WikiLeaks begins publishing 5 million emails from Stratfor - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/D7sR4zhT <comment><USER2> Like other HN members, I'm also a Strafor subscriber and my details and credit card information were leaked, so I have a vested interest in this issue.

At first I was pretty supportive of Stratfor, and thought that Anonymous attacking Stratfor was completely stupid.

However, a couple of things from the news release caught my eye. I guess I was naive, but I believed that Strafor was more like a news agency, and they would do their best work to uncover information, analyze breaking situations, and supply information to its members.

However, from reading the news release from Wikileaks, I get the vague sense that maybe Stratfor was gathering a lot more information than I thought, using it to their advantage, and then throwing a bone to its subscribers every now and then, just enough to keep them subscribing and generating income.

It certainly seems like there's a lot more going under the covers than I anticipated. The comment about "Control means financial, sexual or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase." makes it seem like Friedman is more than willing to make anyone their pawns, including subscribers.

Also, the idea of their StratCap Fund really kind of makes me question exactly what they are. I thought their motivations were really about analysis and information, but I kind of don't believe that now. At first, I didn't think the emails themselves were important, but now I'm definitely going to be keeping a close eye on whatever gets turned up from this point on.

<comment><USER3> I used to be a corporate subscriber (tens of thousands a month) and personal subscriber (a hundred or so a year). Some of the intel I commissioned at corporate worked its way into retail analysis; this was their policy.

STRATFOR is getting heat since they're well known in the public because of their philosophy that everyone should have access to top-grade intelligence. I don't understand how attacking the guys who find secret information, analyse it, and sell it to businesses, governments, _and the public_ promotes an open society.

Now we have shifted our business to Kroll and Dilligence and similar firms. They are stoutly anti-public. Not coincidentally their IT security is also top-notch. What was once public will now be very, very secret (Kroll has a 30-day email full deletion policy).

I worked for an investment bank. Found their idea of a STRATFOR hedge fund funny, but not evil. Another way to woo colleagues over from the public side while giving themselves a marketing tool against finance firms by being able to point to a performance trail. Mis-guided, perhaps, but given that Google basically runs a prop desk off its cash pile and has no problem with it (many corporate treasuries operate for profit)suggests it may not be an end-of-the- world conflict of interest.

Note: I hold no bad blood for Wikileaks; they're informatior brokers. But I do judge the guys who hacked them. Though I judge STRATFOR as well for being so cavalier with their security.

<comment><USER4> > I don't understand how attacking the guys who find secret information, > analyse it, and sell it to businesses, governments, and the public promotes > an open society.

I believe the issue is more to do with their information gathering practices (bribery and questionable links to individuals in government agencies are alleged in the article, amongst others) and the ethics of making money from that.

<comment><USER3> Put another way, it's a sustainable Wikileaks (sustainable because it is self- financing and can attract talent, albeit evidently not IT).

If you read about a _New York Times_ investigative journalist bribing their way into Libya, clinking drinks with dictators, etc. to get a scoop on what they're doing, would that be evil? Perhaps to some, but I value the information. It's a bit sleazy on the field, sure, but given that the information is known by intelligence agencies the next question is whether it is known to the public.

<comment><USER4> So the argument that you are making is that because some illegal acts may ultimately be used in a way that can be seen as positive (the journalist analogy), you see no problem with a company acting illegally ('sleazy') on a regular basis?

<comment><USER3> 'Illegal' is regime specific. It's absurd to argue legality within a context of hacked emails. If we are being strictly legalistic we should discard this evidence as being illegally obtained.

So let's change your question to is it okay to gain intelligence by venality? My answer is it is a continuum. Would I advocate bribing North Korean officials to gain insight on what they're doing? Yes. For Germany? No. STRATFOR, through the incentives in our global political regime, snaps into public opinion modulated by the risk of getting caught (as any agent in a political society does).

Generalising this de-spirits the debate. The fact is this information is being collected and will continue to be collected because it has tremendous intrinsic value. The question is how widely available it will be. I can pay for it. I just thought people liked having access to it as well. I would understand, though, if people preferred pretending reality isn't as it is.

<comment><USER4> I agree on the continuum, and that there is no point pretending reality isn't as it is, but on the other hand is there not a case that actions being taken by organisations such as these may not actually be in the interests of the wider public, and thus they should have a degree of public oversight and/or transparency in their actions?

<comment><USER3> If we could multilaterally ban (and enforce a ban) on espionage, thus forcing diplomacy into the open, would I be opposed? No.

But that's not the world we inhabit. Nation-states are perpetually insecure about the _intentions_ of others. Hence, espionage will exist with states as the actors.

So the next level is how widely disseminated should this information be? The intel Kroll, Dilligence, Nardello, IGI, etc. provide will always be available in one form or another. And because it's very information dense people like me, who want to _understand_ above all else, will bid up the value of that information.

I understand the public being uneasy with all of this. It's akin to pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz. But it is how geopolitics works; we are shooting the messenger. It's a shame that Anonymous et Pals may have just severed the single link the majority of people had to this world. I, on the other hand, will only have to deal with one fewer information brokers.

There was an article on HN a day or two ago on how being pragmatic, even if it's sour, is better than being solely right. I think this is one of those cases.

<comment><USER4> > But that's not the world we inhabit. Nation-states are perpetually insecure > about the intentions of others. Hence, espionage will exist with states as > the actors.

I can see that it pretty point-of-view, but I don't agree with this. I think we live in the world that we make, nothing is 'perpetual', and that in Western countries especially we will gain in the long-run from ensuring our own ethical standards are high. This, from my point-of-view, is practical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've read STRATFOR's intel summaries / newsletters for a while - and I generally support Wikileak's and Anonymous's _goals_ , if not always their specific _tactics_. So this is grabbing my interest, both personally and professionally. If nothing else, it will be interesting to consider ways to apply their methodology to the sort of threat intelligence we work with in network security.

(Side note: it's entirely possible to support Wikileaks and still think Assange is kind of a jerk.)

<comment><USER6> The thing is, though I'm not saying that's true in your case, that many people's perceptions of Assange are entirely due to the picture the media has painted rather than things he has himself said or done.

Check out the disinformation campaign that's been going on in Sweden for example, propagated by tabloid press in releases oddly synchronous with statements by the prime minister concerning an upcoming 'smear campaign against Sweden'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> An interesting article popped up on G+ the other day, outlining the effects the Cablegate release has had:

<https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/28-2>

TLDR: US Government got mud on its face, but dictators around the world faired much worse, and the fallout for them is ongoing.

<comment><USER8> Which really makes you question just why the US is persecuting Wikileaks as vigorously as it is... until you notice that most of the dictators who have fallen and countries where rebellions occurred were US allies, or at least had close ties to the US. Even Gaddafi was cozying up to the west until things got hairy.

The truly sad thing is, we knew all this. We've known that supporting friendly but brutal and murderous dictators has been the modus operandi for the US for years. Despite the leaks and the Arab Spring, this will continue to be the case so long as it's easier to keep a friendly dictator in power than try and work with a democratically elected government of a country where the vast majority of people don't like you.

<comment><USER9> Don't you think it also works the other way around? The majority of people don't like you because you support a violent dictator that's clearly bad for them.

<comment><USER10> It's a ratchet effect. Population are not particularly interested either way; government tells US government they're not going to put US interests ahead of their own people's, gets overthrown and replaced with a brutal dictatorship, population gets distinctly unfriendly, democratic government replaces dictator after revolution, opposes US interests as it plays well with population. Hey, that sounds kind of familiar... [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Pahlavi_dynasty_.281925.E2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Pahlavi_dynasty_.281925.E2.80.931979.29)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh, the irony: [http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/866124_random-business- ide...](http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/866124_random-business-idea-network- security-.html)

<comment><USER12> Stratfor CEO George Friedman Resigns Over Latest Breach [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/leaked-email-shows-stratfor- ce...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/leaked-email-shows-stratfor-ceo-george- friedman-resigned-two-hours-ago-over-latest-breach)

"But we must acknowledge that this incident would not have been possible if Stratfor had implemented stronger data protection mechanisms - which will be the case from now on. Indeed we will immediately move to implement the latest, and most comprehensive, data security measures."

Seriously? These people were emailing what they considered the most sensitive information straight out of their organisation, the only "security" being a caveat in the subject line. I wouldn't trust them with a cookie jar let alone preventing leaks ;)

<comment><USER13> He didn't resign according to:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9107911/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9107911/WikiLeaks- publishes-security-think-tank-emails.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Buried in the mass of text at <http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html> is this interesting thing:

"WikiLeaks is about to launch a distributed, encrypted "Facebook for revolutionaries" (<https://wlfriends.org/>)."

<https://wlfriends.org/about#whatfowlis>

I see no evidence it's truely distributed though.

</comment><comment><USER15> How is Stratfor fundamentally different from Wikileaks? They both obtain leaked information, often by methods of questionable legality. Stratfor uses the information to make reports and newsletters they sells to governments, businesses, and ordinary curious members of the public, whereas Wikileaks releases it for free but in ways that seemed designed to promote Assange, but I wouldn't say these are fundamental differences.

If Wikileaks were truly about bringing secret information to light, wouldn't they be protecting other leak organizations, rather that exposing their sources?

<comment><USER16> "How is Stratfor fundamentally different from Wikileaks? They both obtain leaked information ..."

That's like asking "How are the Crips different from the LAPD? They both drive around Los Angeles and carry guns ..." In the case of Stratfor and Wikileaks, one group finds secret information and makes it public, the other group takes secret information and sells it back to the same secret community from where the leaks originate.

"I wouldn't say these are fundamental differences."

I certainly would.

<comment><USER17> > "How are the Crips different from the LAPD? They both drive

> around Los Angeles and carry guns ..."

... and they both enforce laws, and they both initiate the use of force against peaceful citizens, and they both take funding from unwilling people by the threat of violence.

I'm not sure you're making the point you intended to make, unless you're an anarcho-capitalist like me ;-)

<comment><USER18> Do the Crips have a taskforce that investigates corrupt gang members?

<comment><USER19> Corrupt as in actually police informants? Er, yeah I bet they do actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Anyone got a full dump? I want to run the from/to's through a network analysis to understand who the 'supernodes' or connectors are at stratfor.

<comment><USER21> What software do you use for this?

<comment><USER20> I've been waiting to try out Neo4j and Gephi: <http://gephi.org/tag/neo4j/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of the more interesting things to emerge from this is Strafor's failed attempt to create a hedge fund that would use their intelligence to invest in government bonds, currency, etc.

<comment><USER22> The only reference I found to their hedge fund said that it hasn't launched yet, not that it has failed.

<comment><AUTHOR> My interpretation of this document is that the initial attempt at creating the fund failed and those involved were trying to salvage it. [http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/400961_fw-failure-of- strat...](http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/400961_fw-failure-of-stratfor- stratcap-deal-.html)

<comment><USER22> Thank you for the reference - I agree, that's the most likely interpretation of the email. I wonder why this wasn't called out more strongly when the hedge fund was mentioned in the press release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Anyone commenting about the supposed irony of Wikileaks putting an embargo on releasing this information before an agreed date is being naive.

At one point in time Wikileak's stated mission was just to leak information, and this was done without — comparatively — much fanfare.

What we see now is a change of tactics. If the ultimate goal is not simply to leak information, but to effect change, then what is the best way to do this?

A coordinated, simultaneous release has a better chance of being noticed by more people and thus a greater chance of effecting some meaningful change.

We can disagree on tactics. Assuming you believe their goals are reasonable, what else could they do? I'm not suggesting there are not other options, but I rarely read any suggestions of a better way.

<comment><USER24> i'm not sure you can say that wikileak's goal is to effect change. their goal is to take information that was private, and make it visible to as many people as is possible. controlling the release furthers that goal. they don't seem to care what happens with the information once it is released, just that the release gathers notice. i don't think their goals have changed over time, they've just become more aware of the fact that releasing information is no good if there's no audience for the release.

<comment><USER23> Well, effecting change is their stated goal. Assange has spoken at length about the idea of exposing information in order to break down conspiracies which an informed public may consider corrupt. I think that Wikileaks is a long way from being able to do that yet — undermine the corruption/lawlessness in a govt to an extent where it's weakened — but I'm hopeful.

Their focus is not simply exposing private information. Again, Assange has repeatedly said that Wikileaks has no interest in violating personal privacy and has in fact explicitly said that an individual has a right to privacy.

Exposing all private information is a radical position, one for which they couldn't expect to gain popular support. In other words, that is not their goal at all. It's reductive to simply say that they want to destroy privacy.

<comment><USER8> >I think that Wikileaks is a long way from being able to do that yet — undermine the corruption/lawlessness in a govt to an extent where it's weakened — but I'm hopeful.

They were completely successful in Kenya and had a not-insignificant role in sparking the Arab Spring. They're not able to bring down powerful corrupt regimes, but they've certainly proven successful at effecting change in some of the smaller countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Still think this is misguided. STRATFOR isn't the CIA; they like to pretend for marketing and what not, but they are obviously not the enemy here.

<comment><USER26> Anyone bribing governmental officials for personal profit is "the enemy".

Edit: It's in the article. Stratfor gathers information using paid informants, including government officials. That's bribery.

<comment><USER27> What about those who bribe the electorate for personal profit ? What about politicians who blackmail each other for personal profit?

Is it not possible to profit by bribing/blackmailing a government official and benefit the public at the same time?

Please think these things through next time before you cathartically post that someone is "the enemy".

<comment><USER26> What in the world are you talking about? Politicians blackmailing each other for personal gain is unethical. And I'm pretty sure that "the electorate" doesn't qualify as a "governmental official".

"Is it not possible to profit by bribing/blackmailing a government official and benefit the public at the same time?"

The ethical content of an action is not determined by accidental effects. If I shoot a gun blindly into a street and accidentally save someone by shooting their attacker, that doesn't make my actions ethical. Bribing an official for information that you can then sell to the highest bidder is corruption. The intent matters.

"Please think these things through next time before you cathartically post that someone is "the enemy"."

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

<comment><USER27> Did I imply in any way that such political misconduct was ethical? No. Did I suggest "the electorate" qualified as a "government official"? No.

I was simply impugning an absolute statement that blanketed a great number of honorable intelligence gathers as "the enemy", and promoted a great number of sketchy government officials as allies.

Corruption is paying an official to change or ignore a law to benefit you at the expense of others. Incentivizing an official to leak intelligence (most likely not constitutionally obtained in the first place) doesn't fit that definition. If it did, half of the New York Times' Washington bureau would qualify as "the enemy".

No, "cathartically" means what I think it does. I wouldn't call someone an enemy and really mean it unless that enemy was deliberately trying to harm me or my family. Any other use would be an attempt to invoke emotions.

<comment><USER26> "I wouldn't call someone an enemy and really mean it unless that enemy was deliberately trying to harm me or my family."

I didn't literally call them the enemy, I put it in scary quotes as a reply to the (IMO) naive sentiment of the OP that because they're "not the CIA", they're not a legitimate target of WikiLeaks.

Please ask for clarification next time before you cathartically lecture someone based on your own misunderstanding.

<comment><USER28> <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cathartic>

<comment><USER26> <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's not without a sense of irony that WikiLeaks puts an embargo on the press release and asks that news organizations not leak the story beforehand.

<comment><USER30> Actually I think it's intended to be completely unironic

<comment><USER31> Or maybe even post-ironic:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I found this one particularly fun to read: <http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/1239829_fyi-.html> (Sorry, it's a doc).

A glossary of the intelligence jargon that they use, written in an entertaining style.

<comment><USER33> "Denial Plan: Specific plan for managing security breaches. In some intelligence organizations, multi-volume regulations. In others, the plan consists of running around circles, waving your arms and blaming everyone else. Which one are we?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Took a peek at a few emails. It looks like some of their 'analysts' are what people call 'social media experts'.

I was beginning to wonder what kind of job that skill set can land you.

</comment><comment><USER35> Unfortunately, I don't see any timetable for release of the entire corpus; if they're going to release 167 emails per day, that's going to take 82 years.

</comment><comment><USER36> hmm.. so no one commented on pastebin being used as a newsletter CMS. i guess this is common practice? i guess this is in tune with those stories about using git as publishing platform

</comment><comment><USER37> I hope no one is surprised by this. If governments are willing to spend billions upon billions for intelligence, why wouldn't private corporations. Hell I've throughout of doing this a few times - then I think about the work it entails.

I bet there'll bee som interesting, actionable material in there.

</comment><comment><USER38> The one issue concerning London Olympics is Dow Chemicals sponsoring it, but there has been opposition in India and NGO for their role in Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1984.

If stratfor was gathering intelligence and buying silence for Dow, then it would be indictment and self implication

</comment><comment><USER39> Where is the data itself? I can't find a link to it, possibly it's not available yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> The data is here: <http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/>

<comment><USER40> That's not particularly useful to people who want to rip through the entire corpus using standard textmining tools; we'd really rather a signed torrent of a compressed imap archive or something similar. Having all the headers in formats accessible to scripts to read and tag different emails, etc.

This is sort of like having to do research on an archive that's been photocopied onto kleenex. But, we'll suck it up, and write a scraper to turn it into what we need. But it means that some of the interesting stuff is delayed, because wikileaks is trying to get the most bang for the buck by dribbling it out.

Just to pick an example of what I mean by interesting; tag all emails that mention a country or city and see if there are correlations between who sent and received emails and the countries mentioned, or if informants are mentioned in connection with more than one country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Well... this is going to be interesting. Forgive my ignorance, but this feels like its going to hurt a lot of people.

<comment><USER42> How is it going to hurt a lot of people?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the impact could be bigger than you suggest. Communications between Stratfor staff, clients, and sources are buried in this data dump. There is an entire spreadsheet of non-US media contacts who had agreements of some kind with Stratfor. There is correspondence between Stratfor executives and their attorneys that was most certainly subject to attorney/client privilege before it was posted. This only scratches the surface.

<comment><USER28> Attorney/client privilege is meaningless outside a courtroom, legally, and practically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The charge levelled @manning doesn't concern you all?

<comment><USER44> They don't really concern me. He made the choice to do it. I think he was probably aware of the risks and decided it was worth the punishment. If not then he made a huge mistake.

<comment><USER43> Naevity is prevelant, chase your own story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Are you wankers still intent on the prossecustion[spelling] of Manning?

<comment><USER43> still now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> manning must die/pay: What kind of backward society would prosecute this?

</comment><comment><USER43> Manning perhaps had the guts to remind you all of your constitution. If you are prepared to ignore your constitution then I will ignore all the things that make U.S.A. great.

</comment><comment><USER43> So which one is it?

* Fuck yeah, america!!!! killing our own troups just because * Fuck yeah, amerida!!?! killing everyone just because.

</comment><comment><USER45> > The material contains privileged information about the US government's > attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor's own attempts to > subvert WikiLeaks.

I'm getting tired of Wikileak's bullshit. Either you have proof about this and you should just publish it in a pastebin, or you shut up. You don't publish 5 million emails and hint that there is material in there that could take down governments.

<comment><USER46> > You don't publish 5 million emails and hint that there is material in there > that could take down governments.

Unless you want to crowd-source analysis of them. Then you do, it seems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> It will take some time until people will filter interesting stuff out.</comment>


Facebook Delays Home-Speaker Unveil Amid Data Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-28/facebook-is-said-to-delay-home-speaker-unveil-amid-data-crisis <comment><USER2> Definitely not something I'd consider.

However, someone here on HN recently posted the open source voice assistant project mycroft:

[https://mycroft.ai/](https://mycroft.ai/)

Fun to mess around with on Raspi and eventually I may link it up with Home Asssistant.

<comment><USER3> Similarly, I've started using Snips.ai in conjunction with Home Assistant, and I'm continuously overjoyed whenever I ask Snips to do anything, or I ask it for information, with the knowledge that everything is hosted on site, and everything is custom made specifically for what I want.

<comment><USER4> Hi! I'm the co-founder of [https://snips.ai](https://snips.ai) and we build a 100% on-device Voice AI platform. The ASR and NLU are running on a Raspberry Pi 3, and best of all it is free and we are open-sourcing it, starting with the NLU [https://github.com/snipsco/snips- nlu](https://github.com/snipsco/snips-nlu)

[https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source- priv...](https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-private-by- design-alternative-to-dialogflow-amazon-lex-and-other-nlu-a95dbe16f4a1)

The whole platform runs on-device which makes it ideal for privacy, cost, and to allow it to run when there is no network, from hotword to ASR and NLU

We are available in English, French, German, and soon Japanese and Korean, with more European languages coming!

Take a look at what some people have built with it: [https://github.com/snipsco/awesome-snips](https://github.com/snipsco/awesome- snips)

and a few tutorials to get you started: [https://medium.com/snips-ai/building- a-voice-controlled-home...](https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice- controlled-home-sound-system-using-snips-and-sonos-2aaf16523ce9)

<comment><USER5> Any recommendations for microphones, particularly in an environment with lots of flat surfaces (concrete/glass) and talkative people? Non-directional.

<comment><USER6> They've got a pretty in-depth article on their blog: [https://medium.com/snips-ai/benchmarking-microphone- arrays-9...](https://medium.com/snips-ai/benchmarking-microphone- arrays-950de8876fda)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Buying a facebook speaker, or really any home-speaker for that matter seems like a really bad idea. You give it the ability to record everything in your home for a slight utility.

<comment><USER8> I see this argument all the time, but these things are less dangerous than smartphones. First off, they ride off your own network so it is easy to see when they are sending data back home unlike phones which can transfer data over harder to monitor 3rd party networks. They are cheaper and lower powered machines so they can't do a lot of processing on device and can't store a large amount of data for later transfer. They are stationary in your home and therefore likely spend a majority of the time listening to nothing unlike phones which might be at their owners side 24/7\. They also only have one source of data which is audio as opposed to the other various sensors phones have like GPS. Finally, if you believe that these companies are shady enough that they are lying to their customers about what these smart speakers are doing, why do you think they aren't lying about what their mobile OSes or apps are doing?

All that said, I believe Apple, Amazon, and Google all have worlds more trust in this area than Facebook.

<comment><USER9> > these things are less dangerous than smartphones

I disagree.

> they ride off your own network so it is easy to see when they are sending > data back home unlike phones which can transfer data over harder to monitor > 3rd party networks

…if you use a VPN, then you can check for traffic here as well.

> They are cheaper and lower powered machines so they can't do a lot of > processing on device and can't store a large amount of data for later > transfer.

HomePod has an Apple A8 processor, and Google Home has some sort of ARM SoC. These aren't low-powered machines; on the contrary, they can run 24/7 since they're always powered.

> They are stationary in your home and therefore likely spend a majority of > the time listening to nothing

I think this makes them more likely to be overlooked, more than anything.

> Finally, if you believe that these companies are shady enough that they are > lying to their customers about what these smart speakers are doing, why do > you think they aren't lying about what their mobile OSes or apps are doing

Some of them, maybe.

<comment><USER10> You start off with disagreeing that smartphones are more dangerous as home speakers, then every single subsequent point you make is along the line as "this may not be as bad as smartphones but they're still an issue".

Yes the processor is still strong but it's weaker than smartphones. Yes you can still sneak data past home networks but it's harder than 3rd party networks. Yes they can be more overlooked, but they still have access to less data than smartphones.

None of the points you make prove that home speakers are as bad or worse than smartphones. The original comment wasn't arguing that smart speakers are safe, they were just pointing out the hypocrisy over owning a smartphone and being against smart speakers.

<comment><USER9> The main issue with smart speakers is that they're in your home and they have access to continuous power, so they're always on. Sure, they might not have all of the processing power of your flagship smartphone, and you can check their traffic, but this doesn't mean that they aren't less dangerous. With smartphones, you can tell pretty quickly if someone's been recording audio in the background: just check to see if your battery is depleting quickly. Smart speakers also have better range than smartphones: they're meant to pick up noise from far away.

<comment><USER10> > The main issue with smart speakers

And? Your phone is with you 24/7

> they have access to continuous power

I don't know about you but my phone hasn't run out of power in months.

> this doesn't mean that they aren't less dangerous

No one is saying that they _aren 't_ dangerous, you're missing the point. What I'm saying is if you carry a smartphone around, that's just as risky. Therefore, it's hypocritical to warn against smart homes unless you also don't have a smartphone.

> Smart speakers also have better range than smartphones

But smartphones are literally next to you at all time, they don't need better microphones.

<comment><USER9> > I don't know about you but my phone hasn't run out of power in months.

I don't understand your argument here. If your smart speaker 100% maxed out its CPU and sensors for a month, would you notice? Probably not. I guarantee you would if your smartphone did, though, unless you keep it constantly plugged in.

> But smartphones are literally next to you at all time, they don't need > better microphones.

I'll chalk this one up to individual preference. Personally, my phone is usually not near me at home (e.g. downstairs) since I have access to my computer, which I prefer using instead.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but you don't need to max out CPU to collect and upload data. It's fairly trivial amount of computation for most things it can collect.

<comment><USER9> Using the microphone continuously does require power, though…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nothing sounds more invasive than a Facebook created in-home, always-on device.

<comment><USER12> That's exactly what the Facebook app is on a mobile phone, though. Has access to the microphone to listen whenever it wants (even if it doesn't do it, it has access). Is always on, not just in your home but everywhere you go. Knows who you talk to and where you are and how long you spend there and often what you're doing quite exactly to the details.

There's not much difference between having the Facebook app installed on your phone and this device, in terms of creepiness and data collection capability. Probably their smartphone app creeps me out more, actually.

<comment><USER13> in which condition does Facebook asks for microphone access ?

On my install Facebook has zero permissions and remains useable. It is by design though.. they have already way too much data.

IIRC in P only a foreground app can access sensors, still, don't give this permission to facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Tomorrow: Uber will announce the delay of their new airline.

<comment><USER15> Lol at the idea of using minimally qualified pilots to fly people around at wages that barely incent them to continue. It might even happen.

People flying around with probably alcoholic tendencies, overly adventurous ideas, spraying toxic insectesides, or otherwise borderline pilots because "gig economy". You're probably right.

<comment><USER16> It would never happen because FAA. Taxis on the other hand are regulated on a state by state and even town by town basis.

Anyway, not much blood to squeeze out of that stone. A 747 fits about 400 passengers and only needs 2 pilots. Doubling or halving the pilot salary will not make a noticable difference in ticket prices.

I'm not sure what the main costs of air travel are, but unlike taxis, it ain't the drivers. I would guess fuel?

<comment><USER17> > A 747 fits about 400 passengers and only needs 2 pilots

It needs many more than that. Depending on the workload it could be 10 or more per plane.

Consider a daily shuttle between LAX-NRT, a 11h40m flight. This will usually require 3 pilots, as pilots cannot legally fly more than 8-9 hours per day. When they arrive, the plane is turned around in a few hours and comes back - but the original crew needs rest, so at least 3 pilots have to be waiting at the other end, ready to go. And when the plane arrives back in LAX, who's going to take it back to tokyo? Those 3 are resting! So straight up that's 9 required, at an absolute minimum, with no margin for sickness or holiday.

Longer segments can require 4 pilots, so again that's 12 at an absolute minimum. Realistically speaking, depending on a whole bunch of factors, airlines would aim to actually have about 15-20 pilots per plane in a long haul heavy scenario.

And we haven't even mentioned cabin crew, which would be 12 or so on our hypothetical 747. So again, multiply that by 3 at a minimum and you've got something like 40 cabin crew per aircraft.

So 15 highly paid pilots (say 150k/yr) and 45 slightly less paid cabin crew (50k/yr) - that's close to $4.5m/yr just on crew. For ONE airplane. You've got to be making $12k/day on that plane just to pay flight staff, let alone ground staff and everything else.

In the world of narrowbodies the economics are even more brutal. If a plane's on the ground it's not making money, so say you try to have the plane in the air 10 hours a day. Due to flying limits over extended periods you would need 8 pilots to fill that with no margin, and probably 8 or so crew for a 737 with 4 active. Realistically you're looking at a crew bill of $2m/yr, or ~$35 per seat per day. Even if you manage to squeeze 7 segments out of the plane per day with 100% load factor that's $5 per ticket just on crew in a market where every single dollar counts.

Now obviously I'm grossly oversimplifying and pretty much every number I mentioned can vary - but not by all _that_ much. I'd say those numbers are at least in the ballpark for a full service carrier and if anything the long haul estimate is probably too low - I've heard up to 24 pilots per plane for long haul carriers like the ME3. So finally the point is, crew wages absolutely make a difference!

<comment><USER16> WHOA. Outstanding comment, thank you. This was not obvious to me. I had no idea pilots got paid rest. Taxi drivers are required to rest too, but at their own expense.

<comment><USER17> Well thank you but actually you are right. Pilots are NOT paid rest. Per regulation they can work 1000 hours per year and they will ensure this is fully utilised. Airlines cannot just hire and not use pilots or, of course, they will jump ship to someone who can.

It's a pretty interesting industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Internal: "Quick, dev team, make it a little harder to figure out that our speakers actually are recording 24/7!"

Public: "Uh we're having some unexpected delays"

<comment><USER19> I'm imagining a Stewart Lee "sell phones to cars" type skit: "Quick, sell data! Sell data to anyone! Get more data to sell! Hurry!"

The values of Facebook, of which there are none.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Attracted by the smell of fresh new data, all the usual suspects are present on this field. More and more _smart_ home speakers/assistants really just look like to me the new 2018 widespread trojan horse way for collecting large amount of new data on users. Pass.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'd say no, but I have no desire for a home assistant. Aside from the security concerns, the thought of talking to my devices just makes me reflexively gag. I mean, the main thing I like about them is that _I don't have to talk to them_.

<comment><USER22> I've got some Google Home Minis and I didn't realize how much I use them until I decided to make note of it: I use it to control my TV every night (Play bob's burgers, next episode, pause) and in the morning I ask for the weather and while drinking we ask it random questions we happen to be discussing. At night I say "bedtime" and it turns off the TV and lights and my dog knows that means it's time to go to bed and gets up as well. All stuff we used to do on our phones but now ask verbally - I guess I'm saying I find it more convenient now than bringing out my phone and having to type stuff. It becomes way less weird after like a week.

<comment><USER21> I don't find turning off the tv to be particularly challenging; it's one button on the remote. Maybe this works for you, and fine if it does. I don't really care if it's 'convenient'. I don't want to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Probably smart -- cause Facebook listening to what goes on in your house is a sound idea.

Then again why does any one trust the companies who provide this service at all?

<comment><USER24> I have one of these devices and, to answer your question, I don't trust the company that made it.

I don't trust most companies, but that doesn't stop me from buying their goods or using their services.

<comment><USER25> Then you should have no problem with Facebook's device too.

<comment><USER26> That is what he implied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was going to say that I couldn't even imagine the selling point of this to the average consumer, but I'm not someone who uses my Echo for social uses (i.e. calling, or sending/receiving messages). For the FB/Instagram-addicted crowd, I guess I could see the appeal of being able to do voice-activated messaging, and to look at photo albums. And it's not something FB should want to give API access for to Alexa/Google/Siri.

That said, I think as popular as Echo devices are, people already have a bit of paranoia about them, and that's before considering the controversy FB is now undergoing. Unless the hardware is best-in-class, hard to see how this will fare any better than Facebook's failed attempt at its own phone with HTC: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First)

<comment><USER28> > people already have a bit of paranoia about them

I was given one as a gift, and found it useful enough after a few days that I was willing to trust that it wasn't recording unless it detected the activation word locally.

And then I walked into the room while it was carrying on a conversation with my 2 year old, asking his name, etc. Unplugged it and plan to destroy it.

<comment><USER27> I woke up at 2AM to my 3-year-old nephew asking for it to tell him bedtime stories. Though to be fair, I taught him how to invoke that skill from Alexa.

<comment><USER29> That's an interesting use case! Where does Alexa gets its bedtime stories? Does it read from public domain storybooks or must you purchase them like audio books?

<comment><USER27> It's an official-branded skill, "Amazon STorytime" that is a built-in for Alexa, e.g. you can invoke it by saying something informal, such as "Tell me a bedtime story" or "Tell me a story", rather than the way other skills are more narrowly namespaced.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073X5FYVF](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073X5FYVF)

It says the app "contains curated stories from the Amazon Rapids app library as well as a selection of Audible short stories". It's pretty good, as it features actors and sound effects. Can't say any of the stories were interesting to me (was hoping for Aesop Fables type stories, which is about all I remember growing up myself).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Yep, like it's not enough that Facebook already knows a ton of information about your online life, these greedy monsters want to inject a spying device into your offline life. I am not an expert, but I guess that this Facebook product has pretty slim chances to be a hit.

</comment><comment><USER31> Well they better not, they have lost almost all consumer trust at this point. They need to rebuild that, maybe for years to come.

<comment><USER32> You were always the product, not the consumer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If developing for it is anything like developing for other Facebook platforms, I want nothing to do with it.

</comment><comment><USER34> The article quotes "people familiar with the matter". For all we know, this could be a controlled leak, and the "people familiar with the matter" could be CXOs and Facebook's core management team. :)

Funny to see the alleged data abuse giant unravelling with all the hustle and bustle of upper management panic.

<comment><USER34> Sorry to answer to my own post. I joined Facebook last week. After eleven years of refusing to play Facebook's game.

Here's the information I gathered from 20 minutes on Facebook - a powerful platform indeed.

The author (Sarah Frier) seems to be on good terms with the CXOs of Facebook:

CPO Chris Cox [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook- reactions-c...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-reactions- chris-cox/)

COO Sheryl Sandberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-27/how- shery...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-27/how-sheryl- sandberg-s-sharing-manifesto-drives-facebook)

CEO Mark Zuckerberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-virtual- rea...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-virtual-reality/)

To drive it all home: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/how- fake-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/how-fake-news- blew-up-into-a-political-crisis-for-facebook) [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/mark- zuck...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/mark-zuckerberg-s- political-awakening) [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-11/facebook-s...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-11/facebook- s-zuckerberg-says-fake-news-and-echo-chambers-didn-t-drive-election)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Should really be called the Facebook microphone.

</comment><comment><USER36> They call all of their sources "the people". It's not coming out yet, "the people said". Kinda strange...

<comment><USER37> I think that's actually part of a general journalism style guide. It definitely sounds strange, but so does the constant third person passive voice you tend to see in journal articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> ""Facebook has been playing fast and loose with their data ever since they started. ... It was only a matter of time before that data was misused, and I think that advertisers knew that," said Andy Amendola, senior director of connections strategy at agency The Community. "We know there was this line that verges on creepy because we know the consumers' data, but I think that's what makes the advertising work so well."

For the most part, agencies are skeptical many people are going to leave Facebook - or at least enough to make a difference for advertisers. The public's attention span is fleeting, noted one executive, and even massive data breaches that affected Yahoo, which included 3 billion accounts, and Equifax - 147.9 million accounts - haven't turned people off those services.

...

In addition, the public already held Facebook in low regard leading up to the scandal. According to app analytics firm Sensor Tower, sentiment about the company during the the two weeks leading up to the Cambridge Analytica stories was already 83 percent negative - and people were still on the platform."

Source: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/facebook-cambridge- analytica...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/facebook-cambridge-analytica- scandal-wont-deter-advertisers.html)

"3\. The idea that users will abandon Facebook is unlikely. There's really no alternatives. An abandonment of Facebook and related apps would basically be an abandonment of social media altogether, which is an unrealistic expectation.

...

4\. While Facebook currently produces the majority of its revenue from advertising, that's only the tip of the iceberg. Facebook can do many things to begin diversifying its revenue stream including entertainment or e-commerce.

...

So far Wall Street's opinion on Facebook has not been altered by the data scandal. According to MarketWatch, 37 out 44 analysts rank the stock as a "buy". The average price target is $221.56, which represents 39% upside based on the current stock price of $159.09."

Source: [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4158807-facebook-let- others...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4158807-facebook-let-others-fears- opportunity)

<comment><USER39> > The public's attention span is fleeting, noted one executive, and even > massive data breaches that affected Yahoo, which included 3 billion > accounts, and Equifax - 147.9 million accounts - haven't turned people off > those services.

The public wasn't turned off of Equifax because they weren't Equifax's customers in the first place.

<comment><USER40> > The public wasn't turned off of Equifax because they weren't Equifax's > customers in the first place.

The public aren't even Equifax's _users_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> These discussions always remind me of [https://xkcd.com/1269/](https://xkcd.com/1269/)</comment>


Why I moved to Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://jottit.com/jpf2v/

<comment><AUTHOR> Which technologies are having the greatest impact on information flow in 2008 compared with 2004? YouTube and Facebook stand out for me.</comment>


Hilde Proescholdt discovered how an embryo organizes itself into an adult form - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/how-your-embryo-knew-what-to-do <comment><USER2> Shades of Rosalind Franklin.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of

[https://medium.com/matter/could-this-man-hold-the-secret- to-...](https://medium.com/matter/could-this-man-hold-the-secret-to-human- regeneration-1e66944f0a8d)

Don't mind the title, the article is good.

The article at the OP's link talks about proteins though, the one above talks about electricity.

</comment><comment><USER4> To use an analogy, I suppose you could say that's where the BIOS is.

</comment><comment><USER5> In Chinese medicine, the concept of 'QI' is roughly translated as the bodies organizational electric energy.

You can see an example of the qi directing an embryos morphogens to create a facial structure here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VULjzX__OM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VULjzX__OM)

A great reference for anyone wanting to know how the ancient concepts link of with modern medicine and anatomy should check out the book 'The spark in the machine', recently released in the past year or so.

<comment><USER6> I'm sorry but this is nonsense.

<comment><USER5> The book is actually based on a scientific viewpoint with quite a large section of medical publication references at the end (ex [1]).

If you are a dedicated rationalist I challenge you to at least read the first few chapters and then consider that , with a small chance, we as humans might not know everything about the human body and how it functions through the lense of western medicine.

Edit: added link to Growth Control Theory paper

[1][http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024320500...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024320500010328)

<comment><USER7> I don't know everything there is to know about how a car is built, but I'm not going to assume that dwarves carve their way through the floor of the factories to finish up the parts I'm unaware of.

<comment><USER5> I see the parallels you are trying to make, but I think the human body is orders of magnitude more complex than a car, and its still possible that we don't know everything about how electricity functions inside us - how it influences our development from a single cell jumping through millions of years of evolution.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Groupon's Bad Deal - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/03/groupons-bad-deal.html

<comment><USER2> Google offered $6B to buy Groupon. Instead they took a private financing deal which allowed the founders and others to take some money off the table and go for an IPO.

The $6B from Google was real. The risk of proceeding was tempered by the private money. Nothing dishonest happened here. All that happened was a little overexuberance about the scalability of their business model.

While it's true that some people (including me) thought their model non- scalable back at the time, it's also true that a broken (analog) clock is right twice a day.

Everyone made their bets and they're all big boys and girls. That includes the public investors as well as the private ones.

<comment><USER3> _The $6B from Google was real_

Unless Google would have to agreed to a $6 Billion fee in the event of not being allowed to buy them, it wasn't, there was speculation that it may be blocked by the DOJ. Imagine being in limbo for 18 months or so when you need to grow. They took a chance and lost. Or some of them lost, execs did sell a bunch of stock

<comment><USER4> Deals that large usually come with a "breakup fee" on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars, precisely for this reason.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but the breakup fee for wasting 18-24 months at their stage might not have been enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I genuinely do not understand US securities law. One needs to be a "qualified" investor to invest in startups; these investors trade shares among themselves (no primary share issuance) at indefensible and unrealistic valuations, and they are later allowed to sell their shares (secondary issue) in the open market to "unqualified" investors.

Shouldn't the SEC and a bunch of attorneys be investigating this?

Congresses is having all kinds of hearings with banks for misselling mortgages and a dozen other shenanigans. Who is going to call on investors who (literary) pumped-and-dumped Groupon?

I still vividly remember watching Jeff Clavier defending the Groupon IPO valuation on TC TV (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKrWtMmsl7I>), and I couldn't feel more ashamed for all the unsubstantiated arguments he made back then. He wasn't the only one to do this.

<comment><USER6> How about facebook? That was one of the most artful manipulations of the IPO system ever conceived. They didn't even make a majority of the company public, and yet managed to rake in a preposterous amount of money and cash out all of the early investors to an absolutely ridiculous degree. The stock is still down nearly 30% from the IPO level.

<comment><USER7> Facebook lost "only" a 27% of the initial price (maximal lost was 53%). Groupon lost 80% of the initial price (maximal lost was 90%)!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My understanding (which I heard from a pretty reliable source at the time) is that this deal was baked (both sides agreeing), but broke down because the Groupon board insisted on a guarantee from Google that it would close over anti-trust objections, and Google wouldn't give that term.

Background: in a typical acquisition, closing is subject to HSR anti-trust approval. If the government doesn't approve, then the deal breaks up. This means that the target company is taking a risk that after announcing the deal (and being paralyzed in a post-signing/pre-closing period that could last several months), the deal could be broken up and the target company could be left holding the bag and forced to get back on an independent path. Which is pretty rough.

In this case, Groupon wanted Google to go long the anti-trust risk -> in other words, Google would have to divest the asset if the government killed the deal.

I think (not sure) Google had given this term up on the AdMob deal, but believed that it couldn't do it again on the Groupon acquisition (which would have been the biggest deal Google had ever done), or it would have set a precedent that every other company would have insisted on going forward in M&A discussions.

</comment><comment><USER9> FWIW, Andrew is one of the smartest founders I've met (and I've met a lot).

<comment><USER10> 'Smartest' in what way? Is there a standout characteristic he has that other founders should emulate?

<comment><USER9> I didn't mean "smart" in a way different than it's ordinarily used.

<comment><USER10> Do appreciate the response and don't mean to press the issue, but guess I was just curious about what gave you that impression... particularly because, coming from you, it is an extremely high compliment that most on HN would be thrilled to hear.

<comment><USER11> smart

/smärt/

Adjective

Having or showing a quick-witted intelligence.

Verb

(of a wound or part of the body) Cause a sharp, stinging pain: "the wound was smarting".

Noun

Intelligence; acumen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Imagine that billion divided up as $50,000 seed money to 20,000 new startups. Don't just plunk it down on them set up an automated system requiring justification for every expense. Then have a contest over the year where the earliest, best performers get to advance to another round of funding the next year.

<comment><USER13> I've suggested something like this before - I think it's brilliant (obviously) - although I truly would not bother with tracking the expenses (#) - at this level it's just noise.

I would suggest that this is the next evolutionary step for VCs - not managing 5m dollar investments but 100x as many 50k investments. But I doubt anyone in the VC industry wants to move from selling at Tiffany's to the KMart in Tucson, Arizona.

Luckily the VCs of Pune/Mumbai will have no such qualms. SV may find itself out-evolved quite quickly.

(#) well you may have to to avoid seed money for drug deals but you get my point

<comment><USER14> Isn't that what the banks and small business loans are for? VCs are a playing different game.

<comment><USER15> That's way too risky a game for banks. Banks want to put in $1 and be pretty much assured of getting $1.10 back next year.

If you go to a bank and ask for a business loan, they'll say, "Great! Let's see the last few years of your financial statements." If you say you don't have any because you haven't actually started your business yet, they will look at you funny and tell you to come back in a few years.

That's as it should be. We citizens guarantee that banks will always pay back depositor money. So they should only be allowed to make pretty safe loans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> ""I was fired today. If you're wondering why… you haven't been paying attention."

Or maybe they were paying attention to the WRONG people.. such as.. oh say, HR and corporate spokespeople in Groupon who want you to believe Groupon is on the rise and will be a great company to work for!

Seriously, that statement is such an insult. Sounds like someone who can't admit he's wrong, by saying "Well duh! Didn't you knew this was gonna happen" to save face, rather than "Ok, I made a mistake by doing X, Y, Z"

</comment><comment><USER6> How many people have been shouting about groupon being a BS company from day one? Sometimes I boggle at how dysfunctional this entire industry is.

<comment><USER17> It just paints a picture of Fox Moulder's "I Want To Believe" poster, but with a GroupOn logo instead of a UFO.

I was particularly surprised at how their 'aggressive accounting' didn't get them into hot water in the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Title needs to be changed to reflect factual content of article: "executives ... and shareholders."

<comment><AUTHOR> Done. Used the second half of that sentence to make it more appropriate.

<comment><USER13> Title changed again, far less informative - is this you or a mod?

<comment><AUTHOR> No. The second mod is not mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Original HN title: "950 million of 1 billion of Groupon's funding wasn't used to fund the company"

This also stood out to me as an interesting claim from the article. Does anyone have a perspective on how that can happen without raising some sort of legal issue?

<comment><USER20> This was pretty well documented when it happened in 2011. You can do anything you want in a private company if the shareholders agree. In this case, Groupon's existing shareholders agreed to roll around in big piles of money so that new investors could get in at any price.

<comment><USER21> Came here to ask the same question as blahedo. Especially as the claim in made in the article, but not expanded. Are there any sources for or reports on this?

<comment><USER20> Google for "Groupon series D" or "Grouponzi".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Groupon was always a ponzi like scheme. Once they ran out of suckers (err businesses) their income dropped like a rock. Everyone I know uses Groupons but challenge them on actually visiting the Grouponee again and you hear crickets.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 When people complain about how the $1 billion raised in 2011 just went to insiders - did the investors who contributed that $1 billion know where the money was going to go? If they knew, then it's all their fault.

<comment><USER23> They knew. And wrote the checks gladly.</comment></comment>


Spore: What happened? - <AUTHOR> http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/spore-what-happened-/1387746 <comment><USER2> One day Will Wright and Peter Molyneux got together and decided to settle, once and for all, who could ship the most awesome tech demo in a box declaring it was a game. Molyneux got the drop on Wright by nearly a decade with Black and White, which featured stunning graphics, adaptive AI, some of the best emergent behavior I have ever seen, and a campaign mode which could not be beaten because apparently QA had missed level 4 (it was cleverly hidden by being shipped with only 5 levels, not the planned 82, thus lulling QA into a false sense of security) and did not see that the scripting was impossible to complete.

But Wright toiled and toiled for a decade, and then came out with Spore. And yay the gamers did look upon it and say, verily, it was an even more impressive tech demo than Black and White, with beautiful graphics and a host of content creation tools (though no AI to speak of), and that Wright had successfully created a null game while making it appear to the player as if there were six of them.

Thus Wright won the contest.

</comment><comment><USER3> I followed all the news and was very much looking forward to playing Spore. But I didn't buy it at the last minute because of the DRM. EA was using Spore to push DRM even tighter for PC Gaming and I just couldn't agree with that. I also didn't pirate the game so I still have never played it. I put my money on the line and said no. Maybe I am only one guy, but by not playing it I also didn't tell my friends about it.

<comment><USER4> I did the same thing. However, it was more out of fear what the DRM would do to my system than an unwillingness to have any DRM. Granted, I heard the game sucked, but I would have still gotten it if the DRM had not had such a bad reputation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It wasn't fun. It tried to be too many things, and none of them were sufficiently polished or really all that entertaining. I think the Real Time Strategy portion sucked the most.

Also, the game was very simple -- If it had more complexity it might have been more fun.

<comment><USER6> It's strange.

In the beginning, they described their model creation, the procedural animation, the sheer massiveness of working with an entire universe... stuff never seen before in a game. It was huge. Everyone was excited.

In the end, the game was much too simple to be enjoyable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really wanted to like Spore. I got it the day it came out and played it for quite a while. Ultimately it was just too simplistic for my tastes.

Even if it remained simple, I might have enjoyed it more if I could more freely explore. It just seems like the game is worried about you getting bored and so injects alot of things that have to be taken care of relatively quickly. Even in the space stage it seems I could never get too far away with someone needing me to come all the way back because of an attack or eco- disaster. I just got tired of being interrupted all the time.

The Massively Single-player concept didn't seem to scale well as your empire got larger. The massiveness seemed to punish the player rather than reward him.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wrote a lot about Spore when it launched. The sad part is the potential it offered will likely never be realized with Wright gone from EA.

It was the first game to aggressively try to marry bits and atoms. Bing Gordon wanted the creature creation tool to serve double duty as a way to make customized "Pokemon" style games offline. It was the first game designed to have the characters 3D printed.

[http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2009/01/review-spore- sculptor-...](http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2009/01/review-spore- sculptor-3d-printing-service/)

The metadata in a .png file could be used to recreate the design in the editor.

It was a terrible game, but probably the best entry level cad program I ever used. You could do just about anything.

[http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2009/02/75-creative-uses-of- th...](http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2009/02/75-creative-uses-of-the-spore- creature-creator/)

It is the kind of launch only a big company could do successfully and unfortunately it didn't work out. I hope they would at least consider open sourcing the design tools. I agree with the general sentiment that the game was just terribly boring. Put the tech in the hands of someone who gets gameplay and there is still potential.

</comment><comment><USER9> DRM issues aside, the game simply wasn't good enough for me to recommend it to anyone. The early play experience was decent, but I quickly found myself losing interest. In particular, once I got onto land and found myself facing MMO-style grind quests...yeah, that quickly drained my interest. I tried to stick with it, but couldn't.

</comment><comment><USER10> I agree with those here who are observing that it failed because it was a lemon. No one should generate _that_ level of hype, especially not while the game in question is trapped in development hell to the point that they cut an entire "stage" of the game and any number of features from the others.

People have a high level of tolerance for corporate BS when the product behind it is good. _Spore_ only offers five or six hours of gameplay, not the five or six years it seemed to be promising; if it had delivered on its promise of the moon, I think we would have heard an awful lot less about SecuROM.

</comment><comment><USER11> it came... it saw... it failed... everyone felt sad because Robin Williams said it was great... but it wasn't</comment>


Founder-Investor Fit - <AUTHOR> https://nbt.substack.com/p/founder-investor-fit <comment><USER2> > Founder-investor fit, which happens when the desires of founders match the > products of investors, is one important factor.

This is a bit delusional to be frank, because of the power imbalance. Reality of raising VC money is more like Tinder: most founders frantically swipe right on every investor in the hopes of getting a match, while an investor swipes right on anyone they want and get a decent hit rate. From time to time investors gotta chase after the hottest thing (aka Clubhouse); and then all Phd-level hypotheses, investment focus, and fancy blog/tweet theories get thrown out the window.

If you have 5 investors throwing term sheets at you, then yeah, you might want to look into them a bit more deeply to figure out what they can offer beyond the check. But if not, just keep swiping.

<comment><USER3> With low interest rates, and an ever increasing complexity of the state of the art, won't this balance tip to the other side soon?

There is more money than can be invested, and since economies don't grow fast enough, even more will be printed. On the other hand, founders don't grow on trees. So if you have a good idea and a good team, why should it be difficult to rise money?

<comment><USER4> except that we're already in a position of pretty low expectations. your 'good' might make sense relative to all the other poorly conceived and executed startups, but still might be a worse investment than treasury bills

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> interesting to see the author admits VCs are generally superficial and only invest if they like you as a person. in reality to be succesful in business you need to be able to work with people you don't like, if they are really good and the right choice for your business. maybe that is the reason a lot of VC investments go nowhere.

<comment><USER6> It's the "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft" optics driven decision making. Essentially, VCs decisions on average don't work out, so they check the optics to protect their downside. So long as the decision looks superficially correct, they protect their reputation with both investors and founders even when things go south (which probabilistically they do).

Does it cause them to pass on some great companies and miss the outliers? Yes.

Do they regret it? Probably not.

<comment><USER5> The question if it's really down to probability that only 1 out of 10 investments works out. I'd say there is a big factor in there that they simply make poor business decisions, like doing whatever your friends are doing, and betting money on people you would like to go play golf with instead of people that maybe make you uncomfortable but are much smarter than you are as a VC, and know a lot more about the problem domain than you do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some interesting ideas, but not a lot of evidence is presented to justify the position taken by the author.</comment>


The University of Illinois' Startup Ecosystem - <AUTHOR> https://hack.vc/the-university-of-illinois-startup-ecosystem-b1cb79cdc80d <comment><USER2> I started a not to be named University entrepreneurship program. I drew similar pictures and it looked beautiful, as if the ecosystem was bursting with activity. But the reality was different. It lacked excitement, it lacked visibility, it lacked engagement and above all it lacked entrepreneurial culture (which I see as gluon or higgs boson of a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem).

So at the heart of this beautiful map, I created a cultural hub .. a space that was founded and run by students, who elevated the excitement and visibility of entrepreneurship. To top it up, I elected a student women entrepreneur to lead it. It had interesting implications:

1\. Entrepreneurial ecosystems tend to be male dominated. By creating a community of student entrepreneurs, lead by a female student, it created a 'safe zone' for other women entrepreneurs to come forward and engage.

2\. Much of what we did at the space, was to encourage trying new things, new ideas and celebrating every tiny milestone of a student. I started a FB page, where every student activity was documented and celebrated.

3\. In less than 2 years, I helped start over 60 new ventures. Some died or would have died or will die and a few get accepted into top incubators..and others are at limbo... but the process helped students to learn important lessons in entrepreneurship. It is best to do it while still a student.

4\. The space helped connect all the dots in the picture (drawn in the article). It brought the organizations closer to the students and helped create visible linkages. It helped movement of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ideas easily across those linkages and removed redundancies in the ecosystem.

5\. I gained a lot of visibility in the media and it didn't go well with the fossils of University who claimed entrepreneurship as their own and turned my exciting job into a political game and a living hell. Non of it leaked to my students, but being an entrepreneur myself, I already had many other projects that I was working on ... so I left the University and aside from championing my students from the sidelines now, I find utmost excitement in pursuing my own tiny startup. I am broke, but I am happy and every day take pride in the work I did, to create the nucleus of a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem in one of the top Universities, that would act as a cascading feeder to the community for many generations to come.

</comment><comment><USER3> Currently working at UIUC at a relatively new startup and yes there is a good community building here. There is lots of agricultural innovation going on here and having giants like John deere, adm, ABinBev as well as tech companies like said yahoo hadoop analytics group. Cool to see some UIUC research park love here on hacker news. Can't wait to get up and go back to work at the research park where I will be hacking on python all day!

</comment><comment><USER4> Author says UI has "a rich history" with regard to startups. I am curious when the clock started ticking for "history" in this author's view -- last 10 years? 15?

Startups were a very different story at UI in the late 60s, 70s, and early 80s. From what I've gathered, it seems doing a startup could be a very iffy proposition, vis a vis the university. Sometimes it could even get you in a heap o' trouble.

<comment><USER5> I'm a UIUC alum. The author is doing what UIUC typically does, which is try to take credit for the successes of their alumni when those alumni did it without the UIUC ecosystem. I like to call it the Andreessen Complex:

[https://hack.vc/tech-companies-started-by-university-of- illi...](https://hack.vc/tech-companies-started-by-university-of-illinois- alumni-6753327a0829)

UIUC has historically done little to negative work in making their graduates successful beyond the diploma. I don't see much changing here except a lot of handwaving, throwing cash around, and grand announcements like UILabs which will make a lot of noise and smoke but eventually do very little toward the dream of being more like Stanford or MIT or Fraunhofer.

 _" The list is still a work in progress but shows just how many great entrepreneurs were at one point roaming around in central Illinois"_

Sums it up right there. They roamed until they roamed all the way to the west coast. And that's the eternal agony of the University of Illinois.

<comment><USER6> Author of the original post here. To start of I'd just like to clarify that I'm a student at the University and have no ties to any of the administration.

The goal of the post was not to try and take credit for the successes of alumni, I rather wrote it to highlight how some of our alumni have gone on to do great things. I decided to write it after an experience I had this summer while I was interning at a VC firm in NYC. While there, I met the managing partner for one of NYC's biggest VC firms (I'll leave it unnamed) who basically said: 'oh, you go to UIUC.... they've produced one famous tech entrepreneur (Marc Andreessen), maybe you can be the second'. That's a sentiment I saw echoed throughout my time there and through previous experiences (especially on the East Coast).

In terms of the helping alumni with their ventures after graduation, I'd argue that the school has actually done a lot to help founders through the resources and early-stage funding available (a lot of these have sprung up recently). It's hard to compare it to Stanford/MIT/Harvard which are based in thriving tech cities where alumni and VCs can hop by on campus whenever.

Update: I'd also love to know (from everyone that sees this) what programs other universities have done to help alumni after graduation. Just because UIUC hasn't already done this doesn't mean we (students and alumni) can't start it. Just take a look at the awesome stuff that alumni from Harvard do for their community ([http://harvard.splashthat.com/](http://harvard.splashthat.com/)). It's entirely alumni managed + organized.

<comment><USER5> _' oh, you go to UIUC.... they've produced one famous tech entrepreneur (Marc Andreessen), maybe you can be the second_

Let's get history straight first. UIUC didn't turn pmarca into an entrepreneur. Jim Clark did that.

<comment><USER7> Andreesesen is overly celebrated because of his extreme luck, and is certainly not the first. Look up John Bardeen and Nick Holonyak for examples.

<comment><USER6> The school actually does highlight John Bardeen and Nick Holonyak a ton! John Bardeen was the first person mentioned on my tour of the college of engineering and Nick Holonyak gave the keynote at my ECE orientation.

My posts were meant to highlight entrepreneurship which is why I didn't mention them (they'd be in a class of amazing innovators who studied/worked at UIUC). There's also a ton of awesome alumni that have gone on to be C level execs at big companies, but again they were omitted because these posts were specifically targeted at entrepreneurial alumni.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> UIUC grad here. Pretty sure I was the author's TA at one point too :)

All of these programs and events are a huge step in the right direction. I personally did my best to even help some of these programs grow, particularly iFoundry and the group that eventually became Hack Illinois. But the biggest challenge I found was bridging the chasm between this hacker/entrepreneur culture and the existing academic/research culture.

As a premier research university, the UIUC engineering curriculum is heavily focused on the theoretical. In my years there, I really had to go out of my way to obtain some hands-on learning experiences. Those are so important for breeding a hacker/entrepreneur culture. It's how you learn to work with real- world constraints, how to network and collaborate, and how to fail well. A textbook and a Powerpoint lecture just can't teach that.

So the question I pose, to the author and to the readers, is this: How do we change the way students are taught?

<comment><USER9> Be careful what you wish for.

Asking universities to teach "hands-on learning" isn't productive; you'll get plenty of that, that's more recent and marketable, from practical work experience. I'd rather the universities go even further in the theoretical direction.

What I got from engineering school wasn't just another 2-3 years of work experience, it was much deeper things like numeracy, learning to write well, lifelong relationships, appreciation for rigor, and a hell of a work ethic. It was a fantastic value for the time and money I put in and it was absolutely worth it.

(UIUC alumnus living/working in SF)

<comment><USER6> I think a balance is needed. A lot of my friends in CS graduating after 4 years of college (at a number of schools including at UIUC) feel less confident going into the industry than people I know that have gone through developer bootcamps.

Theory is definitely important, but the number of hands-on/practical courses needs to be increased as well.

<comment><USER9> Don't worry about it. People who get paid to assess the actual -- not perceived -- quality of tech talent for a living (hiring managers, bigco recruiters) aren't fooled by this. The mere amount of stamina it takes to complete an Illinois engineering degree is enough of a signal.

Your experience might be different if you're dealing with money guys with no operating experience who trust the Harvard/Stanford pedigree uber alles, second/third-tier startup founders who dropped out because they're "the next steve jobs" and would rather drop acid than finish their degrees, "journalists" writing schlok "content" for valleywag/techcrunch etc. without an iota of fact-checking, and other hilarious SV stereotypes that this area seems to attract in droves. Try not to let it get you down too much. There's more to life that the front page of Techcrunch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Madison and the University of Wisconsin are developing their startup scene more since I've started here.

The nice part about Madison is that it _isn 't_ just the university, like some are commenting about UIUC. The Ionic framework is based out of Madison, made by two Wisconsin grads. Gener8tor is an accelerator in this city and they're growing. They really do provide good opportunities to founders, and they have funding from State Farm insurance that seems to be steady, so I have hope that things can really go somewhere. Though I have to say that having been around their office and at a few events they really don't feel tech-oriented.

And then the university has their own stuff. To anyone at UW-Madison reading this: avoid them! WARF is a hungry parasite and if you do anything interesting they will do their best to take their perceived share.

</comment><comment><USER11> So many points to answer...

1\. I am willing to grant that Champaign/Urbana is not the ideal place to live for everyone; however, it affords me the best of everything I want from a community, without a lot of what I perceive as the drawbacks of places like Chicago or SV or other large metro areas. I would not live anywhere else, and I know that others feel the same way that I do; and it is fine if others disagree.

2\. (This ought to start a firestorm of comments...) I have worked for three different companies based in SV or SF and have lots of friends still in that area. It has been my personal experience that people there are motivated by money concerns much more than they are in CU. In conversations with my friends there, they say things like, "Come work at XYZ and they'll up your salary by X"; or, "If you come to this startup you'll get tons of stock options"; etc. This is totally my opinion, but I believe that people in SV are so worried about money because they really can't afford to live there unless they make a _lot_ of it. And again, my opinion is that this influences people to move jobs frequently in order to get a bump in pay, a big sign-on bonus, or the hope for a big stock payout. The SV culture encourages frequent moves. I certainly cannot deny that people in CU talk about money, but when my friends here try to pull me away to another job, they often talk about the cool tech they are working on or how much they love the culture of their company, and not about the money. It is because people in Tech in CU can afford to live very well on modest salaries. (My spouse doesn't work and we still live really well.) Again, just my opinion, but I believe that this is the real reason why people stay longer in their jobs in CU. It isn't because they don't have options. (I feel that I have many options, and my options seem to be increasing all the time.) It is because they are not forced to move just to afford to live.

3\. Rome wasn't built in a day, and anyone who has been in the community for a while can see that there have been great improvements in our startup culture over the last decade or two. And, just as Rome fell, SV will not be the center of the Tech Universe forever.

4\. Related to comments 2 and 3, see the article: [http://www.cnbc.com/id/102697372](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102697372)

5\. The University has done an amazing amount of good for the community, if only by being one of the major economic engines in CU, and I appreciate that. It isn't their "responsibility" to build a startup community in CU. However, they have done a lot to advance it. The U of I Research Park is a great example of that.

6\. A few people in this thread seem to be blaming UIUC for what they perceive as startup culture issues. It takes a lot of hard work from many players (individuals and organizations) to build a great startup community, so if there are failings, stop blaming others and do something about it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Urbana-Champaign is in the middle of no-where. The University is _Urbana- Champaign_ \- there is very little city around the campus. It would be one of the worst places to start a company. Not to mention that Illinois is one of the last states where I would want to start a company.

<comment><USER13> I beg to differ. U-C is an excellent place. I dont think you have ever been there to say that.

Its very affordable. You want to spend millions on rent or hire your staff?

college town - perfect for those college grads to entertain themselves after work

Hire students from UIUC, Parkland, ISU, and few other campuses around.

Not great restaurants but pretty good variety of cuisines

Chicago is less than 2 hours away by car

no sitting in traffic for hours every day

only drawback is you cant jump companies every 6 months

air connectivity is limited but Bloomington next door has decent options

excellent place to have a family and raise children

Yahoo is increasing its presence in Champaign, so is Intel, Caterpillar, and a few more. I know they are not startups but there is a reason why they are growing there.

<comment><USER14> Yahoo moved their Hadoop analytics group from CA to IL at least partially due to huge turnover. Since moving they have not lost "quite" as many people. UIUC is also where the transistor was invented, and it the home of NCSA and HDF Group. In my opinion, it has definitely contributed to computer science and scientific computing everywhere.

<comment><USER15> What do you think accounted for the huge turnover and why moving from CA to IL reduced that? Less competitive job options in IL that made the opportunities look more attractive?

<comment><USER14> Perhaps the stability of the Midwest and a culture unlike Silicon Valley where folks move jobs every two to three years. There does seem to be more loyalty in IL, and the calmer pace may encourage more long-term planning?

<comment><USER15> Honestly, I spent most of my life in Chicago and only recently moved out to the Bay. I can't say in a major metro like that there is any more inherent loyalty. In many industries the only way to get ahead is to change jobs every couple years to make sure you stay at market rate for compensation.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mersenne Twister Algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://www.programmingalgorithms.com/algorithm/mersenne-twister <comment><USER2> If you want information as to what this is, why you might want to use it, some of the pitfalls, how it works, and several variations, then you might want to read the wikipedia entry:

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

If all you want is an implementation with no information, the provided link will do.</comment>


Medical Sieve - <AUTHOR> http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=4384

<comment><AUTHOR> I ran across this comment[1] from four years ago by an accomplished radiologist claiming computers will never be reading images anytime soon, certainly not in his career. Since I worked on an IBM filmless radiology system for the US military hospitals (DIN-PACS) in the late 90s, I wondered about the current state of the art in computer-assisted radiology. Turns out IBM Watson and other AI techniques are preparing to solve the fatigue problem of human radiologists reading thousands of images a day. Just like military radar operators got lots of automated assistance, radiologists will soon be backed up by automated systems. Humans are poor at estimating an exponential rate of change.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3033422](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3033422)</comment>


Melatonin: the body's natural sleep-promoting hormone - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/02/melatonin-the-bodys-natural-sleep-promoting-hormone <comment><USER2> I fully understand that a single experience doesn't equate to a full study, but I've been using melatonin (as an adult) for 4 years without issue. What is an issue is when I forget and am still awake at 1am.

<comment><USER3> > ...for 4 years without issue. What is an issue is when I forget and am still > awake at 1am.

Well, that's exactly the issue I would expect from long-term use. The body tends not to bother manufacturing its own supply of something as much when you're providing it from an external source. There are generally negative feedback mechanisms in place. You might now be dependent on externally- supplied melatonin.

<comment><USER4> I'm in the same boat. It's definitely the case that I'm dependent, but it's worth it when without it your body just decides regular sleep schedules are for squares.</comment></comment></comment>


ExtraTorrent Shuts Down for Good - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/extratorrent-shuts-down-for-good-170517/ <comment><USER2> I was about to add them to our tracker list. :(

[https://github.com/sergiotapia/magnetissimo](https://github.com/sergiotapia/magnetissimo)

There's something really sad when these sites die, a part of my teenage life is gone for good. I felt the same way when Demonoid shut down.

Can these sites skate the legality line by offering only magnet links? Why are their costs so high if they can just host magnet links and cache the site with Varnish or something similar?

<comment><USER3> >Why are their costs so high if they can just host magnet links and cache the site with Varnish or something similar?

Just from personal experience, but here is my view of it.

A good search engine for millions of torrents costs several hundred a month. Scrapers to keep torrent seeders / leechers up to date cost another fifty to hundred (depending on how up to date you want your torrents). Now add in a few website servers and a load balancer for another hundred or two. You are looking at three to five hundred a month. Doesn't seem like a lot, but this is just a smallish torrent site. Isn't large enough to generate ad revenue or have enough donators to keep running. Maintaining that by yourself soon get's expensive unless you have a good job with plenty of disposable income.

<comment><USER4> Also, accepting donations and sponsorships opens you up to being sued for profitting from copyright infringement.

<comment><USER3> Bitcoin donations was how I handled it at the time. A little more anonymous especially if you pay for anonymous hosting with bitcoin.

<comment><USER5> IANAL but purposefully hiding the transactions may just open you up to other legal issues.

<comment><USER3> Good to know (think about). Luckily, the site is no longer in operation.

EDIT: clarification

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm continually surprised that Bittorrent is still relying on content indexing websites. The edonkey community solved this problem years ago with fully distributed search that only relies on the peers themselves[0].

Can anyone with insight into the BT comunity/technology offer any ideas why they never moved in this direction?

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

<comment><USER7> Distributed indexing is very hard, slow and easily gamed. If you remember Kazaa, for example, it had an enormous problem with low quality content and malware.

The best solution is not fully distributed indexing, rather decentralized indexing, such as IPFS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's 2017 and I'm so surprised that BT is still the dominant way to share copyrighted works illegally. Why hasn't a fully decentralized and E2E encrypted alternative replaced it? Who wants to actually run trackers these days?

F2F software like [http://retroshare.net/](http://retroshare.net/) exists, but nobody is using it.

<comment><USER9> How would that work?

I believe you can still get caught with such systems, because if somebody can download from your machine, that somebody could just as well be a government agent.

Unless it uses something like Tor, but in that case it could become illegal to run exit nodes. The person running the exit node could legally be considered an accomplice.

<comment><USER10> Retroshare has anonymous tunnels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://torrentproject.se/](http://torrentproject.se/) is interesting...

</comment><comment><USER12> Torrenting aside, this is the second large movie forum to shut down this year (IMDb closed its message boards in February).

For ExtraTorrent Forum users searching for a new home, check out [https://MovieChat.org](https://MovieChat.org)

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://www.skytorrents.in/](https://www.skytorrents.in/)

</comment><comment><USER14> It's hard to imagine how you could operate a successful torrenting site in 2017; they represent such a loss of income to so many people with expensive lawyers.

<comment><USER15> Expensive lawyers yes, loss of income, probably not much. The majority of torrent users are not likely to suddenly pay for the same content.

<comment><USER16> Obviously it's not a 1:1 ratio of lost revenue to pirated material. But I bet many pirates would spend some money / watch commericals if they were forced to for entertainment.

I've seen some suggestion that they spend more on average than the average consumer. But I suspect they'd spend even more. And getting some content free and paying for others has discretionary effects.

<comment><USER17> > if they were forced to for entertainment

There is more free content made every day online than one person could consume in their entire life. Even when 99% of it is garbage, that 1% is still more than you can fill your time with.

I read a few dozen webcomics, most of which have patreons, but I don't get ads on my rss feeds for them, and there are _thousands_ of webcomics. And artists. And musicians. There are dozens of websites for hobbyist, amateur, and even freelance professional games, animations, etc.

There is a fraction of pirates that will pay for content they would otherwise torrent because they want _that_ content. But that doesn't imply they are more likely to _buy_ entertainment. A portion probably just turn to free legal sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My memory might serve me wrong, but I recall very interesting article years ago about playing monetary-gain games in Japan. Hazard where you win money is banned, so as a loophole what they did instead is that you were still playing but instead of wining cash, you were winning tiny white plastic balls (with serial numbers). Those balls were technically worthless and just made of cheap plastic. But once you won some, on the other side of the street where you played, was unrelated business owner, who all business was buying sad white plastic balls for hard cash from you.

No law is broken here. You can run a casino as long as people don't win money or anything worth a lot. You can run a store where you buy out white plastic balls at a premium value. And life goes on :)

I think Japanese government had hardship proving that one business is somewhat owned or operated by another and eventually AFAIK they gave up, giving birth to Japanese biggest mafia.

So.. long story short... run a torrent site where all you have is a database of copyrighted content (only names such as IMDB) and provide half of a magnet link :) Quietly find someone on the other side of the world who will host website that does the same thing just provide second part of magnet link. Don't know each other, don't talk with each other; wait until third person builds an app to glue both link and viola! Long live ExtraTorrent/PirateBay/Whatever about to die next.

</comment><comment><USER19> Isn't this the third big site that's gone down this year?

I guess they're getting bought out by media companies or something. So much for the hydra.

</comment><comment><USER20> Where should I get all the latest shows from ettv and ethd now?

</comment><comment><USER21> R.I.P ExtraTorrent</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a 'RailsCast' for MeteorJS? - <AUTHOR>

I have recently started looking in to MeteorJS and find it really exciting, any idea if there are good video resources to learn more about it?<p>edit for clarity <comment><USER2> Not the answer you were hoping for, but the book Discover Meteor is pretty great if you're just getting into Meteor.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few hours ago, I just gave this talk at Meteor Devshop SF about using Meteor + React:

[https://youtu.be/puoD7b4Ow7k?t=1225](https://youtu.be/puoD7b4Ow7k?t=1225)

</comment><comment><USER4> There sure is! [https://www.eventedmind.com/](https://www.eventedmind.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you sirrrr!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good resources about being an effective mentor? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Leadership skills would be up there ... Grab any book from John Maxwell

Communication skills... "Everyone communicates, not everyone connects", "How to win friends and influence people"

</comment><comment><USER3> The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier has a great chapter on the topic. It's engineering-specific.</comment>


Link between Vitamin D deficiency and more serious Covid-19 symptoms - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/03/time-take-seriously-link-vitamin-d-deficiency-serious-covid/ <comment><USER2> To maintain "low-risk" levels (> 30 ng/mL), you need to either have a lot of sun exposure or supplement with 4000 IU daily, which is considered the "safe upper limit".

Getting there takes a while though, so if you are at a lower level, you can take a much larger dose for a few days - ask your doctor about that.

</comment><comment><USER3> This leads me to several points:

1\. What if AUS and NZ are doing fairly well because their population just megadosed on vitamin D as they just had their summer. 2\. The same could be said for sunny california, but to a lesser extent 2\. What if this is the reason why African Americans are particularly hard hit. Americans are typically Vitamin D deficient. Blacks, especially so. 3\. What if closing the beaches is will make this worse, not better.

</comment><comment><USER4> This makes me think of the vitamin d deficiency caused by air pollution, which has also been mentioned as a factor for speculations of high mortality rates with covid 19</comment>