being injected by them, and these are not backdoors, they are front doors, standard festures etc? But dressed up in a way to make it look scarey to someone non-technical? Sorry if I'm missing something here...

<comment><USER44> A hidden door that nobody but the installer of the door knows about is generally referred to as a back door. If it was without the knowledge of the main device manufacturer, then it was injected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The company in question, Xiongmai, is not owned by Huawei as stated. This is probably a clickbait article trying to link Huawei with some kind of backdoor.</comment>


INFOGRAPHIC: A world of languages – and how many speak them - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmp.com/infographics/article/1810040/infographic-world-languages

<comment><USER2> I like how that little ball in the upper left includes a thin strip of the 1.1 billion (!) people whose data was not included in the study :-)</comment>


Show HN: Next MacRuby app in App Store - <AUTHOR>

Hello, I want introduce to HN community my application which built on MacRuby 0.10. Application called Debt Reduction Manager. As experienced Objective-C developer, I though that MacRuby is for play only but have found that its great framework for build apps for Mac, much easy then I wrote obj-c code and same time work perfect(even not final version) with cocoa. App Store url: http://bit.ly/mnkoI4 <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/debt-reduction- manager/id4362...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/debt-reduction- manager/id436293564?mt=12&ls=1)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> And some promo codes for HN: AYFMPTNKLNHR P4FYEXFEEN67 J96TWR43FN34 FWJAAW3HYKEW YXWXAF3EF4K7 W9LAR3LXXXKP 6TNXY9HW9X7J</comment>


Ask HN: What is best email client (to replace Inbox) - <AUTHOR> I love Inbox and I'm dreading Google shutting it down. I've tried several others in the past but haven't found anything else I like as much. At this point I suspect I'll just go back to gmail and be less happy but I'm hoping there is an alternative I could like as much.
Tell me what you use for email and why it's awesome.
only requirements are works on iOS and Mac. Doesn't need desktop app, web is fine (perhaps even preferable). <comment><USER2> fastmail</comment>


Collapsing towers of interpreters [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/rompf/papers/amin-popl18.pdf <comment><USER2> This is a very intereresting video featuring one of the authors (Nada Amin). Strangely enough, I watched it a few hours ago. It's a quick overview of the "tower of interpreters" idea and some possibilities that it brings.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrKj4hYic5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrKj4hYic5A)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm one of the authors. Happy to answer questions.

<comment><USER4> I've been working on techniques to enable a low-level interpreter engine to present (meta level) user function names in stack traces and (meta level) user variables on the debugger watch window, instead of just spilling the guts of the interpreter when you break into it with a C++ debugger. The basic idea is to design the API of the expression-building library so that the user code is always written in the form of callback functions which support staged execution. The first stage builds the expression object to be interpreted; subsequent stages could be all nops yet still serve the purpose of tracing execution and explaining generated plans.

It's encouraging to me that starting from a different goal, I reached a similar point in design-space as you describe in this paper.

I want to ask you about the role of continuation passing style (CPS) in towers of interpreters, and whether you view it as fundamental or merely a feature which is possible to support or not support?

The reason I ask is that in my work on improving debugging, I didn't start out with the _a priori_ intent to use CPS style, but I keep ending up with continuations popping up somewhere. Even when I try to wring them out (to simplify the use of the library) they are still "there", just maybe hidden or disguised.

The intuitive explanation is that, during "tracing mode," it is not enough to simply invoke the callback (and allow it to return). Instead, we want to jump to the callback function, and then leave it's frame open and on the stack while we do additional work. How does the interpreter regain control before the user's callback function has returned? Probably, via a continuation.

However I think there is also an interesting parallel or connection to coroutines. Yes, CPS can be used to implement coroutines. However, suppose coroutines are instead a language primitive, then similar staging and polymorphism techniques could be used to _debug_ coroutines. By inverting the relationship between "main coroutine" and "worker coroutine", instead of treating the worker as a function called-by the outside world, redefine the worker as the thing driving the program and treat "everything that the rest of the world does between coro-yield and resume" as a subroutine call from the worker coroutine.

What I haven't worked out yet is if and how the third leg of this triangle may be completed: using coroutines to implement the staging and debug tracing mechanism (instead of CPS).

<comment><USER3> Sounds interesting. About the role of CPS: for specialization purposes, CPS can have some benefits by splitting control flow. For example, if your input is "if (c) a else b" and c is a staged (=symbolic) value, then a CPS interpreter can ignore the control-flow join that's implied by the if-then- else, and continue processing longer paths independently. However, this also quickly leads to exponential code blow-up, and hence, we do not use CPS for the core model described in the paper.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! The main application I'm looking at is logic programming, so the control flow example you give is apropos. For example a user function which requests A AND B could be written: "if not(A) then fail, else if not(B) then fail, else succ". The first time through, we might want to actually take every branch so that we learn about the whole expression. At this stage it's just building a graph that records edges between variables and constraints, so the exponential factor is averted.

However I keep going back and forth between having the user write logic in a "control flow" representation versus in a "declarative" way (e.g. "return A && B"). The declarative way expresses intent directly, but loses most of the hooks for stepping through in a callback. Expressing it as control flow on the other hand requires some form of custom control flow operators because the built-in ones can't be redefined in C++.

It turns out logical "OR" is very subtle because we want to "actually have taken" exactly one of the options, but we also don't want to fail contexts where the preconditions for both sides are satisfied; we actually just want to arbitrarily pick one (and then the other), but only one per run (except when we're reflecting).

Subtle things like that make me nervous as requirements the user's control flow logic has to abide by. So my main challenge is to either figure out constructs which make this foolproof, or come up with "nearly declarative" forms: code which expresses intent declaratively, but does so in multiple statements so that they can be single-stepped through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How is _stage polymorphism_ different then a language supporting embedded languages (e.g. javascript with regex)?

<comment><USER6> "Polymorphism" means that a piece of code can be used, unmodified, for multiple situations. Usually this works by adding parameters to the code, and having each situation pass in suitable values of those parameters.

From reading section 3, it seems that "stage polymorphism" allows the same piece of code to be used in different "stages". For example, we might have a function call like `square(4)`: if we evaluate it now, like an interpreter, we get the value `16`; if instead we "stage" it, like a compiler, we get _code_ which (when executed) will call `square(4)`.

The polymorphism comes from parameterising the 'elimination forms' (branching, function calls, etc.). We can think of `square(4)` as being `call(square, 4)`, and we're overloading the choice of `call`: for an interpreter, we use a `call` which does the function call now; for a compiler, we use a `call` which constructs code for doing the call.

As for regular expressions in Javascript, this is more powerful for several reasons. Firstly, regular expressions are so limited that they can't reference other values; hence there's not much difference between interpreting or compiling them.

What about a more powerful embedded language, like `eval` running Javascript from within Javascript? That has the problem that we can't send values between different "levels" of Javascript. Say we have a value `x = 42` and we want to create an 'embedded' program `x + x`. We can pass around a string `"x + x"`, but when it eventually gets sent to `eval` it won't necessarily use the same `x` as we intended (it basically suffers from dynamic scope).

If we had a way to "stage" Javascript from within Javascript, we could ensure the correct value is used, but we'd probably have to write some funky expression like `<,x + ,x>` (depending on the language; take a look at MetaML for an example!). If we want to stage some Javascript which stages some Javascript (and so on), we'd accumulate horrible nesting/escaping boilerplate.

This "stage polymorphism" lets us write `x + x` for _all_ stages, including things which are evaluated immediately. Their technique is also _one pass_ , meaning that we don't have to run evaluators in compilers in evaluators... It also works with reflection, and with interpreters which implement the language semantics differently (they include examples like maintaining a count of how many times a variable is accessed, and for converting to continuation passing style).

<comment><USER7> The usage of the word 'polymorphism' in case of 'generic programming' introduces so much confusion. IMHO, polymorphism should be used only for inheritance (virtual inheritance in C++).

<comment><USER6> Forgive my lack of C++ knowledge, but surely inheritance is a separate topic to polymophism?

If we think of a classic OOP example, we might say (in some made-up language):

        Mammals can breathe
        Mammals can move

        Dogs are Mammals
        Dolphins are Mammals

From this, we know that Dogs and Dolphins can breathe and move, so we can write code like:

        function checkStatus(Mammal m) {
          try {
            m.move();
            return "Free";
          } catch {
            try {
              m.breathe();
              return "Trapped";
            } catch {
              return "Dead";
            }
          }
        }

This code is subclass polymorphic, since we can pass in a Dog or a Dolphin, or some other type of Mammal, and it will work unchanged.

Yet this is completely orthogonal to inheritance! There are two ways we might actually _implement_ these constructs:

\- Mammal is an interface: Dog implements breathe by operating its lungs and move by operating its legs; Dolphin implements breathe by operating its lungs and move by operating its tail and fins.

\- Mammal is an abstract class which implements breathe by operating its lungs. Dog inherits breathe and implements move by operating its legs; Dolphin inherits breathe and implements move by operating its tail and fins.

Both of these are valid approaches, but consider that:

\- Only the second approach uses inheritance, so it seems strange to limit "polymorphism" to only this case.

\- The checkStatus code doesn't actually care which approach we take. It's "polymorphic in our choice of polymorphism"!

Also, let's say that we did restrict the term "polymorphism" to these sorts of mechanisms. We might say that the above example is "polymorphic in the choice of Mammal". In which case, the "stage polymorphism" of this article is nothing other than "polymorphic in the choice of stage".

We could implement it in a language like C++ something like:

        Stages can call functions with arguments
        Stages can branch on booleans
        ...

        Interpreter is a Stage
        Compiler is a Stage

We achieve polymophism by passing around the currentStage, and writing code like `currentStage.call(myFunc, myArg)`. If `currentStage` is an `Interpreter`, the call will be performed immediately. If `currentStage` is a `Compiler`, code will be generated to perform the call.

The only difference between such an OO setup and the actual implementation in the article is that boilerplate like `currentStage` is all handled implicitly, rather than manually passed around, and we overload the normal language constructs rather than replacing them with methods, e.g. we can write `double(foo)` instead of `currentStage.call(double, foo)`, and `if foo then bar else baz` instead of `currentStage.branch(foo, bar, baz)` (or something even worse, to ensure that `bar` and `baz` get delayed!)

<comment><USER4> C++ supports multiple kinds of polymorphism depending on if and how they can be implemented with no or low runtime overhead. C++ does tend to conflate class inheritance with interface polymorphism, but there is an implementation reason for doing so.

In C++, an image of the data members of a base class is embedded verbatim inside a derived object. This means that a function compiled to work with a pointer to a block of memory formatted as a Base object can just as well be passed a pointer to the region of memory corresponding to a Base object inside the larger block of memory allocated to a Derived object. So C++ saying that inheritance implies polymorphism is not because they are conceptually the same, but rather that an implementation exists that can give both features at once for little runtime overhead.

Also, C++ doesn't distinguish between interfaces and classes; an interface in C++ is just a class with no data members.

Runtime polymorphism in C++ requires marking methods as virtual. They are not virtual by default. Why not? Because the default assumption is that code can operate directly (and efficiently) on what it statically knows about an object, and in the case when none of the methods are virtual it allows the object and code to be slimmed down slightly.

C++ has many other forms of polymorphism, method overloading or operator overloading (a.k.a. ad hoc polymorphism), templates, etc. The reason they are not all treated as the same is because their implementations are different. Hiding all of the differences would impose a small but fixed cost on all of them, which would be counter to C++'s principle of you don't pay for what you don't use.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the info. I'm not sure if it's supporting my point, refuting it, or is an aside :)

> Also, C++ doesn't distinguish between interfaces and classes; an interface > in C++ is just a class with no data members.

This doesn't invalidate the point about polymorphism being orthogonal to inheritance. The point is that we can choose whether or not to use inheritance: `breathe` _could_ be implemented in `Mammal` and get inherited by `Dog` and `Dolphin`, _or_ Dog and Dolphin could implement `breathe` themselves and there would be no inheritance. Either way, we still have (subclass) polymorphism, so saying "polymorphism should mean inheritance" seems like a bad idea.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Autonomous, Crowd-Funded Tor Relays with Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://go-beyond.org/post/autonomous-crowd-funded-tor-relays/ <comment><USER2> Interesting idea. I don't have any bitcoins, though. Maybe setup a gofundme account. or patreon. Just a thought.</comment>


Solving the JavaScript Memory Management Problem - <AUTHOR> http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2010/03/31/solving-the-javascript-memory-management-problem/

<comment><USER2> I know this is a joke, but this seems to be one of those "the truth is stranger than fiction" things. No, they did not implement manual memory management in Javascript. But yes, they did in fact _re-implement the Mac development ecosystem entirely in the browser_.

Extremely powerful or extremely insane, I still can't decide. One things for sure, I certainly don't think it was _necessary_ to go to the lengths they have to implement applications for the web well.

<comment><USER2> One more thing to note, is that at the core of what 280North has done (with a Herculean effort) is traded something close to lisp for something close to Smalltalk.

<comment><USER3> As a strict superset of JavaScript, Objective-J actually lets you have both.

<comment><USER2> Yes but we all know that, as is the case in Objective-C, your primary mode of modeling problems becomes message passing and OOP. In Objective-C's case you drop to C for performance, I have a hard time believing that you'd drop to Javascript in Objective-J to eek out more performance. (If that's the case, truly we live in interesting times.)

<comment><USER3> I'm not going to claim to be an expert here, but I think the relationship is a little different between Objective-J and JavaScript than between Objective-C and C. The features of Objective-C pretty much across the board make operations simpler than they are in C. JavaScript already makes a lot of things pretty much as simple as it gets, and in some ways makes it too easy to accidentally do something wrong. So, Objective-J actually serves to impose a bit of structure on your code (and could even impose strict+static typing).

That's basically how I've used it: Objective-J classes define the larger-scale architectural components of a project, but for smaller collections of data that are somehow related, especially for short-lived collections of data, I usually drop down to JavaScript and use the convenient hashes and arrays.

Performance-wise, some operations will be faster in JavaScript than Objective-J, because things like message passing have an extra function call. I haven't found it to be a particularly noticeable difference, but admittedly I haven't been writing a lot of performance-critical code, so others might have better insights on that subject.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (don't miss the code: [http://github.com/280north/cappuccino/commit/6678bba94f7778b...](http://github.com/280north/cappuccino/commit/6678bba94f7778b245d8219292b3a6ac85d31678))

<comment><USER4> that's a lot of code for april fools....

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Had to laugh at this: "Since $ has become the coolest way to do completely non-standard lookups in an almost indecipherable way"... It is true that this has practically become a meme amongst the JavaScript libraries. (did jQuery start the trend?)

<comment><USER6> Prototype did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh please, how am I _ever_ supposed to make practical use of this without NSZombieEnabled?!

<comment><USER8> If you read the post you'll see that we have OBJJ_ZOMBIE_DETECTION. It actually works :).

<comment><USER7> Holy crap, I spoke too soon, haha

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TL;DR version: Welcome to April Fools (gah, tomorrow is going to get annoying)

<comment><USER8> Yeah but you have to appreciate an April fools joke that comes with a working implementation :-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It took me nearly to the end to figure out that this was a joke. This idea just seemed like a logical next step to writig web apps with Objective-C syntax.</comment>


No. I Don't Design Logos – Typographic Poster for Free Download - <AUTHOR> http://imjustcreative.com/no-i-dont-design-logos-typographic-poster-for-free-download/2009/09/17/ <comment><USER2> SDNWOTN</comment>


Ask HN: How skilled should I be before going to a hackathon? - <AUTHOR>

Hi. I taught myself Ruby and Rails, and have some basic PHP and javascript, but wouldn't be confident in the latter two. Am I just going to get in the way at a Hackathon? <comment><USER3> No, you won't just get in the way. Hackathons just aren't that serious - <USER2> are essentially a more organized venue for a particular hobby. Go ahead and go. You will likely learn something. As long as you're honest about what you know and what you're capable of, the worst thing that can happen is that an asshole will be an asshole, which they probably would be anyway.

</comment><comment><USER4> The first hackathon I attended I was a beginner programmer - but was welcomed and found it a great learning experience. Many experienced developers like the eye of a younger coder to help them rethink an idea rather than to do it the way they've been doing it for years. Also, there is more than just coding to be done!

</comment><comment><USER5> Go to the event, spend the first half an hour talking to people, then find a team and give it a shot.</comment>


Cloud DB War: Autonomous Databases - <AUTHOR> http://blog.panoply.io/the-power-struggle-in-the-cloud-db-war-just-shifted-paradigm <comment><USER2> All I want is an ordinary RDBMS with SPAAS (Stored Procedures as a Service) that return a binary blob of tables, nothing else. I don't want noSQL, I don't care about cloud objects, I saw Firebase and didn't like it, I don't want JSON as a result, I don't care if noobs don't know who CODD is, they will learn it the hard way sooner or later.

Oracle is the living god of RDBMS and they should take advantage of that yet they don't. It has nothing to do with AI, ML, NN, or any other word du jour, just plain tables lightning fast.

<comment><USER3> I almost do this. My main APIs are POST/GET sqlite databases (ie: I build a sqlite db and return it like a file, then in clients and use it. Not using stupid JSON when I need long rows!).

\--

I'm dreaming about building a relational language and by the way build a RDBMS on top of maybe sqlite. I think exist a lot of potential for a relational store with more flexibility

Think: with both in-memory and on-disk data storage, fixed schema (as normal) + dynamic (like JSON) + Flexible.

By flexible I mean to use Union Types and return mixed rows:

//A union of several schemas: Table Log = | Customer | Order | OrderLine

SELECT Log =

Customer(1,...). Customer(2,...) Order(1, ...) OrderLine(1, ...)

Also, maybe allow to directly acces indexes (so a index is just a KV store!), to allow logical log manipulation, etc.

In short, what about a relational-redis?

<comment><USER4> Transferring whole sqlite databases makes sense when one side (usually the client) really uses the file as semi-persistent database for some non-trivial timespan (we actually do that for most of our mobile applications, usually for long-lived read only reference data, but one of our applications actually POSTs modified sqlite files back to server as part of normal operation, which is in fact mainly a hackish way to overcome memory limitations of the hardware involved). Using it only as data format for the transfer is hugely inefficient in terms of both time and bandwidth.

<comment><USER3> Yes. That is why a better options is to have a kind of streamable relational format (a JSON for tables ?).

The problem is that using sqlite it also embed a functional query engine, when a simple data format requiere extra layers to make it work.

So even better is to have a sqlite-like engine that allow partial/streamable reading/writes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Oracle will have a steep climb to pull off their vision. They eventually > will... someday. It's not with the fortune 100s that you surpass biological > evolution, it's with the hackers, startups, developers, and red-eyed bandits > that code at 3:14 AM to solve that one bug that kept them from sleeping for > the past 3 days. The Revolution of Evolution in cloud ML and autonomous DB > will come from a Panoply, the execution of large enterprise market adoption > will come from an Oracle.

Lol sounds like a great place to work.

<comment><USER6> It's amazing how freeing working only from 9 to 5 and not having access to emails away from the office is. I'm surprised anyone would willingly work that crazy

<comment><USER7> I don't even get why they would. It's not like the time I have to type code is my limiting factor on productivity.

Past a certain point, I'm not solving issues -- I'm creating them. On any horizon over a week, I'm better off sleeping, eating, exercising, etc than trying to smash every hour into working. Keeping my brain on a routine and properly nurtured is more productive than crazy hours, by a wide margin.

But I guess looking busy can be as important as results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So let the one who thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall. This is a biblical reference, but in this case, it applies. He has built up this product to do a lot by attempting to step on the neck of AWS. He's barely reached an elbow. What he is attempting to start is already being done. [http://blog.panoply.io/the-power-struggle-in-the-cloud-db- wa...](http://blog.panoply.io/the-power-struggle-in-the-cloud-db-war-just- shifted-paradigm)

</comment><comment><USER9> When is someone going to make this:

Example 1

\</comment><comment>---

Me: "Create a new Customer Record"

DB: "Customer Entity doesn't exist, shall I create it?"

Me: "Yes"

DB: "Customer Entity created. What is the Name of your Record?"

Me: "Larry Ellison"

DB: "Customer, Larry Ellison created"

Example 2

\</comment><comment>---

Me: "How many customers are there?"

DB: "There are 123 customers"

Example 3

\</comment><comment>---

Me: "How many customers have accounts that are past due"

DB: "I did not understand past due"

Me: "How many customers have accounts where past due is true?"

DB: "There are 5 customers where account past due is true"

Me: "Send me an email of those customers"

DB: "Email has been sent"

<comment><USER10> It could be a conversational API layer for any underlying database. Intriguing idea, possible with existing technologies.. Tune in next week for ChatQL!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wouldn't a much bigger deal be distributed part of the Oracle database in the cloud, not ML? Because turning a feature rich RDBMS into a decent distributed database is not really possible. You either have to sacrifice consistency, which by the looks of it is what Oracle is thinking to do [1], or you have to sacrifice both performance and availability. And there are already cheap not CAP consistent RDBMSs as services in the cloud. It's just hard to imagine how Oracle can leverage 90s era technology in a distributed world.

[1] [http://oracle-help.com/articles/oracle-18c-future- database/](http://oracle-help.com/articles/oracle-18c-future-database/)

<comment><USER12> Note Google Spanner.

<comment><USER11> Yes, Spanner is the opposite of that strategy, designed from the ground up as a distributed database.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not quite sure I can be hyped. It's worth keeping an eye on. The core dbms is relatively easy to carry and with some careful considerations can be formed and firmed up quite nicely. The irony is the that thicker the oracle kit the more intricate, delicate and expensive it becomes. Storage, db engine, memory and.. cluster ware? Nope, that bird can-nah fly.

Nice database you got there, it'd be a shame if it couldn't grow. Eight figures later.

If ml can expect, select and plant my data closer to the end user then my core rdbms engine can grow, otherwise you're just moving pieces on the monopoly board. Fat pipes, willing victims and a little ingenuity can go a long way.

</comment><comment><USER14> Moving infrastructure to the cloud can save money and labor, but the value of working with an experienced DBA to me personally has been getting expert feedback on schema design and stored procedure and query performance.

</comment><comment><USER15> Debating Oracle and the cloud always seems a bit of to me. I believe that most of Oracles database customers specifically don't want a cloud solution.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ellison has always been a visionary, his problem is getting his programmers to actually act and make that vision come true.

#18c sounds bold

</comment><comment><USER17> ML DB lightyears ahead? More like what everyone is doing. THis author needs to catchup on whats going on at CMU with Andy Palvo. PG will run this way before ORacle

</comment><comment><USER18> How can we even know #18c will do anything? it sounded like a bunch of buzzwords!

Oracle is so late to the game its gonna take a miracle for them to make a dent in AWS

<comment><USER16> Larry Ellison never bullshits, the question is if its actually gonna as autonomous as he says. From my experience with oracle DBs its gonna do half of what he claims and cost twice what he claims

<comment><USER19> If it doesn't do what he says or cost what he says it costs then how is that not BS? Did I miss the joke?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Too little, too late for Oracle I think. No matter how good the product is, it won't be a first class supported thing at AWS, Azure, or Google's cloud.

Eventually, that will drain off their customer base. If whatever the big 3 cloud providers are selling as a database is "good enough", then "better" won't be enough to keep Oracle's current position in the market.

<comment><USER21> Oracle has a lot of "legacy" customers who have a lot invested in their existing Oracle infrastructure. Oracle wants to migrate these customers to their cloud. For "Enterprise" I see Oracle's biggest competitor being Azure.

<comment><USER20> Yes...I agree. I don't think this is a fast death. But it is similar to the position all the RISC Unix vendors were in once X64 came out. Took a decade, but that was the death knell.

This one might be longer, say 15 or 20 years...but it's coming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What's the expression. "Been there. Done that". I think Oracle's just getting there. Looks like Panoply is already there - already incorporating machine learning into database architecture</comment>


Gimp and Inkscape on retina Macs do not work - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kjeldahl/gimp-and-inkscape-on-retina-macs-do-not-work-9601c3052e86#.a0ti5yx3f <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. FWIW, there is a solution/workaround as well in the linked blog post.</comment>


SHOCKER: World's First Truly Female A.I. Expresses Reservations about Trump - <AUTHOR> http://unu.ai/first-female-ai?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=organic <comment><USER2> AI trained with extremely biased liberal agenda:

PRIORITIES FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENT Women's Access to Safe Abortions: 5 stars

Reminder: close to half of American women do not support abortion

[http://www.gallup.com/poll/183434/americans-choose-pro- choic...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/183434/americans-choose-pro-choice-first- time-seven-years.aspx)

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article: ...researchers asked the participants to rank their own Political Orientation on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is extremely conservative and 7 is extremely liberal. That means that if the average participant had come out to 4.0, it would indicate a perfect balance on liberal vs conservative sentiment. This group came out to 4.7, which is close to balanced, showing a slight liberal bent, much like the general population.

<comment><USER2> My explanation: self-identification is not accurate in political orientation. Many thinks they are moderate left, but actually are far left.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If Trump's gonna invite Obama's long lost half-brother to sit in his box at tonight's debate, Clinton should invite this AI to be her guest of honor.

<comment><USER4> Should upload the AI to his teleprompter during his speaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amazing that the prospect of the _first female president_ is such a non- factor. As little as 8 or 16 years ago, it was a huge deal.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very telling. We should listen.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe A.I. technology will surpass average humans faster than we thought.</comment>