Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/08/26/netflix-and-death-of-anti-virus/?ss=Security <comment><USER2> I guess we're going to debate the merits of statements in a thinly-veiled bit of PR now? There's almost no news about this company until about a month ago ([http://www.networkworld.com/article/2955017/security/endpoin...](http://www.networkworld.com/article/2955017/security/endpoint- security-firm-sentinelone-challenges-traditional-anti-virus-software.html)).

They recently hired a new PR company ([http://www.mgpr.info/](http://www.mgpr.info/)) who's been spamming articles to Reuters on SentinelOne's behalf ([https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=site:reuters.com+sentin...](https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=site:reuters.com+sentinelone)), and then reaching out to hacks to write submarine articles ([http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)) about the death of anti-virus -- which just happens to be the marketing lede of SentinelOne's endpoint protection product.

Then they landed a big contract with Netflix and got a sucker at Forbes to write some PR like it was news, and now it's been picked up by HN and being discussed as though it had some substance.

<comment><USER3> Just wanted to chime in to clarify that I contacted Netflix directly without having ever spoken to SentinelOne. When I contacted SentinelOne after the interview they said they couldn't even go on the record about the Netflix contract. Much love, Sucker at Forbes.

<comment><USER2> Can you say what prompted you to contact Netflix then? The article really reads like a love letter to SentinelOne, and includes some pretty odd bits that work well with their marketing for their endpoint product, like describing it as not an anti-virus product.

And what does "post-AV anti-malware" mean?

<comment><USER3> Sure. So it turns out Netflix is this really big company, and I met one of their security architects at Black Hat. I thought, hey, I wonder if they're up to anything interesting at Netflix. I'll give them a call.

A love letter? You send love letters like this to people? Are you like a post- modern Keats?

<comment><USER2> OK, so then you talked to someone at Netflix, and they said, what, "umm... well, we just replaced our anti-virus product with this other thing called SentinelOne that isn't really an anti-virus product", and then you looked at their site and called them and decided they totally weren't an anti-virus product? And that the real story here was that this was the death knell for anti-virus, or the beginning of "post-AV anti-malware", or something?

Clearly you have technical chops. But the most technical part of your article, concerning whatever technology somehow separates this product from the rest of the industry (let alone makes it "not anti-virus"), is this single line:

"Its end-point security doesn't rely on signatures, it monitors every process on a device to check for irregularities and does not perform on-system scans or require massive updates like anti-virus..."

If SentinelOne is doing something truly new, something that merits coverage from tech journalists, it would be nice to read about it.

And btw, you said earlier, "When I contacted SentinelOne after the interview they said they couldn't even go on the record about the Netflix contract", which is an odd thing for them to have told you, since they have a Netflix logo and an official statement from them under the testimonials section of [http://www.sentinelone.com/?show_epp=true](http://www.sentinelone.com/?show_epp=true) \-- wait a minute, in fact the quote from your article is a word-for-word match for the testimonial on SentinelOne's site: "The direction we decided to go was with a company called SentinelOne, who we've been working with for year and a half. They were a true replacement for end-point protection".

Your contact at Netflix must've been reading from Rob Fry's script...

<comment><USER3> See above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A more nuanced title would be: " _To continue its fight against new viruses, Netflix is dumping classical disk-scanning-fingerprints software for newer technologies such as statistical analysis of anomalies._ "

Netflix and whoever they hire (e.g. SentinelOne) is _still fighting viruses_. They're just doing it using more sophisticated algorithms instead of fingerprints. Traditional anti-virus software trying to match file signatures is not effective against 0-day attacks.

What's newsworthy is that a vendor was able to convince important people (e.g. AV-TEST Institute) that algorithms scanning for anomalies is equivalent to, or stronger than, traditional disk-scanning. However, it doesn't look like they've convinced the credit-card industry yet. They're the ones who determine PCI DSS compliance. However, PCI DSS may not apply to Netflix.

Interpreting the story as an _ongoing progression_ of anti-virus technology, it means the industry won't "die" at all. They're just retooling themselves with more algorithmic approaches. Maybe Symantec will add algorithms and also be included in the changing industry of fighting viruses.

<comment><USER5> PCI-DSS applies to Netflix very much, they probably still will have traditional AV in their CHD environment and any other system in scope of the certification (e.g. the desktops the sysadmins use to administer servers within the CHD environment).

Also the PCI council doesn't define which AV is compliant or not, only states that you need anti-virus protection on all systems commonly affected by malicious software.

It's up to the QSA and acquirer(if that one gets really bored) to accept the solution, neither of which care really. You can use Windows Defender, Clam or the most super duper expensive AV out there it's all the same for them.

The requirement is also worded very carefully "on all systems commonly affected by malicious software" so people could make a case against installing AV on things that AV solutions are not common for, such as Mac's, Linux box's, and even Mainframes (yes there are mainframes in certain PCI-DSS scope's because the QSA wasn't smart enough to find a loop hole to keep it out of scope or the costumer is dumb enough to actually process or store credit cards on it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anti-virus software is a scourge that I'd be happy to see disappear. For the most part, its business model is to prey on the ignorant - I can't even count how many times I've been asked why a computer is running slowly, only to discover that there are three or more competing anti-virus products running, every one of them hooked into every single file read or write. Just yesterday I had to turn off Windows Defender real-time scanning, because it had gone out to lunch and leaked memory to the tune of 2.1 GB. Hot garbage.

It seems like the popular thing lately is to bitch and moan and question the morality of using ad-blockers, but using an ad-blocker is the single most important thing you can do to improve security on your machine for the average user. Blocking Flash, or, should you happen to still encounter it, Java, from autoplaying comes in second. Blacklisting SourceForge in your hosts file might be up there, if they are still bundling crapware with the few legitimate downloads that haven't moved elsewhere.

<comment><USER7> > Blacklisting SourceForge in your hosts file might be up there, if they are > still bundling crapware with the few legitimate downloads that haven't moved > elsewhere.

ublock origin has a "Badware risks" filter list with sourceforge in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> <TL;DR> SentinelOne, creators of anti-virus software no one has heard of, don't use the term "anti-virus" for their anti-virus software. Somehow that landed a sucker at Forbes to write a shoddy PR article about the death of anti-virus software. End game; If their PR stunt is wildly successful then no one will need to buy SentinelOne's software either...

Wat?!!

<comment><USER9> Pretty well summarized!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I definitely agree that we need more than anti-virus these days - but I still think anti-virus has a part to play in a multi-layered approach to security.

But in any case the content of the article is rather less sensational that the headline. It seems like Netflix is 'dumping' anti-virus for... well, another anti-virus tool! It's just that SentinelOne is not signature based, and relies on dynamically detecting dubious activities by processes (which some existing anti-virus tools already do, if to a lesser degree).

<comment><USER11> I'd like to know more about what it's doing and how it works. I can imagine a couple scenarios:

1) It might have a "baseline" time during which it allows and records everything, and then locks down anything outside of that (like the old ZoneAlarm did for firewalls).

2) Or it might only lock down certain APIs? File and registry and network access? Not sure where you'd stop with that. What about when it emails everyone in Outlook?

Unless I'm completely off base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So who cares what Netflix does for anti-virus? Their business is about running servers with almost read only data that can't normally propagate a virus infection.

<comment><USER13> This is about what they're using on staff desktops, not their video-delivery systems.

<comment><USER12> Right, so this would of been just as relevant if it was about a local trucking company.

They are dropping the wrong name if they actually want to promote the product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Photo caption says: "Netflix is quitting anti-virus. Will its millions of users benefit?"

Wat?

<comment><USER15> Ha! That is totally nonsensical.

I didn't agree at first, but this smells more and more like PR - there seems to be very little understanding of the news in the article.

What is "the post-AV anti-malware game", and why on Earth would Netflix's end- users benefit from the company's staff computers entering said game?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tldr: Netflix is dumping old antivirus for new antivirus

</comment><comment><USER17> This article is terrible...

<comment><USER18> OTOH, excellent work by SentinalOne's marketing department.

Probably cost them no more than a decent lunch while they dictated it to the hack who's name is in the byline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In general anti-virus is more useful for less educated users. For example, I'd never escalate (sudo, UAC, etc.) a process that I wouldn't expect to need the escalation. This severely limits the control a virus can take (stopping most in their tracks). The only people who really _need_ AV are the type of idiots who run as root, or turn off UAC.

The real concern are advanced worms. Most of these would likely infect a machine regardless of the presence of an AV, either because they are zero-day or because a machine does not have security patches installed. AVs, typically, would struggle to catch an e.g. malicious BIOS flash resulting from an escalation vulnerability.

In the face of security patching, AVs are _largely_ obsolete, irrespective of their detection rates: not 'completely' because human error does exist (which is why I still run one).

<comment><USER20> Many, many security patches are way late. AV software is nice when a vendor can't be bothered to update their software.

<comment><USER19> > Many, many security patches are way late.

My main point was: a virus that uses a 0-day (or unpatched/unfixed 0-day) is likely going to cause problems for an AV:

> AVs, typically, would struggle to catch an e.g. malicious BIOS flash > resulting from an escalation vulnerability.

Over-exaggerating to clarify: AVs are like bringing a knife to a gunfight. You might just be actually able to eliminate the weaker opponents (who also brought knives), but you're going nowhere against the veterans.

<comment><USER5> It takes about 5min to refactor the code of existing malware to avoid detection, heck playing around with compiler settings is enough in many cases.

I've recompiled Netcat probably 200 times by now, small refactoring playing with compiler flags (compile with x64 profile, debug on, add some symbols etc..) and every time it avoids every AV out there.

I usually use Virustotal which means that it will be short lived but i can do it over and over and over again ;)

<comment><USER21> There's actually tools to automatically do what you're talking about for malware: [http://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/encoder/x86/shikata_ga_nai](http://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/encoder/x86/shikata_ga_nai)

(Japanese for "it can't be helped")

<comment><USER5> Encoders and compactors are not good actually they usually leave too many patterns that are easy to detect.

The might work on some binaries in some cases but if you want to avoid evasion refactor the malware yourself.

Encoders and compactors are intended to modify existing binaries only :)

<comment><USER21> That's what I'm seeing people doing (modify existing binaries): [https://www.google.com/#q=shikata+ga+nai+antivirus](https://www.google.com/#q=shikata+ga+nai+antivirus)

Seems like it's pretty effective for bypassing AV according to how everyone is using it.

<comment><USER5> Well if you actually read the search results you'll see :)

1st result 2012: "If you want to avoid detection, a 60% success rate is not good enough. _Remember, our implant was caught by 40% of the products, not 40% of the targets. Assuming the better anti-virus products have a larger market share, our 40% product failure rate could look more like an 80 or 90% detection rate on target machines_. - See more at: [http://www.digitalthreat.net/2012/02/anti-virus-evasion- choo...](http://www.digitalthreat.net/2012/02/anti-virus-evasion-choosing-a- payload/#sthash.htXfsyBb.dpuf")

4th result 2014: "There are a couple of built in encoders in Metasploit (shikata ga nai is the most popular one), but these signatures have been updated in many Antivirus solutions, resulting in detection."

Every decent AV out there today has signatures of packers and encoders they are very easy to find since the artifacts of things like PE headers and binary cave of the encoded binaries will be identical every time you use them.

Most people who claim it works are simply rehashing the same old metasploit guides that are not really relevant in the real world anything that is wide used will be singnatured in a second by every AV company.

Yes if you encode it and upload it to VirusTotal even today you might get 50% or more evasion but those 50% of products will have maybe 5% of the market, and pretty much zero enterprise users.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the detailed reply!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, Netflix is ditching anti-virus in favor of a software that was certified as doing what any other anti-virus can do.

How is that "ditching anti-virus", then? Wouldn't a better title be "Netflix is switching anti-virus providers"?

</comment><comment><USER23> I like tools that rather than scan for signatures (which can be polymorphic in nature and bypass AV), they can look for out-of-place behaviour on the OS. The Sysinternals Suite is great for malware hunting: [https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/bb842062](https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/bb842062)

And things like Reason Core are brilliant for nuking any rootkits that somehow get on to a system [https://www.reasoncoresecurity.com/](https://www.reasoncoresecurity.com/)

Malware has grown up and is now residing in hardware and can survive entire OS re-installs. I feel sorry for Windows users these days because malware has grown up and it is not as obvious you have malware. In the past there were obvious signs you were infected and the malware made itself known (sort of stupid when you're an attacker really).

Also some of the 'second opinion' tools are interesting too:

[http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro](http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro)

</comment><comment><USER24> One of the most moronic articles I have read this week.

<comment><USER25> Further still, I'd describe it as an advert more than an article. Seems to lack substance and has a clickbait title, and the only purpose of the article is to sell you SentinelOne.

The dumbest part is that the title isn't even right, Netflix still absolutely do anti-virus/anti-malware, they've just given up on ineffective signature scanning, and are moving to a dynamic scanning engine.

I actually think signature based AV sucks and would be happy to see the industry move away from it, but cannot condone such dumb submarine articles as this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interestingly, no matter what the user-agent string, I am not able to view this without Javascript.

Precluding cautious web users from reading is somewhat ironic given that this article is about web security, if indeed that is what this is about. It's probably not intentional, just oversight on Forbes' part.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hijacking this: how does the ordinary solo user go about finding malware if AV is so bad at it? As a Mac user, I know there are rootkits and other nasties out there but I have no idea how to go about detection.

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder how the equivalence is shown for the certification. Do they use something similar to bioequivalence tests (TOST etc.) over the mean number if infections/issues detected?

</comment><comment><USER29> Wait until an employee gets some malware and some data gets leaked or lost. Then they'll be running back.

<comment><USER30> if you read the linked article the you will notice that they don't dump AV - they just switched to a "AV" product that does away with the signature database completely and replacing it with heuristics - it also sounds like there is some white listing of processes involved as well. This is something AV products have been doing for quite some time now.

<comment><USER15> but...but.. this one is _post_-AV! It must be better!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The real question is why Netflix needs anti-virus at all. Whether it be the old signature style or the new (as of about 2002) heuristic analysis style. Presumably they're turning off UAC, giving out admin privs to everyone, disabling automatic updates, and hiring delinquents that run every .exe email attachment?

<comment><USER25> The trend in malware right now is not to even target administrator/root, and instead to steal information/blackmail/send spam+DDoS from the user's context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> .</comment>


Google's Colab just introduced GPU support for free - <AUTHOR> https://www.kaggle.com/getting-started/47096#271139 <comment><USER2> GPUs are K80 and you get 12 hours per day. Great move!

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome! Looking forward to testing this out.

<comment><USER4> I can confirm it seems to work as designed.

You get full root access on a VM connected to Colab and to the internet.

I worry that evildoers might soon start to create thousands of google accounts and thousands of colab sessions to get free GPU's for crypto mining.

Hopefully google can find a good way to keep abusers out while still keeping it free for those of us who have a more legit use for this stuff.</comment></comment>


Indie Game Cuphead Is Headed to Tesla Vehicles in August - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/27/hit-indie-game-cuphead-is-headed-to-tesla-vehicles-in-august/ <comment><USER2> >A limit of available onboard storage will be solved by allowing added game storage via USB, so that Tesla owners will be able to add flash drives to hold more downloaded games.

I'm surprised Teslas don't come with a sizable SSD or at least a MicroSD slot somewhere.</comment>


Intel Marrying FPGA, Beefy Broadwell for Open Compute Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/03/14/intel-marrying-fpga-beefy-broadwell-open-compute-future/ <comment><USER2> Does an Open Compute Future include Intel's ME?

Intel's Management Engine (which is on all modern Intel chips) acts as a unverifiable second processor with memory and network access running closed proprietary software. Its existence prevents any sort of security from state level actors.

<comment><USER3> Woah, I didn't know this existed! This is really serious. Why aren't people talking more about this?

<comment><USER4> Intel ME has very useful legitimate purposes for existing. It's a very powerful tool for some people, and most people would call you a conspiracy theorist for suggesting that Intel, or someone who manages to get security creds from Intel, would misuse them break into your computer. I have also had allegedly advanced system engineers tell me that there is really no risk for an outside party being able to compromise your system with this technology, but I remain pretty skeptical of that claim.

In short, the overlap between people who know about it and are also security conscious is pretty small. There's also dozens of other things people should be more concerned about in terms of a corporate or state actor gaining unauthorized access to your computer.

<comment><USER5> I am much more afraid of non-state actors that would get access to back doors than state actors. The people at the NSA might not be angels but they have some sense of ethics and some controls, other people out there don't. What if someone like Snowden or the Walker brothers get access to it and make it open source or sell it to ISIS?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The critical issue here is whether this is really "open".

The x86 platform, like most processors, has a documented instruction set and software loading process. (There are undocumented corners, but the "front door" is open). Whereas historically almost all FPGAs have had fully closed bitstream formats and loading procedures. This necessitates the use of the manufacturer's software which is (a) often _terrible_ and (b) usually restricted to Verilog and VHDL.

If Intel ship a genuinely open set of tools, then all manner of wonderful things could be built on the FPGA, dynamically. That requires being open down to the bitstream level, which _also_ requires that the system is designed so that no bitstream can damage the FPGA.

To me this is most interesting not at the server level but at the ""IoT"" level; if they start making Edison or NUC boards that expose the FPGA to a useful extent.

<comment><USER7> (a) you don't have to use any vendor's IDE, only their placement and synthesis tools which all support command line (b) Verilog and VHDL are the only two dominant HDL languages.. what other language would you want to program in??

<comment><USER8> b) Bluespec

<comment><USER7> Bluespec is SystemVerilog extensions, so it still falls under Verilog support. Bluespec compiler spits out Verilog RTL for it to be fed into other tools, like Xilinx's synthesizer. So yes you can use Bluespec with Xilinx/Altera tools today.

It also is new and thus not known and used by thousands of RTL coders everyday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> AMD HSA is more compelling. These look like they will be just as hard to program as adding in an accelerator card, only the bandwidth between the CPU and the FPGA is higher. Everything is merging into an amorphous blob, FPGAs have been adding hard blocks for years, GPUs have been adding scalar accelerators. The vector and the scalar, the hardwired and the adaptable are all becoming one. Hell, even the static languages are adding dynamism and the dynamic languages are adding types. Floating point is becoming succinct [0]. Computation is becoming a continuum.

[0] [http://johngustafson.net/unums.html](http://johngustafson.net/unums.html)

<comment><USER10> That Gustafson link is intriguing - efficient floating point without the drawbacks. Previous HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9943589](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9943589)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Programmable logic on chips will be INCREDIBLE for the field of intrinsic hardware evolution, which is a slowly emerging science. This is huge for the field of AI and electronics.

I've been waiting to see this kind of thing for years, ever since I read Adrian Thompson's work on evolution with FPGAs, in which he:

"Evolved a tone discriminator using fewer than 40 programmable logic gates and no clock signal in a FPGA" (slides: [https://static.aminer.org/pdf/PDF/000/308/779/an_evolved_cir...](https://static.aminer.org/pdf/PDF/000/308/779/an_evolved_circuit_intrinsic_in_silicon_entwined_with_physics.pdf))

EDIT: Full paper: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50.9691&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

The field has crawled along pretty slowly since then as far as I can tell.

However, this could be a HUGE thing for computing; developers would finally have a way to create hardware that interacts directly with the physical world in ways we haven't thought of yet. As a small example, Thompson's work revealed circuits that were electromagnetically coupled in novel ways but not connected to the circuit path, yet were required for the circuit to work. Using evolution, in time we should be able to come up with unique solutions to hardware problems not envisaged by human designers.

This is really exciting.

</comment><comment><USER12> There were many years when any hardware computing acceleration card failed pretty quickly because CPUs were advancing so rapidly hardware could not keep up. Apparently we have reached an end to this. With GPUs, and things like this FPGA integration, hardware matters again.

<comment><USER13> +1

Before the difference between highly optimized code and ok code was maybe 2-3x speedup. Roughly one Moore's law doubling. With heterogeneous computing that is more like 20-30x or more. And Moore's law is dead! This will change a loot in the IT world (More servers are the solution, developer time is more expensive then computer time, etc..). Learn C, down on the metal programming is back, the future is heterogeneous parallel computing.

<comment><USER9> No, native won't help you. Native is a red herring. C is not the correct abstraction level to take advantage of heterogeneous parallel hardware. The advantage of Rust isn't that it is native, the advantage is that removes the GC and the pressure on the memory subsystems and the latencies involved in compaction. The Hotspot JIT produces code as fast or faster than a C compiler. One could design a language that is high level and removes the GC through an affine type system. I predict there will be a hybrid language that does gradual-affine typing that marries a GC, escape analysis and use at most once semantics.

<comment><USER13> I wish that to be true, but that is not what I'm seeing. (I'm doing HPC.) . It's not about native c performance vs some other language. Its about the the low level stuff you can do in C. You use avx (and the compiler don't help(they are supposed to, but don't do it very well), you have to use intrinsics or asm), then memory stuff, cash blocking, alignment, non temporal stuff. Same for CUDA, compiler don't get that much performance. You have to think about all low level stuff, usually memory, like alignment, use shared memory or not, cash line size etc.. . And then you are using multiple GPUs.. No help from compiler, you have to do all by your self. Had been nice with compiler doing it, and there are some compiler that helps. But you don't get max performance, and with some effort the performance you get by handcoding all this stuff is much greater then what compilers can give you. And that advantage is increasing.

<comment><USER9> Ok, maybe it isn't a question of C and native, but access to low level semantics, memory layout and specialized instructions. The majority of programs and programmers are better served by going with a higher level, easier to parallelize semantics than dropping down to architecture specific features. I am thinking Grand Central Dispatch vs assembler.

I would argue that the low level work you are doing _should_ be done in a macro or compiler.

[http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~hanrahan/talks/dsl/dsl1.pd...](http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~hanrahan/talks/dsl/dsl1.pdf)

[http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~hanrahan/talks/dsl/dsl2.pd...](http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~hanrahan/talks/dsl/dsl2.pdf)

Pat Hanrahan makes a compelling argument for using special purpose DSLs to construct efficient performant code that takes advantage of heterogeneous hardware.

See the Design of Terra, [http://terralang.org/snapl- devito.pdf](http://terralang.org/snapl-devito.pdf)

<comment><USER13> Thanks! This are really useful. (I'm actually now making a small dsl for distributing work on accelerators.)

I personally really like the idea from the the Halide language, having one language for algo, another for how the computation is done. If something like that could be made general purpose it would be very useful.

[http://halide-lang.org/](http://halide-lang.org/)

>should be done in a macro.. Encourage c programmers to use macros is like encouraging alcoholics to drink :) But I guess you didn't think about pre processor macros.

<comment><USER9> I find halide really interesting. Like the split between control and data planes. It made me realize we conflate things and don't even realize that they _can_ be separated.

>...macro

Yeah, I didn't have preprocessor macros in mind. ;*| But wonderful, AST slinging hygienic Macros!

Take a look at [http://aparapi.github.io/](http://aparapi.github.io/) it one of the best examples of making OpenCL a first class citizen in Java.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Programable logic on the die sounds like a great thing in principle, but the place where it really comes into its own is doing I/O work. Network/disk acceleration, offload, encryption. This is where hardware (which is slow and wide), but is reconfigurable over software lifecycle (e.g. protocols, file systems etc which change rapidly) would be a benefit. So the real question is, what is the I/O capability of one of these things? Will the high speed transceivers be exposed in a way that I/O devices can talk directly to it, or will they all need to go through a slow, high latency PICe interconnect. If the later, then I would predict a chocolate tea-pot in the making.

<comment><USER15> One can program the NIC to DMA packets directly info the address space allot for FPGA. Once setup, the FPGA should be able to get hold the packets and start processing completely without a single CPU cycle use on data plane.

<comment><USER14> Sure. This is a possibility, although it is a bit round about and there would be an interesting song and dance in the NIC driver. NICs typically are told where to DMA to using descriptor tables programmed into the NIC by the driver. To do this truly without CPU intervention, you would need to write a hardware driver in the FPGA to program the NICs descriptor tables (can't even imagine what a nightmare that would be). Otherwise, you would have to have the CPU involved in setting up and negotiating transfers between the NIC and FPGA and a second driver between the FPGA and software. It's pretty messy either way. And given the proliferation of cheap FPGA enabled NIC's it seems like a non- starter. If the FPGA transceivers are broken out directly, then a simple adapter board would allow the FPGA to talk directly the network and/or memory device.

<comment><USER16> > you would have to have the CPU involved in setting up and negotiating > transfers between the NIC and FPGA and a second driver between the FPGA and > software

Plenty of "kernel bypass" and RDMA type functions use shared/user-space memory for "zero-copy" (in reality one copy), operations between NIC and software. If a similar scheme can be used with the FPGA then it would not have too much overhead. I agree, not as direct/efficient as having FPGA serdes I/O go directly to some SPF+/network transceiver, but then you'd also be taking up valuable FPGA gate capacity to run NIC PHY/MAC and standard L2/L3 processing functions that you get from a NIC.

<comment><USER14> RDMA/kernel bypass NICs work by mapping chunks of RAM and then automatically DMA'ing packets into those chunks. Again, it would be a pretty round about way to give the FPGA access to packets to copy data to RAM, then copy down to the FPGA, then copy back up to RAM. Much simpler/better to let the data stream through the FPGA from/to the wire. In addition, the PHY/MAC layers these days are pretty thin for Ethernet style devices and modern FPGA's are by comparison huge. I'm not saying it _can 't_ be done, I'm just saying it seems sub-optimal when FPGA's already have a ton of I/O resources and are already used as NICs. The question as to wether these resources are exposed to the outside world is the salient one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Finally, this technology is gaining acceptance. Leopard Logic and others tried this about 15 years ago but Moore's Law and Dennard Scaling were still going so CPU+FPGA didn't take hold. I'm not sure exactly how Intel is going to implement this but the predecessors had multiple configuration planes so that the FPGA could be switched from Config1 to Config2 in nanoseconds (e.g. TCP offload, then neural network calculation, then TCP offload, etc) and had some automatic compiler support.

</comment><comment><USER18> My question is what market is going to be driving this? Who will want to buy this, and how deep are their pockets? Is this a niche product for a handful of applications, or something we'll see in every PC in 5 years?

The GPU was successful because it had a killer app: Gaming. What's the killer app for the FPGA going to be?

<comment><USER19> Server side things. Machine learning, on cpu die network switch, various forms of offloading (SSL, compression, possibly hypervisor stuff).

It will be awhile before it shows up in consumer gear, as the use cases are not there yet. Consumers may still benefit as when someone figures out something amazing for it to do, they will get a hardened version of it.

<comment><USER20> > various forms of offloading (SSL, compression, possibly hypervisor stuff).

I wonder whether Intel will allow that. Better hardware offloading for various algorithms (SHA, RSA, AES, …) and hypervisor acceleration (VT-x, VT-d, EPT, APICv, GVT, VT-c, SRIOV, …) have been one of the main selling points for new CPU generations. An FPGA would render most of them moot by allowing operators to configure whatever offloading they need without requiring new, expensive Intel chips.

<comment><USER21> The virtualization stuff isn't offloadable. They're a bunch of invasive changes to the memory and I/O paths of the processor core, not stuff that could be handed off to a coprocessor.

<comment><USER22> You could route a lot of the I/O paths through the FPGA if it was suitably wired. A slight latency bump to make aspects of virtualization never require any cycles to be spent handling them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think that along the hardware problem of integrating both chips on the same die, the other problematics are about their programmation. We have a pretty advanced abstraction when it comes to CPU nowadays, but looking at some code to program FPGAs we definitely can see that it's not that simple for developers to enter this world.

<comment><USER24> Actually I'd argue x86 is huge and scary, and Windows/Unix on x86 huger and scarier, but plain sequential circuits quiet simple.

The actual problem (as stated in the other comments) is that the tooling is all proprietary (huge and scary) and has received NO love.

<comment><USER25> "Plain sequential circuits" are also quite slow and therefore useless as accelerators alongside modern x64 CPUs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think "beefy" and "broadwell" is a contradiction.</comment>


Tesla Model X Is First SUV to Achieve 5-Star Crash Rating in Every Category - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-model-x-5-star-safety-rating <comment><USER3> I know Tesla likes to tout a best in class crash rating. It just isn't true for the Model S.

The Model S gets a "A" for acceptable on the front small overlap test from the IIHS. The highest grade is a "G".

[http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/tesla/model-s-4-d...](http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/tesla/model-s-4-door- hatchback/2017)

<comment><USER4> The article (which I'm sure you read) is not about IIHS testing. It's about NHTSA testing. Also, I believe that Tesla planned on tweaking the car for this IIHS issue.

<comment><USER5> Also, it's about a different car

<comment><USER6> Still relevant since Tesla claims the Model X is the safest car after the Model S, but other crash test show that the Model S also has its flaws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Was the Model X not tested and rated previously? It has been out for a while now.

I assumed any vehicle in the US had to be rated by these safety agencies before it could be sold.

<comment><USER8> They have to buy the cars from open market like everybody else.

If manufacturers provide cars, they'll reinforce everything lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> NHTSA testing, unlike IIHS tests, doesn't test hitting a pedestrian as I understand. That should be part of the test.

<comment><USER10> They must have trouble recruiting volunteers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a great result for Tesla and shows the benefits of an electric SUV. Though it would be interesting to see results from Euro NCAP and IIHS as well, as the Model X has yet to be tested by either.

</comment><comment><USER12> The vehicle in the image on the article does not look like an SUV, from a size perspective. Are there NTSB qualifications that designates something a "car" vs "SUV"?

<comment><USER13> I think they call it a crossover, which is kind of a car / SUV hybrid.

Model X is 198″ L x 82″ W x 66″ H. A BMW x5 looks more like an SUV and is 192″ L x 76″ W x 69″ H so the BMW x5 is -6"L, -10"W, +3"H. (Or consider the 2009 Mercedes-Benz G-Class which very much looks like an SUV, but is again only 184″ L x 71-72″ W x 76″ H. [https://www.cars.com/research/mercedes_benz- g_class-2009/](https://www.cars.com/research/mercedes_benz-g_class-2009/))

For comparison a BMW 3 series is 182"L x 71.3"W x 56.3"H So it's -16 inches L, -10 inches W, -10 inches height.

<comment><USER14> 82" is very wide for a vehicle in the US.

Even the Ford Excursion, one of the most gargantuan SUVs ever produced, was only 80" wide: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Excursion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Excursion)

I imagine parking a Model X is a challenge.

<comment><USER15> Shouldn't it be able to park itself...?

<comment><USER16> AFAIK that feature is just now about to be added in the next update. I don't know how well it works.

<comment><USER17> No, they just added the ability to auto-park unattended in a perpendicular spot. From launch, it was able to park itself without an occupant by driving straight into a spot head or tail first. With the driver still sitting in the car, it can parallel park as well as perpendicular park. Those parking features work fine, but I am looking forward to the unattended perpendicular parking as it is the most common parking scenario.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> what about Euroncap ratings? It looks like the NHTSA only does occupant safety while the european system does pedestrian and safety for other cars.

<comment><USER19> > the european system does pedestrian and safety for other cars.

I had no idea this difference existed. That's really interesting!

<comment><USER18> before briefly working at a car maker, I was completely oblivious too. But there we had those crazy discutions about hitting pedestrians without breaking their legs, and designing the hood to receive them with less injury, and bumper height that would be more or less the same for many cars.

here is an extract from a euroncap test (Volvo S90->pedestrian->Comments): "The S90 has an 'active' bonnet. Sensors in the bumper detect when a pedestrian has been hit and actuators raise the bonnet to provide greater clearance to rigid structures in the engine bay. Volvo showed that the system deployed for a variety of pedestrian statures and over a broad range of speeds. Accordingly, the system was tested with the bonnet in the raised (deployed) position. Protection against head injury was almost entirely good. The protection provided by the bumper to pedestrians' legs was good for all test locations and maximum points were scored. However, protection of the pelvis was poor at nearly all test locations."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's nice that Tesla makes an SUV, and it's nice that it has achieved this rating, but I'm also of the opinion that this vehicle is an SUV in name only.

I'd love to someday own a capable off-road 4wd electric vehicle - but this one doesn't seem like it. Such a vehicle would have to be able to handle at least a moderate to mid-moderate vehicle rated (3 - 3.5) trail:

[http://www.dirtopia.com/wiki/4WD_Trail_Rating#3._Moderate](http://www.dirtopia.com/wiki/4WD_Trail_Rating#3._Moderate)

This vehicle doesn't seem to have the ground clearance to do so; whether it could be safely modified (lifted) is questionable. While given enough time and money you can lift any vehicle, there are practical limits. Plus - in the case of an electric vehicle - you also have weight limits (to lift a vehicle you'll likely be adding longer springs, shocks, plus other components to allow for the increased wheel travel - that all adds up to more weight, meaning fewer miles per charge). There's also the question of underbody armor to prevent intrusion into the battery areas (similar to skid-plates for drive-train components in a regular off-road vehicle, you'll want to prevent damage to the batteries as well in an electric - which again means more weight).

Will this kind of vehicle satisfy the crowd that wants to drive something big and (seemingly) capable, but isn't willing to own a minivan or station wagon - to ferry kids and groceries between parks, school, home, and mall? Sure.

But it likely won't be safe to take it off-road on a 4-wheeling adventure trip (it'd probably be ok for most graded dirt roads, though - so for basic camping trips).

I think I'm going to be waiting a while still for my hypothetical vehicle. Right now, the biggest limit (as always) is the batteries (unless you want to trailer it to the trail) - because of the weight vs range issue. What it may take is a complete rethinking and redesign of what an off-road vehicle means or needs. Probably more lightweight but strong composite components, or maybe something even more exotic - unless the battery technology improves (ie - <USER2> the stuff we've seen in labs becomes consumer-friendly and practical to manufacture). Hopefully, though, with those changes also comes ways for recovery in the event of broken parts on the trail (today if you break an axle or drive component, you at least have the possibility to repair it on-the- trail without necessarily needing to carry replacement parts, using a welder or other means - though some people -do- carry such components as well, which might become the norm for electric off-roading).

<comment><USER21> Also mud & water. If you drive through deep water with a conventional car, worst thing that can happen is you hydrolock the engine. Don't want to think what happens when you try to cross a shallow river in an electric...

<comment><USER22> Well, if the voltage is low enough, not much. 24 volts, which IIRC is what the Tesla runs at, won't do too much interesting in anything but really salty water. Any high voltage coils, though, might not fare as well.

Worth a try, though. Anyone with a Tesla want to give it a go? I've got a few rivers nearby...

<comment><USER23> The battery voltage on a Tesla model S is 375 V [1]. The motor(s) supposedly run at 365 V AC.

If you think about it a bit it would be hard to get the stated 300+KW using a 24V motor in a car as it would take conductors which can cope with a current of 12500 A. The P90D has a stated total power of 568KW, giving 23667 A. The thing would glow in the dark...

[1] [https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/technical-battery- disc...](https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/technical-battery-discussion)

<comment><USER22> Fair enough. And yeah, the conductors would be a big problem at low voltage with that kind of amperage.

Probably would not fare well in water then. Still up for the test...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook to put client-side backdoors into end-to-end encryption clients - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/07/26/the-encryption-debate-is-over-dead-at-the-hands-of-facebook/ <comment><USER2> It is high noon that a mobile phone on which we can install any linux flavour, with a nice debian netinstall like interface, is developed. An os where we can run apt-get and dpkg list on the cli to see what is installed and what it does. Something not android and ideally not a brick, and compatible with arm cpus, can make calls and can do 4/5g. From there on we can develop and use open source apps that we know EXACTLY whom they leak information to.

<comment><USER3> Purism is doing this already with the [1] Librem 5.

[1] [https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/)

Related HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20555463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20555463)

<comment><USER2> Hmm interesting, will look at this closer. If indeed one can install a gnu/linux flavour as the site claims (had a quick read just now, not in detail), i will pre-order one.</comment></comment></comment>


26-study meta-analysis finds Covid-19 aggregate infection-fatality rate 0.68% - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-deadly-is-covid-19-researchers-are-getting-closer-to-an-answer-11595323801 <comment><USER2> Flu has an IFR of around 0.1-0.2%, so SARS-COV-2 is several times more deadly on average.

However, the severity depends on different factors. There are studies coming out that draws a link between disease severity (and fatality) and the initial infectious dose.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any reference for the flu figure? My impression from reading has been that: 1) figures (0.1%) given for flu are usually CFR, not IFR, 2) there is of course higher variance, since we are not talking about one virus (and 0.1% would be the high end) 3) data quality is poorer (since it hasn't been as high a priority).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems that early epidemiological estimates based on Chinese and Diamond Princess data were very accurate. Error bars are just smaller this time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/vNhPU](https://archive.vn/vNhPU)</comment>


Ask HN: A basket of goods - <AUTHOR>

HN,
22yo Kiwi here, planning to move to the Bay Area next year ( earlier the better ) and am trying to work out how much to save to get to US, ie. how much the average month in the Bay Area costs.
These are the numbers I am thinking: Rent at $1500-2000/month Food - no idea - $80/week? Transport - $20 (bus or bike?)
Uhh, thats about all I can calculate from afar, how hard is getting an apartment, are there ridiculous bond and prepayment costs?
Also how is job hunting? - (degree is in finance and marketing and am currently working as one man band web developer/marketer for a company managing a sub $2m e-commerce site)
Really appreciate any responses - have been searching and some of this info is difficult to guestimate.
Thanks
- Cameron <comment><USER2> Rent can be as low as $200/mo if you're willing to share a room with someone.

Food is expensive if you don't have a kitchen, but generally America is cheaper than Australia for everything with a GST (not sure how similar is NZ to OZ)

Jobs are trivial to come across and Americans will not ask you for visa/ID, etc.</comment>


Coffin Texts - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_Texts <comment><USER2> Part of me, upon seeing the title, wanted this to be an updated version of the Safety Coffin¹.

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

<comment><USER3> There are some interesting parallels between these two artifacts. Both were made in the hope of aiding the dead in the afterlife -- in a spiritual sense in ancient Egypt, and in a much more literal sense in the 18th century.</comment></comment>


Before Python - <AUTHOR> http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2011/07/before-python.html

<comment><USER2> Old post, here's the original HN submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2803983>

</comment><comment><USER3> Guido may be a great language designer, but the color scheme and background on his blog is revolting. Is he color blind?

<comment><USER4> I guess he wanted it low-key, but distinctive.

What bothers me is that the html is 69429 chars, to deliver 11392 words of text. Not even counting linked CSS and JS (which will be cached), that's 6 html chars for every char of content.

Seriously, HTML is turning into .doc.</comment></comment>


IntelliJ IDEA 2016.3 GA: Java 8 and ES6, Debugger and UI improvements, more - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2016/11/intellij-idea-2016-3-ga-java-8-and-es6-debugger-and-ui-improvements-and-a-ton-more/ <comment><USER2> One thing that IntelliJ does not support is working on multiple branches of a product without having to reindex.

I work with a lot of Open Source tools (e.g. Hadoop, Kafka) with complex build setups. It often takes 10+ minutes for IntelliJ to load a project. If I now switch to a different branch it starts all over again.

I wish it'd keep a cache of multiple index versions around.

<comment><USER3> I use git worktree as a workaround for this case.

<comment><USER4> Can you go into more detail about that?

<comment><USER5> I assume he means he uses git worktree to create a directory structure like so:

src/my_project_master/

src/my_project_develop/

src/my_project_new_feature/

Each with it's own IntelliJ project. If he needs to switch branches it's relatively fast to open a different existing project rather than git checkout branch, which can cause IntelliJ to become unresponsive as it reindexes everything.

Not tried this, but I experience this quite often and will have to give this a shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The recent WebStorm 2016.3 is really great as well: Flow support, convert to ES6 quick actions, React Native, debug Node apps inside Docker containers, ESLint quick fixes, etc.

If your editor doesn't offer basic productivity accelerators like React property autocompletion, or a Go-to-Definition that works across ES6 modules, or refactoring support in JS, you should really look into a proper IDE like WebStorm. Yes, it costs actual money, but it's a no-brainer for professionals. I've tried VS Code, Atom and others but keep coming back to WS for the pure productivity aspects.

</comment><comment><USER7> 400% CPU on PyCharm for me... I am super impressed with the features of this IDE; for me personally the jetbrains ones are my favourite, but whatever the setup on this Mac they are too slow for me to use.

Since moving to VSCode my laptop battery lasts a couple of hours longer :-/

<comment><USER8> I find it surprising that some people complain about performance, here even with two large Java projects I only get that kind of CPU % when building indexes (only after importing a project or dependency adjustments) and its only for a few minutes.

Maybe a specific Python project thing?

<comment><USER9> As someone else mentioned, if you switch branches, IntelliJ will need reindex everything. I switch branches several times per day on some projects and it's annoying enough where I considered switching over to light weight editor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What about font rendering on linux, any better?

As of now, it's so horrible I can't use the product. Font rendering in Atom or Sublime is so much better.From what I understand this is because of their usage of java swing. But looking at fonts is what we do all day and I can't have them to look like shit.

<comment><USER11> [http://i.imgur.com/vkEq2qP.png](http://i.imgur.com/vkEq2qP.png)

Left is Intellij, Right is VS Code, same font same size.

Using the latest x64 jdk release on bintray, it's remarkably close for a swing based app.

<comment><USER12> It's hard to judge though, since the image has compression artifacts. Also hinted anti-aliasing may look well on one monitor, and bad on another (RGB horizontally vs vertically, or other arrangement). But ignoring this, the outlines look very nice in both.

And having said that, I actually prefer fixed non-anti-aliased, in fact very pixelish "Anonymous Pro 8" everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really wish they'd roll the CLion C++ support into their IDEA releases, so I could just use one tool for multiple languages.

<comment><USER14> We do plan it in some future ([https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/CPP-4141](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/CPP-4141)). However, due to historical and some technical reasons, it's not that quick, so postponed for now until we find some resources for this task.

<comment><USER15> you should at least get the makefile support from C++ in there.. people use makefiles for bootstrapping docker all the time. [https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEABKL-5173](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEABKL-5173)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Java 8 refactorings looks awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Similar quick-fixes are now available for Kotlin as well: [https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/whatsnew/img/2016.3/idea_2016...](https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/whatsnew/img/2016.3/idea_2016_3_kotlin_loop_to_lambda.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> does intellij idea not update itself on mac if i have the previous version? it's sending me to a new download link for 500mb+

<comment><USER18> You can fix this using the intellij toolbox</comment></comment>


Portus – Docker Registry Web UI - <AUTHOR> http://suse.github.io/Portus/ <comment><USER2> Cool. Is there any other Docker registry web fronted and/or user and ACL tool besides this and cesanta/docker_auth?

Some notes (IMO):

\- would be more cool to package this as a single docker image which people can docker pull

\- rather than supplying a registry image, I'd just instruct people what they need to set in their registry (seems that those are atm notification[endpoints] and auth[token]).

\- supervisor sucks, is there really no other way to do async tasks with Docker and Rails? I'd even rather do it from another container rather than with supervisor.

\- this [https://github.com/SUSE/Portus/blob/master/docker/registry/e...](https://github.com/SUSE/Portus/blob/master/docker/registry/entry.sh#L3) is ugly and needs special entrypoint. Why not just force a link name to the registry in the compose file?

Overall the project looks great and I'm gonna try it out!

<comment><USER3> > Is there any other Docker registry web fronted and/or user and ACL tool > besides this and cesanta/docker_auth?

In order to learn how the authentication worked I implemented a very simple one based on htpasswd files: [https://github.com/dmacvicar/garita](https://github.com/dmacvicar/garita)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Engineering manager of the awesome guys working on Portus here!

We are hiring:

[https://attachmatehr.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseac...](https://attachmatehr.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.jobinfo&jobid=307572&company_id=15495&version=6&source=ONLINE&jobOwner=1014411&aid=1)

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks cool, but what is the configuration of the db doing that it takes so long? 50 seconds of the 80 second video is waiting around for the configuration of the database...

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice work. "Try Portus" section is really pointless...and slow.</comment>


Asana Inbox announced - <AUTHOR> http://blog.asana.com/2012/06/asana-launches-inbox/ <comment><USER2> Well I can't sign up as Webkit inspector's console is throwing "Attempted to Google SSO before it was initialized." when I try to signup/login via google</comment>


Show HN: The all-in-one platform for creative professionals - <AUTHOR> http://beta.5minutes.to

<comment><USER3> An example of what this actually looks like would have been nice. Otherwise it's hard for me (and probably others) to believe some of the claims this page is making.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough. We don't have any live examples yet but should have some really soon. What sounds unbelievable to you? Be interested in finding out.

<comment><USER3> "5minutes is hands down the easiest and fastest way to create and manage your web presence. No coding or design skills needed."

That's really a big claim, especially when you also tie in that you are product you are building is quality. I'm not saying that's it's not possible or you guys haven't figured it out. But without seeing exactly why it's the "Easiest & Fastest" it's hard to accept it as fact. A video would be nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Each of the added features is $1. Depending on what each one of those does, that could be a bargain, or not.

curiously, I don't see the "hosted photographs" feature. Photographers might be a good audience for this kind of service, since they don't have the time to fully develop their own websites.

<comment><AUTHOR> Photo hosting is included free for each account. i.e. as part of the Professional website and Portfolio. Video and additional media (e.g. audio) is a pro feature.

<comment><USER4> In that case, I would think about advertising that (it's not obvious). Also, if there are limits/quotas on media.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point! Definitely. Will make adjustments so it's clear what you get and what limits are set etc. thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Felt like you were trying to make a transaction happen before you had sold the product - I was choosing features and being shown costs before I had any idea about how they would work or how I would go about constructing them within your system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough. It was more intended to allow for granular feature selection. Perhaps we need to make it a bit clear.

<comment><USER5> The granular feature selection is nice, but I am selecting features - <USER2> being charged - before I know enough about what they do to make a decision. As has been stated elsewhere, examples/ a showcase would go a long way to ameliorating this issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Create a profitable website in 5 minutes"

Unless it makes money within 5 minutes it's not profitable in 5 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm ambivalent about the Campbell's soup graphic, but this is otherwise a really well-designed simple landing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the kind words. Not exactly a fan of Warhol myself but thought the cans added a touch of levity, no?

<comment><USER4> Also, most (all) creative people will be able to recognize the tie-in to Warhol (thus art) and also the implied "democratization".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> \- hey guys, no live examples yet, we'll send a few to all our subscribers really soon though.

\- the market we're addressing to is formed by creative professionals, mostly photographers / illustrators / graphic designers / fashion designers etc.

<comment><USER9> If that's the market you're addressing, I would suggest you be more clear about that. "Creative professionals" is not a specific-enough descriptive term. I would suggest making that clear with a list, and then linking each term (photographers, illustrators, graphic designers, etc.) to a gallery of example sites. If you're trying not to pigeonhole yourself, then have another list item like "just about anything else" where you link to a gallery of other miscellaneous examples. That's my two cents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Meanwhile the first post is "Stop claiming you're profitable".

Anyway the page doesn't give many details... i would say it's a gumroad on steroids founded with more social and a portfolio? Uhm i am quite skeptical

</comment><comment><USER11> Just a minor design mark: do your really have to use the Baskerville ampersand? I clashes with your grotesk typography and makes the site look "designy", atleast in my web designer eyes.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it would be useful to know if a customer can transfer his/her domain to the platform, or if you offer redirection services to point xyz.com to the pages in question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Both will are possible i.e. ability to use your own existing domain or purchase/ transfer with us. Need to include that in the copy. thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any way you can use your own service to create another site I can see?

</comment><comment><USER14> Any example showcases?

</comment><comment><USER15> Examples? I don't get what market you're appealing to.

<comment><USER8> no live examples yet, we'll send a few to all our subscribers really soon though.</comment></comment>


Cards Against Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.cardsagainstsiliconvalley.com <comment><USER2> How is this different than [https://disrupt.cards](https://disrupt.cards)?

<comment><USER3> Yes "Cards Against Silicon Valley" comes across like a "me too" marketing opportunity. Can anyone speak to the quality?

fwiw I think everything about the Disrupt Cards website, visual identity, and content is as thoughtful as a parody card game can be. I'd buy a set again.

<comment><USER4> I think the cards on this project's homepage are funnier. Even if we're only shown four of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some more examples

[https://twitter.com/eringriffith/status/818514263459426305](https://twitter.com/eringriffith/status/818514263459426305)

[https://twitter.com/alexrkonrad/status/818573779945353223](https://twitter.com/alexrkonrad/status/818573779945353223)

[https://twitter.com/JMBooyah/status/818583111277617153](https://twitter.com/JMBooyah/status/818583111277617153)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Passive aggressive tweetstorms? I wonder how many "pump and dump" schemes one could find with machine learning and the Twitter corpus?

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks like a PH candidate for sure.

</comment><comment><USER7> Waiting for cards against HNanity.

Edit: Sample Q&A's welcome.</comment>


Apple Silicon Macs to require signed code - <AUTHOR> https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/08/19/apple-silicon-macs-to-require-signed-code/ <comment><USER2> This is ... bad. They have obviously been moving in this direction for years (gatekeeper, then notarization, now this). It's simply a matter of time before they release a "home" version of MacOS that only runs apple-approved software.</comment>