Three Planets in Habitable Zone of Nearby Star -- Gliese 667c - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130625073544.htm

<comment><USER2> Given that we here on Earth have pieces of Mars that arrived as meteors, and that there's even some speculation on transfer of biological material via those meteors, would all 3 "habitable" planets have life with the same "programming"? That is, would life on all 3 planets have the same extraterrestrial DNA-equivalent? Or would all 3 planets have 3 kinds of life, each kind of life having the DNA-equivalent from one of the planets?

We'll probably never know, but it seems like fun to speculate.

<comment><USER3> I guess it could be similar to islands on Earth. They can be based on basically the same "model" of life, but have thousands of years of evolutionary divergence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These 3 planets, are pretty near of his star. Probability will have the same face looking at the star thanks to tidal lock. So should be Cat Eye planets, not ? Plus on of the planets looks that have a visible elliptical path, that must make a very strong seasons, not ?

<comment><USER5> _Probability will have the same face looking at the star thanks to tidal lock._

I realize that the earth/luna system is tidal locked, so we always see the same face.

But why is this true of this system, but not the earth/sol system? Why would you expect tidal lock in the cases of these three planets with their sun?

<comment><USER4> > Why would you expect tidal lock in the cases of these three planets with > their sun?

Mercury have a nearly tidal lock (A Mercury day takes two Mercury years!). This planets are more near to his star that Mercury, so the tidal forces are more stronger. Give time and these planets will be tidal locked to his star (and they had at least a billon years). The question is if They are now locked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> HN article that links to the original source, i.e. the eso.org website: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5938824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5938824)</comment>


Sailfish OS Is Now Aurora OS in Russia - <AUTHOR> https://nokiamob.net/2019/02/09/sailfish-os-is-now-aurora-os-in-russia/ <comment><USER2> Can something like this be the reason why Nokia was destroyed by MS in the first place?</comment>


Techu v0.20b - RESTful full-text searches with Sphinx, Redis, Nginx and Django - <AUTHOR> http://www.techusearch.org

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there! Make sure you check out the list of issues for planned features [https://github.com/georgepsarakis/techu-search- server/issues...](https://github.com/georgepsarakis/techu-search- server/issues?milestone=&page=1&state=open) Add your own request!</comment>


Advanced Javascript tips and tricks - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/jslibs/wiki/JavascriptTips#language_advanced_Tips_&_Tricks <comment><USER3>
      list = list.sort(function() Math.random() - 0.5);

Please don't shuffle an array like this. Array.prototype.sort requires the comparison function to be referentially transparent (i.e. to always return the same result when given the same two elements to compare), otherwise the sort order is undefined. For example, imagine how far from "shuffled" the resulting array will be if a bubble sort is used with a randomised comparison function.

Use a Fisher-Yates shuffle instead.

<comment><USER4> While I agree in principle, there are many cases where you don't care about the statistical quality of a random shuffle, where brevity has its benefit.

<comment><USER5> I think there's also an issue of performance -- it's possible, though unlikely, that the sort could take forever to complete.

<comment><USER4> Unlikely is an understatement -- the probability of an infinite sequence of PRNG outputs that prevents any sort algorithm from terminating is negligible.

<comment><USER6> What about 'taking too much time' though?

<comment><USER4> Touche...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lots of the stuff in this list is only available in Mozilla browsers. It's not part of the ECMAScript standard:

yield

Optional named function arguments

let (in the 'remove an object from an array' example)

"Convert a string into a charcode list" (both methods)

toSource method on an array ("Array iteration pitfall")

etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW I also just noticed Resig's next advanced JS book is almost done (finally!)

<http://www.manning.com/resig/>

and there is a 50% off code that is working for July 4th - <USER2>

which makes it $16 for the early-edition PDF-only version

(or $20+$5 shipping for dead-tree version but it's $25 on amazon anyway)

If I learn just one new trick for $16 it's probably worth it.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure if it's "almost done". I bought the MEAP (early access) a long time ago, and for months nothing happened at all. Then a second author came on board to get things moving.

A few days ago I got an update from Manning:

        "What's new?
        Chapter 2, "Testing and Debugging" has been added.
        Chapter 3, "Functions are fundamental" has been revised.

        What's next?
        Our next update will be coming quickly, with revised versions of Chapter 4 on closures and Chapter 5 on object-orientation with prototypes.

I haven't bothered yet to actually look at the PDF, it sounds like it's still in a rather early stage.

<comment><USER9> Ha ha, yep I bought the MEAP version of this book almost three years ago. Can't believe it's not finished yet.

<comment><USER10> inb4 duke nuken forever jokes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some more goodies here:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/724826/javascript-tips- an...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/724826/javascript-tips-and-tricks- javascript-best-practices)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/61088/hidden-features- of-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/61088/hidden-features-of- javascript)

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, I'm seriously overjoyed to discover the "yield" operator, which I did not know existed (it barely shows up anywhere!). No more hackishly using _window.setTimeout()_ to yield in JS pseudo-thread simulations!

<comment><AUTHOR> Just note the small print that _yield_ is JS 1.7

Firefox 2 was the first to have JS 1.7 but I dunno if any version of IE has yield, maybe IE9 ?

<comment><USER11> Javascript 1.x where x > 5 are proprietary extensions of Mozilla.

Some of those extensions (e.g. Array Extras) trickled into the wider language, but as far as I know most of them (including let and generators) are confined to Gecko-based browsers still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is a handy index of them all near the bottom:

[http://code.google.com/p/jslibs/wiki/JavascriptTips#delete_a...](http://code.google.com/p/jslibs/wiki/JavascriptTips#delete_array_element)

</comment><comment><USER12> I use the pattern listed under "Objects private and public members" frequently and feel they missed an important point.

They really should add something like:

function MyConstructor( pub, priv ) {

      var thisMyConstructor = this; //**Copy the 'this' variable**

      var privateVariable = priv;

      this.publicVariable = pub;

Otherwise "public" variables can't be accessed in private functions because "this" no longer references the object. So, from what I've learned it's always best to copy "this" to a private variable and use the private variable for consistency.

</comment><comment><USER13> Most of these tricks involve non-standard features of Mozilla's dialect of JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't understand the need for the first example: Array.prototype.push.apply(a, b);

Isn't that what the concat() method is for?

<comment><USER3> Array.prototype.push.apply(a, b) modifies _a_ in-place; a.concat(b) returns a copy of _a_ with _b_ appended to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find some of them horribly obscure

         +new Date() // 1259359833574

Oh come on, magic constants? How do you check if that's the right number?

        function PrefixInteger(num, length) {

            return (num / Math.pow(10, length)).toFixed(length).substr(2);
         }

Is there no sprintf in Javascript? Or did I misunderstand what the function does?

<comment><USER16> "1259359833574" isn't a magic constant. JavaScript uses // for comments. The number is just an example of the possible output of the expression "+new Date()" (specifically, it was the time at which the author of that page evaluated the expression).

<comment><USER17> Right, and it's equivalent to the more readable

        Number(new Date())

or more simply

        Date.now()

if you don't need IE8 support.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple is Totally Screwed - <AUTHOR> http://uncrunched.com/2014/09/02/apple-is-screwed-frappening/

<comment><USER2> just an fyi. the font for the actual copy is too small.</comment>


Cottage Computer Programming (1984) - <AUTHOR> http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/cottage_computer_programming.php <comment><USER2> "Overall, I believe the computer age favors the individual and that resistance to the individual work style is the last gasp of the dying industrial age. Many software companies put their faith in committees because they believe this is the way things have always been done. In fact, most unique modern achievements have been the product of individuals or very small groups, including relativity theory, the airplane, the laser and the computer itself. Until now, individual achievement has been exceptional in a mass society, even though the exceptions often transform that society. The deliberate cultivation of individual creativity may end up being the most important social result of computer technology. Either that, or cottage programmers like myself will simply have more time to cultivate our gardens. "

This is a view I hold but very rarely hear expressed in my day to day working environment where committees of people from various organisations work together to agree or disagree on plans that are always proposed by one, or very few, individuals. The majority, even in a committee environment, are superfluous from the perspective of productivity, though not from the perspective of governance.

<comment><USER3> I think almost any creative task, programming included, is best done by an individual. Writing, art, and even music are very individualistic disciplines. When others are involved, there is usually a leader or someone who the small group revolves around. Large groups are unable to attain a creative vision and generally resort to compromise and group-think. While these things are useful in other situations, they kill creativity. In my experience programming both solo and in various sized teams, the best outcome usually came from individual effort, even when that effort was split up amongst two or three individuals. Being able to split up tasks in such a way that the individual pieces allow for creativity by the individual is key to getting excellent results.

<comment><USER2> Yes creativity as an individual pursuit, and the acknowledgement (in my mind,) of nearly every human pursuit as being a creative endeavour, is not a vision of loneliness, of people performing in isolation not caring for anything else.

These people can work together through their individual pursuits. But how to accomplish that successfully?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks like Paul is still working on his own ( via [http://www.arachnoid.com/administration/index.html](http://www.arachnoid.com/administration/index.html) )

"In 1988 Lutus cast off his lines and began what was to become a four-year solo circumnavigation of the world in a small sailboat. More recently, Lutus has divided his time between writing articles on diverse topics and exploring the wilder regions of Alaska to photograph grizzly bears."

<comment><USER5> He's also a pretty active HN user: [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lutusp](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lutusp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Joey Hess (of git-annex fame, and HN user) lives in quite similar setting.

To have an idea of this home habits, have a look at the notes written for caretakers of his home while he is away: [https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/notes_for_a_caretaker/](https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/notes_for_a_caretaker/)

<comment><USER7> Can someone explain or link to the "fridge" that he has that appears to be some sort of heat-powered device? (light/chimney/warm to touch) I've never heard of such a thing.

<comment><USER8> > heat-powered device?

Propane gas appliances such as refrigerators and freezers are common 'off the grid'.

As one would 'fork' off a code base (e.g. before systemd), the same can be done with farm / self sufficient technology. Check out _Farm Tools_, by Michael Partridge.

Everything I did when I moved to a rural area was wrong because I was using a late 20th century mindset. The late 1800's had tremendously better ways of doing things.

Try thinking of the Amish as late adopters, instead of being backward. Some of the things they do, such as converting electrical tools to use compressed air, will give some great insights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "A mistress of perfect consistency, the computer rejects all but the flawless, offering no explanation. When the acceptable is finally offered, the machine's acceptance is total, unwavering and eternal."

Wonderful.

</comment><comment><USER10> My wife and I are a year or two away from a cottage endeavor. I'm not sure why I'm wired the way that I am, but hermitage has a romantic appeal. Distractions and potential interruptions make me anxious. My disconnect with nature and the food that I eat does as well.

It's an odd juxtaposition -- I love technology. I just dislike what comes with it.

<comment><USER8> It would be beneficial to sit for an afternoon or two with someone who's done it and is willing to talk about it.

Most of the recent technology is pretty weak compared to 100 years ago. This is what my cordless drill looks like: imgur.com/ZWCcuyr.jpg.

As I mentioned elsewhere here, I did _everything_ wrong when I moved rural. Much of ESR's Art of Unix Programming is a blueprint for self sufficient living if you squint a bit.

Begin collecting pre-WWII farm tools ASAP. Sell most everything you currently own before you move - it's worse than useless.

Understand something - at some point you will become angry about how you used to live. It's okay. At some point you won't be able to visit a city without feeling a deep pity for the people living there. That's okay too. You may reach the point where you know you can't return to city living, because the people are crazy. They will feel the same way about you by that time. By then, there's no going back. You will have learned the difference between civilization and domestication.

Good luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd love to live like this and have an SO that would as well. The problem for us is: food. We've come to be accustomed to a wide variety of multi-cultural cuisines.

We both work remotely and can live where we want. We've recently experimented in living in more "out there" places, but in the end we're moving back to civilization because we want our Japanese/Mexican/Indian/Vietnamese...

Not sure what the answer is for this problem. We can both cook but even sourcing the ingredients for a lot of non-American food is nearly impossible in even a second tier city.

<comment><USER10> Amazon is a big help for my wife and I. We get our staples at the groceries around here, but we get our more "out there" ingredients from the web. For the fresh ingredients you may be out of luck, but you might be able to grow your own.

<comment><USER11> Cool, I'll have to check it out. One thing we've struggled with is fresh seafood. I think that's going to be tricky to find although I would definitely order from some overnight rush delivery if there was such a thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I couldn't pinpoint exactly how I recognized Lutus before and then I remembered:

[http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/index.php](http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/index.php)

This was the first app I used when I was about 18 learning HTML...and my first real understanding of free software with his "Care Ware" philosophy:

[http://www.arachnoid.com/careware/index.html](http://www.arachnoid.com/careware/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting, my wife and I are leaving silicon valley and moving to a house on a lake in a remote area of another state....We really feel like the goals we have are accomplished easier with a more remote lifestyle..</comment>


SpaceX Falcon 9 debris from failed CRS-7 launch found in sea off Scilly - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-34941462 <comment><USER2> It's actually CRS-4 (which launched in September 2014), not CRS-7.

See the /r/spacex investigation thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3ug55w/scilly_falco...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3ug55w/scilly_falcon_9_updates/)

</comment><comment><USER3> People at /r/spacex claim it might be actually not CRS-7 debris, but from some earlier flight

<comment><USER4> Here is a link to a thread discussing the origins: [https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3ug55w/scilly_falco...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3ug55w/scilly_falcon_9_updates/cxelftg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought it was Sicily and that Scilly was a keystroke mistake. Funny that...

<comment><USER6> Before reading your comment I still thought it said Sicily. My brain just assumed that was what it said

<comment><USER7> It doesn't help that Scilly isn't usually used in isolation. Usually the group is referred to as the Isles of Scilly or the Scilly Isles. None of the islands is actually called Scilly.

<comment> m-i-l But the residents apparently prefer the Isles of Scilly to the Scilly Isles.

<comment><USER8> I've never really heard of it being called the Scilly Isles. Only the Isles of Scilly.

Not many people even in the UK know it exists though (I only do because my ex girlfriend grew up there)

<comment><USER9> I imagine more people in the UK know they exist than you perceive. Anyone who still watches the weather updates on the TV or listens to them on the radio instead of getting it from their phone will have heard mention of the...

Though... the more time goes on, the more I expect to hear "oh, they still broadcast the weather on TV? I thought they just did that during the war"... and by war, they're referring to the Gulf war... along with "Walkman/Discman? What's that?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would have assumed that you could calculate the approximate landing area of at least the larger debris and that there would be some legislation forcing you to at least try to locate/clean it up.

I suppose it doesn't present that much of a threat to anyone (once it has landed).

<comment><USER11> Most expendable launchers are just dropped into the ocean anyway. SpaceX is the only company that has plans to completely recover the first stage.

I can also assure you that they did do everything they could to locate and recover the debris from this launch. But for some altruistic environmental concern though ... They wanted every piece they could find so they could figure out what happened.

EDIT: Based on analysis from /r/spacex, this is from CRS-4 (not CRS-7), which successfully boosted its second stage, then performed a retropropulsion to test rentry (it didn't have landing legs, so a barge landing couldn't be attempted). I suspect SpaceX still tried to recover as much as they could of the stage, in order to see how well it handled the rentry.

<comment><USER12> Blue Origin just demonstrated a recoverable rocket. But their ambition is just suborbital which only needs 1/8th the power or orbital flight.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, by "launcher" I meant "rockets that can put things into orbit".

New Shepard is cool and all, but it's not really in the same weight class as "real" launchers.

[https://i.imgur.com/g2VIKVC.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/g2VIKVC.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tangentially related, but if anyone wants to follow a very funny Facebook page, they could do a lot worse than add the one for the Isles of Scilly Police: [https://www.facebook.com/IslesofScillyPolice/](https://www.facebook.com/IslesofScillyPolice/)

</comment><comment><USER14> wow, barnacles are crazy efficient, I wouldn't expect the section to be covered in them so much already.

<comment><USER15> Are those barnacles? Looks like mussels to me (Mytilidae).

<comment><USER14> the person in the video says they are "goose barnacles", which from afar kinda look like mussels[0]. I might have heard wrong though.

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

<comment><USER15> You're right and I'm wrong. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's interesting that it took less time to find a 10m by 4m piece of debris from a failed space launch that took place on the opposite side of the planet than to find an entire missing airliner with a last known GPS coordinates...

<comment><USER16> If you're talking about MH370, pieces of the aircraft are washing up and getting found on various islands in the western part of the Indian Ocean. It just takes time because (presumably) the currents aren't as favourable to make parts of the plane wash up as in the North Atlantic.

Incidentally, large parts of the aircraft - including the fuselage itself - may have sunk already, which was the case with AF447 a few years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm guessing SpaceX will want to recover this so they can inspect it to see if they can learn anything useful.

</comment><comment><USER10> Its weird really, I can't do much these days without someone tracking me and using that information to target me with ads and yet whole commercial airliners and chunks of space rockets can vanish only to wash up on beaches covered in barnacles...

<comment><USER17> How are these things related?

I'm sure if all these chunks of rockets were constantly connected to the internet we could track them too...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sometimes the timing of unconnected events is curious on a cosmic scale.

Only a day or two ago New Shepherd reached a milestone. Today parts from a past SpaceX mission wash up onshore.

The proximity of these events show that space exploration is witnessing a lot of activity from agents who are operating independently.

<comment><USER19> Correlation != causation. Only recently has mass media decided to push tech billionaire's pet projects as "space news", that's is all this shows. There are dozens of other arguably more significant space projects flying under the mass media's radar.

<comment><USER20> Which projects? Would love to know.

<comment><USER21> Me too. I can't think of anything going on in space flight right now more significant than SpaceX's reusability efforts

<comment><USER19> SpaceX's reusabulity efforts are just another incremental improvement to existing rocket technology. Reusable launch vehicles are nothing new. If they can get launch costs down to $60m with their reusable technology that would be great! However, they still can't launch anything >5000kg so it's a pretty mixed bag and a lot of good marketing.

<comment><USER21> Reusable launch vehicles are nothing new? I can think of only one other, and it ended up being unbelievably expensive, costing far more than an equivalent expendable launcher.

SpaceX's launch cost is already about $60 million in expendable mode, so your comment about bringing it "down to $60 with their reusable technology" makes no sense to me. If they pull it off, the cost might drop to more like $10-30 million.

A rocket that costs like an expendable launcher but can be reused will be a massive game changer, not "just another incremental improvement." Maybe all the changes needed to get to that point are incremental, but that doesn't mean the result won't be huge.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Your Passive Income Suggestions? - <AUTHOR> Please share suggestions of whats worked for you and what hasnt <comment><USER2> * Apps with ads in them. Easy enough to churn out, but decreasing revenues and most of the high earning adverts are the scummiest. Low value and of low moral usefulness.

* Solar Panels. In the UK, the government pays you per kWh generated. Needs an upfront investment, but stable income and you reduce your own energy bills. See [http://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/solar](http://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/solar)

* Renting out property. Needs a much larger initial investment, and requires ongoing maintenance. On a good month I only hear from the managing agent once per month with details of how much rent is being paid.

* Stoozing. Find a credit card with 0% interest on balance transfers. Stick the money into a savings account. Or, if you like risk, on a horse. Need a good credit rating and decent savings rate to make more than a few hundred a year though.

* Affiliate marketing. If you can find a good theme (e.g. Halloween) and a decent place to put the links (somewhere that wants them - not spamming them everywhere) it's possible to get a moderate passive income. Well... not quite passive, requires upfront time commitment of selecting links and locations.

* Hosting / simple websites. Again, little bit of up-front commitment. Works best if you can find a local niche of people who want a friendly face to host their websites. Usually as simple as buying a domain, setting up WordPress, and turning on automatic updates.

In general, the best passive schemes require a large initial outlay and/or a dubious moral outlook. A better way to enhance your income is to eat out less, stop buying stuff you don't need, and shop around for deals. Boring but true!

<comment><USER3> I have had some success in affiliate marketing using an approach that I think many on Hacker News could duplicate. I launched my Amazon affiliate site about a year-and-a-half ago and its earnings have increased by about $100 per month with December being the first time I earned over $2,000 in a month.

The approach is to find a type of product where Amazon has thousands of listing but the specifications are not very accurate and the filtering criteria are limited, and where there are highly active forums with people talking about and asking about these products. Then you build a proper searchable catalog for the products. Include lots of search criteria, sorting criteria, side-by-side comparison, recommended accessories, anything that would be useful for people looking to buy them.

Once my catalog contained over 1,000 models I started replying to posts on forums with a link to my site that provided what they were looking for. People loved the site and it wasn't long before they were posting links to it to answer each others questions. That's all it took to start ranking on Google which is now responsible for 3/4 of my traffic.

Initially this is not passive income. The first few months are a lot of work for very little money. Eventually the balances shifts to the point where additional work is only needed if you want to keep growing. Amazon's product advertising API allows you to get current prices, availability and popularity (sales ranking) to keep everything fresh.

<comment><USER4> Did that entail a lot of hand entry of product information? (considering that Amazon was, as you said, lacking specifications)

<comment><USER3> Yes it did. I have spent a lot more time researching and documenting specs than I have writing code. The good news is that I don't mind that type of work. I often build spreadsheets for fun to compare things I'm thinking of buying so I just took that to another level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's my experiences for last year in passive income:

Total Gross Revenues: $20,000 or so.

Mostly from a single high-traffic niche site which I promote almost exclusively through social media. My site offers a free version of what a few other websites in the same niche offer as a SaaS service.

From that same site, most of the revenue (~80%) is from ads (ad revenue increased when switching to responsive units). Next, Amazon associate makes up about 15% of the revenue. And about 5% from donations.

The downside is that ad rates are DROPPING pretty quickly, ad-block usage rates are increasing rapidly, some browsers block ads by default now, etc. So I'm trying to get off of ad dependency.

I'm thinking in the future a Patreon funded project or project with additional SaaS component will probably fare better if you traffic is at least medium size (~50k/mo+), and comprised of repeat visitors.

I also have eBooks, which despite the rapid increase in popularity of Amazon authors, seem to be doing well. My most popular eBook is bringing in ~40$ / mo on the 35% plan (I can't use the 70% plan because someone stole it and uploaded it elsewhere). The rest of my eBooks are bringing in ~$20 total. If you have expertise, and strong communication skills - eBooks may be a good route to go down. Leanpub offers higher % rate, and I've seen some technical authors make a killing there - might be a better option.

As far as stocks go, I'm all invested in Vanguard which seems to like tech stocks - so not so great this year. The high-dividend yield funds are probably the way to go in 2016 since growth growth isn't so hot right now.

I would stay away from IoS & Android because app discovery is messed up, and you need a marketing budget in most scenarios to make it big.

<comment><USER6> So all your eBooks are bringing in $60 / month in total? For the incredible time investment required to write books, that is _quite discouragingly low_.

<comment><USER7> This is less than I spend on coffee in a month.

<comment><USER8> That's a lot! :)

<comment><USER9> Just $2 a day!

I don't spend as much, and yes, coffee can be so much cheaper, but it's also not a lot of money.

Interestingly, the following guy has a recurring theme on how trying to save on lattes is inefficient and distracting (similar to the idea of premature optimization in code):

[http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/save-on- coffee/](http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/save-on-coffee/)

<comment><USER8> Yeah. I make coffee at home. I'm not really sure what it costs me, to be honest!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I write eBooks for developers interested in using semi-new technologies. Previously, I wrote about developing websites to work with the Chromecast. Most recently, I published an eBook about AWS Lambda[1]. The income is not terribly good, but enough to make it worthwhile. I've been approached by publishing companies who want to raise the price to $50+ per copy, but I prefer keeping them at $2-$4 so they're more accessible for everyone.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016JOMAEE](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016JOMAEE)?

<comment><USER11> As soon as I read your post I wondered if it was the 'AWS Lambda' book that keeps showing up in my recommendations. I clicked the link and sure enough there it was! Of course, now I HAVE to buy it. :D

<comment><USER10> Haha glad it was recommended for you and hope you like it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some overarching takeaways:

\- niche sites with Google ads is a fading path, but still can work if you hit a good market or produce evergreen content

\- selling niche e-books through Amazon or direct seems to be a decent option, but is a lot of work unless you can produce quickly and have a feel for the topic

\- apps are dangerous because discover is nearly impossible. If you want to make apps, make quick little ones because the likelihood is that you will make $0 on any one app

My personal opinion is to make niche B2B tools. There are a million little inconveniences that small businesses deal with. If you find the right niche you can charge way more than a B2C product, deal with way fewer customers and charge extra for "custom" features and things like that. The trick is to find a business problem worth solving. The best way to do this is to find someone working a job and drilling them about their work flow. It's amazing the stuff that can be automated that people still don't recognize.

There is one guy who was blogging about a simple scheduling app that let 1 man operations (like barbers or chiropractors) simply text the app appointment details and it would automate putting them in the calendar. It's a great little business because scheduling is a big pain point for these tiny businesses but no one addresses it in a humane way. A good way to make $ and while also producing useful things for the world.

<comment><USER13> _My personal opinion is to make niche B2B tools._

How does one find what to make? That is actually a harder problem to solve than making the tool itself

<comment><USER14> I work at a small, non-tech family business. I am the default IT guy, and I have made a ton of internal tools for us. Most of these are either only useful to us or would be hard to make universally for others. However, I have turned a few into B2B web apps that have good traffic and earn a couple hundred each month with virtually no effort or optimization. And the opportunity exists to turn these into more robust SAAS offerings or do contract work, but that would be less passive.

Not everyone is in this position, so it is a very interesting conundrum. If you know anyone that works for or owns a small business or works as a professional in a specific field, ask them about the tools they already use and what tools they would like to have. Tell them to let you know the next time they are facing a problem that they know could be done better/easier/faster through a tool or app. If you can make something that will help them, perhaps it will help others. Custom forms, data collection, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazon recently launched a new app store that pays developers by the minute in lieu of all other monetization techniques, it's great if you can come up with engaging apps.

[https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/underground](https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/underground)

<comment><USER16> One success story of a small company on Amazon Underground - [https://medium.com/@PuzzleBoss/actionable-steps-to-make- mone...](https://medium.com/@PuzzleBoss/actionable-steps-to-make-money-on- android-4ada61d127ed)

TL;DR: they have a Jigsaw Puzzle Android App and make shitloads of money on Amazon Underground.

<comment><USER15> That's me. I now have a Sudoku app launched too, and a new 1200 piece jigsaw to launch this month, and a word search next month.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for writing that post!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is not completely passive income, but after 1 ~ 2 months of some committed work, it can become passive income. This is assuming you know what you are doing and you have experience with e-commerce. (I was losing money for the first 3 months)

-Private labeling on Amazon using FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon)

I currently earn some passive income (~$1000/month) by selling products on Amazon. Amazon FBA is great because you just send all the products to Amazon warehouse and they will do the packaging and shipping for you. If you shipped out all the items yourself, it wouldn't be so passive. But since all my items are currently at Amazon warehouse and everything's being shipped by Amazon, I spend little time at the moment.

A summarized process will be 1\. Sign-up for Amazon seller account 2\. Find an item to sell on Alibaba 3\. Purchase the item, receive, check, and send to Amazon. 4\. Perform SEO for your product page 5\. Repeat 2 - 4 6\. After some success, switch to Amazon Seller Merchant Pro.

The most difficult part wasn't finding the right item, but rather promoting the page. Ranking my product will involve tons of keyword research, pinning everything relevant on Pinterest, and revising copy-writing.

Once I start selling about 10 products/day for a single item, I'd move on to a new product. The best time to start probably is NOT at 3rd or 4th quarter. You want to have steady sales by 3rd quarter. Because if you do, you will experience some shockingly crazy sales starting November lasting until early January. If I now sell 10 units/day for product X, I was selling 100 units/day starting late November. I regret not stocking more items, but it was my first year doing this and it's a lesson learned.

<comment><USER19> A few questions, if you don't mind:

How do you figure out how much stock to order from Alibaba? Is it just based on the maximum financial risk you want to undertake, or something else?

Do you ever replenish stock, or do you continuously rotate the items you sell?

How do you pick the items to sell? Just popular items within certain categories that don't have a current Prime option? Or some other method?

What % of sales end up as returns due to defective products etc? Does Amazon cover these, or do you take the financial hit if there's a refund?

<comment><USER20> I have very similar questions...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> eBooks worked for me in 2014 & 15\. I am the author of an ebook Trello Dojo ([https://leanpub.com/trellodojo](https://leanpub.com/trellodojo)). I update it periodically and earn a couple hundred dollars a month. Lots of people from all over the world tell me it has helped them, which feels like I'm doing honest, good work with it. I'm not going to retire early from just that, but really want to do a few more, and possibly expand that concept into niche sites/training/etc.

niche sites and blogging have not panned out for me (yet). I feel that's more a lack of time/effort on my part. A test effort showed me my niche could work, but I just haven't committed to really getting it rolling.

I'm also a software developer and have a few service type sites up my sleeve. My thinking (as yet unproven in my own life) is that relatively simple subscription services that "do one thing well" and can be marketed to businesses and government agencies can earn well with minimal ongoing investment. The trick there would be to automate as much as possible- especially support- without sacrificing quality, and periodically dedicate resources to keeping the technology current (easier said than done, I know)

It's hard to balance a current "non-passive" job, family, and side passive gigs, but it _can be done_.

</comment><comment><USER22> Peer-to-peer lending can potentially be a great source of passive income. For example, if you invested $100,000 in lower grade (C-G) notes on Lending Club with an aggregate 12.0% net annualized return, you'd receive approximately $6,000 in cash payments each month.

<comment><USER23> It's worth noting that the money received from the peer-to-peer lending counts as income, and hence can be taxed quite highly if you're already a high-income individual and/or live someplace with a state income tax.

I invested a moderate chunk of money in lending club, and I don't regret it, but between the defaults and early payoffs, I ended up at around ~8% return, and then had to pay income tax on that 8 percent, which cut it way down.

That being said, there's the more intangible return, which is that some of hte people I selected to fund were trying to get out of high-interest debt, or fund purchasing a car for work, etc. Some(all?) of it was probably BS, but it was nice to feel like you were investing money in someone who had a specific need and helping them achieve it.

I'm not doing that anymore though, it's just not worth it.

<comment><USER24> If you re-invest the returns are you still taxed on them?

<comment><USER25> Yes, the payments are interest, so you need to pay tax on these even if you reinvest in further loans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There were a couple of posts with answers to this a month ago, you might find good suggestions there:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10726489](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10726489)

</comment><comment><USER27> Sounds like it's just really, really hard to get people to hand you money. If you already have a paying job, you're way ahead of the game. Maybe the best strategy is to just look for higher paying jobs.

<comment><USER28> You can add $x0,000 to your annual income today by just asking for it (correctly).

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary- negotiation/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Paint pictures of people's dogs. Yep, a little bit of painting is involved, but painting is fun, right?

There is an inexhaustible supply of middle class people wanting pictures of their dogs painted and they are prepared to pay proper art prices for competent or in-style renditions of their dog in some picturesque scene. Since we are not dogs* and are people, poor painting is not so obvious and efforts get well received.

On the back of paintings-of-dogs it is possible to also paint your own stuff. May not be entirely 'passive income' but holding a brush isn't hard and you don't have to work in an office from 9 to 5 for the man.

*on the internets nobody knows you are a dog.

<comment><USER30> While I like painting and I like dogs, this is quite literally the opposite of "passive income".

<comment><USER31> Get someone to do it for you and automate the ordering and fullfilment part. Upload pic of dog, pay online, send email to painter with shipping info, painter fills online form with picture of result + tracking code upon which she gets money in the bank. Passive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This was mine: [http://www.thingsunder15.com](http://www.thingsunder15.com)

<comment><USER33> I see you've got lots of auto-posting going on social media... have these efforts proven to be worth your while? Did you build up your followings organically?

<comment><USER32> None of the ones that Wordpress auto-posts have really done anything for me. Pinterest and Stumble Upon have to be submitted manually, but they seem to work out well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Borrow $1 million from a Japanese bank.

<comment><USER35> You'd get a better deal borrowing from Sweden, Switzerland, or Denmark

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I made a command generator for Minecraft. It earns somewhere between $300 - $500 $NZD per month (adsense). It's a passive income because even when I go months without working on it, I still get paid. But what I would like to know is how to make it earn about 10x more. So I can quit my main job and then just make more cool stuff for the web.

I believe it's at the peak of what it can earn. Also about 25% of users have adblocker.

<comment><USER37> This is for command blocks right?

<comment><USER36> Yes. The generated commands are long and complex and rarely fit into the chat bar. So the only place for them is in a command block.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Niche website. I built Casting Call Club ([https://www.castingcall.club/homepage](https://www.castingcall.club/homepage)) for the voice acting community. Roughly 13,000 voice actors currently use the site, but it only breaks even with all the costs associated with it, so I couldn't call it income.

<comment><USER37> You're probably already aware, but if not you should share this in [https://www.reddit.com/r/VoiceActing/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VoiceActing/)

<comment><USER38> Yessir, I am, but appreciate the heads up. I love that sub.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Save money and invest it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you give examples of what kind of low-touch reasonable-return investments you've benefited from?

<comment><USER40> [https://www.wealthfront.com](https://www.wealthfront.com)

Haven't tried this myself, but Tim Ferriss seems to advertise it a lot and I have a few coworkers that use it.

Minimum is $500 with no management fees (up to 10k I think)

<comment><USER41> Looks interesting. However, could not find any info on their past performance. Is that info available somewhere for review?

<comment><USER42> In the past 12 months, I've been up as much as 4% and am currently down 11%. The allocations in foreign stocks, emerging markets, and natural resources are killing me lately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> On-demand proxies that you spin up in 1 second.

I can spin out cloud servers in an instant.. but I have to wait days for my proxies to be activated.

<comment><USER44> Can't you spin up a cloud server and install a proxy in short order?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> ThanksGiving season. I bought lots of YNAB codes (www.ynab.com) at 50% off and sold them at 25% off on eBAY. Win Win for everyone.

Now they moved to cloud and didn't do any 50% off this year.

</comment><comment><USER13> There is one person (Rob Percival - google him) who is making _millions_ on udemy teaching people how to program. Not sure if it works for everyone, but lots of people seem to be trying. There are literally thousands and thousands of courses on udemy.

</comment><comment><USER46> [http://www.bestoftheinternets.com](http://www.bestoftheinternets.com) This worked for a while until google shutdown my adsense, becuasue I had developed auto generated content.

<comment><USER46> The only good news, believe it or not, it actually got me my first programming job. So I guess it was worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> After reading all of this, my conclusion is: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You may find some stuff with a more or less optimal f(risk, initial investment, running cost, return) function, but no no brainer. I wish someone had mentioned a blog a YouTube channel, I always been curious to know how much moderately successful guys are making.

<comment><USER48> The nearest I've seen to a free lunch is buying property in an area that's likely to go up. Low risk of loss, high chance of retirement style profits especially if you do it more that once. Ethics so so.

<comment><USER49> Wouldn't the likelihood of the area going up already be built into the price?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Built [https://wholesaleorderform.com](https://wholesaleorderform.com) \- Has 2 customers - Brings in $50 a month with zero maintenance. Still haven't even finished the homepage :) No idea how to find customers... Anyone want to partner up!

<comment><USER51> How'd you get your two customers?

Why is your landing page so disingenuous? There's several things that are lies, given that you only have two customers. "We've gathered heaps of user feedback," "contact the onboarding team," etc.

I think you need a demo.

<comment><USER50> We have gathered heaps of feedback from the two customers, but I take your point. Landing page should be written by someone who knows what they are doing :)

I had two separate unrelated customers ask for almost exactly the same system after not being able to find an existing solution that meet their needs.

Thanks for replying!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> What does passive mean to you? 99% hands-off income that just shows up magically without any significant work?

Most schemes I see here and elsewhere require a lot of investment (of time mostly) upfront, and then often also ongoing attention so the scheme keeps working.

</comment><comment><USER53> \- i've tried and failed many times at this. Finally, I started an outsourcing company 5group.co. My growth model is to get business from field partners like your self and pay them 20% of the life time of profits from that customer. For example, if someone refers a chat support outsourcing customer and the customer spends 10k usd in a year, we pay out about $1400. We manage the labor/office space etc so the is no capex like in real estate. You do need to have the savvy to generate business though. \-- Prosper marketplace...lend money on prosper and receive 7-8 % - tough if you dont have capital

</comment><comment><USER54> I made a website with a free exercise to learn to type faster: [http://www.learn-2-type.com](http://www.learn-2-type.com) ...sadly a lot of people are using ad blockers

<comment><USER55> I turned off my ad blocker for you site, and clicked on the ads. Hopefully you get 2 cents.

<comment><USER54> thanks dude, living the vida loca now

<comment> angry-hacker Clicked on Namecheap ad because they don't stop following me despite the fact that I'm their customer.

-$0.05 for Namecheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> A service that people want to use :)

Just started [https://wormhole.network](https://wormhole.network) and still putting some more money and time to add an API (coming very, very soon!), but I'm pretty sure it will take off if I manage to promote it properly. The product itself is pretty awesome, probably unrivalled and the possibilities endless. I have a lot of features in the backlog and will be adding those based on user feedback.

This is not fully passive, but the income is not a linear function with the invested time, which ain't bad either.

</comment><comment><USER57> I used my good income job to rent a three room bedroom apartment, and rent out 2 of the rooms. I pay < $100 a week on bills and housing, and I live in a city where the median house price is > $1m.

<comment><USER58> That's not against your lease?

<comment><USER57> I was upfront about it with the landlord. She could lease to a double income family, who're going to bargain with the rent at every opportunity, and complain about every issue that comes up that could possibly be the landlord's responsibility, with 3 kids, who with their parents working will have lots of time home alone, or she could lease to me, a mid-twenties young man, with high income and stability, and the kind of person who're generally quite chill about things, and will take the care to look after the house.

Now I lease the two rooms to an immigrant, and another man who came to my city to work because he couldn't find a job where his wife and kids currently live.

<comment><USER58> So you basically injected yourself as a pseudo-landlord, paying yourself with a free room. Makes sense - since you are living there it would be fairly easy to turn down a family (or conversely no family would likely want to share the house with you) whereas it would be tougher for the landlord to turn down a family in preference to a group of 3 unrelated people (discrimination laws and such). It's just that typically young families present themselves as better, more stable tenants than groups of people :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Bookmarked this post and thanks for asking! My plan, which may/may-not work out - Start consulting, work like crazy to get _high quality_ clients, find common needs among them, build products from these common needs. I'm hoping I can find specific things between multiple clients that I might be able to sell as an actual product, alongside the consulting. Anyway I just started indepedent contracting on evenings/weekends about a month ago.. so far it's working quite nicely for me :)

</comment><comment><USER60> Start a company. Hire a hardworking and dependable general manager on a salary and give him/her great autonomy.

Sit back and enjoy the dividends.

<comment><USER48> Bit tricky to execute. You know any real world examples where it's worked like that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I run an product (clothing, tech, home-wares) curation site [1]. It primarily uses affiliate marketing to generate an income. Lots of effort at the moment, but hopefully will pay off in time.

[1] [http://iwantdis.com](http://iwantdis.com)

</comment><comment><USER62> I recently created [http://filepiper.com](http://filepiper.com), still busy validating the idea, then get someone to pay :)

I always wonder if software products are really the way to go. Getting initial traction is seriously hard

<comment><USER63> Great Idea! At my day job we occasionally (ie: a couple times a year) need customers to send us "large" files (too large to email) and the customers do not typically themselves have enough technical ability to "host" it (be it through dropbox/google drive/etc) themselves. I spent a couple days looking for something similar a year ago and ended up with a dated product at a very expensive price. [Our web-hosting is currently sucky shared hosting we've had for decades /w a small upload limit]. I was thinking of rolling my own solution but never got around to it, glad to see somebody is working on it. PS: Assuming it works, I'd start charging right now, skip this "free for now" nonsense.

<comment><USER62> Thanks for the feedback! Your use case is exactly why I started the project, I have very similar issues daily. It is definitely working. the idea behind the free for now was to entice early adopters.

At the current sign up rate I will remove that in about a week or two.

Thanks again for the feedback :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Bitcoin arbitrage.

<comment><USER65> Correct my if I'm wrong but bitcoin arbitrage doesn't seem like good idea, here is pretty good explanation - [https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin- price-arbitrage-expl...](https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price- arbitrage-explored/)

I would better put my money in more "real" etf's and start from there.

<comment><USER66> > Correct my if I'm wrong...

You are _very wrong_ , plus you are talking to jerguismi (localbitcoin's founder), who I'd presume has made quite a bit from arbitrage in the space...

<comment><USER67> The article does make a very interesting point. One which I'm hoping jerguismi could respond to.

The article talks about the slow transaction time being a barrier to arbitrage. Basically, you couldn't buy in one market and sell in another market simultaneously. Wouldn't that make an arbitrage opportunity speculative?

Also, because jerguismi is a founder of a bitcoin exchange, isn't it in his interest to promote trading bitcoin? I have no reason to believe that jerguismi would misrepresent his knowledge, but I think his role in the bitcoin community isn't de facto evidence that his statement is true.

<comment><USER66> > The article talks about the slow transaction time being a barrier to > arbitrage.

The article is wrong on many levels. You don't need to transact (or even own) bitcoins in order to arbitrage. You can just _buy /sell_ and open _short /long_ positions via the exchanges websockets API... Not WallSt speed, but a decent speed for any self-made bot vs point&click traders.

<comment><USER68> Can you elaborate a bit more? What do you mean by "You can just buy/sell and open short/long positions"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Steam games, granted if you can get Greenlight which really isn't that hard to be honest. I have a game on there that isn't exactly the best, but it generates some beer money.

</comment><comment><USER70> Allocate part of your wealth in riskier assets. If you think you're able to do it on your own, play around with some ETFs.

Alternatively, ask around for a good hedge fund.

</comment><comment><USER71> Addons / Plugins for existing platforms that have an appropriate marketplace for this (e.g., Concrete5).

</comment><comment><USER72> -Build a BTC gumroad version.

-AI stuff like [http://predictor.ai](http://predictor.ai)

<comment><USER73> [http://i.imgur.com/RbOznIO.png](http://i.imgur.com/RbOznIO.png)

So thats how success looks like ;)

<comment><USER74> It looks like it needs the www subdomain.

[http://www.predicto.ai/](http://www.predicto.ai/)

<comment><USER75> Still won't render correctly in Chrome.

<comment><USER72> [https://predictors.ai/#/p/Neural_Storyteller](https://predictors.ai/#/p/Neural_Storyteller) HN doesn't aloow me to edit Links after an Hour...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> We are looking for investors...

<comment><USER77> Isn't everyone looking for love...

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I built a education platform and plan to charge monthly once I get more students.. [http://thinkacademy.io/](http://thinkacademy.io/) [http://thinkacademy.io/courses/1/learn-ruby-on-rails- in-4-we...](http://thinkacademy.io/courses/1/learn-ruby-on-rails-in-4-weeks)

</comment><comment><USER79> Some people have successfully bought cars just to rent out via Turo (formerly RelayRides). It's not hard to make well over the monthly payment if you live near a major airport. Most insurers don't like this though and I wouldn't be surprised by an Airbnb-esque crackdown in the coming years. Until then though, it's the good times.</comment>


The most secure data cryption program in the World - <AUTHOR> http://kryptochef.net/indexh2e.htm

<comment><USER2> And yet it looks like they used a template from the early 2000's. >.></comment>


The Red Language - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Here's a link to the site: [https://www.red-lang.org/](https://www.red- lang.org/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So, as good as Red is, and I do accept that it is a brilliant piece of work. Where is it in the market ? What is the sell ? Is this just an exercise to keep a few in pay ? Nobody pays for programming languages any more ....

<comment><USER3> I'm part of Team Red, though I only speak for myself here.

TL;DR -- Tools and infrastructure

It's true that people don't pay for languages, but did they ever? Mostly, people have paid for tools. Tools that help them solve problems. In the early days, nobody paid for _any_ software. Then there was a period where MS, Borland, Zortech, and others sold boxed compilers for C/C++, Pascal, Basic, and even Prolog (Borland Turbo Prolog, yep). Later Visual Basic and a raft of RAD tools, many of which had languages in them. And Hypercard had its day.

Now you don't pay for languages, very clearly, but did you ever, really? Yes, in smaller numbers. For example, people paid for MSBASIC/PDS, QuickBasic, TrueBASIC, GFABasic, XBasic, PowerBasic, or Visual Basic, because each had features they needed. But they didn't need, or pay for BASIC. They paid because the tool was effective and fit their needs.

Red is _not_ just an exercise, but building a language is hard, slow, deliberate work, especially when you do it from the ground up. That's why other langs don't do it that way. They compile to another language, now often transpiling, to leverage the existing infrastructure. This can be a big win, but you also get all the baggage of the old system, which is a cost.

Did JetBrains create Kotlin, hoping to cash in on the language itself? I don't have inside info, but I don't think so. Smart people they are. They sell tools, and being able to provide the first and best tool(s) for a new lang is a huge opportunity. Not to mention having all the experts in the language, for consulting and contract work day one. Everybody else has to play catch-up.

Do you see where I'm headed?

Those are just a couple ways you can be a commercial success by building a language. And that's a necessity. To win, we have to survive.

But that's not what motivates our programmer hearts. Fighting software complexity, showing people there's a better way, making the world a better place by improving how software is built, at all levels; that is what drives us. Software development, if not broken, is at least very, very bent.

Why are there so many Low Code tools out there? Is mobile dev as easy as it could be? Are we there yet? How far have we progressed, in how software is built, since 1970? Do _you_ have all the tools you wish you had in your language of choice? Why not? Why does it take 7 languages and 20 supporting tools and frameworks, all with different syntax, models, and runtime needs to build a simple web app today? Why does "Javascript Fatigue" exist as a term? Is containerization a solution, or simply a band-aid over cancer? Left-pad anyone?

You ask "Where's the market?" Well, it's everywhere, and Red can do everything (or will, before too long ;^). So we have to narrow it down. We hate doing that for the language, because it gives people a keyhole view of what Red can do. That's where specific products and tools come in. They, like dialects are to the base language, have a sharp focus.

There are massive opportunities to be had. And not just by us. Does Brendan Eich get JS royalties? Does Douglas Crockford get JSON kickbacks? Did they change the world, and have a lot of people made a lot of money because those technologies exist? You bet they have. But think even bigger, if you can, because what if you _could_ be compensated for creating great tech that others leverage? And if you think Red won't win because it's Lisp+Forth+Logo, has free ranging evaluation, or other things a dev can pick syntax nits about, that's fine too. JS has flaws, but look at all the dialects that transpile to it. Those are just DSLs, if you think about it, constrained versions. And what is Red better at than any other language?

Thanks for listening.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the reply - And yes Red is good even brilliant , but it seems like you are stalling .... when your done your pay (the few) stops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A keen amateur programmer</comment>


Newspaper says Turkey has [apple watch] audio of Saudi writer's slaying - <AUTHOR> https://www.apnews.com/41ad79bae592483da6d20115eda2cec9 <comment><AUTHOR> His phone must not have been that far away? Any thoughts on how he may have set this up?</comment>


Wheretheladies.at Shows You Where The Ladies Are At - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/02/wheretheladies-at-shows-you-where-the-ladies-are-at/

<comment><USER2> How long until this gets gamed by bogus foursquare accounts and everyone gets pointed to the nearest strip club?

<comment><USER3> As soon a someone creates a tool simple enough for you average strip club owner to use.

That seems like a group willing to pay to make it simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _most events in San Francisco can easily go from a bonestorm to a bronado to a category five hisicane in a span of 30 minutes_

Translation?

<comment><USER5> _most events in San Francisco are such that the female/male ratio can easily go from relatively high (and therefore favourable) to very low in a relatively short span of time._

The term _bronado_ seems to be a portmanteau of "bro" and "tornado". The term _hisicane_ appears to be a pun on "hurricane". It uses the fact that "hurri" is a homophone of "her" then changes "her" to "his". We could not infer the etymology of _bonestorm_ but we grokked the meaning by the context.

<comment><USER6> bonestorm |bōn'stôrm|

noun

A sausage party: a preponderance of men in a gathering. The term is a vulgar pun implying that men in a group with even a small number of ladies will become sexually aroused (i.e. have boners).

EDIT: <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bonestorm> urban dictionary disagrees ... but I still prefer my interpretation.

<comment><USER7> Your interpretation seems natural, but it doesn't fit the context here, where _bonestorm_ and _bronado_ are evidently antonyms. The Urban Dictionary definition, on the other hand, does make sense.

Noah Webster, I might note, is currently spinning in his grave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As silly as it sounds, they really got the "get your user laid" component right.

<comment><USER9> I've never found being in the proximity of women to be my largest barrier to getting laid. Leaving my home usually solves that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> No ladies in Zeitgeist. False information.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's safe to say that if you need an app to find women, you probably also need one to tell you what to do once they're located. I should start iCyrano.

</comment><comment><USER12> Rather than _founded by_ surely it was _hacked up by_. Not everything with a URL is a startup.

<comment><USER13> Not everything that's founded is a startup, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is awesome, but it would be great if they also told me what places are sausage-fests so I'd know where to avoid!

<comment><USER15> Yeah, and perhaps one that tells me where all the creepy guys who use this app "are at" so I can avoid them. :P

<comment><USER16> It's the same app. Just don't go where the compass points.

<comment><USER17> But go 90 degrees away from the compass vector, otherwise you'll encounter the oncoming wave.

<comment><USER15> Brilliant. Now change up the UI a bit, make sure you change the name to something like "CreepAvoider" and then it'll be marketable to the ladies :)

<comment><USER18> And I'll create a service for users of Wheretheladies.at that shows them both where the ladies currently are and where CreeperAvoider is sending the ladies so that they can try to stay ahead of the curve and get places right as the ladies are migrating there :)

<comment><USER17> It'll be like a dating arms race.

<comment><USER15> Now I am getting visions of a bunch of Ladies huddled in a bunker somewhere while hordes of Creeps throw themselves against the doors and windows. Sort of Resident Evil style.

Terrifying. :|

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They should account for men, too, and give more weight to places that have a larger ratio of women to men.

</comment><comment><USER20> The article didn't say exactly how they handle gender-ambiguous names, such as "Kelly." Here's one way:

Using the local census (which knows genders and names), estimate the probability that Kelly is female (in the local area), then weight each "Kelly" check-in by that estimated probability. The final weighted sum for a place is then an estimated expected number of ladies.

<comment><USER21> That's the kind of thinking which is likely to counteract the point of this app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> San Francisco is possibly the easiest place to find available straight women on earth, is this necessary?

<comment><USER23> Not really.

[http://cache.boston.com/bonzai- fba/Globe_Graphic/2008/03/29/...](http://cache.boston.com/bonzai- fba/Globe_Graphic/2008/03/29/1206808144_5800.jpg)

<http://www.lesjones.com/www/images/posts/singles2ql8.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Reminds me of the part in "On The Road" where Sal is at a party with Rawlins and others.. quoting from the book: "Suddenly, there was a great inrush of youngsters from the opera, who just grabbed girls and kissed them without proper come-ons. Teenagers, drunk, disheveled, and excited, they ruined our party."

</comment><comment><USER25> I hope these guys are smart enough to keep their receipts so they can write off all of the pub crawling they need to do to make sure that it's functioning properly. I might write such an app just to treat it as a 30% off sale on lounge liquor under the heading of "market research".

</comment><comment><USER26> Even better, 'where the ladies who are tech savvy/nerdy enough to use Foursquare' are at!!

</comment><comment><USER27> The knowledge that there are a great group of Ladies in some place can attract a powerful group of men, so we end with a crowded place, the next day everyone is looking for some more relaxed place to contact with someone interesting.

</comment><comment><USER28> this is excellent timing for my new service, where for only $25/month we'll go to the mall 3 times a week and holla at bitches for you.

<comment><USER29> What if they holla back?

<comment><USER30> If it's like any other matchmaking site they'll let you know that people holla'd, but won't let you re-holla until you open up that wallet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It should be "wheretheladies.are" to be grammatically correct. You aren't at somewhere...

<comment><USER26> You're assuming the name is intended to be in English. It's not; that's Ebonics.

<comment><USER32> And that's sarcasm. And you're irony ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Unsold cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.vincelewis.net/unsoldcars.html

<comment><USER2> Worthless article unless you like reading "Don't steal images."</comment>


Merry Christmas HN - <AUTHOR> I hope everyone had a great 2019 and an even better 2020. <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18757028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18757028)

<comment><USER3> Haha :) Merry Christmas!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Merry Christmas HN. I laugh, learn, and even cry sometimes from this place. The only "social network" that makes me feel at home, despite living far away from its epicenter.

<comment><USER5> San Fran or US?

<comment><USER6> Earth?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Happy holidays everybody. Take some time to relax and recharge your batteries. Spend time with loved ones and let them know how much you appreciate them. Then, in the next year be ready to go full steam ahead and complete that awesome project or launch that great company of yours. Cheers! Catch you on the flip side!

</comment><comment><USER8> Merry Christmas. Made it to 07:30 church service now preparing for gigantic brunch. Happy holidays

</comment><comment><USER9> God jul/merry Christmas folks!

Can't get myself to stop visiting this place so I better stay nice the next 12 months as well.

Thanks a lot for everything I've learned during this last decade.

<comment><USER10> There are worse places to be unable to stop visiting! Merry Christmas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Merry Christmas from Spain! As someone else mentioned here, HN remains one of the few places I like to read everyone's comments and keep on learning.

</comment><comment><USER12> Merry Christmas folks! Being in tech wouldn't be the same without each and every one of you, whether we agree or not ^_^ I learn a ton from y'all and I'm looking forward to the new year.

</comment><comment><USER13> Merry Christmas! OSS donations this year: Blender, Digikam, Joplin, Calibre, VLC, Octoprint - Nudge, nudge..

</comment><comment><USER14> Much joy for the next year, and many thanks to everyone for the wonderful links I've read the past months at three am in the morning while feeding or comforting my kids :)

Big up to dang and the crew too, for being the mirrors into our souls we need when our comments are too cranky and mean ... Thanks for keeping the community interesting

</comment><comment><USER15> I know that the holidays can be a rough time for some people, so I want to send out some love to those who are struggling right now. Hang in there for all of us

<comment><USER16> Can you elaborate on this? I've never heard of such a phenomenon. What aspect of the holidays is rough for some?

edit: This is a legitimate question, in case it wasn't obvious.

edit 2: Got it, no questions allowed. Apologies.

<comment><USER17> People who lost someone, people who are separated from their loved ones, people who are introvert but must act sociable, people who are depressed but must act chipper or else be asked questions, people who are alone but see all other people getting together for parties, people that hate their families but cannot escape the obligatory gathering, people who are poor but feel pressure to give gifts and have a lavish meal.

The list is endless.

<comment><USER16> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Merry Christmas everyone! Let's make the 20s the best decade of HN yet!

</comment><comment><USER19> Merry Christmas folks. I appreciate ability to participate in this community and do enjoy it a lot. Have a great year

</comment><comment><USER20> Merry Christmas!

HN is the place where I first discovered tons of people who seemed so similar to me..! I only wish to one day work surrounded by some of you :)

<comment><USER21> Merry Christmas!

During my first job, my boss introduced me to HN. I doubt I would've found it so soon otherwise, as the only other person that knew about it before I mentioned it is someone I only met this year.

My first boss was a great guy to work with and I'm grateful he told me about it. Even though I learned a lot from him professionally, the impact of that one-time five-minute conversation about the site might have added up to more over the years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Glædelig jul og godt nytår!

<comment><USER23> Gledelig høytid!

<comment><USER24> Gledelig vintersolverv!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Merry XMAS HN! Assuming your not working today, enjoy the time off. Downtime from work is very important folks.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wish everyone here gets many more future opportunities to wish each other Merry Christmas for years to come.

</comment><comment><USER27> Merry Christmas to the only comments section on the Web worth reading!

</comment><comment><USER28> Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah! HN is teaching me so much and has become such a productive addiction <3.

</comment><comment><USER29> Merry Christmas HN. Thanks for keeping this a valuable community! See you all in next year's thread.

</comment><comment><USER30> Whatever you do with today, and however you spend it, I hope it's a happy day.

</comment><comment><USER31> Merry Christmas.

I am now full of food.

Send help.

</comment><comment><USER32> Felix dies natalis Solis Invicti :)

<comment><USER33> Who was this poor fellow?

<comment><USER32> Not sure what you mean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wish you all, especially those who took a little step towards your dream, a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Keep it going.

</comment><comment><USER35> Merry Christmas everyone! Hope it's a good one!

</comment><comment><USER36> Merry Christmas everyone! All the best in the next iteration of life!

<comment><USER37> Here's to the next sprint!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Joyeux Noël :D

<comment><USER39> > Joyeux Noël :D

Seeing as I was born on Christmas Day, I got only the one present, which I figured as cheating. My parents said the one present would have to do :]

<comment><USER40> Joyeux Noël et joyeux anniversaire :)

My son was born on the 26th and he is not happy either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Merry Christmas HN! Let us come together for the day, regardless of our intellectual stances and tribal identities.

Let the Linux nerds break bread with the Mac hipsters. May the Haskell devs write bindings for JS libraries. And the VC dreamers shake the hands of the determined bootstrappers.

Peace amongst nerds, for a single day.

Merry Christmas.

<comment> core-questions I have launched Vim from within Emacs from within Ubuntu on top of Windows in your honour. Merry Christmas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> May the joy and bliss of Christmas abide with everyone and their entire household.. Merry Christmas.

</comment><comment><USER42> A merry Christmas and even happier new year! Happy coding and may the markets be in your favour.

</comment><comment><USER43> Thanks HN for this wonderful year full of learning, reading and emotion sometimes.

May 2020 be even good !

</comment><comment><USER44> God bless you all HN.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd like to take this occasion to thank Matt Mireles (mattmireles) for hosting a Thanksgiving gathering a few years ago when I was traveling solo in SF.

It really makes a difference when you're with people on the holiday season. I hope I can pay it forward one day.

</comment><comment><USER46> Merry Christmas to all on-call folks too!

<comment><USER47> What do you guys use for on call managent?

<comment><USER48> We recently began trying out [https://github.com/linkedin/oncall](https://github.com/linkedin/oncall)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Happy holidays! Wishing everyone a very healthy and happy New Year!

</comment><comment><USER50> Peace be with you all.

</comment><comment><USER51> I love you all.

</comment><comment><USER52> Vrolijk Kerstfeest allemaal! :)

<comment><USER7> Vrolijk kerstfeest! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Happy Christmas!

 _So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

"Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,"

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so._

</comment><comment><USER54> Joyeux noël à tout le monde!

</comment><comment><USER55> Merry Christmas friends!

I met a lot of nice people thanks to HN this year, and I'm very grateful for that. All the best to everyone!

</comment><comment><USER56> Merry christmas + I hate Mariah Carrey song

<comment><USER57> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE4shVkwqIk#t=50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE4shVkwqIk#t=50)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Happy Christmas. Thanks for all the wonderful stories and discussion. I hope you and yours are safe and satisfied.

</comment><comment><USER59> Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hauoli Makahiki Hou!

</comment><comment><USER60> Cheers everyone. I hope this next decade brings us all meaningful opportunities and personal growth. <3

</comment><comment><USER61> Happy Saturnalia! Remember to treat the help well, don't party too hard during the festivities, and respect the trees!

Merry Christmas, happy New Year, and may whichever deity or demiurge you deem worthy of worship shower you and yours with blessings in the days to come!

And 2020, give us a break. Please.

</comment><comment><USER62> Happy Holidays

</comment><comment><USER63> Feliz Natal, this site is the subject of endless ire but I enjoy the tonality and will keep visiting

</comment><comment><USER64> Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

</comment><comment><USER65> Happy new year and Merry Christmas

</comment><comment><USER66> Merry Christmas all of you beautiful humans! The future is waiting for us :) See you there!

</comment><comment><USER67> If you are reading this ; I wish you the best of 2020 full of love, success and happiness.

</comment><comment><USER68> Merry Christmas everyone! =)

</comment><comment><USER69> Merry Christmas everyone!!

</comment><comment><USER70> Came for the comments, stayed for the wonderful community of thinkers that makes this site special. Happy Holidays, gang -- I hope 2020 has great things in store for you and yours.

</comment><comment><USER71> God jul och gott nytt år!

</comment><comment><USER72> Merry Xmas everyone, here's to a fun and profitable new year.

</comment><comment><USER73> Merry Christmas to the HN community! You're great by the way!

</comment><comment><USER74> Merry Christmas, everyone!

I'm fairly new to this site, but it's been eye-opening as a student to learn from professionals and other tech enthusiasts. Hope everyone on HN has had a great decade.

</comment><comment><USER75> The rest of us hope you had a happy Festivus!

<comment><USER76> I realized yesterday, I know more about Festivus than Kwanza.

Amazing how much that show has entered into the modern American (and other countries?) lexicon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Merry Christmas makers! My wish for HN this year is the ability to redirect to a website rather than to a post, then I have to click it manually (I'm using iPhone)

</comment><comment><USER78> Happy holiday season to everyone on HN, you are all awesome! Amazing work by dang and sctb too keeping the discussion at such a high level, best wishes for 2020!

</comment><comment><USER79> Merry Christmas to everyone on the best and most informative forum of ideas I've found on the internet - and here's to everyone's 2020!!

</comment><comment><USER80> As Tiny Tim says, "God bless us, one and all!"

</comment><comment><USER81> Happy holidays HN, splendid 2020 to you all! And a big heads up and thank you to the moderators who keep this a great place to visit. You truly rock.

</comment><comment><USER82> Feliz natal

<comment><USER83> E um próspero ano novo!

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Best holiday wishes to all! Keep the positive vibes going. We all have ups and downs, just know that. Great community here, learning everyday.

</comment><comment><USER85> Merry Christmas!

Shout out to everyone away from home this year. Wherever home is, and for whatever reason. Big hugs, hope you manage to find some joy anyway.

</comment><comment><USER86> Can we have a Christmas hat? Just kidding, Merry Christmas everyone, and happy holidays, best wishes for everyone's 2020.

</comment><comment><USER80> Merry Christmas!

Also Happy Hanakkuh, Happy Kwanza, and whatever other celebration you might observe. I hope 2020 is a great year for all.

</comment><comment><USER87> Merry Christmas from the faithcircle team!

</comment><comment><USER88> Happy Festivus. I've got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!

</comment><comment><USER89> Merry Christmas from Huntsville, Alabama

</comment><comment><USER90> Fröhliche Weihnachten, Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER91> Merry Christmas! Here's to a great 2019

</comment><comment><USER92> Nadolig Llawen

</comment><comment><USER93> Merry Chrysler

<comment><USER94> Merry Crisis!

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Merry Christmas to all! I hope 2020 is a good year for everyone everywhere. And Happy Hanukkah, too.

</comment><comment><USER96> I read often and have learned a ton.

Thanks everyone for being you.

Merry Xmas, may you and yours be happy, healthy, and having fun.

</comment><comment><USER97> Merry Christmas to you too!

</comment><comment><USER98> Joyeux Noël tout le monde!

</comment><comment><USER99> Merry Christmas. Day of Hope. Enjoy time with family and friends.

</comment><comment><USER100> Merry Christmas!! People have been supportive of me here. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER101> Happy holidays everyone!

</comment><comment><USER102> Merry Christmas you guys. This site is a gift to me every day!

</comment><comment><USER103> Same to you! I hope everyone here had a nice holiday season!

</comment><comment><USER104> Merry Xmas! Btw,color of theme is changed a little bit.

<comment><USER77> A little bit ... "redder", right?

<comment><USER105> Also every other story on the frontpage has a different color on the position number.

<comment><USER77> I didn't realize this!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> Wishing everyone a happy Christmas and joyful new year!

</comment><comment><USER107> Merry Christmas! I wish everyone a day of joy and love

</comment><comment><USER108> Happy Xmas, and may you find treasure under the mark!

</comment><comment><USER109> Merry Christmas to you as well. Best wishes for 2020!

</comment><comment><USER110> Merry Christmas HN!

</comment><comment><USER111> Best Christmas ever, HN! Seasons Greetings to all!

</comment><comment><USER112> Merry Christmas everyone! Enjoy your holidays!

</comment><comment><USER113> Merry Christmas and Happy holidays y'all

</comment><comment><USER114> Merry Christmas all! I wish you all the best.

</comment><comment><USER115> Merry Christmas everyone! Have a great year!

</comment><comment><USER116> merry kurisumasu

</comment><comment><USER117> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER118> Merry Christmas everyone! Warm hug!!

</comment><comment><USER119> Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!

</comment><comment><USER120> Yes. Seasons greetings all! This community brightens every day. Wind down, spin up, and roll with next year. It's going to be fun.

</comment><comment><USER121> Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo.

</comment><comment><USER122> Happy holidays everyone! And good luck to those who end up starting something in January as a result of it being a new year :)

</comment><comment><USER123> メリークリスマス! from Toronto, Canada :)

</comment><comment><USER124> Merry Christmas to everyone!

</comment><comment><USER125> God Jul!

</comment><comment><USER126> Merry Christmas to all! :)

</comment><comment><USER127> Merry Christmas everybody!

</comment><comment><USER128> Merry Christmas everyone!

</comment><comment><USER129> Merry Christmas everyone!

</comment><comment><USER130> Merry Christmas folks.

</comment><comment><USER131> Merry Christmas folks

</comment><comment><USER132> Merry Christmas all!

</comment><comment><USER133> Merry christmas! :)

</comment><comment><USER134> Merry Christmas! :)

</comment><comment><USER135> Happy holidays all

</comment><comment><USER136> Marry Christmas!!

</comment><comment><USER137> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER138> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER139> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER140> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER141> merri kurisumasu

</comment><comment><USER142> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER143> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER144> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER145> Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER146> Merry Christmas

</comment><comment><USER147> Feliz Navidad!

</comment><comment><USER148> Bon nadal!

</comment><comment><USER149> <3

</comment><comment><USER150> Merry Christmas HN community

</comment><comment><USER151> Merry Christmas all

</comment><comment> cia-killer happy yule

</comment><comment><USER152> In case you were curious what the fuss was all about, here's a short explanation of Christianity.

From the Greek Platonic tradition [1], there was a belief in an ineffable Oneness that is the origin and nature of all things. Allegorically, this was treated as a person, like Zeus, but recognized to be fundamentally transcendental and ineffable pure — the One.

The _Logos_ was the emanation from the One; it was the son of god, so to speak, that crafted all material reality. Logos is typically translated as "word", like "in the beginning was the word", but that minimizes the concept of logos. Importantly, Jesus was understood to be the incarnation of the Logos in human form; "the word made flesh.". [2]

That was the dominant philosophical idea in Christian theology until the year 400, when Pope Theophilus of Alexandria had to deal with rioting monks who demanded an anthropomorphic God. He ended up killing the 10,000 monks who believed in an incorporeal God. [3]

So, enjoy your christmas: the celebration of the day when the logos became incarnate!

[1] [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4182081#metadata_info_tab_conte...](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4182081#metadata_info_tab_contents)

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos_(Christianity)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos_\(Christianity\))

[3] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Theophilus_of_Alexandri...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Theophilus_of_Alexandria)

</comment><comment><USER153> Merry Christmas!</comment>


Show HN: Faceoffus.com: easily remove faces from photos before sharing - <AUTHOR> https://faceoffus.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted an easy way to quickly remove faces from my photos and I was learning about the different options for AI inside the browser. FaceOffUs.com analyzes a photo inside the browser, makes no network connections, and then adds a red dot over all faces. It's completely in browser and you can use it in airplane mode. No Google/Facebook tracking. Enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER2> Just says "Analyzing image for faces..." for me, I opened up debug console and it says "bundle.js:40 Face couldn't be processed TypeError: Cannot read property 'getImageData' of undefined"?

I used pic of kylie jenner in swimsuit for testing

<comment><AUTHOR> What platform? I had to add code to retry for iOS and I'm sure there are other bugs. Thanks for trying it out.</comment></comment>


HBO Asks Google to Take Down "Infringing" VLC Media Player - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-asks-google-to-take-down-infringing-vlc-media-player-130715/

<comment><USER2> Why not some sort of suspension system?

Request take down of something you don't own -> you can't invoke DMCA for a month. That should be a deterrent.

<comment><USER3> I doubt that is legal. That (or something along these lines) would be a good improvement to DMCA process in general, but doubtfully something that Google can decide to do.

<comment><USER4> How about "request takedown of something you do not own and all your takedown requests will be hand-checked for a month" which will put a reasonable and significant delay into processing. The law doesn't mandate immediate automatic action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The DCMA takedown process is broken, the burden is on services to proved their innocence and there are little or no consequences for bogus takedowns

</comment><comment><USER6> More telling is that they requested that their own website be removed. To me _that_ should be the headline.

<comment><USER7> That was the headline. Half a year ago. When it happened.

Are you asking them to use the wrong headlines for articles, or are you asking them to republish things every couple months?

<comment><USER6> I'm not asking for anything. The article tries to make the case that HBO, et. al., are trying to take down open source software. Seems to me that they're not even error-checking what they're asking for, as is made evident by the request to delist their own site.

<comment><USER7> >The article tries to make the case that HBO, et. al., are trying to take down open source software.

I see an article talking about very sloppy practices and flaws in the DMCA. I don't see the case you're talking about at all in the article. I'm confused.

<comment><USER8> "It's no secret that copyright holders are trying to take down as much pirated content as they can, but their _targeting of open source software_ is something new."

first line.

<comment><USER7> Which it goes on to explain that they did _target_ it by _mistake_ because of their _horrible scattershot abuse_ of the DMCA.

I don't know, I guess I just understood it differently. I don't see an article arguing that this was intentional. Mikestew does, I guess?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The takedown request outlined in the article contains a reference to VLC as distributed by a popular torrent tracker, and not VLC itself. While this is still overstepping the boundaries of copyright, it is disingenuous to say that HBO asked Google to take down VLC.

</comment><comment><USER10> How is it possible that nobody is ever held accountable for such egregious mistakes?

</comment><comment><USER11> "VLC doesn't pirate movies - People pirate movies"</comment>


Android Developers Blog: It's not "rooting", it's openness - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/12/its-not-rooting-its-openness.html <comment><USER2> This article nails it. Myself and the other folks who make up the Unrevoked team are basically searching for security exploits on the devices we support. We can't reveal these to the carriers, the phone manufacturers or the Android team because they'll be fixed in the next release and we'll invest the time to find another one. __* Each additional exploit is marginally more difficult than the last to find.

We'd much prefer to abandon our rooting efforts entirely and have the market flooded with phones that have the equivalent of "fastboot oem unlock", or have easy ways to flash custom ROMs like the Dell Streak (no signature required), the original Droid and some of Samsung's devices. The energy we spend working on root could be better applied in finding and fixing the security holes that exist on the Android platform.

Until then we'll keep poking holes in the security of HTC devices (our focus) and make them work as hard as possible to figure out which holes we've exploited to keep the rooting window open as long as possible. We'll also keep recommending that people put their money on open devices like the Nexus One and the Nexus S.

 __* The exception to this was the skyagent hole, where HTC and Sprint shipped a suid-root program that would give any program you installed full control of your device. We notified them of the problem, then shipped a root based on it shortly after:

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/34024714/Skyagent-Protocol- Descrip...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/34024714/Skyagent-Protocol-Description)

[http://unrevoked.com/rootwiki/doku.php/public/unrevoked1_dis...](http://unrevoked.com/rootwiki/doku.php/public/unrevoked1_disclosure)

<comment><USER3> In a more perfect world, the general public would understand the important distinction between malicious "hackers" and you guys. Keep up the good work.

What do you tell your laymen friends and family that you do? Do you call it hacking? Security analysis? Something else?

<comment><USER2> Usually "phone hacking". "Security research" is what goes on my resume. :)

<comment><USER4> This is the best kind of security research. Sometimes people think security research is unethical, but there is no ethical question here: should a user sitting in front of his own device be able to use it for anything he wants? The answer is "of course".

As a user of an unlocked Evo, I want to thank you for doing this work. It makes my life more enjoyable!

<comment><USER5> Also, it's legal.

<comment><USER4> There's absolutely nothing illegal about downloading the SSH source code, finding a buffer overflow, and releasing code that demonstrates that that buffer overflow gets you root. The downside is that a lot of kiddies will use this information to cause mayhem.

When you do the same to the phone, there is much less mayhem. But there's absolutely nothing illegal about the first scenario.

<comment><USER5> Oh, I wasn't comparing, I was just remarking that Apple et al can no longer claim illegality of jailbreaking/rooting as a scare tactic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _Unfortunately, until carriers and manufacturers provide an easy method to > legitimately unlock devices, there will be a natural tension between the > rooting and security communities. We can only hope that carriers and > manufacturers will recognize this, and not force users to choose between > device openness and security._

I don't see that as likely. In fact, Android's "openness" can lead to maliciousness on the part of carriers and phone makers against their users. I cite Android phones that come from carriers with unremovable junkware & phones that have hardware encryption that prevents user rooting.

<comment><USER7> That practice is being offset by the sheer number and variety of Android devices, consumers are buying the more 'open' handsets and thus signaling the demand for them.

<comment><USER8> _"Consumers are buying the more 'open' handsets and thus signaling the demand for them."_

Are they? What is your source for that?

<comment><USER9> I imagine the quantity is small but there is some percentage of buyers, such as myself, that make sure there is an root exploit available before I buy a phone.

<comment><USER10> I know it's not fashionable nowadays, but I, for my part stick to Nokia phones.

"Rootability" is not an accident there, but part of the design.

This, of course is unless your (subsidized) phone is locked down to hell and then some. This is much less a problem in Europe, since you can always buy the unlocked phone and as a matter of fact, with the exception of pre-paid phones, even subsidized phones are not SIM-locked (you sign a contract anyway) and I never had one loaded with un- removable crap-ware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice to see a clear statement from Google that they believe all manufacturers should ship a way to unlock their phones. It's largely symbolic since it is out of Google's hands but at least Google is making their view heard for what it is worth.

</comment><comment><USER12> I really didn't understand the article. Can someone explain it?

<comment> brown9-2 An engineer on the Android Security Team objects to people claiming they've "rooted the Nexus S" by installing a custom ROM on it when all they've done is taken advantage of a feature named "fastboot_oem_unlock" which allows you to install a custom ROM.

<comment><USER4> Actually "fastboot oem unlock" is the command you type into your computer to unlock the phone. "unlock" is the feature name :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It'd feel more open if they actively designed the OS to make it hard to lock down, thus requiring rooting.

</comment><comment><USER14> What is Google's position on phones being rooted for the sole purpose of acquiring pirated apps? From where I'm sitting it seems Google is not doing anything to discourage this and is implicitly saying that the ad-driven revenue model is the way to go, natch.

<comment><USER15> Probably the same as my position on buying a wrench for the sole purpose of assaulting people with it.

<comment><USER16> I wonder how many Home Depot customers go on to kill people with wrenches compared to how many iPhone & Android rooters/jailbreakers go on to pirate apps? And no, I'm not talking about the average HN'er - rather every Uncle Dick in my family who doesn't know sh*t about tech but is only too happy to tell me about all the 'free' apps he's downloaded now that he jailbreaked his crummy iPhone.

Sorry - it's a question that's worth asking. If everyone was assaulting each other with wrenches, we'd declare martial law - the constitution isn't a suicide pact. If Android is the hottest smartphone OS in the US right now (and it is), why are the app attachment rates so low?

As a console game developer whose friends have developed iOS and Android apps that have seen huge download and play numbers (as measured by leaderboard submissions) but have seen almost no purchases, I have zero interest in developing for either platform.

<comment><USER15> I'm a developer with a paid app in the Android Market. If my only choices were to accept rampant piracy or to prohibit users from having control over their own hardware, I'd take the first without hesitation.

Of course that's a false dilemma; my app is earning several hundred dollars a month with zero marketing and zero copy protection. The vast majority of apps are not going to be Angry Birds-scale hits, and that's true with or without piracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why don't Google just make Android GPLv3?</comment>