Facebook May Lose 80% of Its User Base by 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://www.vocativ.com/01-2014/facebook-will-lose-80-user-base-2017/ <comment><USER3> What? How is Facebook like an idea or an illness?

The problem Facebook solves is a problem we humans have had for thousands of years: how do we stay in touch with our friends and family? Facebook has made staying in touch much easier and simpler than any method before it. I don't see Facebook's demise until something else comes along to make staying in touch with friends and family even easier.

<comment><USER4> Humans haven't had that problem for thousands of years. For thousands of years our friends and family were mostly our neighbors if not actually living in our households. You could argue that Facebook and social media in general has perverted the notion of what a "friend" is.

<comment><USER3> Of course we have. Soldiers going off to war. Marriages between two families in different towns or countries for political or economic reasons. Moving from the country to the city in the hopes of a better life. Becoming a travelling merchant. Etc.

Maybe the need was not as great as it is now, but the need certainly existed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I built a few large scale viral games at zynga, crowdstar, etc. These games eventually exhibited the same strange behavior. They would stop growing - <USER2> start a quicker decline into nothingness. We tried every thing: features, advertising spend(s), focus groups, etc.

Once all your users' friends and contacts have been exposed to your game - growth becomes impossible. They either didn't want to try it or tried it (immune / infected). Once you have peaked, people with the least interest begin to leave. The scary issue is that people with moderate interest are effected by this group of early leavers. Then moderately interested users start tapering off. This begins a very quick death circle.

</comment><comment><USER6> This study is based on a couple of very shaky assumptions. The first is that they're modeling the decline of Facebook on the decline of MySpace, and assuming that their traffic/popularity curves are similar. I think the two sites are completely different animals and all comparisons became invalid when FB launched their app platform in 2007. Maybe when they launched their News Feed in 2006.

The second is that they're basing it on Google Trends data, which is obviously based on searches for Facebook. With the enormous shift to mobile and users going directly to the app, I think that throws a serious kink in trying to apply 2007+ trends to 2014+.

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf)

<comment><USER7> I wonder how it would turn out if they just asked facebook for the data instead of google trends

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> People are foaming at the mouth, waiting for and wanting Facebook to fail.

<comment><USER7> It already has in my book.

There is absolutely nothing visionary about it except that its a really nice cash cow.

I don't expect it to last through 2015. 2017 is way to long

<comment><USER9> Why does it need to be visionary to survive?

<comment><USER7> In order to make sure that their stocks stay as high as possible for as long as possible.

I would invest for sure if there was such a thing as Facebook X labs.

But nope lets go with timeline

<comment><USER8> They have an AI lab.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When we all first joined Facebook, we were hit with an exciting torrent of old friends we'd lost touch with, especially old hookups/romances that suddenly became possible again. This was like a pathogen entering a fresh population of potential hosts.

Then, over the past 6 years, we explored all of those new possible relationships and took them to their conclusion. But now there's nothing left; like the pathogen killing off all its hosts and having nowhere else to go.

In order to survive, the population has to create new hosts faster than they're being killed i.e. Facebook would have to generate new connections for us at a faster rate than we can explore them. I don't think it comes anywhere close.

In this sense, it definitely has biological underpinnings.

<comment><USER11> >In order to survive, the population has to create new hosts faster than they're being killed

I don't think that's true. Why do there need to be new connections for you to go through? What you just described is the equivalent of setting up your contacts list from scratch. Say on your phone. You get a new phone and now get to re-add all the people you know or knew. Because you want to stay in touch with them.

Once that is done, does that contact list of yours also "die out" because there is nothing new to add on a regular basis? I don't think so. You just finished building your initial contacts. And you know what happens then? You start to use it. On a regular basis. It is a tool you set up and once it is set up you use it. Simple as that. And that is the same way you can use Facebook. Once you added all the people you want to stay in contact with you can do just that.

It all boils down to how people actually use Facebook. Do they use it like a tool as I just described? Or do they merely play the game of "Who can collect the most "friends""?

I use it as a tool. I have my real friends on there. I don't have 300+ people on there just so when I post something I can marvel at the multitude of "likes" to get some kind of gratification through it. And as long as all those people continue to use Facebook I can continue to keep in touch with them this way. Even past 2017 or whatever date these people have calculated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf)

Full study for anyone interested

</comment><comment><USER12> Hasn't Facebook not only surpassed MySpace in peak popularity, but has lasted (usage wise) quite a bit longer than MySpace? I feel like MySpace never actually tried to significantly innovate and change itself (in its heyday) while Facebook has iterated significantly multiple times since I've been using it.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's also true that the planet Earth may lose up to 100% of its users by 2017.

</comment><comment><USER14> What are the odds that the people behind this are shorting FB?

There's no shortage of sensationalist stories about public companies – even a tiny bit of price movement can be leveraged for big gains.

</comment><comment><USER15> Or may not :) The way things are, they will either be stable like google and they are going in that direction, or completely dissapear.

</comment><comment><USER16> 2017 is still a long time in the future. More than enough time for them to innovate.

</comment><comment><USER17> Linkbait

<comment><USER18> Exactly. Why else quote a study that the author readily admits is faulty?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> ... or may not.</comment>


Facebook Hackamonths recharge burned-out engineers - Apr. 27, 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/27/technology/facebook_hackamonth/index.htm?eref=mrss_igoogle_business <comment><USER2> so to recharge burned-out engineers, you give them more work to do? I would need a month of no coding or work to recharge.</comment>


Review: Qubes OS Beta 1 — a new and refreshing approach to system security - <AUTHOR> http://www.flaviostechnotalk.com/2011/05/01/is-there-a-blue-pill-for-qubes-os/

<comment><USER2> "data flows in Qubes OS seem to be currently loosely defined or discretionary at best (it is up to the user to move data among domains and there are no hard rules of what can and cannot be accessed and/or copied to/from different level security domains)."

This is a problem. As Vista showed, if you bother the user with too many details, they'll just open it up wide open and let everything through so they can just get their work done.</comment>


Can UBeam's Through-The-Air Phone Charging System Live Up to the Hype? - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/can-ubeams-throughtheair-phone-charging-system-live-up-to-the-hype <comment><USER2> From the article:

"As a scientist, I want to be open-minded and not too skeptical... But I am an applied technologist, and know that uBeam is facing a very challenging problem, to say they least."

<comment><USER3> "With the exception of Perry, none of the engineers listed on uBeam's patents are still at the company, according to their LinkedIn profiles. What's more, uBeam engineers are said to feel as though they were being pressured by management to describe the technology in more optimistic terms than they were comfortable with."</comment></comment>


Forget growing weed–make yeast spit out CBD and THC instead - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/yeast-cbd-and-thc/ <comment><USER2> I had never imagined that people would want to smoke yeast.</comment>


Earth has new, but temporary, natural moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/02/26/Earth-has-new-but-temporary-natural-moon/5581582747586/ <comment><USER2> > NASA scientists have previously conducted computer simulations suggesting > Earth is usually host to one or more mini moons, asteroids that temporarily > circle Earth before breaking free and escaping back into interplanetary > space.

What breaks them free? Is it a big pachinko game?</comment>


Ask HN: What do you say when asked "How do I become a software developer?" - <AUTHOR> What is your default advice when asked how to become a software developer? Assume that you are trying to be helpful and that the person has no or limited computer science background. <comment><USER2> Do whatever it takes first off to get some self-achieved result, modding an open source project, cobbling together stuff without regard to IP. Get SOMETHING running, anything. Once you do, you will feel you made real progress. You need to get this sense of "traction" early on, when you know you can make stuff that can run, then you can really get down to learning, testing, and playing around.

For quite a while, it's not going to be pretty, or something you can sell, but it will get you started. Keep building on what you learned. as you get better with just "making things that work," then work on making them better. Read, read, read, play, read. Don't worry if it looks bad, you need to conquer logic and data and achieving expected results before bothering with style.

...So now you think you can write stuff, next, look to see if it is secure. Could you hack your own stuff (probably easily early on), start looking for tips on how to tighten your work (start with anything affecting your stuff externally, data, calls, URLs, etc.) and make it safe for others to use, research common vulnerabilities, make sure you have them covered, etc. Also try to get some coding aesthetics in there, clean up code; name your functions, fields, variables sensibly, etc. Start constructing your project structure: configuration, code, library folders, sub-folders, etc.

Now look at end-user aesthetics (there's so many elements to developing, don't overwhelm yourself by doing them all at once). Act as if you are "the user", enter the data, play the game load, save - role-play as if it were one of your parents/grandparents, is it understandable?, easy?, fail-proof? (or is that "fool"proof?)

Enhance - now you can make some nice stuff. But from your perspective is it cool? Now you can work on getting in your style, new features, cut some edges...

Keep working it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I first ask them if they prefer to learn by video or book.

Then I recommend a few possible courses and I encourage them to pick a small project to work on to keep them motivated.

<comment><USER4> Do you by any chance have any course recommendations for front end, Python, or building your first saas app?

A kind HNer recommended two front end courses on Angular and React, but my friend recommends Vue.js. Do you have any idea what would be the best framework to learn for an inexperienced programmer that just wants to throw something together as soon as possible?

<comment><USER3> for Python, I recommend the online Introduction to Computer Science 6.x by MIT. If you want a book, I would recommend the Python Crash Course.

Take a look at the minimum features you absolutely need to support on the project. You may be able to get away with plain JavaScript rather than learning an entire framework.

<comment><USER4> Thanks so much, will check these out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd say, "Learn a popular language (like Javascript); write something that solves a customer's problem, and sell it to them." Wash, rinse, repeat.</comment>


How Software Companies Die - by Orson Scott Card  - wh-uws http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=DeveloperBees <comment><AUTHOR> A fun read, but a reductive and somewhat cliched thesis. Software companies don't die because they let the marketers take the reins. By the time that even happens, the disease has already set in. The influx of suits is a symptom and not a cause. Usually it's a symptom of one or more things:

1) The company has grown complacent;

2) The company has lost touch with its userbase, or with the landscape in general, or with the competition;

3) The company has reached its liquidity event, at which point it's no longer "cool," and cannot attract or retain top talent;

4) A bad investor, founder, or partner took control and started making poor decisions, _or_ a great one ceded control and left;

5) The category is disrupted entirely.

There are many more root causes, but you get the idea. The suits don't actually kill the company; they are just correlated with the death.

<comment><USER2> It may be cliché now, but was it cliché in 1995 (when it appears it was written)?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would still argue yes. As a rule, a software company that knows what it's doing doesn't allow marketers to take control of development in the way the article describes. Ergo, by the time the marketers are invited into the "hive," the company is already in a bad state because it is the sort of company that now makes such decisions and puts such structures in place.

Furthermore, clueless marketing types don't even learn about most hot software companies when they're still hot. They only even discover the company after it's already old news or has become mainstream. If anything, this was more true 15 years ago than it is today.

The article confuses cause and effect.

It's not that the suits can't still do a lot of damage, because they can and they do. But they are not the driving factor behind a company's decline. They are symptoms thereof.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> An amusing read, but there's been 15 years between this essay and the Social Network, and the stereotype of hackers as socially maladjusted, unshowered nerds hasn't changed much in 15 years (except maybe we're considered maladjusted, unshowered, _rich_ nerds).

Will we ever get to the point where mass media realizes there we are capable of doing things like dating an attractive woman... without even needing to shower her with money we've scored big in our IPO?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've worked on quite a few teams of nerdy hackers, as I suspect you have and many of us have, and let's take a look around and be honest: for the most part, the stereotype still holds. For the most part. Are things trending, if slowly, in the other direction? Perhaps. But we have a long, long way to go in a galaxy far away before your average hacker is dating attractive women.

<comment><USER4> In high school, when my algebra teacher found out I was attending a semi- formal that he was chaperoning, he said "Really? You're taking a girl? Good for you."

I showed up and when he saw who I was with, his jaw literally dropped. I had one of the hottest girls as my high school sweetheart. We won a "cutest couple" award that night. We dated for 3 years.

I know a lot of hackers (of either sex) with attractive partners. It's not hacking that's unsexy. My girlfriend encouraged me to play on the computer so long as she got the attention she needed too. She loved it when I built her a computer (it was completely purple in the 1990s, a rare machine). She even played a few Quake 2 death matches online with me.

But sometimes hackers are unconfident. That's a universal turnoff. After I dated that girl I went years without finding another girlfriend because I'd totally lost confidence in myself. Get some confidence, and even a computer programmer can get an attractive partner. I thought this was thoroughly documented in The Game :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, yes. It's not that hacking in and of itself is not sexy; it's that hackers and social awkwardness tend to be fairly highly correlated. That doesn't mean hackers, as a categorical rule, must be scrawny and squirrely and awkward. But a lot of us are. I don't consider myself to be, nor do I fault those who are for being that way. I just think we'd be slightly naive to assume the myth of the nerdy hacker is no longer reflective of reality whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oldie, but goodie.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43842> <\- 5 comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99568>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=552821> <\- 23 comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1635094>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1637968>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1654310>

[http://searchyc.com/submissions/how+software+die?sort=by_dat...](http://searchyc.com/submissions/how+software+die?sort=by_date)

</comment><comment><USER6> "You keep these bees from stinging by paying them money. More money than they know what to do with. But that's less than you might think."

I remember thinking this in my 20s. The novelty of making more than your parents wears of relatively quickly though. Having a mortgage in an affluent area pretty much blows that all to pieces. That being said, my feeling is that being in the industry as a worker bee often does not pay equal to what you are worth = the money you are bringing in. But isn't this true of all professions where you work for someone else?

<comment><USER7> Expecting to be paid what you bring in - or even remotely close (like enough to cover overhead) - is a frequent misconception of how capitalism works. Good companies have revenue of $1M/year per employee. Great companies have _profits_ of $1M/year per employee. Do you think you contributed $1M to your company's bottom line last year?

Remember that the goal of all for-profit companies is to generate profit, and that profit is either returned to its shareholders (known as dividends) or re- invested in the company with the hopes of raising the value of the company (and hence the share price). You can get a piece of that pie by taking your hard-earned money and investing in the company you work for. Some companies even let you do this at a reduced price (stock options) or, if you're lucky, include a stock award as part of your compensation. If you're not a shareholder, you shouldn't expect to see any part of the profit: you haven't taken on the risk of investing in the company. (Yes, some companies do have profit sharing as part of their compensation, but that's typically a different way of saying "you get a bonus if we can afford it.")

Granted, many of these concepts are non-existant when you're working for a start-up (where generating revenue, let alone profit, is stalled for months or even years), but the end goal is the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This essay is great and appears every so often like The Last Question from Asimov. It is one that is very true to the life of a company as it matures. It also shows why innovation will always happen at smaller companies with smaller teams just like everything good ever invented.

</comment><comment><USER9> So is sudden colony collapse the equivalent of off-shoring? I understand that's caused by a virus. Is that what we're calling it?

I remember back in 2006 being shocked and appalled at how a city councilor was making more money that me. Here I am fixing the most complicated systems ever created and some low level politician has a bigger salary than me! So I went independent and now make substantially more than your average politician. Problem solved.

Good thing there's a shortage of bees.

</comment><comment><USER10> A problem that affects all software companies is how they manage their legacy. In a startup, everything is new and you are blazing frontiers. Once established, the legacy code just keeps growing and a bureaucracy is put in place to manage it. Developers are leaving Google for Facebook so they can get things done. You can then imagine where Amazon sits in this journey. Joining a startup is like rewriting everything from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER11> "You're building something intricate and fine."

Odds are, you're not. Well, intricate yes, but fine, no.

<comment><USER12> That's "fine" as in "fine motor skills", or "fine sandpaper", not as a synonym for good.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but a lot of software, some of it MVP, is extremely coarse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sure there are many writers that I like whose views I would disagree with if I knew them. That said, I just can't read anything this guy writes since he so vehemently opposed gay marriage.

<comment><USER15> I feel the same dichotomy. What people said below is correct -- he does not mention sexuality -- but it still tinges what he writes.

In thinking why this is, I have the following to offer: if it was "John Q. Random on Why Software Companies Die", there is a good chance it wouldn't rise to the top of HN quite so quickly. The accumulated reputation Card has is actually important for people reading this article. If this is so, then we must remember some of his reputation is being anti-gay-marriage: it is no less important to this article as is him being the author of Ender's Game.

<comment><USER16> You do realize that well over half the country is anti-gay marriage? So when you read online do you discredit every two out of three articles you read because that person is likely against gay marriage?

This is in jest but most of the time external beliefs don't matter to the topic at hand. Such as do you discredit the work of Schindler because he was a womanizer and from most accounts a jerk, or look negatively on others who write about coding because when they aren't writing about coding they are out supporting the tea party perhaps.

<comment><USER17> Not that I disagree, but I'd be willing to bet serious ching that half of professional writers aren't against gay marriage.

<comment><USER16> And I would probably not take that bet, because I am sure you are right as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Clifford Stoll: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995) - happy-go-lucky http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306 <comment><AUTHOR> It's like someone from the 1990s travelled to 2017, noted what we're doing with computers nowadays and reported back all the contrary of what they saw.

The whole article sounds like "what we have now sucks and there's no way someone can improve it"</comment>


Sublime Text Dev Build 3100 Released - <AUTHOR> https://forum.sublimetext.com/t/dev-build-3100/ <comment><USER2> Nice to see that Sublime Text is not dead yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> WIN - emoji support</comment>


ICloud is Apple's biggest failure before Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/20/apple_fails_at_cloud_leaving_market_open_to_android/ <comment><USER2> This was one of the most incoherent articles I've read for a while.

Basically all he has said is that iCloud doesn't work and Amazon/Google does. But with no specifics or evidence to back it up. iCloud comprises quite a lot of parts e.g. mail, calendar, contacts, photos, safari etc. So all of them don't work ? Because pretty sure a LOT of users would be complaining if they didn't.</comment>


Show HN: Single-spa micro front-ends that co-exist each with their own framework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/CanopyTax/single-spa <comment><USER2> Doesn't the s in spa already stand for "single"?

</comment><comment><USER3> We are actually using this in prod. It's been pretty good, and has enabled the mingling of quite a few different frameworks. Angular, React, and Ember can live together!

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess my question is, why can't frameworks co-exist without this? Can't you just lazy-load them in?

</comment><comment><USER5> This is scary.</comment>


Are Today's 'Entrepreneurs' Actually the Unemployed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/opinion/02reich.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> Although my separation from my company was voluntary, they suggested they might be amenable to hiring me as a contractor, for lower pay and longer hours than before. As, you know, a favor to me.

That was a brief conversation.

<comment><USER3> My own (voluntary) separation from my employer was similar, except normal hours (for short 1 to 6 week periods) and negotiable pay. Of course, so far, they haven't actually contacted me about any work, so in the end, we're in the same boat :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know far too many 'entrepreneurs' in their 20's who are basically just unemployed (or unemployable because they won't take anything except a top level job) trust-fund kids. They never had a successful startup that they cashed out of, but rather just an inheritance or trust that their parents bestowed on them. They have big ideas, but little for execution.

There's a reason that wealth doesn't last multiple generations in the US.

<comment><USER5> Is the last part really true? If you look at wealthy U.S. industrialists of the late 19th century, many of them now have 4th or 5th-generation descendants who are still wealthy-- Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Mellons, etc.

<comment><USER6> Those are the exceptions, not the norms. OP is correct, most 2nd or 3rd generation trust fund kids end up blowing the family fortunes. No, I don't have any citations :p

<comment><USER7> There's a book called "The Millionaire Next Door" that gives all the citations you could ask for on this topic. It basically corroborates what you're saying -- wealth usually doesn't last past the 2nd generation.

Link: [http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas- Stanley/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas- Stanley/dp/0671015206)

<comment><USER8> Yep. And this book is an excellent read and resource to have. It is saturated with great observations and solid data. Highly recommend it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Insightful but I totally disagree with the government providing yet another tax-payer sponsored program to ensure that people who were earning an income at one bracket will earn that same amount while working another job, regardless of choice. All we need are more entitlement programs or maybe a government sponsored 2 extra months of pay. We're just not close enough to Greece.

</comment><comment><USER10> _For starters, they could use what might be called "earnings insurance" that would pay for up to two years part of the difference between what they earned on the old job and what they earn now on their own. Employed workers would contribute to the insurance fund through their payroll taxes, as they do with unemployment insurance, but the total bill for benefits would be unlikely to rise because earnings insurance would get them back to work quicker and thereby reduce the number of weeks they relied on unemployment benefits._

Wow, what a terrible, terrible idea.

</comment><comment><USER11> I got the impression that Reich's article was more about the reporting of labor statistics than people working as temps going around claiming to be entrepreneurs. Economist semantics really without much actionable insight IMO

</comment><comment><USER12> The article summarizes with one unemployment number an overall characteristic. The reporters conclusion is to simplistic and I don't agree with the observation.

Sure the increased number of unemployed contributes to the increased level of startup, but that might not be all the reason. Why are there so many 35-44 starting their own business? Not because the majority got laid off, but rather they lost the trust to corporate and know major changes will come. Too many have seen with downturns what can and often will happen to people with advanced age level.

If you fall into that position you have some serious problem, because the severance package for 10,15, 20 or more years of service is not a real help. It helps out a couple of months, but than what. What do you have? I am one of early 40 pool and decided not to wait, but rather take action.

</comment><comment><USER13> This strikes me as a very good thing. Yes, many of them will fail but they'll learn a huge amount in the process and make themselves more employable at the end of it all. Others will succeed of course. Meanwhile, the state isn't so many economically inactive people.

<comment><USER14> With respect to "more employable", consider <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287110> and similar screeds against people not holding long-term steady jobs.

It's better than being unemployed, but may still "count against" people in the future. (Note that this does not mean I agree with such assessments, and also note that there is a difference between a startup and hand-to-mouth freelancing.)

EDIT: The second paragraph previously just said "It's better than being unemployed, but not all that much." Replaced with the above.

<comment><USER15> Depends on industry I guess, if a company didn't want to hire me because I'd spent a couple of years founding (and programming) a startup then I wouldn't want to work there.

I think one of the great things about programming is that there is always a way to make a living. Can always start a startup or freelance.

<comment><USER16> I agree with what you are saying. Someone who spent years trying to build a real startup and working hard at it would likely make a fine employee if they failed (and have no need to work if they didn't want to if they succeeded in a big way).

But that is not what this article is about. Most the entrepreneurs they are talking about are not startup founders in the sense you mean. They are not trying to build the next big thing. They are instead working as individual contractors at poor pay (compared to what they had before at least) soley because they cannot get full time work.

While I do not necessarily think this should be held against them, especially not with the way the global economy has been lately, this is still a very different situation than being a startup founder trying to build something brand new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This really throws some light on how misleading "unemployment" numbers really are. There are an increasing number of underemployed Americans who are sometimes worse of than the unemployed because they are not eligible for unemployment benefits

</comment><comment><USER18> Is "George" a typical example? How many contractors work for less than what they were on when they were salaried? (even after the agency takes their cut).

<comment><USER19> Although the myth of the super-contrator is popular, in my experience most contractors are glorified temp labor with poor to average hourly rates.

<comment><USER20> Please stop believing this. Every time you accept a job for temp wages, it creates another unrealistic employer that the rest of us have to explain the concept of "contracting" to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'll work as a "self-employed" and earn whatever my work make me earn and not go for a full time job with annoying co-workers and under a boss. I may consider working for a big corporation if it's worth the shot (fun, money, experience).

This may be the reason why Americans are heading towards "self-employment". Freedom is priceless.

</comment><comment><USER22> Employment is to survive in life. Entrepreneurship is to succeed in life.</comment>


Ask HN: What would u do if AWS launches a service exactly as ur idea? - <AUTHOR> I've been spending hours & hours whenever i get free time from my work on a serverless application repository product equivalent. Now that AWS has it, how do i handle this ?
Shelve the idea ? <comment><USER2> I find it hilarious that people offer up "Shelve the idea" as the most obvious response when AWS (or Microsoft or Google or Oracle or Twitter or Facebook or Yahoo or $OTHER_BIG_CO) launch something like their project. Why would you do that? Do you expect AWS to achieve 100% market dominance and leave literally 0 customers who might prefer your thing? Can you not see any way to segment the market and identify a segment where you can make your product a better fit? Or how about not trying to compete on _product_ attributes at all, but rather compete on another basis like customer intimacy or service, etc? Or even compete simply by having a better sales process?

I'd say take a little time out, read _The Discipline of Market Leaders_ , _Mastering The Complex Sale_ , and _Differentiate or Die_ and think about ways you can compete with them. IF your analyzes leaves you with the conclusion that the best thing to do is to drop your idea, then fine. But don't just randomly decide to drop it because AWS is going to be competing with you.

Also, just a random thought that I recently had, given that I'm in the exact same boat (trying to compete with stuff AWS is doing).. read up on the old "Embrace and Extend" idea. I think there may be a kernel of something there, in terms of using that to compete against larger players. It's a half-formed / half-baked thought right now, but it might be worth chewing on a bit.

If you're interested in continuing this discussion outside of HN, feel free to drop me an email. email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Truly appreciate your inputs. Will take some time and think over this. The references are useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No. You beat them where they can't beat you (the PG way): you do stuff that's not scalable. Off the top of my head:

        - Amazing customer support
        - Price undercutting (at a loss) for your first N customers
        - Free "softs" like monitoring, load-balancing, etc.
        - Make it a managed service for your first N customers
        - Urgently implement features requested by your first N customers

<comment><USER4> > \- Price undercutting (at a loss) for your first N customers

Amazon is known to sell at loss in order to drive adoption or even hurt competitors. There is so much you can sell at loss, but Amazon can beat the crap out of it and sell much more at much higher losses and still be profitable in the aftermath.

I'd say, starting a price war against amazon is quite a dumb idea, if you are a lot smaller player.

<comment><USER3> I was just listing things that one _could_ do, I'm not sure what the best strategy would be vs. Amazon.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best way to store company private keys? - jonathan-kosgei I'm looking at Terraform's vault, but what I'd love to know what's the standard way to keep company keys secure? <comment><AUTHOR> Depending on criticity, use (frequency and effective use), consider:

* HSM [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_security_module](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_security_module)

* Handwritten base64 sheets of paper in different vaults

* a USB token (Yubikey, or whatnot)</comment>


Tim Tyler's Microswitch Keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://mykeyboard.co.uk/microswitch

<comment><USER2> this is pretty cool. If only xkeys would put out drivers for osx and/or linux to program their matrix boards :(.</comment>


How to Design a New Chip on a Budget - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/lowbudget-chip-design-how-hard-is-it <comment><USER2> There is no "How to" here as far as I can see. If the usable tools were cheap enough, multi-project wafers may be affordable enough for small volume chips. But the open source/cheap tools are not up to snuff, especially for design verification.</comment>


Counting in hexadecimal on your fingers - <AUTHOR> http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/105840.html

<comment><USER2> With 10 fingers, you can count to 2^10.

<comment><USER3> Useful, unless you're my ISP and you dictate that 1Gb = 1000Mb.

Ah, Telstra Bigpond - a team that would mandate pi=3.0 because the value of simplicity far outweighs, you know, actually having practical applications.

<comment><USER4> 1Gb is 1000Mb. 1Gib is 1024Mib.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> there's an even better technique called Chisenbop. It allows you to defer basic calculations to a mechanical process. It's described in "mind performance hacks" from o'reilly.

[http://www.ludism.org/mentat/MindPerformanceHacks_2fTurnYour...](http://www.ludism.org/mentat/MindPerformanceHacks_2fTurnYourHandsIntoAnAbacus)</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best blog tool to integrate with your site? - <AUTHOR> Need to integrate blog to our site - Medium or something else? <comment><USER2> My current favourite option:

\- Gatsby static CMS

\- Content and design stored and version-controlled on GitHub

\- Netlify CMS as an editing GUI

\- Netlify for hosting (blog.yourdomain.com)

The best way I've found to get this set up is this repo: [https://github.com/alxshelepenok/gatsby-starter- lumen](https://github.com/alxshelepenok/gatsby-starter-lumen)

<comment><USER3> I agree with this. Very easy to setup, and allows you to dive right in with content creation which should be the main point.</comment></comment>


Impossible Burger vs. Beyond Meat Burger: Which One Is Better? - <AUTHOR> https://skillet.lifehacker.com/fake-meat-smackdown-impossible-burger-vs-beyond-burge-1835060818 <comment><USER2> waiting for a 3d printed meat</comment>


Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/technology/bitfinex-bitcoin-price.html?action=click&contentCollection=Business%20Day&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article <comment><USER2> Duplicate from earlier: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281910)

<comment><USER3> And before that: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279300)

<comment><USER4> Worries grow that this news is CLEARLY being shoved down our throats, probably to make people fear Bitcoin. However, this article does have merit and some useful facts.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Any Hackers Appreciate The Importance Food Has On Feeling Good? - <AUTHOR>

I'm Brandon. (BKSenior on the web)
I founded a company and built an app that allows you to walk into almost any restaurant in the US to find exactly what you're looking for. You can view the menu sorted by the popularity of each dish and filterable by all diets (vegan, paleo, gluten-free, veggie), allergies (nut-free, lactose-free), and ingredients.
We are even a stone's throw away from being able to determine calorie-count for each dish. One of the best parts? All menus update (410,000 restaurants and 21 million dishes) every 24 hours.
I just parted ways with my technical co-founder, and now I'm looking to bring someone aboard who embodies the app's ideals: eating right and living a healthy lifestyle. Someone who knows that nutrition is going to be a massive growth market for everyone -- not just the wealthy.
Around 5,000 people are already signed up to be the first invitees to our product. To add to the marketing fire, we have a weekly food column on a major news outlet AND have three diet-related books coming out in the next month.
The overall vision is even bigger, and it's definitely not just a better version of YELP. There is something very different about what we are trying to do. (Also, we have a GREAT product name and own the name on all popular platforms.)
We raised a non-trivial sum of money to get the product built, and I've been slaving on this, sans-salary full-time, for 12 months.
I have a pretty prestigious marketing/business resume. I've run global strategy at the largest ad agency on the West Coast as well as my own profitable business for four years before that. I have a litany of specific examples of my marketing and business acumen in practice.
If you are a hacker that thrives in a chaotic environment and feel as strongly as I do about making people healthy, shoot me a note at email@example.com and lets talk food. <comment><USER2> I'm a little curious. In order to get calorie count for every dish, don't you have to get the ingredient formulation from the restaurant for every dish on the menu?

And in your definition of restaurants, are you counting multiple restaurants in one franchise as a number in your 410,000 restaurant count?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. We are doing ranges for calories. 2\. We count each individual location once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Literally any restaurant in the US? You know the handwritten, daily changing menu of the family run place in my small home town? And you will soon be able to work out how many calories are in the dish they just made up from what was in the days fish catch. Not sure I believe you.

<comment><AUTHOR> We cover about 81% of all restaurants restaurants which equates to low 90% of the top 500 restaurants in the major metros. So literally we dont cover ALL restaurants, but we cover enough where it kind of seems like magic. (Edit: Changed text to almost)

<comment><USER3> You know what I would absolutely love? If you could send me notifications of daily specials! I've been to a lot of restaurants in SF, but if I got notified when they had interesting specials I would be motivated to go out when I might not have been planning on it. I could tell you I live here and love scallops, and then you notify me on sone random day hey this restaurant near you is doing this scallop risotto tonight. Fun spontaneous activity for me without having to trawl, extra customer for restaurant.

<comment><USER2> That's a really cool idea. I think this would work in really dense cities (sf, ny, portland, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yelp is filled with so many terrible reviews that I'm often disappointed when I go out based on their recommendations.

The food space definitely needs something that is USEFUL and I'm hopeful this is it! Good luck Brandon!

</comment><comment><USER5> Good luck to you and your endeavors. However I don't think promoting pseudo scientific diets such as the paleo and the gluten-free is very ethical, although it will certainly net you some extra dough.

<comment><USER6> Gluten free is not a diet choice for everyone. There are several people I go out to eat with regularly who have gluten allergies and being able to check in advance whether restaurants server anything they can eat is important to me.

Also, how is helping people find foods that fit into their existing diets in any way unethical?</comment></comment>


Show HN: JobSignal – 20k postings from AngelList analyzed - <AUTHOR> http://jobsignal.io/

<comment><USER2> You can't do straight averages of salaries because they're heavily skewed, especially in the case of tech. Either use average + confidence interval or use medians instead. (relatedly, don't use area charts for single statistics)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool, very interesting but is this data just scraped from AngelList? If so, is there a risk that its more representative of AngelList's growth as a platform / relevancy amongst employers?

<comment><USER2> That's the second problem with the dataset. (sampling bias for AngelList's preference toward startups)</comment></comment>


Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315 <comment><USER2> 75,000 men were convicted under the same law, of whom 26,000 are still alive. [1] Only Turing has been "pardoned".

My understanding [2] is that the "pardon" implies there was nothing wrong with the law as such, just that Turing is forgiven for having broken it. So while I guess this is better than nothing, I don't know if it's really the way to go about it.

[1] [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/t...](http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/130719-0001.htm#13071970000373)

[2] I am not a lawyer, nor British, so give my understanding as much weight as it deserves...

<comment><USER3> So much this. It drives me nuts that the narrative on this issue always seems to boil down to the idea that Turing somehow _earned_ not being persecuted for being gay through his efforts in the war and the injustice was that the government didn't live up to its end of the bargain, not the fact that he and many others were driven to suicide or horrible lives by this terrible law.

<comment><USER4> It's symbolic. The pardon does absolutely zero for Turing himself - he's long gone. It's symbolic that society is progressing and saying "we don't agree with this thing we used to do".

<comment><USER3> I agree that this is the intent, but it doesn't take much reading (on this comment page or nearly any press article about it) to see that it's extremely common for people to think that the injustice was particularly strong in Turing's case because he was brilliant.

My issue is less with the intent of the pardon and more with how it's presented in the media and how people think about it.

<comment><USER5> To give it a more positive spin: Turing's case _highlights_ how not only unjust but simply stupid such prejudice is. His case provides a very public and undeniable example that keeps the issue in people's minds, essentially a form of martyrdom, highlighting how far we've come and (when you consider how much prejudice and related bad thinking is still common) how far we still need to go before we can truly consider ourselves civilised as a whole.

Also his brilliance _does_ come into it once you consider the wider implications. What else could he have achieved (both for his own intellectual satisfaction and our eventual benefit) had he been allowed to continue his work as he wished? How many other people are out there (or were out there) who could have done great things but were not permitted to by society? While I agree that is is bad that we _need_ him to stand as an example to highlight these issues, it is good that he _does_ stand as that example to shine that light on the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How ironic, coming the same week as LGBT education sites are blocked by British "porn" filters.

The best pardon to someone who is dead would be to stop doing similar misdeeds to those who are living.

<comment><USER7> The "porn" filters are stupid and creeping totalitarianism, but it's irresponsible and disrespectful to compare them to what was done to Turing.

He was persecuted and prosecuted; publically humiliated; forced to receive hormonal injections that rendered him impotent; banned from traveling to the USA; essentially banned from any jobs involving cryptography or national security; and ultimately committed suicide in large part because of government sanctions.

World of difference between that and a porous filter.

<comment><USER8> He was persecuted for his sexual orientation, and furthermore this was done despite his obvious contribution to the safety of the nation. This placed sexual mores as more important than national interest.

A default information filter is currently being introduced by several ISPs in the UK, it starts by filtering sexual content.

This is similar in concept to the attitudes that cause immense suffering to Turing, i.e. controlling the public expression and liberty of the sexual life is being considered as more important that protecting civil liberties such as freedom of information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I find most intriguing about this is the how a law that was enforced only 50 years ago has so quickly become abhorrent to the majority of the population. It's an interesting thought experiment to consider which laws we routinely use today to punish people will become morally unacceptable in the next 50 years.

Copyright and patent laws, and laws used against Snowden's whistle blowing are some obvious ones that are due for changes, but what's more interesting is if history continues to repeat itself it seems likely that some things we consider wrong now will become acceptable in the near future and the reverse is also true. This is much harder to predict.

(Humans driving cars is a reverse example. I think in the next 50 years it will become illegal for humans to drive cars manually except on private racing circuits)

<comment><USER10> I think trans rights are something that in 50 years time will be like gay rights now. We'll look back 50 years to today and think the treatment by society of trans people was barbaric.

In 50 years time Chelsea Manning might get an apology because medication she needed wasn't given to her in prison.

<comment><USER11> We can only hope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is politically motivated nonsense. At right wing government trying to prove its not homophobic. Yes the Queen issued the pardon, but it wont have been done without the government being consulted. Pardoning one person like this when thousands suffered is an insult. They should have either pardoned everyone who was convicted under these laws, or none of them. Favouring one man because of his historical significance is creating a two tier justice system.

And frankly, I find the whole thing problematic. Judging the past by todays standards is just wrong to my mind. He did break the law as it stood, right or wrong. Its not like we now have evidence he was innocent of the charges. What do we do, go over all the past laws that have been repealed, pardoning every one who was convicted along the way? That would be insane. What about the reverse? Surely if we are to pardon people who got convicted under laws that we have now repealed, we should go back and try any one in the past who has committed acts which are now crimes but were not then.

Yes, Turing is of huge historical significance. What happened to him was awful and tragic. If the notion that he wiped 2 years of WW2 is not over exaggerated, millions owe him their lives and freedoms. There for not just a great scientist, but a world figure of huge significance. But, this is not the right way to honour him. And from what I can see, is shameless political points scoring by a weak government concerned with its gay credentials.

If it were me, I would have left the conviction alone, let it stand as a reminders of our stupid homophobic past (1), and perhaps done something like having a national Turing Day, which could celebrate science and open humanity. Or something like that.

(1) Not so stupid. Problem back then was that the vast majority of people were disgusted by homosexuality. So, obviously they kept it quiet. If they got found out, they suffered. Problem for organisation concerned with secrecy, is that the social pressure placed on gay people made them easy and obvious targets for espionage. They were easily black mailed. Now a days, most people have no problem with homosexuality, so the threat of being outed is weak. The problem back then was not government, its was the social attitude in general to gay people. There for, to me it is wrong for the public to point fingers at the government. Had the public not been so prejudiced, the government could have kept their genius employed, and alive. Its our fault as a society. Government had to operate in that context. It had no choice really. And of course many people in that government would have had the same attitude as the public. But in the end, it was our fault, our shame, as a society. And that is what we should remember.

<comment><USER13> Turing often seems to get most of the credit for ending the war early (probably due to the injustice he suffered), but we shouldn't forget others suffered in different ways.

Tommy Flowers ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers)), who arguably created the first electronic computer to decrypt the Lorenz cypher was just as important and his work was not acknowledged until the 1970s.

Flowers wanted to create a computer after the war but the Bank of England wouldn't lend him the money because they didn't believe it was possible and he couldn't disclose he'd already done it due to official secrets act.

<comment><USER14> Let's not forget the millions of Russians who died on the eastern front. Without them, nothing at Bletchley Park wouldn't have mattered much for ending the war.

<comment><USER13> Indeed (or the US rescuing the UK)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This falls under the category of too little too late. I get that traditions change throughout history, I get that some things that are acceptable now were unacceptable even 10 years ago, but this is a case where people should have looked the other way. Alan Turning is both a war hero and one of the greatest minds to ever live. To simply disregard someone like that because of their sexual orientation is both short sighted and a disgusting lack of humanity. Imagine how much further computing would be if he had lived longer? If he had been free to think and live without ridicule and the tests run on him?

<comment><USER16> Exactly false. People could have looked the other way, and Turing could have lived a longer, happier life, and we could all be that much less aware of the injustice done to hundreds of thousands of other LGBT people throughout the last century. The tragedy is the policy that cost Turing his life, not the fact that an exception wasn't made for him. It cost many more people than Turing.

<comment><USER17> Yes, wow. To go further, there is something deeply troubling about the parent's line of reasoning: that the tip of its spear is that Turing could have helped computing more, and not that the law was heinous in its treatment of humanity. The priorities required to even think of a point like that baffle me.

<comment><USER18> Especially ironic when it simultaneously uses phrases like "short sighted" and "disgusting lack of humanity."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _Pardon_? For what? Thanks but no thanks.

<comment><USER20> Buggery. It's been illegal many places for a very long time because it spreads disease. The sodomy laws were effectively repealed and we got AIDS. It was not a coincidence.

<comment><USER21> Sexual intercourse of any kind spreads disease. AIDS didn't become an epidemic because of anal intercourse. It's pretty clear that AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases spread just as well from almost _any_ kind sexual activity, and many of them -- including AIDS -- spread from _any_ transfer of bodily fluids at all.

Going further, I'd wager that any form of interpersonal contact, even non- sexual, is as likely to spread some form of disease. Why not enact a law which requires any person to don a hazmat suit before venturing into public space? Or better yet, a law which forbids any person from entering public space?

<comment><USER22> I grew up around the time teens were force-fed sex education regarding AIDS, and the message was loud and clear and consistent: Ordinary sex is a great way to contract HIV. This, in fact, was always a lie--and a coordinated lie--and the scientists knew about it.

[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/895/what-are-the- od...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/895/what-are-the-odds-of- getting-aids-from-ordinary-heterosexual-sex)

 _the odds of a heterosexual becoming infected with AIDS after one episode of penile-vaginal intercourse with someone in a non-high-risk group without a condom are one in 5 million._

(Sorry for the crummy source, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this BS.) The original infections seen by doctors weren't just homosexuals, but those who had sometimes dozens of sexual encounters per week. It was clear from the beginning how this disease was spread--reciprocal anal sex.

So why the contrary propaganda? Well, if a disease primarily effects a small, ultra-promiscuous portion of two percent of the general population, research funding tends to lose popular support.

<comment><USER23> The risk of being infected with hiv by someone who doesn't carry the virus is obviously very small. Very few people have hiv, so you probably won't be infected if you have sex. That's how I read that quote, anyway. Are you saying that advocating never having sex with the same partner more than once would have been better advice for reducing the spread of STDs?

The unique thing about hiv is the high moortality rate (and cost of treatment). It makes perfect sense to reduce transmission _before_ it becomes a true global epidemic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Instead of pardoning bullshit get him a chapter in elementary school history books. Chapter about a man, who greatly contributed to modern science and the war effort and was prosecuted by bigoted fanatics running the country. Then warn about similar attitudes displayed today and teach the children to recognize them along with their gloomy consequences. That would do some actual good instead of insignificant PR gesture of pardoning.

</comment><comment><USER25> > "Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life after > undergoing chemical castration following a conviction for homosexual > activity, has been granted a posthumous royal pardon 59 years after his > death."

I don't understand, I thought what was needed was "royal apologies". WTH.

<comment><USER8> Don't be too concerned by the "Royal" nature of the pardon. In the UK the legislative system is in theory dependent on the Royal prerogative (i.e all laws derive from the will of the head of state, currently Queen Elizabeth II). In practice that is not so, as Her Majesty does not personally deliberate on legislative matters.

However, as a journalistic device, describing the decision as "Royal" conveys the journalists and editors feelings as to the importance and sincerity of the pardon.

<comment><USER26> wreegab was not objecting to the "royal", but to it being a pardon instead of an apology.

<comment><USER27> The British government has already issued an apology.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Somewhere between better than nothing and nothing.

</comment><comment><USER27> The British state already formally apologized five years ago, under Gordon Brown, for Alan Turing's barbaric treatment. I can't see how a pardon adds anything to that. The best response is just to treat people humanely in the present.

<comment><USER4> The apology was "We're sorry. The conviction still stands, however". The pardon takes care of the latter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wait. Someone who has a title and shitloads of money _just because they were born_ is pardoning one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, as an act of kindness?

How does such an undeserving leftover of the middle ages even have a say in this?

<comment><USER30> You're misunderstanding the power that the Queen has. Just because it's a 'Royal pardon', it doesn't mean that she actually pushed for it. The opposite is true, in fact (the Queen is a symbolic head of state, and does not interfere politically - anything you hear the Queen doing is almost certainly at the request of the UK government).

<comment><USER29> Granted. But still, symbolically, that's how it sounds, so maybe there's a problem with this system?

What I mean is that even if it's done at the request of the government, that's only a description of the political backstage, but in public it is expressed as the monarchy's doing ("royal" pardon).

<comment><USER31> > so maybe there's a problem with this system?

There are many problems. When you find a better system to replace it with, then let us know. Until then throwing away a millenia of history so we can have President Cameron sounds like hell to me.

<comment><USER29> Well, any democratic system in which no citizen is _institutionally_ above every other citizen by mere reason of being born certainly seems better to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to troll. It's just that I would have a really hard time living in a country where such privileges by birth exist.

<comment> amaral-herberth Sorry to tell you, but this kind of system does not exist in reality. Heads of states in all States are above some laws and there are plentiful of reasons for this.

And by the way, if you think is undemocratic to have an unelected head of state, just think about the reasons that supreme court members are not elected. Democracy has its limits :-)

<comment><USER29> > Sorry to tell you, but this kind of system does not exist in reality. Heads > of states in all States are above some laws and there are plentiful of > reasons for this.

But they are not so _by birth_ , that was my point.

>supreme court members are not elected

I assume you are talking about the US? In any case, they are not nominated by right of their _birth_ , but they are chosen by _elected_ people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> He should get a Royal Apology as well, even if the PM already issued one.

</comment><comment><USER33> Even this, 61 years late and only applying to him, is only a sort-of pardon legally:

[http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen- green/2013/07/puttin...](http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen- green/2013/07/putting-right-wrong-done-alan-turing)

</comment><comment><USER34> Thought I'd stick this link here - great place. [http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk](http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk) Last time I was there, 10 or 15 years ago, they were redecorating the house (can you call it that?). They had a load of really old fittings like taps etc in a skip. I still regret not asking if I could take one or 2. Having a few taps from that amazing place would be so great. I spent days of time there over the course of a year, and met a few of the people who worked their who knew Turing (by sight, not personally). You can see Turing's room at the place too. It was fascinating to talk to people who worked there during the amazing period Turing worked through.

</comment><comment><USER35> The infinite tape of justice winds slowly, but grinds exceedingly fine.

</comment><comment><USER36> Yes, they apologized 5 years ago, and now there's a pardon. As an important abolitionist from my country once wrote, "Justice that is late is not justice".

</comment><comment><USER37> Unrelated to the topic, but:

> He said the research Turing carried out during the war at Bletchley Park > undoubtedly shortened the conflict and saved thousands of lives.

Clear example of "history is written by the victors". The Allies were as guilty in the war as the other side. Neither side's goal was to "shorten the conflict and save lives" but to "defeat the other side" with no regards to human life.

</comment><comment><USER38> Turing died only a few years before the emergence of high level languages. I have often wondered if he would go for FORTRAN or LISP.

<comment><USER26> I like to think the answer would have been "both": Lisp for power and elegance, and Fortran for speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wouldn't it be much more forceful if his conviction remained as a mahnmal? Something to point at and say "here's what we did to a brilliant man because we were too small-minded to think otherwise"?

All pardoning Turing does now is lead us to eventually forget the tragedy of his conviction.

</comment><comment><USER40> The queen was already reigning when Alan Turing was brought to trail.

May be the queen is who needs to be pardoned.

</comment><comment><USER41> The actual pardon: [http://cryptome.org/2013/12/turing- pardon.pdf](http://cryptome.org/2013/12/turing-pardon.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER42> You know, I was just reading a WSJ special on how returning PTSD-afflicted veterans were lobotomized...

Reading back on what happened to Turing and countless other homosexuals gives me those same chills.

What a simple pleasure it is to live in the era we do now. No, not everything is perfect, but so much has improved, and it's up to all of us to improve things even further, and to keep the momentum going.

</comment><comment><USER43> Finally. Though it is the very least that the establishment could do given how Turing was treated.

</comment><comment><USER44> Have we ruled out the possibility that the UK government is more desperate to legitimize code breaking than to exonerate a mistreated war hero?

I don't think that's the case, but these days it's getting harder to be sure.

</comment><comment><USER45> Lots of complaining on here, but I was glad to see it.

The government certainly didn't have to. It doesn't have to pardon everyone convicted of a crime that is no longer a crime.

It was a good thing to do for a good man, and I commend them.

<comment><USER46> There have been countless people prosecuted due to unjust laws; society changes, and as that happens laws change.

Every single one of those people should be given a pardon, or none of them should.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> About f*cking time, but is it enough? No, but hopefully we won't need to worry about things like this in the future. Progress is progress and I'll take it.

</comment><comment><USER48> The manner in which the document was written makes its authenticity strike me as highly surprising.

</comment><comment><USER49> It seems to me that the fitting thing to be issued here is an apology, not a pardon.

<comment><USER50> They already did that. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Should this not have been an "apology" instead of a "pardon"?

<comment><USER52> Prime Minister Gordon Brown had already issued an apology in 2009.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Anyone know a good movie/book on his life?

</comment><comment><USER54> They should give a royal apology

</comment><comment><USER55> Way too little, way too late.

</comment><comment><USER56> Ridiculous

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you like to expand upon that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> First step to knighthood?

<comment><USER58> You can't be posthumously knighted. Furthermore, the title of Knight is revoked upon death - For example, when Sir Paul McCartney dies he will lose his title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> BBC please do not make any of the royal drama news headlines.

</comment><comment><USER60> 59 years late.

</comment><comment><USER61> Finally.

</comment><comment><USER62> Let this be a reminder to all hackers and geniuses out there: protect yourself from your society. You exist purely at the mercy of your physical realm. It does not matter how essential your discoveries, how profitable, how useful to mankind, how breathtaking. If you are perceived as being a risk (through something simple like your sexuality) you will be ground to dust. The decision will be made (perhaps justifiably) but it will be executed by the worst sort of petty human being: bureaucrats, under achievers, jealous men and beasts in human form who have been handed down power by the state. They will unleash a torrent of hellfire in your life.

This beast does not discriminate: weather a gathering of Sikhs in a park, tribes of Africans or a sole genius with an arguably significant contribution to the war effort - to the beast they are all one once the order has been given.

Always ensure you have some form of protection and a way out.

The British establishment should be ashamed of themselves. They have tolerated homosexuality for centuries among the upper classes up to and including the royals. To grind down a man on the level of Turing with for such an absurd reason is an act of criminal stupidity. All the more so after his efforts during the war.

The computer science community all the world over should reject this "pardon" and ask the queen to stuff it up her posterior.

</comment><comment><USER63> It would have been better if he was still alive when he was pardoned...

</comment><comment><USER64> Scumbag Hacker News: Admires spies only after they're dead.

<comment><USER34> You really compare the NSA to activities at Bletchley Park, fighting Nazis?

<comment><USER65> Unfortunately, that is just what the British intelligence community are doing over here. It's a fucking disgrace, but I wonder if the timing of this pardon is because of that. They had the chance to do this a year ago, but didn't.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple's new MacBook Pro might ditch regular USB ports - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/18/13314972/apple-macbook-pro-late-2016-rumors-no-usb-ports <comment> UVB-76 Is anyone else getting serious connector fatigue?

For so long, USB 2.0 with a Type-A connector was the standard. You saw Type-B connectors on printer cables, but the other end always had the reassuring Type-A connector.

Then along came USB 3.0, and USB 3.1, which have the same receptacle as 2.0, but aren't necessarily interchangeable. USB 3.x adoption is still lacklustre, so you now have a bunch of devices with different versions, and new systems come with a mixture of 2.0 and 3.0 ports. Why? Isn't 3.0 backwards compatible, and better?

Now we have USB Type-C, which doesn't bear any resemblance to anything which came before.

USB Type-C makes sense because it's smaller, but we already have a mind- boggling array of smaller USB connectors for mobile devices, like USB Mini-A and Mini-B (What's the difference? Did they elope to create Mini-AB?). Then Micro-A and Micro-B, which sound a lot like the Mini variants, but aren't. What the hell is Micro-B SuperSpeed, and why is it actually two ports?

While all this has been going on, three versions of Thunderbolt have emerged. Thunderbolt v1 and v2 inexplicably use a Mini DisplayPort connector. Thunderbolt v3 uses a USB Type-C connector, but isn't the same as USB Type-C. Or is it?

Meanwhile, the general population are still furious that Lightning came along and rendered half their iPod/iPhone/iPad accessories redundant.

I wouldn't mind Apple dropping USB Type-A ports in favor of Type-C for the new MacBook Pro, but I'd like some kind of reassurance that USB Type-C is going to last more than a couple of years...

<comment><USER2> > I'd like some kind of reassurance that USB Type-C is going to last more than > a couple of years...

heh [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

It's unrealistic to expect a single connector/cable/pinout to last for a very long time. Throughput requirements increase, size constraints do too, mechanical designs improve, etc.

Even Firewire or SCSI looked like "the last interface you'll ever need" 15 years ago.

<comment><USER3> My IO requirements haven't changed that dramatically in the past six years, and are still well served by a Mid-2010 MacBook Pro.

I've got MagSafe for power, Mini DisplayPort for video out, Mini TOSLINK for audio out, and USB 2.0 for everything else. There's a gigabit Ethernet port if I want it, but otherwise 802.11n works just fine.

I'd like faster data transfer (not that any of my peripherals are USB C compatible yet), but otherwise I don't really understand what the massive fragmentation of connector standards does for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Finally. I have been waiting for this. I'm not being sarcastic.

I have a MBP at work and at home. When they are on the desk, both have a 7 things plugged into them. When I lift it up, I have to unplug 7 things. When I put it down, I have to plug all 7 things back in. Being able to plug those all into a single dongle which I can then plug into the computer. Besides convenience, it would also make cable management easier.

That said, I hope the pro model has a least two and that it keeps an HDMI port.

<comment><USER2> How about purchasing a dock?

On my ThinkPad a single cable delivers power, video, USB, Ethernet...

I'm sure Apple has identical solutions, I've seen many third party ones for the 12" MacBook.

<comment><USER5> I finally went out and bought a 10-port powered USB dock.

Which doesn't work with my USB Midi keyboard.

Well, shit. Now what?

<comment><USER6> > Well, shit. Now what?

Another dongle for you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> FINALLY. I have been waiting for this. Once they lock down all of the hardware ports they should take a hard look at the keyboard. Do users even need to be able to enter in text input or control their own computers? The evolution of the mac seems to confirm the persistent rumor apple is working on a tv. If they strip out virtually any ability for a user to interact with the device, it becomes a one-way broadcast medium, e.g. a TV. I know I can't wait, I just picked up $300.00 headphones that ensure I can listen to the apple certified audio for _at least_ two hours at a time. what a time to be alive.

<sarcasm>

<comment><USER8> [http://web.mit.edu/redelson/www/media/stupida.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/redelson/www/media/stupida.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Slowly making laptops less useful.

Why not discontinue macbooks altogether and just sell iPads?

Oh wait, the same people buy both.

If you are still paying retail for macbooks you are an idiot.

<comment><USER10> I can't imagine how one can code productively on an iPad - the environment and ecosystem just isn't there. I'm sure it's just as good, or better, at things like multimedia consumption and entertainment, but a lot of things still require the use of a 'desktop' environment.

<comment><USER9> Does an overpriced laptop with outdated hardware provide a 'desktop' environment.

Yes.

Are you wasting your money on branding when you could just install linux on any old computer and be fine.

Yes.

<comment><USER2> > Are you wasting your money on branding when you could just install linux on > any old computer and be fine.

Many developers just don't want to put up with the hassle of installing and maintaining a Linux environment. Just yesterday I've helped a friend installing Arch on a ThinkPad T440s and we almost gave up due to libinput bugs that made the trackpad pretty much unusable (fixed by a few hours of trial and error and then going back to evdev). We still have to get the Intel wifi to work decently. Apparently some glitch with power management doesn't let it achieve full throughput.

OS X (and even a clean Windows 10 install in most cases) pretty much work out of the box and let you focus on actual tasks.

<comment><USER9> If you are willing to trade a couple thousand dollars for a few hours of work I'm not going to stop you.

<comment><USER11> A few hours of work...on the first day of use.

How many more hours of engrossing touchpad driver jiggerypokery will any person need to do over the course of ownership before the cost of their wasted time adds up to the cost of a macbook?

<comment><USER9> Ubuntu takes 20 mins to install, and I have yet to run into driver issues on any of the 5 machines in my home.

I have worked at several VFX studios that used Ubuntu for their workstations. 250+ machines, an absolute joy to manage.

I'm sorry you guys have so much trouble, but maybe you should read the docs?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best Statistics / Data mining book? - <AUTHOR>

can anyone recommend me good stats/probability/ or data mining books (ideally with code examples in c or cpp). <comment><USER2> Looking for the same thing, came across these big data bibliographies/howto which have been helpful:

[http://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Bibliography- ebook/dp/B005QH2...](http://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Bibliography- ebook/dp/B005QH22W6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1325345776&sr=8-6)

[http://www.amazon.com/Data-Analysis-Open-Source- Tools/dp/059...](http://www.amazon.com/Data-Analysis-Open-Source- Tools/dp/0596802358/ref=pd_sim_b_4)

Also stats in a nutshell is a good reference: [http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Nutshell-Desktop- Reference-...](http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Nutshell-Desktop-Reference- ebook/dp/B004D4YI84/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1325345883&sr=1-1)

Lastly, little bit of discussion going on over at stackoverflow: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/190201/statistics-book- re...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/190201/statistics-book- recomendations)</comment>


Report accuses BT of supplying backdoors for GCHQ and NSA - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/121613-report-accuses-bt-of-supplying-276975.html

<comment><USER2> Essentially what is claimed is that BT supplies combined modem/routers to subscribers, they are closed to configuration by the subscribers, and trojaned. Further (according to the claims), the firmware will look into your home LAN if you let it.

[Edit 0, corrected this par.] The smart thing to do, of course is interpose your own trustworthy router with firewall and your own settings on the LAN side of any ISP equipment. This would at least keep the ISP out of your LAN if you otherwise practice good security. (Also maybe demand a pure modem, or bridge mode on a combined unit, tho these changes even if obtained would not really prevent the ISP filtering or spying.)

None of this will stop any messing about on the ISP side, but there are other means of trying to foil wiretapping, MITM or impersonation attacks.

Edit 1: OK, this is probably a waste of time but I'll update to acknowledge (a) BT says this report is "a conspiracy theory" and others say the 30.x subnet is widely used for innocuous purposes (b) the allegations, while they point to real possibilities, are undermined by the "researchers"' super-cheezy style and overblown hype in their PDF.</comment>


OrionVM Cloud has fastest network-backed storage globally (40gb/s Infiniband) - <AUTHOR> http://orionvm.com.au/blog/3rd-Party-Performance-Benchmarks/

<comment><USER2> We're an entirely self funded startup, just past our one year anniversary and we're going live on april fools. Ask us anything.</comment>


We've know how to build much safer reactors since Clinton - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

<comment><USER2> There a some broken or missing citations at key parts of the this article so I would love to hear rebuttals against the criticism section and also more detail about this phrase: "political and economic decisions were made to abandon the technology".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Actually further back than that, see: [http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/03/14/1565013/future- of-i...](http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/03/14/1565013/future-of-inl-tied- to-nuclear.html)

</comment><comment> DanI-S This is one of my favourite pieces of engineering /ever/. It's simple, elegant and beautiful.</comment>


QMole – A Linux Desktop System for iPhone and iPad - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chriskohlhepp/qmole-a-linux-desktop-system-for-the-ipad <comment><USER2> Will this require jailbroken device? It breaks quite a lot of the App Store rules?</comment>


John Conway - <AUTHOR> https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2020/04/12/john-conway/ <comment><USER3> Conway's meditations on life are beautiful,

"You know in my early twenties, let's say, people always thought that I would, you know, be a great mathematician. And be good at various things and so on. And in my late twenties, I hadn't achieved any of the things that people were predicting, and so I call it my black period. I started to wonder you know whether it was all nonsense. Whether I was not a good mathematician after all and so on, and then I made a certain discovery and was shot into international prominence.

As a mathematician when you become a prominent mathematician, in that sense, it doesn't mean that many people know your name. It means that many mathematicians know your name, and there aren't many mathematicians in the world anyway, you know. So it doesn't count very much, but it suddenly released me from feeling that I had to live up to my promise.

You know, I had lived up to my promise. I sort of made a vow to myself. It was so nice not worrying anymore that I thought I'm not going to worry anymore ever again, I was going to study whatever I thought was interesting and not worry whether this was serious enough. And most of the time I've kept to that."

Life, Death and the Monster (John Conway) - <USER2>

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOCe5HUObD4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOCe5HUObD4)

I take great solace from these words.

<comment><USER4> To me, the question that springs to mind then is: does that kind of attitude work as well for "lesser" mathematicians/people?

(I'm not sure it does)

<comment><USER5> They may not become famous in their fields, but they're not going to be worrying about that stuff anyway, so will probably be happier. Which, it turned out for me, was a better goal all along.

<comment><USER4> It's not necessarily about becoming famous. If you're good enough, you can just work on what you enjoy doing, and it will probably yield something research worthy anyway, and your bosses will be happy, etc. Otherwise, you might end up simply having fun on dead-end stuff, which are harder to sell, academically.

But that's just my impression… mind sharing your story?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a bit tragic that he is remembered for something he himself wasn't very fond of. From his biography:

 _" Do you know something? I hate the Life game. I've really realized that I hate the damned Life game. ... I'm scared of the following thing happening. I'm scared of it becoming another one of these, 'John Conway, inventor of the celebrated Game of Life...' I told you, every time I turn to a book, a new math book, I look up the sacred name and it says: 'Conway, Game of life, pages 34 to 38.' And that's roughly all it says. And how can I say it---it's not character assassination, exactly, it's quality assassination. I regard Life as trash, and frankly. I mean, it was a real part of my life to have discovered it and so on. And I don't think it should be totally removed. But it seems to be all that I'm known for, among the general public. ... This was never a big deal as far as we were concerned. This was just a recreation, a game we played. Somehow it became a bit more important later on, or at least it did in the eyes of other people. I never thought of it as very important, I just thought of it as a bit of fun. In fact, in a way, I felt ashamed of it. I don't think it counts in the mathematical community, or at least in the serious mathematical community. I don't think any of my Princeton colleagues think this Life game is of any importance. I don't know. In a way it doesn't count for me."_

Apparently his favorite work was on the surreal numbers: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surreal_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surreal_number)

<comment><USER7> I listened to the numberphile podcast on it yesterday where Brady interviewed Conway's biographer, and it looks like conway had come around to liking the game of life by the end. The real tragedy is that he never figured out the monster group

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > I also recall Conway spending several weeks trying to construct a strange > periscope-type device to try to help him visualize four-dimensional objects > by giving his eyes vertical parallax in addition to the usual horizontal > parallax, although he later told me that the only thing the device made him > experience was a headache.

I'm quite curious what exactly Conway was trying to do here. The parallax we use for depth sensing is indeed horizontal in terms of the axes of the image we see, because our two eyes are separated horizontally. With a periscope you might be able to simulate two eyes separated diagonally or vertically. But how does that help you visualize four-dimensional objects?

<comment><USER9> Perhaps by splitting each eye's vision in two or four. Sure, in a single instant you can only be looking in one pair, but vision has significant hysteresis effects.

I suspect something like this really requires you to grow up with it.

<comment><USER10> In "Death's End" of the Three Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin, there is a fantastical description of 4D space.

> kranner on Aug 4, 2018 | parent | favorite | on: 4D toys

This passage from Death's End by Cixin Liu really gave me pause to stop and wonder about what the experience of seeing extra dimensions might be like (here translated to English by Ken Liu): --

A person looking back upon the three-dimensional world from four-dimensional space for the first time realized this right away: He had never seen the world while he was in it. If the three-dimensional world were likened to a picture, all he had seen before was just a narrow view from the side: a line. Only from four-dimensional space could he see the picture as a whole. He would describe it this way: Nothing blocked whatever was placed behind it. Even the interiors of sealed spaces were laid open.

This seemed a simple change, but when the world was displayed this way, the visual effect was utterly stunning. When all barriers and concealments were stripped away, and everything was exposed, the amount of information entering the viewer's eyes was hundreds of millions times greater than when he was in three-dimensional space. The brain could not even process so much information right away.

In Morovich and Guan's eyes, Blue Space was a magnificent, immense painting that had just been unrolled. They could see all the way to the stern, and all the way to the bow; they could see the inside of every cabin and every sealed container in the ship; they could see the liquid flowing through the maze of tubes, and the fiery ball of fusion in the reactor at the stern....

Of course, the rules of perspective remained in operation, and objects far away appeared indistinct, but everything was visible.

Given this description, those who had never experienced four-dimensional space might get the wrong impression that they were seeing everything "through" the hull. But no, they were not seeing "through" anything. Everything was laid out in the open, just like when we look at a circle drawn on a piece of paper, we can see the inside of the circle without looking "through" anything.

This kind of openness extended to every level, and the hardest part was describing how it applied to solid objects. One could see the interior of solids, such as the bulkheads or a piece of metal or a rock—one could see all the cross sections at once!

Morovich and Guan were drowning in a sea of information—all the details of the universe were gathered around them and fighting for their attention in vivid colors.

Morovich and Guan had to learn to deal with an entirely novel visual phenomenon: unlimited details. In three-dimensional space, the human visual system dealt with limited details. No matter how complicated the environment or the object, the visible elements were limited.

Given enough time, it was always possible to take in most of the details one by one. But when one viewed the three-dimensional world from four-dimensional space, all concealed and hidden details were revealed simultaneously, since three-dimensional objects were laid open at every level. Take a sealed container as an example: One could see not only what was inside, but also the interiors of the objects inside. This boundless disclosure and exposure led to the unlimited details on display.

Everything in the ship lay exposed before Morovich and Guan, but even when observing some specific object, such as a cup or a pen, they saw infinite details, and the information received by their visual systems was incalculable. Even a lifetime would not be enough to take in the shape of any one of these objects in four-dimensional space. When an object was revealed at all levels in four-dimensional space, it created in the viewer a vertigo- inducing sensation of depth, like a set of Russian nesting dolls that went on without end. Bounded in a nutshell but counting oneself a king of infinite space was no longer merely a metaphor.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17686464](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17686464)

<comment><USER11> How do you reconcile this idea with the fact that light bounces around in 3D space? How would you "see"?

<comment><USER12> Interesting. A 2-D being in flatland would consider the inside of a closed, empty circle to be "dark", but from 3-D we can still see inside it. Maybe one could postulate a 4-D source of light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In Conway's game of Life, if you start with a cross as the symbol of death (5x7 grid 00100/00100/11111/00100/00100/00100/00100), you get first a "gravestone", then an egg which is traditional symbol of new life and rebirth. The egg stays around forever, unchanging, perhaps waiting for the right moment (or for you to set one of the two interior pixels).

R.I.P. John Conway.

<comment><USER14> and if you then fill in the top cell inside the egg you get a (small) exploder that will create four eggs. And if you fill in again the top egg (and only the top egg), you will get a more complex pattern result in a four gliders walking off scene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Terry always amazes me with his gift of graceful and insightful writing. This post was much more interesting and meaningful to me than 90% of the Conway tribute posts I've come across.

</comment><comment><USER16> On a side note, this is mind-blowing: [https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2561#p3742...](https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2561#p37428)

</comment><comment><USER17> I had a pretty interesting time reading up on his Doomsday, algorithm. I've coded it up (in Rust), if anyone is interested.

[https://github.com/nixpulvis/doomsday](https://github.com/nixpulvis/doomsday)

<comment><USER18> Thanks!

Your implementation currently misspells "Wednesday".

<comment><USER17> Should be fixed now. Always bad at spelling am I.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I know this is tangential, and related to Life, but the life wiki is ridiculously deep, the detailed exploration of life has been pretty wild.

Here's one interesting overview page, about speed: [https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Speed](https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Speed)

</comment><comment><USER20> Definitely one of the true "poly maths" to ever grace the mathematics world...RIP Dr. Conway

</comment><comment><USER21> TLDR: "Conway was arguably an extreme point in the convex hull of all mathematicians. He will very much be missed."

<comment><USER22> NTL:DR (Not _that_ long: Do read!)

<comment><USER21> Agreed! I just thought this was such a powerful line.

<comment><USER23> Indeed such a good one when you really think about it, but it's above most readers heads.

<comment><USER22> So the analogy with the Krein–Milman theorem would be this: Any proof is (approximately, at least) a combination of the extreme proofs of the same result?

Now I have to go read the paper referred to.

<comment><USER23> I don't think it was meant so literally. just an interesting way of calling someone a unique mathematician

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> And Sir, you win the Internet for not mentioning GOL there. Kudos well deserved, Conway was a great mathematician (among other 'skills'). He'll be missed.

<comment><USER25> He did — in an edit.</comment></comment>


Amazon's Simple Pay Subscription launches - <AUTHOR> https://payments-sandbox.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=paynow/subscription <comment><USER2> I love you, Amazon. If the integration on this works fairly decently (at least as well as Paypal's) I think I'll try that for my upcoming SAAS project.

Things I'll be looking at:

* Do you require customers to have an Amazon account to use this? (This is the #1 gotcha with Paypal recurring payments.)

* Is it easy to modify a subscription midstream? Can I give customers free months, discounts, etc?

* Administration tools? Administration API? (I want to click Refund on my site, not your site.)

* Can I conveniently work with multiple price points at once?

* Reporting: can you make my bookkeeping/accounting less painful?

* Migration: here's something Paypal has never done right -- suppose you sell the website or, for another reason, need to change what account receives payments. Do you have to cancel all subscriptions?

* Rails integration: can I get out of actually writing and testing as much of this as humanly possible?

<comment><USER3> >> * Do you require customers to have an Amazon account to use this? (This is the #1 gotcha with Paypal recurring payments.)

Step 2: Subscriber signs in to their Amazon account

<comment><USER4> Then it's another Fail.

<comment><USER5> If you use the underlying FPS APIs, I believe you can set up recurring payments with no logins (I'm only going on docs, I haven't had direct coding experience with FPS yet).

Quoting from [http://aws.amazon.com/fps/faqs/#What_can_I_do_with_Amazon_FP...](http://aws.amazon.com/fps/faqs/#What_can_I_do_with_Amazon_FPS)

 _"Use tokens to execute one-time or multiple payments or recurring payments on behalf of customers."_

\-----

And from [http://aws.amazon.com/fps/faqs/#What_payment_methods_does_Am...](http://aws.amazon.com/fps/faqs/#What_payment_methods_does_Amazon_FPS_support)

 _"Amazon FPS supports the following payment methods:_

 _\- Bank Account debits_

 _\- Amazon Payments balance_

 _\- Credit Cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club, and JCB)._

\-----

It looks like the "Amazon Payments" option is what this Simple Pay subscription is employing, right?

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty certain that whomever is the source of the funds is still required to have an amazon account. I'd love to be wrong about this.

<comment><USER5> You're right. I just took the time to look deeper into the FPS documentation.

So I'm getting the impression authorize.net is what most people here use for no-account recurring payments?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This page is a superbly clear summary of the service. Someone at Amazon should be proud.

<comment><USER8> Especially since they managed to describe it without mentioning the price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone with experience processing payments themselves or with a similar service comment on the pricing? Thank you.

[https://payments- sandbox.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=pa...](https://payments- sandbox.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=paynow/pricing)

<comment><USER10> It looks cheaper than most of the payment gateway solutions offered by most banks (i.e. Chase Paymentech). And there doesn't seem to be a monthly fee.

<comment><USER9> If I understand correctly, you need to pay a percentage and base transaction fee to process credit cards anyway. This service from Amazon bakes their cut into those two charges already. The Amazon charges are cheaper than competing services, but how do they compare to doing it yourself? Is that even an option?

This service sounds highly attractive except for the requiring of an Amazon account. Hopefully, that problem can be mitigated somehow. I'd have to have a good hard think.

<comment><USER5> I think doing it yourself is an option.

You can integrate with something like authorize.net which I see mentioned a lot.

But they, in turn, integrate with what are the I guess actual processors:

[http://www.authorize.net/solutions/resellersolutions/reselle...](http://www.authorize.net/solutions/resellersolutions/resellerprogram/processorlist/)

(note that I have no direct experience here yet)

<comment><USER5> I'm confused now, at the link above Chase paymenttech is listed as a processor connection. But they are listed as an authorize.net reseller at this link?

[http://www.authorize.net/reseller_dir.asp?page_id=148721&...](http://www.authorize.net/reseller_dir.asp?page_id=148721&reseller=46256)

I guess I have a lot to understand yet, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it expected to launch internationally?

<comment><USER12> I'd like to know as well. Amazon FPS seems like one of the best/most comprehensive solutions for payments, but from what I can gather from their site, it's currently still limited to companies with a physical address, bank account and credit card in the US. I'd love to use their services as a Canadian company...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> On a somewhat related note, has anyone read the OReilly book on AWS? I haven't looked into Amazon's documentation yet, but I'm wondering if the investment in that book would really help the integration process.

</comment><comment><USER14> This hasn't launched yet. It's in the "sandbox," which means you can test it. I submitted a question asking if they had any sort of timetable on launching Subscriptions - nothing definitive in their response.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice! Will it also work for donations? Like Paypal donations! My guess is yes, but reading some more ...

<comment><USER15> Oops - spoke too soon - without checking the link on the same page: [https://payments- sandbox.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=pa...](https://payments- sandbox.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=paynow/donation)

<comment><USER15> Once again - I didn't understand, why is Donation restricted to 'Non-profit 501 C3 organizations' only? What if I create an online free service, and want to accept donations?

<comment><USER2> Sell "Supporter" accounts. 16x16 pixel marking on your user page, now only $24.95. We'll color it gold if you chip in $49.95 instead.

(And because I enjoy flailing at equines which have ceased to be, charge money for value.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>