The Design Details Podcast - <AUTHOR> http://blog.brianlovin.com/the-design-details-podcast/

<comment><USER2> Sounds cool, but why the tiny font? 13px font size doesn't feel like good design in 2014.

Is it just me?

<comment><USER3> It's fine. Whether or not you like it is a matter of preference[1], but design-wise it works well. If you couldn't change the size in your browser then it'd be a problem, but you can, and the page still flows well even if you crank the type size up to 2 or 3 times the size.

[1] Design being how it works, not what it looks like. Your comment is really about aesthetics rather than design per se.

<comment><USER4> [http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/](http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/)

Light grey text on a white background? #718793 on #FFFFFF seems to fail accessibility.

A design that goes outside basic accessibility is not design. It is like a chef serving stone cold food or a builder making doors 5ft high.

<comment><USER5> A design that consciously chooses to go outside these guidelines can still be good design, same with your fine-dining and hobbit architecture examples. Context and the goals of the brief are key.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ubuntu Phone will include a Terminal application - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuPhone/CoreApps/Terminal <comment><USER2> As soon as Ubuntu Phone becomes stable enough for daily use, I will switch from Android to it.

Coupled with a powerful processor and plenty of spare solid-state memory, Ubuntu Phone will allow me to walk around and travel with my entire desktop environment in my pocket -- including round-the-clock access to everything available in official and third-party Ubuntu repositories.

(Have you ever needed access to an editor, language, database backend, etc. when you happen to be without a laptop? No problem, Ubuntu Phone will allow you to install and run all these things _on your phone_.)

<comment><USER3> _Have you ever needed access to an editor, language, database backend, etc. when you happen to be without a laptop?_

Honestly? No. I can't imagine the agony of trying to type out a SQL query on my phone. I have a Macbook Air, which is light enough for me to carry around with me the vast majority of the time- it's great.

If I wanted something smaller I would perhaps get a tablet with a keyboard (or a netbook, if they weren't all terrible)... but doing any meaningful work on my phone? No thanks. I can barely bring myself to type out a reasonably-sized e-mail on mine.

<comment><USER4> If a keyboard is important to you, the Droid 4 actually has a great one. Using it with the Terminal android app is a breeze.

However, the rest of the phone sucks, so I can't recommend it.

<comment><USER5> Honestly, I prefer my Droid 4 keyboard to the vast majority of laptop keyboards. I can't begin to describe how convenient it is to have an SSH client with a genuinely good keyboard right in my pocket at all times.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the MBP keyboard is not really a fair comparison, but I definitely think the little D4 keyboard is far superior to most PC laptop keyboards, especially the compact ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just thinking out loud here.

You know where a market for disruption exists? The millions of iOS devices that are now being relegated to the trash bin of tech. Very soon everything from iPhone 3GS and back will be obsolete. You will not be able to update apps or OS. I have a nice pile of iPod Touch units that I can't develop for and will not move past their last update (was it iOS 4.2-something?).

You don't have to build any hardware. It's already there. And it's nice too.

Provide a path for a Linux (or whatever) phone to be loaded into these devices and you instantly create a market for probably hundreds of millions of devices that will either end-up in the trash bin or forever forgotten in a desk drawer.

If I were Microsoft I'd throw money at making W8 Phone run as a viable replacement for iOS on these devices. And I'd make the software 100% free of charge. Instant access to millions upon millions of customers who will be facing a very real choice of having to spend hundreds of dollars to get a new iOS device or, instead, try W8 Phone for iDevices for free. Yes, apps will be important. For some, this will not work. For others it would be a no-brainer.

The same would be true of Google/Android.

If I could load something else onto my half-dozen now-obsolete iPod's I'd do it. Yes, I know you can Whited00r up to a somewhat crippled iOS5, but that's not really a solution, certainly not for a hundred million devices.

<comment><USER3> _If I were Microsoft I'd throw money at making W8 Phone run as a viable replacement for iOS on these devices. And I'd make the software 100% free of charge._

Never, ever, ever going to happen. Apple would provide the access required to do that, so you'd need to reverse engineer the device in order to install a custom OS on it- something that Apple would likely take legal action against.

Add to that the perception that WP is a dead-end OS for crappy old devices, and you're ruined your brand too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Having a Terminal application will make the Phone more appealing to coders and old school Linux users. I fail to see how this will make the Ubuntu Phone more appealing to the average user.

EDIT: Apparently saying something that goes against the current on HN will start a shit storm (downvotes, obviously).

<comment><USER8> Not everything has to be for the benefit of the "average user" whoever they are.

<comment><USER7> Agree, my point was that this will remain a niche phone.

<comment><USER9> Wait, so including features that don't immediately appeal to the average user necessarily means there will be nothing that appeals to the average user?

Your logic is broken there somewhere.

<comment><USER10> I think it's pretty clear the OP's point was only in reference to the Terminal app, not Ubuntu in general. It's a valid point and doesn't really deserve the snark in your last sentence.

<comment><USER9> I think it's pretty clear that the OPs point was that there was a terminal app on the phone and therefore it was a geek phone that's never going to take off, and that my snark was absolutely appropriate.

In fact he specifically said _"I fail to see how this will make the Ubuntu Phone more appealing to the average user."_ shortly followed by _"my point was that this will remain a niche phone."_

-Edit to remove somewhat unnecessary snark-

I don't think 'your logic is broken there somewhere' is all that snarky in the grand scheme of things, in fact it's a pretty clear statement of fact. The two things "terminal apps are not appealing to average users" and "this phone will remain niche" are absolutely not logically connected.

<comment><USER8> I would argue that a good terminal app can help make something easier to use for both technical and average users alike.

Since you can assume that the terminal will be never or very rarely used by average users you can make the advanced functionality available as command line applications and leave the most basic/common options in the GUI.

A naive user is far more likely to check a box and click apply by accident than they are to type "rm -rf /".

A good example is a modern version of Windows, the control panel is full of options,tabs,checkboxes etc that can do weird stuff to your system and consequently make it harder to use because (until recently with powershell) windows has never had a useful commandline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Want to have a look into their mockups? [https://ubuntu.mybalsamiq.com/projects/ubuntuphonecoreapps/g...](https://ubuntu.mybalsamiq.com/projects/ubuntuphonecoreapps/grid) (found on the link)

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately, it seems to have been mocked up by someone who doesn't know the difference between a terminal and a shell :(

I would rather they concentrated on making a decent standards-compliant terminal emulator and didn't have to hack up the shell to accommodate it.

<comment><USER13> It's not clear to me that everything appearing in the terminal is a shell response. It may be a more sophisticated interface than, say, UXTerm, with some mid-level processing for command completion perhaps. At least we can hope....

<comment><USER12> This is the kind of thing I'm hoping _against_. I don't want anything "smart" being done by the terminal; that is the job of the shell.

<comment><USER13> I see. I would vote the other way- keep the shell intact, and install a new UI. UIs can be swapped out, but breaking the shell may lead to unforeseen undesirable consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I fear this is going to be very much a niche phone but I just might get one to support the project.

Between Android, iOs, the remnants of blackberry and the Microsoft offering there will not be a whole lot of room for a new entrant that is not compatible with any of the above. A hackable phone that is not tied to one of the three largest 500 lbs+ gorillas sounds like a really neat thing to have.

Here's to hoping battery life will be acceptable and that they won't spoil it by tying it to Ubuntu services all over the place. Ideal would be NBR + phone capability, possibility to hook up an external display and hold the marketing.

<comment><USER15> >Between Android, iOs, the remnants of blackberry and the Microsoft offering there will not be a whole lot of room for a new entrant that is not compatible with any of the above

It seems exceedingly likely that if more than a few dozen people use this, someone (if not Canonical itself) will produce an Android compatibility layer.

What I wish Canonical would do is to do it right. The naive implementation is to take the existing Android source and hack it into Ubuntu like WINE, which is almost certainly a lot easier when the source is already available. What Canonical ought to do is superset Android natively: Make all of the APIs available the same as they are on Android, so that you _can_ take the source to an Android app and just run it on Ubuntu, but you can also start from there and make relatively few changes in order to comply with any differences in Ubuntu's usability standards and have your existing Android app running properly and natively on Ubuntu in very short order.

That would give Ubuntu all of the Android apps right away, and then give Android developers an easy way to fix any compatibility-related issues with running those apps on Ubuntu without making significant changes to their existing code.

Meanwhile now you have Android running next to POSIX and developers have the temptation to use all the traditional gnu stuff plus whatever Ubuntu adds to make it appropriate to the form factor, which has the developers pushing Google to put that stuff in Android.

There is a foreseeable future in which Android and Ubuntu end up as different distributions of the same basic OS the same as RedHat and Ubuntu today.

<comment><USER16> Then Canonical has a second-rate Android platform, on which most people run apps that don't work so well, and they have zero control over the platform, so the vendors they are competing with can directly run them off the road.

If what you want is to run Android apps, stick with an Android phone.

<comment><USER15> >Then Canonical has a second-rate Android platform, on which most people run apps that don't work so well, and they have zero control over the platform, so the vendors they are competing with can directly run them off the road.

Where do you get zero control? Android is licensed under GPL and Apache. The only way Google "controls" it at all is by funding its development. If Google goes in a direction Canonical doesn't like they can fork it at any time with the only cost that they have to fund all future development themselves, which is apparently what you want them to do from the start.

>If what you want is to run Android apps, stick with an Android phone.

What if I want to run Android apps and gnu apps at the same time?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The market for people who want a native terminal on their phone should be roughly equivalent to people who ever want to terminal INTO their phone.

The market already well served by iOS, Android, etc., is people who want to terminal OUT OF their phone and onto a real computer someplace.

What are the real-world tasks you expect to do with the former that you couldn't do, or couldn't do as well, with the latter?

<comment><USER10> If I'm understanding you correctly, you wouldn't need to SSH in to your phone from another device. You could run something like SQLite locally and access it from the terminal, or write Ubuntu applications that expect services to be available on certain ports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's bit funny/sad that today having a terminal in Linux distro is news.

<comment><USER19> That's not news. Having a terminal on your _phone_ is news.

<comment><USER20> There were terminals on phones even a decade ago:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator>

<comment><USER18> I must admit that _serial_ terminals were not something I was excepting to pop up in this thread :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm skeptical, but I was also skeptical of Firefox for Android and it turned out to be a pretty solid browser.

</comment><comment><USER22> Would rather have a bsd phone. Hell even a netbsd phone than a linux phone but I will accept your Ubuntu phone over Android anyday though I fully expect Ubuntu to get sued out of existence once they start getting into the mobile biz. There isn't a day that goes by when Samsung isn't being sued by a hundred different corporations or Samsung isn't themselves suing a hundred different corporations.

I'm also secretly hoping Ubuntu is paying attention to security with all the mobile spying going on and not just concentrating on making the latest supercoleslawesome twitter integration while they develop this.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think it's sad that the core apps include Facebook and Twitter, but not a real instant messaging client (as in "I can install my own server if necessary", "end to end encryption", etc.) Instead of more client implementations for the same commercial services, the free software world should work on bringing the state of the art to free (as in freedom) tools.

No, this is not Richard Stallman speaking. I just want to keep my data on my own server, or at least have the choice to host it at a company in my own country.

<comment><USER24> Facebook Chat is just their private server of an open protocol (XMPP). Unless the client specifically prevents you from doing so, you should be able to use your own server just like you can with e.g. Pidgin.

<comment><USER25> Well, I have some unfortunate news for you: to my knowledge, not one single Facebook Chat app allows this. There is no market. It is beyond wishful thinking to expect Ubuntu to turn this around.

<comment><USER23> Exactly, there is no _market_ for real privacy and openness, and it certainly is not in Google's or Apple's interests.

That's why I count on free software to close the gap. Free as in: free of corporate interests, no need to make money, no need to provide access to intelligence agencies. I pay for the hardware, and I pay to transmit data. But the data stays mine.

<comment><USER25> Maybe I am pessimistic but I think that Ubuntu definitely has enough corporate interests to ruin this idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Really I wouldn't want just a busybox terminal. I already have that on Android. It's ok, but has limited functionality. What I'd want would be the full range of typical GNU commands.

<comment><USER27> Sailfish will have normal coreutils which come from Mer repo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I just want to point out that the link is for _user submitted design suggestions_ and is not necessarily official Canonical plan of record for what will ship.

[http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/23/community-driven- ubuntu-...](http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/23/community-driven-ubuntu-phone- core-apps/)

It's a subtle distinction I wanted to point out.

Not speaking on behalf of Canonical, just in my own capacity.

<comment><USER29> Yes, this: the "will" of the title is unjustified.

"Someone would like to have a terminal on the Ubuntu phone" would be more accurate.

There are plenty of "official" blueprints that never made it into the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just how far away this Ubuntu Phone is? I assume quite some time away, if we are still discussing features?

<comment><USER31> The first Ubuntu phone will be released in early 2014.

<comment><USER30> Any info on exactly which phone that might be?

<comment><USER32> No info. But hopefully the first one will be based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and will be 64-bit (Cortex A57 and Cortex A53 class chips). It would be a mistake for them to start out with a 32 bit version, just to switch to the 64 but version months later or a year later.

<comment><USER33> One concern is that Ubuntu is probably shaping up to start rolling release and Wayland support in 14.10, and they face a current real issue of dealing with X in the embedded space. If the launch the phone with 14.04 (though, they don't have much of a choice if aiming for an H1 release) they end up ripping out the graphics stack half a year or a year later _if_ they use X.

And there are still those awful rumors of Canonical writing their own windowing server and compositor. They spread themselves so thin sometimes that you rip the bread apart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Yes, but will grep -R give me Amazon results? [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/command-not- found/...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/command-not- found/+bug/1055766)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'd rather see open hardware before yet another O/S that runs on proprietary hardware with suspicious firmware. Maybe one day

<comment><USER24> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> That's good. Terminal is a norm for regular mobile Linux, and not some exotic third party application like on Android.

</comment><comment><USER36> Have the commented on whether they're going with Gecko or Webkit for the browser and embedded HTML views?

<comment><USER33> The apps built against it will be using qtwebkit, I imagine they will go with webkit. Maybe use a reskinned rekonq or some other qt based browser as a "default" browser.

What I'm more worried about than the choice of html engine, is if they are going to use chrome or firefox webapp manifests, because they are incompatible and one of them is necessary for first class web applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> And pine as default e-mail client?</comment>


ASKHN: Revenue Model for Facebook Application - <AUTHOR>

We want to design/develop a Facebook business application. But we are not sure how to get revenue out of it. Is there any FB application where people willing to pay. As this is a business application, advertise is not an option.<p>P.S. We will also the first user of this application. <comment><USER2> One common FB business model is to first create a free, hopefully popular Facebook application. Once you have an audience or a substantial userbase, you direct those users to a more powerful version of the application on your own website - specifically, a paid version.

In other words you use facebook to build popularity then redirect that popularity to a more traditional paid web app.

</comment><comment><USER3> virtual goods are making zynga a ton of money on fb -- not sure how this business model would translate for your app?

</comment><comment><USER4> If it's a thing where its utility grows as a result of an expanding number of business users, you could charge accordingly. 0 for the first year, then. If it takes off and provides businesses with utility, then charge something next year, or in 6 months or whatever. But you'd have to be upfront about this kind of business model, and maybe outline what future charges might be.

Also, is it of any utility to ordinary folks, small businesses etc? If so, freemium is an option.

tl;dr: need more info</comment>


Rediscovering Arcade Nostalgia - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001096.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Some day I will finish converting my ms pacman cocktail cabinet... some day.....

<comment><USER2> trying to source some Atari System I upright cabinet art for Road Blasters for its 21st birthday...</comment></comment>


Amazon Zocalo - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/zocalo/ <comment><USER2> Jeff Bezos is using Bill Gates' playbook from the 1990's: build alternatives to the most popular apps on your platform; bundle them; and improve app quality over time. This business strategy is very hard for a company like dropbox to compete against, even if they have better IP/quality/features.

Edit: we can also expect Amazon versions of "knife the baby", "cut off their air supply" and "DOS ain't done until Lotus won't run".

<comment><USER3> One big thing Zacolo has over Dropbox is cheaper pricing. Dropbox for Business is $15/mo [1] per user (can be up to 30% cheaper if you pay in-full for a year), where-as Zacolo is $5/mo [2] per user. That'll put downward pressure on Dropbox's corporate pricing unless they have much better service, or much better features, than Amazon.

[1] [https://www.dropbox.com/business/buy](https://www.dropbox.com/business/buy) [2] [https://aws.amazon.com/zocalo/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/zocalo/pricing/)

<comment><USER4> I'm a dropbox customer. I'll be staying with them for the foreseeable future, but I'm glad to see competition might bring me more space and/or cheaper pricing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like for years, we've been saying that Amazon will likely try and compete with Dropbox and Box. Looks like that time has come.

Having used Dropbox for personal stuff, and Box for work stuff, I have to say, neither has completely fit my needs.

Sure, Dropbox is great for working within small groups/teams, and for personal syncing. Sometimes the sharing functionality gets a bit wonky, but definitely the best implementation by far.

Box works decently well in the work environment, but it is definitely clunkier than Dropbox in a lot of respects. No one liked using Box where I worked (FB).

On my own, I've found that the most of my clients don't use any of these. In fact, they still try to run things on FTP sites! As a result, I've had to adapt to them and use Citrix ShareFile. It actually serves a different purpose than Dropbox or Box. It's a drop-in replacement for sending/receiving files to people within and outside your organization. I can silo off folders to specific users, companies, etc. I can send a link to folks asking them to upload files to me. It's definitely fit the bill in a lot of respects.

So internally, I still use Dropbox. But I don't expose that externally to my clients.

It seems that Amazon Zocalo is trying to compete with Google Drive, by allowing you to edit files in the browser, and integrate with your existing IT infrastructure. Not a bad tactic, but I think the service that will do really well in enterprise is one that merges the functionality of ShareFile into Dropbox, with IT integration.

<comment><USER6> I tried using Box for a similar reason (I needed a way to securely share multiple files and/or folders with external clients in a way that did not require them to install software or sign-up for some service) and it just doesn't work. I also desired a way to automatically upload new content to this platoform.

No dice. After emailing with 6 different Box employees (all ignoring my requests and trying to sell me on shit I didn't ask for, then would just pass me onto someone else) I was finally told that I could only do that if I paid for an enterprise "call for pricing" license.

Sigh. I'm using a http-auth secured index-of directory for now. If anyone has a superior suggestion, I'm all ears.

<comment><USER7> Try using Insync with Google Drive. Right-click on a local folder/file and copy the private link.

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

I'm a co-founder.

<comment><USER8> I thought we learned this week that "private links" for sharing documents are horribly insecure. I'm pretty sure they want it to still be password protected, which ShareFile is.

<comment><USER9> BTW, Google Apps has a feature where you can share to "people within my domain who have the link", which is a very nice middle ground between "everyone on the Internet with the link" and "I need to explicitly choose who to share this with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a move against SharePoint Online/Box/EMC's shitty thing. The proof will be how well it works.

Box can work well enough if you've got everyone on it and you're using it as your main file server. The problem is that if you want to use it with users who expect it to work like Dropbox, it's not really designed for that kind of nimble access.

The pricing is totally inline with the competitors on a per-seat basis. It's even cheaper if you have any of the think client instances.

Interesting to see how it plays out -- and what impact this will have on Box, now that it is delaying its IPO.

<comment><USER11> Please please please let companies use this instead of SharePoint. Anything sane.

Ah well, probably the kind of people who make "enterprise" buying decisions will not even SEE Zocalo on their perception radar, so it will never happen.

<comment><USER12> I make enterprise buying decisions and it is on my radar. But then again, I frequent HN so there's that...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how long it's going to be before Dropbox announces another vertical. They have an amazing product, but it's basically been unchanged for years now and been allowed to succeed (and thrive!) as such because competitors have always treated their own Dropbox-style clients as a hobby instead of a product.

<comment><USER14> I disagree that the product has been unchanged for years. Their app syncs photos on my phone, the shared link gives a great preview of files (esp videos), they've got a strong API for developers and they're improving picture sharing.

These may seem like little changes to one product but they're making it a rock solid product in one vertical that is slowly creeping out into others.

<comment><USER15> Okay, it's fairly off-topic, but after reading that I had to respond. I consider the shared link a serious anti-feature compared to the old direct link, I suppose due to poor engineering.

\- For pictures: There is no way to see the full resolution without clicking the download link. Fine for photos, no good for the screenshots I like to upload.

\- For PDFs: uses pdf.js. That would be nice if I were still using Adobe Reader, not so much in Safari where I have a superior reader built in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Dropbox is in a tough situation because they're charging 5x as much as competitors for roughly the same service (I'm comparing the monthly 100gb plan), yet they can't lower the price because they likely have a massive number of customers who are fine with paying $10 / month and/or don't know about cheaper competitors...so the price will likely stay put until they start to see signs of their existing base churning out, but by then their competitors may already have won over a lot of mindshare.

<comment><USER17> > _Dropbox is in a tough situation because they 're charging 5x as much as > competitors for roughly the same service_

Care to name some of the competitors?

Besides Google Drive, I mean, which I won't use (tried it, and it was crap compared to Amazon, but am trying to avoid Google in general, and I don't want to encourage their bundling of Google Apps with the Drive).

<comment><USER16> Google Drive, OneDrive, and now it looks like amazon is throwing their hat into the ring. These are all cheaper options. I switched to google drive from dropbox without a problem.

<comment><USER18> box.com and mega are also working in the same space to some extent.

If you have the time installing the open-source, self hosted owncloud probably would be cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Gotta love Amazon, at $5/user/month that is 1/3rd the price of Dropbox for business ($15/user/mo or $13.25/user/mo if you pay for the year upfront.)

<comment><USER20> Dropbox is in a challenging situation. They've grown too large for an exit and without large partner, they are fighting an uphill battle againt giants like Google, Apple and Amazon. I would not bet on them.

<comment><USER21> That's what IPOs are for.

<comment> rational-future IPO may help the founders cash out, but it won't be enough for the company to overcome heavyweight competitors like Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Apple.

<comment><USER21> Yes it will. An IPO can either cash you out, or it can raise cash. In fact, once you've had your IPO, you can raise cash quite easily. Amazon could never have competed with WalMart if they had kept private.

<comment><USER22> And once they have the cash from an IPO, where do they go from there? The problem is much more complex than you're suggesting

<comment><USER23> This is hackernews, nobody thinks about what actually happens after an exit event. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Terrible name...

Also it looks like Box and Google Drive are significantly cheaper.

<comment><USER25> I agree, the name sounds foreign and it also will be pronounced different ways.

<comment><USER26> It IS foreign. A famous, foreign place. And it's Spanish, not exactly unfamiliar to much of the planet.

If you're familiar/know the place, it makes sense why they named it that.

<comment><USER27> I don't think he's saying foreign = bad, just that foreign = harder to market to a largely English-speaking audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Zocalo?

Must make Babylon5 reference: [http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Z%C3%B3calo](http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Z%C3%B3calo)

Or you can reference the real origin of the word: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%B3calo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%B3calo)

It doesn't really look like this Amazon product fits the word being used.

<comment><USER29> In Spanish (or, to be precise, in some Spanish-speaking countries) it means "tile", as in "floor tile". Not bad, but not impressive either.

<comment><USER30> Zócalo means socket, socle, or baseboard, depending on the context.

Socket is assumed if no context.

I have never heard of it used as 'tile'. A tile is 'baldoza'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The marketing copy doesn't mention local (or remote) filesystem integration. This doesn't look like a direct Dropbox (or Box or Google Drive) competitor to me — more like Microsoft SharePoint. Amazon does not seem to have gone for the consumer market here, nor even for small businesses. "Enterprise-ready."

</comment><comment><USER32> ISTR Zocalo is Mexican Spanish for main square or plaza. Guess there is _some_ logic in that.

<comment><USER33> ISTR?

<comment><USER34> "I Seem To Recall"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35>
      > # What might go wrong? (This is a test of imagination, not confidence.)
      > Google might finally unleash GDrive and steal a lot of Dropbox's thunder
      > (especially if this takes place before launch.) In general, the online
      > storage space is extremely noisy, so being marginally better isn't good
      > enough; there has to be a leap in value worthy of writing/blogging/telling
      > friends about...[1]

This was from Drew's YC dropbox application. It looks like it should have said "Amazon, Google, Apple, and Microsoft would all unleash their cloud platforms at lower price points with software services sitting on top." Drew does have a very valid point: Being marginally better isn't good enough. I love Dropbox's service and I want them to win, but this pricing war is not great news for them.

[1] - [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27532820/app.html](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27532820/app.html)

</comment><comment><USER36> It's discouraging that Amazon is able to keep moving forward with such predictable momentum while the management teams of its competitors still haven't figured out how to take on Amazon circa 2008.

<comment><USER37> It is no different than Google in that respect. Tbh, I think Google has more market share for its core products relatively speaking.

That is one of the things that makes tech interesting, you can win really, really big in one area then roll it into other related areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> sorry if this has already been mentioned but does zocalo have client side encryption? that is to say, does the file get encrypted before being sent?

this part mentions encryption but is isn't clear:

"All documents are stored in a designated AWS Region and transmitted in encrypted form."

<comment><USER39> I keep looking for that and I haven't found any copy that supports the notion they have client-side encryption, so it's a non-starter for me :-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This product looks great. I run Kivo (www.kivo.com YC S13) we're trying to address a lot of the same problems around sharing and storage that Dropbox et al have missed out on. Zocalo seems like a really good first pass, but I don't think tying users to a specific storage platform is the winning strategy for something that's fundamentally a collaboration app. It shouldn't matter where someone stores their files, collaboration applications should exist as layers on top of existing content. Forcing users to move to a new platform is one more point of friction when it comes to adoption. Storage companies releasing collaboration products is like email providers only letting their users email other users of their service - Gmail to Gmail email product. The reason why email works as a communication protocol is because it is an open one. Content collaboration is the same, the company that will win this market will be the one that addresses it without letting the politics of the 'storage wars' poison its simplicity. The 'it just works' of Dropbox comes from its ability to store and sync any file without any change in user behaviour - it's just another folder. No one's created an 'it just works' product for collaboration yet, where it doesn't matter whereabouts your files are stored or who it is that you want to work with. That's what we're trying to do at Kivo, and we'll be announcing a set of integrations very soon to make that so. If you'd like to help, get in touch, my email's in my hn profile.

<comment><USER41> I like your clever use of "looks great" and then a subtle dig with "seems like a really good first pass" and then sneaking in some weaknesses before explaining why the strengths of your platform are better. Then bookending a second branding mention of "Kivo" to wrap things up.

<comment><USER40> I think it does look great. This is a really hard problem to solve and they've done an excellent job. I'm sorry if you feel otherwise.

<comment><USER41> No, I think you did a great job of appearing really positive. That style is all the rage these days and it looks like you have a great grasp of it. Keep up the great work!

<comment><USER40> Oh, apologies for misunderstanding! And thanks for the compliment :)

<comment><USER42> My head just exploded with irony...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is it Alan Rickman narrating the introductory video?

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

That would be one hell of an easter egg.

<comment><USER44> It is not, that guy has probably one of the most distinct voices, and that is not him. Would have been great though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> It amazes me to find the number of competitors who use AWS as a platform while competing with Amazon.

Certainly tells something about customer service at Amazon.

<comment><USER10> You could say the same for Microsoft though. Or Oracle. Or SAP. I mean, iCloud runs on Azure so...

<comment><USER46> Is it confirmed that iCloud runs on Azure, or just rumor?

<comment><USER47> You can confirm it yourself. Look at the outgoing connections while using say Messages on OS X, they are going to azure domains.

<comment><USER48> I just tried. It goes to an IP that resolves to Apple with WHOIS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I have mixed feelings about this.

I dumped iTunes for Amazon's music store - works really well on iPad, Android phones, and my laptop. Apple lost me when my curated iTunes library was not available on my droid. Really like the Amazon player clients.

Zocalo looks good for one account for pictures and videos shared by my extended family with permissions, and still keep my work stuff separate.

Where Dropbox really wins though: smooth integration with so many other services. I can, for example, edit my leanpub manuscripts on my laptop, surprisingly well also on my iPad, and actually OK on my droid phone. Same for many other apps that use the Dropbox APIs.

What will probably keep me on Dropbox forever is that $100/year seems really inexpensive for a service that I use a lot, and it would take too much of my time to switch.

<comment><USER12> _and it would take too much of my time to switch._

Yeah, that drag & drop can sure be a pain in the ass... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This makes it much more likely that competitors that rely on amazon services will need to build the entire storage stack in order to compete with Amazon. Hopefully this leads to more great oss solutions for building things like s3.

</comment><comment><USER51> Forgive my ignorance, but would something like this be decent for slinging around video/media files?

Been investigating storage VPS solutions for doing so, but I wonder if this would be a more elegant solution.

</comment><comment><USER52> Conflicted copies?

I don't understand how that is never mentioned when talking about collaborating on documents.

Comments are worthless without track changes.

Someone make word obsolete by making track changes better.

<comment><USER11> If all editing is done in the cloud, I don't see any problems. MS Word isn't designed for collaborative editing.

That, or use something like markdown + version control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> What is the interface between the front end UI (file sharing, commenting, etc.) and the back end storage ?

That is, can I manipulate the back end via s3 and s3 tools ?

</comment><comment><USER54> It'd be interesting to see if their annotation allows for exporting to their original documents. It's similar to what [http://www.notablepdf.com](http://www.notablepdf.com) did but only for PDF documents. Their export functionality for MS Word is quite interesting, and would actually work extremely well for lawyers who constantly use tracked changes.

</comment><comment><USER55> Zocalo. I've heard that word somewhere here in Bolivia before. It's hardhat- construction related, I'm not sure if it's related to sockets or maybe a type of wrench.

I think it's the little plastic you put into a hole in the wall after you drill it. It's so the screw you place in the wall is securely set and won't move. Cool name!

<comment><USER56> The white wooden part is a "Zocalo" [http://img.decoesfera.com/2013/01/zocalo- madera.jpg](http://img.decoesfera.com/2013/01/zocalo-madera.jpg)

<comment><USER57> For me, "zócalo" in spanish, is this: [https://www.google.com/search?q=skirting+board](https://www.google.com/search?q=skirting+board) (see the images)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Does anyone have experience with Egnyte? [https://www.egnyte.com/](https://www.egnyte.com/)

The thing that makes it attractive to me is that it can sync with a Netgear NAS. About half our staff are in a central office, the other half are remote, so this is a solution that looks like it would cater well to that situation.

</comment><comment><USER59> No linux client, shame

<comment><USER53> Is there not an android client ? Just curious...

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Looks like everyone is pushing on enterprise cloud storage. After Google/Microsoft price slash and Amazon entering that market I wonder what would happen to Box IPO.

Looks like this market will commoditized and be yet another race to bottom.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is what I was waiting to happen ever since Dropbox became popular. I always said Dropbox is a good idea but its not a long term business. Remains to be seen how they fare.

<comment><USER62> In your opinion, what would Dropbox need to do to become a long term business?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> The company that does best in this market will be the company that exists to service its customers, not the company that exists to compete with others.

</comment><comment><USER64> We built and launched exactly the same app one year back at [http://collablayer.com](http://collablayer.com)

</comment><comment><USER65> What an awful name.

<comment><USER66> It is in fact a very bad name. A name with unfamiliar sounds to an English ear will be that much harder to catch on and build brand recognition.

<comment><USER67> Yep. Just like Schwarzenegger.

<comment><USER66> Yes, his name was an impediment to becoming a household name. It's not a complete prevention, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I fully expect version 2 will have full document editing, competing directly with GDrive and Office 365.

</comment><comment><USER69> my startup ([http://tataatsu.com](http://tataatsu.com) ) launched similar ditto amazon zocalo 1 year back, [http://collablayer.com/](http://collablayer.com/) :(

</comment><comment><USER70> Zocalo is a stupid name.

It really is. No matter how much you thought about it, how many nights of brainstorming with your pillow smelling like señoritas, or perhaps drinking margaritas at a pub in the zocalo. It is stupid.

Please say this is a 'beta' and it will be renamed to Amazon cloud, drive, square, plaza, or whatever but drop it, just drop it.

<comment><USER71> I lived in Mexico for 2 years. Zocalo was used to refer to "downtown" or to the public square.

It's where everything is, and where you go when you need to get something.

I think it's a great name.

<comment><USER70> I know what zocalo is, I am a damn latino too, been there a couple of times, still that doesn't make it a nice name.

It sucks, but whatev.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> So, is the intended reference in the name to a baseboard or the main square of a town?

</comment><comment><USER73> Is this similar to OneNote from Microsoft? Or more likely to Google Drive ?

<comment><USER46> I think it's like Google Drive and Dropbox, but geared towards enterprise use.

<comment><USER74> So Google Drive if you have Google Apps for Business...

<comment><USER10> No. It's like SharePoint and Box. Google Drive sync clients don't obey Active Directory policy rules the way they need to. This does. Which is huge for big businesses.

This is competing with Box and with clunkier solutions from EMC. It's also competing against SharePoint Online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> There's also Zócalo Public Square[0], a "not-for-profit Ideas Exchange that blends live events and humanities journalism."

[0] [http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/](http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/)

</comment><comment><USER76> Just a curious comment: Dropbox uses Amazon S3.

I really like Dropbox, an state of art product and I'm also a great fan of Bezos company and his strategies, but I currently feel very satisfied with Dropbox, everything works very well.

</comment><comment><USER77> Perfectly clean of any Linux taint - is this a message?

</comment><comment><USER78> It sounds like a Sharepoint killer.

<comment><USER79> Except you can't host it yourself.

<comment><USER80> Exactly. And that you can't trust a company who wants to do business with the CIA. I know I'm getting downvoted for this - thanks guys ;)

<comment><USER81> As if the hardware / software stack you'd 'host it yourself on' is secure?

<comment><USER82> This needs more attention. Can we even trust OpenBSD, much less Linux? There's so much code in there. How could we possibly know that they're safe? That packets aren't a little bigger than they need to be? We'll just have to live with it I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> i cringe that they allow to use existing amazon accounts on this.

<comment><USER84> Why?

<comment><USER83> because zero owners of regular amazon accounts are for corporate use.

so far they only tied the accounts with cloud services, where the audience is clever enough to not use their home amazon accounts at. and instead create one with their employer email.

now with this office suit, everyone will just login with their home account. just like they do with corporate google docs. well, google is a bad example because then they made everything worse by joining personal and domain (which often meant employee at small company) into a single account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Any word on how this compares to all of the competitors? Or is it too early to tell?

</comment><comment><USER86> I am wondering what Aaron Levie will think of this.

</comment><comment><USER87> Why'd they go with a British accent?

</comment><comment><USER88> How do you pronounce this?

</comment><comment><USER89> This is basically Google Drive...

<comment><USER90> Huh, I forgot no one else is allowed to make a Google Drive competitor. That's pretty convenient for Google.

<comment><USER72> The observation that this is similar to Drive doesn't imply that it is not- allowed for that reason. It does seem to imply that the commenter found it _not-interesting_ because it doesn't seem (to the commenter) to offer anything new, but not-interesting is not the same as not-allowed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Isn't this a reason to not use AWS anymore?</comment>


Graphene Doubles Up on Quantum Dots' Promise in Quantum Computing - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/quantum-dots-made-from-graphene-help-realize-their-promise-for-quantum-computing <comment><USER2> I wish someone would do a chart of all the things graphene can be used for that have been posted on hacker news in the last 5 years with actual products that use it or are going to use it.

<comment><USER3> Here is the list: [ ]

No really though, there are a lot of people researching it. I could find very little on the market actually using it.

[http://www.physics.manchester.ac.uk/our-research/research- im...](http://www.physics.manchester.ac.uk/our-research/research- impact/graphene/)

Graphene looks great on paper and in the lab. It seems making the economics work at scale may be a bit more didficult.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__2001__85__Batteri...](http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__2001__85__Batteries_Accessories- Turnigy_Graphene.html)

[http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2592234](http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2592234)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Multicopter/comments/43z8d0/thought...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Multicopter/comments/43z8d0/thoughts_on_the_new_turnigy_graphene_batteries/)</comment></comment></comment>


Apple's App Discovery Lead On Google Shrinking. Publishers: Not to worry - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/21/apples-app-discovery-lead-on-google-is-shrinking-but-mobile-publishers-shouldnt-be-too-worried/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone know how an app download bot would technically work? Wouldn't a bot owner have to control a lot of Apple IDs? Plus credit cards for a paid download app bot. It doesn't seem feasible to me, but they must be out there if people use them.</comment>


Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg's 99% pledge is born with strings attached - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/02/mark-zuckerberg-and-priscilla-chans-99-pledge-is-born-with-strings-attached <comment><USER2> How dare Zuckerberg pledge to give away all of his money to make the world a better place! Lets criticize him for that!

This kind of journalism is garbage.

</comment><comment><USER3> _> As the critic Teju Cole puts it, power like theirs "supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening". And until that cycle changes, philanthropic initiatives can only go so far._

</comment><comment><USER4> > _by employing 68% men and fewer than 50 black people in a company of more > than 10,000 employees (to say nothing of the unholy spectre of > gentrification) – Mark Zuckerberg himself continues to reproduce the > inequality he and his wife are taking aim at with their pledge_

It seems the author thinks Facebook (or any other company) should hire more black people just because they're black, and more women just because they're women. That's seriously crazy.

Nevermind evaluating the candidates on their merits, and if there are zero black applicants, then you just drive around San Fransisco until you find enough to fill your quota, and proceed to hire them regardless of whether they have any skills you could use!

Don't forget one-legged midgets either! They need to have equal representation in your workforce! Who are you to "reproduce inequality" by not hiring them?</comment>


How Craigslist Scammer got caught. - <AUTHOR> http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1071611

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know if this is the right place to post it, but i actually liked the way they found him and nailed him. I thought Hackers would be interested in finding better ways to one-up scammers who seem to be pretty smart.

</comment><comment><USER2> Kind of ironic that the people being scammed were just rewriting other people's content.</comment>


Did Israel steal bomb-grade uranium from the United States? - <AUTHOR> http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-united-states7056 <comment><USER2> > that the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the NRC predecessor nuclear > licensing agency, had previously convinced the FBI not to open a criminal > investigation into the material's disappearance.

That is just ridiculous. After the Soviet Union fell I remember all these "experts" talking about the looming dirty bomb threat from stolen nuclear materials from Russia, Ukraine and other such places.

Yet nothing has happened, it turns out they do have a pretty good handle on it. And here is hundreds of kg of bomb grade uranium missing right from the country with the supposed many nuclear "experts".

I don't even know what to say. I guess, if you commit a crime, just commit such a fucking big crime that anyone would just be too embarrassed to admit such a crime even been committed.

> And any disclosures about Israel's bomb program would of course have > threatened the Carter administration's Middle East policies.

In my book, some state with bomb grade nuclear material would surely derail any peace process, in pretty much any region. Look at the war in Iraq that was launched over "WMDs" that we still haven't found. Or the embargoes and threats again Iran over using centrifuges. Fuck they should have just stolen the damn nuclear materials right from the DoE and be done with it. DoE would have been too embarrassed to do anything about it. "Hey Bob, yeah we just found out Iranian agents stole 300kg of bomb grade Uranium from our storage facility...." <Bob, the head of DoE> "Yeah that is too embarrassing, we can't let anyone know about this.

<comment><USER3> I would not rule out the possibility that this "theft" story is a cover for what really happened.

<comment><USER4> ...that we gave it to them, willingly.

<comment><USER5> Would that be a bad thing? (I'm just curious, and have no agenda. I'm ignorant in such matters.)

It seems like the proliferation of nukes has resulted in a more stable worldwide society. It's too early to tell, but in a century or two we'll be certain. Is it true that where there are nukes, war isn't?

<comment><USER6> Proliferation and stability are linked, but not a simple causal relationship. For example, look at the Cuban Missile Crisis. It wasn't even 'proliferation' just the addition of new attack vectors (namely, the much increased potential of a decapitation first strike against the USG) that nearly sent everything ablaze.

Basically, MAD only works when both sides are relatively symmetric. When you have weird asymmetric situations, and inability to actual cause true mutual destruction, especially when mixed in with certain ideological elements, nuclear weapons can be anything but stabilizing. For example, an enemy that is already willing to use suicide bombers, or trade civilian/innocent lives to counteract the opponent's advantages may not be fully deterred by nuclear weapons. Especially an enemy that happens to be a non-state actor.

You are of course correct - we do need the long view to actually tell. But I strongly believe that simply proliferation of nuclear weapons, especially in situations without guaranteed mutual destruction is likely not stabilizing.

<comment><USER7> > For example, look at the Cuban Missile Crisis. It wasn't even > 'proliferation' just the addition of new attack vectors (namely, the much > increased potential of a decapitation first strike against the USG) that > nearly sent everything ablaze.

Technically the new attack vectors were the installation of dual-key Jupiter IRBMs in Italy and Turkey.

The Soviet shipment of IRBMs to Cuba was a natural response to that poor decision.

The Jupiter missiles were all withdrawn, beginning in January 1963, as agreed with the Soviets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm skeptical about this. It is widely known that Israels nuclear program was assisted mainly by the French and the British, with some fissile material arriving from Argentina and Belgium. At the time (1960s) Israel was ready to produce weapons grade plutonium on an independent basis.

Saying Israel stole that uranium is saying they preferred to steal from a super-power what they could already produce. Possible, but unlikely.

<comment><USER9> Israel has stolen other nuclear tech from the US, so it doesn't seem _that_ unlikely.

> Richard Kelly Smyth, the President of a company called MILCO, was indicted > that same year for smuggling over 800 krytron switches (a component used in > nuclear weapons) to Israel without the required US State Department > Munitions Export License. Just before trial, and facing a possible 105 years > in prison, Richard Kelly Smyth and his wife suddenly disappeared. Sixteen > years later they were discovered and arrested while living as fugitives in > Malaga, Spain, and extradited back to the United States where he was > convicted in the case. The krytrons shipped by Smyth were sent to an Israeli > company called Heli-Trading Ltd. owned by notable Israeli movie producer > Arnon Milchan.

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

<comment><USER10> "Stealing" is different from "smuggling". The switches weren't secret tech in a govt lab, they were export-controlled private-sector tech-for-sale (similar legal status as encryption software)

<comment><USER9> The dictionary definition of "stealing" ([http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stealing](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stealing)) is "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right". Israel didn't have permission to take possession of the tech, so seems like the word is applicable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Original Story, for context is summarized here:

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

This is from 1965, as for the "facts" YMMV

</comment><comment><USER12> Consider this: there's no way the US could make an agreement to give/sell the uranium directly to Israel.

They could however arrange a way for Israel to acquire the uranium, which, if discovered, would place the blame on Israel rather than the US.

They could also take steps to prevent any investigation into that transfer.

There is precedent for this kind of illicit trade, so it's not entirely unlikely that the reason nobody looked into it too deeply is because it was meant to be stolen, and the US likely got something in return for the exchange that was worth maintaining the cover for.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's amazing how fortunate it is that it's so hard to make the one weapon capable of destroying the world. Actually, I've always wondered if it was true that humans really had figured out a method of destroying the world if humanity goes insane. Out of curiosity, are there enough nukes to theoretically remove all life? What about all mammals?

<comment><USER13> There are not enough nukes luckily. 80% of humanity would be wiped out but remote places like Australia, Siberia and parts of Africa would be unaffected, so in theory humanity could survive. The biggest problem is that potable water would be a problem since you don't have any infrastructure left to clean it, but of course those remote locations could fetch clean water if they are lucky. In the last centuries we got child mortality rate really low, that would probably go back to 40-50% like in the middle age. The life in the post nuclear war world would be very difficult, you probably know what I mean if you ever played with Fallout.

<comment><USER14> There is the theory that a "cobalt bomb" would be pretty effective in wiping out humanity.

[http://www.rense.com/general40/dooms.htm](http://www.rense.com/general40/dooms.htm)

Cobalt's half-life, ability to be transported around the planet's atmosphere as dust, and the the type of radiation that cobalit-60 produces makes for a pretty good theoretical doomsday device.

<comment><USER13> You still can't hit 100% of Earth at once. Co-60 has longer half-time but you still need to distribute it to everywhere and that is very difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess if it were true then the US could just have asked Israel to return the Uranium; given that the US would have had many levers of influence to do so.

</comment><comment><USER16> Unlikely they "stole" it. Likely they obtained it.

</comment><comment><USER17> I hardly doubt they had to steal it. Their US puppets probably just gave it to them.

</comment><comment><USER18> Headline has a question mark? Pure speculation guaranteed.

This story needs more time to see if there's any truth in it. Commenting now is a waste of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> This happened nearly 50 years ago. How much more time would you like?

<comment><USER7> Perhaps that's _not_ long enough!

It took 40 years to learn some aspect of the truth about Israel's alleged nuclear alert of 1973. And that wasn't a particularly sensitive subject; no other nations were involved to be embarrassed.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/opinion/when-israel- steppe...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/opinion/when-israel-stepped-back- from-the-brink.html?_r=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Please, can we stop with the politics post? This is egregiously off-topic.

<comment><USER20> This comment is 100% correct. There are plenty of sites on the internet to discuss flame-baity topics like Israel, nuclear weapons and the associated politics, and very few for hacking/startups. See:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> haha. Israel is traditionally allied to South Africa on atomic matters (see Vela incident). They most certainly wouldn't do anything to jeopardize US- Israeli relations though.

As for the specific claim...steal bomb grade uranium? haha. Anyone believing that is surely insane. South Africa built 6+ of the things under full international fkin embargo (!) ten plus years ago (!). And now people think Israel (a powerful nation) needs to steal material from the most powerful & well controlled nation? Honestly...who comes up with these articles?

Israel already has a nuke and if they don't (lol) then they can trivially acquire one in 20 minutes flat. Think about it...South Africa built 6+ nukes under full embargo ten plus years ago. Now surely Israel can do better...10 years later and no embargo. And yet people still seem to put Israel in the "might have nukes column". Seriously?

<comment><USER16> Perhaps you should read the article. It's talking about an event in 1965

<comment><USER22> Perhaps the title shouldn't be phrased like an off-hand interview question.</comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus Outbreak Has America's Homeless at Risk of 'Disaster' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-homeless.html <comment><USER2> And if the infection is running rampant in the homeless population, then they could become even _more_ shunned and stigmatized.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, if they become free-running vectors of disease (550k of them), it is an outcry for US govt. to pay attention. If they were already ignored for so long, the gov. will not be able to anymore - because a housing problem will now become a national health emergency problem. Fear is a huge motivator - just look at stocks.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Maybe this crisis would be a reminder for the US that universal healthcare cannot be ignored anymore.

<comment><USER3> Yes, Darwin is ever watchful...</comment></comment>


iPhone 6 Pre-Orders in China Top 20M in 3 Days - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/13/iphone-6-china-20-million-carriers-jd/

<comment><USER2> iPhone: Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.</comment>