The Original iPhone Was A Flop - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/2009/12/14/the-original-iphone-was-a-flop/

<comment><USER2> Is our memory really this short? The original iPhone was frequently sold out for months, and sold a million units in the 2.5 months before the first price cut. They lowered the price as soon as their manufacturing could meet the increased demand.

(I left a more detailed comment on the post itself.)

<comment><USER3> Completely agree, this article has it all wrong.

"Originally the unit wasn't selling well at all. So Apple dropped the price a few weeks after it launched, pissing off the early adopters of course. Why? Because me and Steve Ballmer were correct."

Matt Maroon and Ballmer were both Wrong. The reason the apple was so expensive at first was to create hype and make people want it. And it worked.

Steve Jobs had already written his apology letter about the price before the early adopters bought the thing. This was all planned. The iPhone's price was part of the appeal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The post seems contrary to reality; there's a difference between 'expensive' and 'overpriced.' The Playstatiion 3 was overpriced -- great pyramids of them sat untouched in electronics stores at launch and after.

The iPhone was expensive, but not overpriced. The launch-day lines could be pout down to hype, but there was also a months-long scarcity where Apple was selling them as fast as they could build them.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This illustrates the importance of iteration.</comment>


Ask YC: Any one uses SoftLayer? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone uses SoftLayer as host?
Good, bad?
What other recommendations?
Is there a search system on news.YC?
 Gracias. <comment><USER2> Two YC-funded companies are currently hosted at SoftLayer: anywhere.fm and scribd.com.

For information about hosting companies, the canonical reference is www.webhostingtalk.com.

</comment><comment><USER3> there is a universal search system ;-)

[http://www.google.com/search?q=SoftLayer+site:ycombinator.co...](http://www.google.com/search?q=SoftLayer+site:ycombinator.com)</comment>


Ask HN: What's your reaction if MS made GitHub stats available to recruiters? - <AUTHOR> Before I could login to GitHub today, I had to check some features they are trying to sell, and there's more distracting links than usual I feel, since the news of acquisition.
As Microsoft now owns LinkedIn and GitHub, I have a feeling that they will provide an opt-in way of signaling your productivity to Recruiters - finally monetising that green dot chart on your profile.
What's the community's feelings on such a possibility? <comment><USER2> That green dot chart on your profile is trivial to fake:

[https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti](https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti)

<comment><AUTHOR> True... this would be a major barrier in convincing tech teams to take it seriously. Still, there's a potential of this being used (recruiters may not care), and they could make it a T.O.S violation to do that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Putting a GitHub link in our resume/profile is already a way for us to low key monetize that chart, and how many repos we have, and how many stars we have. Turning that link into a widget that says "Very active in $FOO, $BAR, and $BAZ" would probably be helpful when bargaining for a raise or discussing your base salary at $NEW_EMPLOYER.

It already works like that on Stack Overflow Careers and, indeed, being in the top 0.1% on a couple of specific tags happens to be quite the shortcut.

<comment><AUTHOR> That last statement is super interesting! One that I "knew" but didn't really think about before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First opt-in, then opt-out, our-way-or-the-highway next. As usual. Fortunately, emigrating from Github is not entirely hard, _if_ that were to happen. (Yes, I feel the need for a disclaimer "this is all speculative"; alas)

<comment><USER5> Moving a git repo is easy, but have you found any "not entirely hard" way to export Issues from GitHub? All I've found so far is essentially "here's an API, build it yourself".

<comment><USER6> If you're relying on issues for documentation, I would suggest you are misusing that tool and should focus on writing good documentation instead.

If you aren't relying on issues for documentation, what of value is being lost?

<comment><USER7> You have a history of the discussion about how the problem was solved, right? That is pretty valuable, should something similar come up again.

<comment><USER6> Why wouldn't that be in commit messages, documentation, or a FAQ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's just yet another way desperate uninformed recruiters will find me and unsuccessfully attempt to recruit me. Sadly, none of them send me an Oculus like they did for Gilfoyle.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't use GitLab, but I would love to have any publicly known metric to get good jobs -- because then I can code myself a minivan, by hacking the metrics.

</comment><comment><USER9> I do not use GitHub for any of my own projects. (And I have not seen any such distracting links; maybe they are only visible if you login)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, possible. I couldn't login until I clicked through to read the marketing about Features on this particular instance (not browse anything else - maybe I was a target of A/B testing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Already public info? Indifferent. It's already scraped (and then leaked) by so many parties as is.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't use github, so it would put me at a disadvantage.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd stop using github</comment>


Peace for Triple Piano - <AUTHOR> http://vihart.com/peace-for-triple-piano/ <comment><USER2> The explanation of how the video was made [0] was fantastic! It goes into the insane math behind everything and Vi even makes little physical models showing how the objects move through space and time... Definitely worth a watch!

[0]: [https://youtu.be/x1zJoU6Luss](https://youtu.be/x1zJoU6Luss)

</comment><comment><USER3> I went straight to the video and was confused at first not realizing it was a 360° video. Make sure to drag around while watching for the full effect!

<comment><USER4> Ah, thanks for pointing this out. This helped a lot.

Am I understanding correctly that she only recorded a single video, and spliced it together 3 times?

<comment><USER5> Yes, if I'm understanding the making video correctly, it's three different time sections of the same video at once, timeshifted equally, with the three views also slowly rotating around the sphere (more like a cylinder) over time, which keeps the three edges seamless as long as you plan your movements carefully. And a bit of editing to correct issues.

<comment><USER6> > more like a cylinder

Or a "sphube," according to the making-of video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> With >$7500 per month rolling in[1], I doubt she has to starve very much, or at least I hope so. Amazing that she has managed to get that far! Way to go Vi.

[1] [https://www.patreon.com/vihart](https://www.patreon.com/vihart)

<comment><USER8> I don't know if that's as much as you think it is. Vi's actually pretty forward with what some of those costs are on her Patreon page there, and in calling the goal of $10,000 "sustainability". If I were to throw some very rough numbers, I'd guess at 10% of that going to payment processing (iirc, Patreon takes 5%, paypal/stripe would be at 3-5%?), which would leave 81,000/yr. 24,000 to tax, and we're down to 4,750/mo.

Internet, piano loan, and rent are 2,650 as per Vi's Patreon pledge amounts. So, 2,100/mo for the rest of life's costs (and if you're not used to seeing the cost, remember that health insurance is not cheap in the US), as well as the costs of material and equipment for her work. I'll point out that "sustainability" as her Patreon goal still involves counting on Amazon wishlist gifts to provide the equipment she wants/needs, and this is before we talk about savings or other such adult things.

It's great that she's getting Patreon income (and probably Youtube ad income)! I really would love to see amazing creators supported in such a way more often. We should just be careful when reading the Patreon top line number that we don't compare it to our bottom line on a pay stub.

<comment><USER9> Patreon donations are taxed?

<comment><USER10> They're income like everything else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Vi Hart is like all the Tenenbaum children rolled into one. So much talent!

<comment><USER12> It's been years since I read, "Family of Geniuses". I agree - Vi Hart could be the other "adopted daughter".

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Watch the "making of" video! So much hard work!

<comment><USER14> My favorite phrase from the making-of video: "time sphube"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hey! If you like 3D audio and video music projects check out this awesome project called Smart Concert: [http://patrickfedigan.xyz/smartconcert.html](http://patrickfedigan.xyz/smartconcert.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> Worth pulling out the Google Cardboard (or fancier VR device) for this video.

It's pretty disorienting to turn around and see/hear her behind you. I spent a few minutes confusing turning 120 degrees for turning 180 degrees. I though she pulled some crazy hexaflexagon style trick in the video, since it took me 3 "about face" turns to get back to my original position.

</comment><comment><USER17> Very nice! Reminiscent of Michael Gondry, on what must be a minuscule fraction of the budget. Compare with Gondry's "Come Into My World": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63vqob- MljQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63vqob-MljQ)

<comment><USER18> He took it to the next level on the "Let Forever Be" video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5FyfQDO5g0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5FyfQDO5g0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was hoping for a very quiet "ppp" piece of music, maybe some science or just curious insight behind pianissimo. I figured "peace" only re-iterated the quietness sought after.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is it spelled "Peace" deliberately or is that a typo?

<comment><USER21> Pacem == Peace, the main lyrics are Dona Nobis Pacem

<comment><USER20> Thank you, I hadn't paid attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is incredibly well made!

</comment><comment><USER23> Anybody know what camera was used to film this?

<comment><USER24> Ricoh Theta ([https://theta360.com/en/about/theta/](https://theta360.com/en/about/theta/))

It was briefly mentioned in the making-of video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> From Vi Hart's FAQ

Q: How do you pronounce "Vi"? A: Usually "Vi" rhymes with "Hi", but the non- English pronunciation is often like "Vee," and I consider that also correct. I will also answer to "Six" and "Not-Emacs".

<comment><USER6> I'm also enjoying reading the FAQ. My favorite part:

> Q: You should make a video about…

> A: Nope! You should make that video!</comment></comment>


What Could Raising Taxes on the 1% Do? Surprising Amounts - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/business/putting-numbers-to-a-tax-increase-for-the-rich.html <comment><USER2> _Epistemic status: wildly overconfident. "If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!"_

This is naive on two counts. You can't raise taxes without affecting people's behaviour. If someone's tax burden goes from 35% to 45%, they'll put more effort into avoiding taxes, and you're not going to see the increase that the obvious calculation says you will.

But let's ignore that for now. The highest number here is $276 billion. That's a bit less than 10% of the $3 trillion tax receipts collected in 2014. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Major_receipt_categories)

That's a significant amount, but it's not really earth shattering unless you can use it effectively. And if you can use it effectively, you probably could have used the previous $3t effectively as well.

In reality, when you collect an extra $X billion, you don't get to go "oh great, we can spend $Y billion of that on paying for college tuition, $Z billion on a child tax credit, and the rest can reduce the national debt". What actually happens is the same thing that happened to the rest of your money. It goes to the military, it goes to subsidies for entrenched interests, it goes to pork barrels, and a fraction of it goes to actually improving things.

What could an extra $276 billion do? Surprisingly little.

<comment><USER3> This is exactly the problem. I would be happy paying an extra 10% in taxes if the money was spent efficiently. But so much of it is wasted (and ends up back in the hands of ''the 1%'' ironically). After what I've seen I trust wealthy individuals to invest that extra 10% into efforts that benefit society much more than I trust the government. I think we'd be better off if we lowered income taxes, raised property taxes, and raised the death tax in % terms (and eliminated the perpetual trust loophole). But instead there will be a circus show as politicians argue over the Federal rate (already effectively at 43.4% for ''the rich'').

<comment><USER4> I was with you up until this part:

> I trust wealthy individuals to invest that extra 10% into efforts that > benefit society much more than I trust the government.

Those wealthy individuals can, in general, be trusted to do things that benefit themselves. Corruption be as it may, the government is still in the business of the greater good, however imperfect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This needs to happen.

Not only do removing tuition fees or enacting universal healthcare remove systemic inequalities, they actually make everyone wealthier. We will have a stronger economy if we take care of the social infrastructure we need. These measures lead to growth.

Imagine a world where a startup entrepreneur doesn't have to be terrified of their health insurance status - it's the same one where a working class family isn't bankrupted by illness. Imagine a more highly educated workforce with more potential hires domestically - it's the same one where a high school graduate can afford to be the first person in their family to get an education. The things that help the poorest in society help all of us. Even if you don't care about what happens to poorer members of your community, you can rest easy in the knowledge that these things benefit _you_. Social infrastructure works.

The _only_ detrimental effect this would have is that the very richest people don't get to keep quite as much money, on the face of it. But they would make more money overall.

I would like to see a fairer America, where more people have opportunities, and fewer people are living harsh poverty conditions. It's exciting to see these topics finally get the air time they deserve.

<comment><USER6> You want to see a "fairer America" fueled by a discriminatory taxation policy. I hope this irony does not escape you.

If your goal is truly to see fewer people living in harsh poverty conditions, an absolutely noble goal, let the free market be. Capitalism will (and has, see the extreme poverty figures) bring far more people out of poverty than any bureaucrat could ever hope to.

<comment><USER5> That's a very libertarian point of view. Has it been shown to work in practice over an extended time? I know that in the US growth was stronger with higher taxation.

I don't believe progressive taxation is discriminatory. The more you earn, the more the marginal utility of each additional dollar you earn is reduced. Progressive taxation recognizes this, and therefore eases survival burdens on lower income workers - who are necessary for any capitalist economy to function - while continuing to allow higher earners to become wealthy. It's a good system.

<comment><USER6> I understand your point, but I think you're being too abstract. End of the day, someone is being taxed (fined by the government) more than another, simply because they are wealthier. That doesn't sit right with me.

As far as growth being stronger with higher tax rates, I assume you're talking about post ww2 era? If so, then I think that was probably more to do with the fact that the rest of the world was destroyed rather than due to our tax code.

<comment><USER7> _As far as growth being stronger with higher tax rates, I assume you 're talking about post ww2 era? If so, then I think that was probably more to do with the fact that the rest of the world was destroyed rather than due to our tax code._

And it was a short lived thing, by the mid-late '50s things were sputtering, and the top tax rate was 91% ("We like Ike?"). JFK-LBJ reduced that to 77% ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1964](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1964)) to great economic effects (unfortunately, the increased tax revenues were not so much that LBJ couldn't do a guns and butter budget that almost bankrupted the nation, leading to a decade and a half of malaise).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One reason why the 1% pay less taxes is b/c they make their money on investments rather than income. The yearly capital gains tax (tax on investment gains) is ~15% while income tax in that bracket is 30-40%. Those in the 99% pay somewhere between 10-28% income tax. So it would seem obvious that we should simply raise capital gains tax to 30-40%. However, investments and income are not equivalent. Making an investment is correlated with a certain amount of risk. For example an investment in a General Motors corporate bond has a risk of default (very apparent in 2008). So if we raise taxes on investment gains, we dis-incetivize investment activity (b/c it therefore lowers expected gains). So it makes places like GM less able to finance things like payroll or build factories that employ regular people.

I'm not saying we should or should not raise taxes on 1%'ers. But we should keep in mind that there is no free lunch. What we do has unintended consequences that we should keep in mind.

<comment><USER9> It is not true that raising taxes on investment gains disincentives investment.

If you start taxing investments more, it's not like the rich will suddenly stop investing. You should hear Warren Buffet talk about this. No rich person is going to go like "Well... I could make money on this, but not going to do it because the state is going to tax it..." This is something that happens only in abstract economic models, not in the real world.

In fact, if you raise taxes rich people may be incentivized to work harder to find better investments with higher gains.

<comment><USER7> _No rich person is going to go like "Well... I could make money on this, but not going to do it because the state is going to tax it..."_

 _Utter_ bullshit, which has been reflected in actual US investment history since the Capital Strike of 1937. The perception of fairness goes both ways, you know.

Not to mention reflected in my father's (and others') economic behavior as the Reagan tax _rate_ cuts took effect, and they put much less effort into sheltering income from very high tax rates (generally, something with a net vector sum of zero) and focused more on just, you know, running good businesses.

Then there's the minor detail that a tax increase can turn a profitable investment into a loss. The constant chaos of changing tax rates, or at least serious proposals to do so, also changes the nature of investments, for example favoring quick gains before the government might ruin it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's beyond naive to expect American politicians to do anything remotely responsible with increased tax revenue. There are countless examples throughout recent and age-old history that show what happens when you give government money to spend like drunken sailors but we don't ever seem to learn from any of them.

And if Hillary Clinton was serious about any of this, she would return donations from all of these people.

</comment><comment><USER11> > That would more than cover, for example, the estimated $47 billion cost of > eliminating undergraduate tuition at all the country's four-year public > colleges and universities, as Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed

I would be in favor of this proposal if it could be demonstrated that college costs could actually stay somewhat stable (i.e. not increase faster than inflation) for even a relatively short period of time. Otherwise the cost of this could spiral out of control in short order.

</comment><comment><USER12> There seems to be quite a bit of FUD and a lot of apparent guessing in these comments. Regardless of politics, are there any studies or evidence to back up or even discount any of these claims?

How does one separate the politics from the rest?

</comment><comment> another-one-off The idea of a 'fair share' isn't so important here, because the numbers are huge and have to come from somewhere. It isn't like $100 billion sits under a mattress, it will already be out in the economy, invested in something.

Raising tax is one part of the people getting what they need. The other questions that are just as important are how to provide services as cost effectively as possible and is it worth the loss of investment in the economy. Also maybe is existing investment channeled effectively by the existing tax structures.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think a reasonable metaphor for thinking about this issue is to consider a grocery store, where is aisle represents a different kind of income and each store represents a different country. If prices get too high in one aisle, shoppers that spend a lot of time in that aisle will switch stores if they can afford the drive. It seems like both people and politicians tend to focus on the "earned income" aisle because that's what people are familiar with. That serves as a nice area for politicking because they can "tax the wealthy" without actually hitting the real donors in any meaningful way since most of their income comes from other sources. At the same time corporations and high net worth individuals are more than capable of leaving, hence the double- irish, etc. If they go, tax revenues go to 0 rather than small, so it would seem to be in the strategic interest of the United States government (assuming we want to maximize revenue which is probably not the goal but will work for this purpose) to be the lowest tax domicile for that kind of income, but just barely. That way we attract wealthy individuals but still "extract" the maximum feasible wealth from them. I really don't like the adversarial nature of this kind of thinking, but you have to at least admit that people are corporations do venue shop. If that's not brought up at all, someone's being naiive, or more likely, disingenuous.

</comment><comment><USER14> Because its america - there is a chance it might work.

But the reality is capital flees whenever a country tries to impose higher taxes.

The solution is a global taxing regime - something that Thomas Picketty advocated.

Taxes fundamentally is an business expense - and likes all business expenses companies will try to reduce it as much as they can - naturally due to the freedom of the market - companies that do not have to pay higher taxes will produce cheaper goods while maintaining quality and destroying their competition.

Its a prisoner's dilemma problem. With countries playing off each other to welcome businesses in their countries - the UK, US, etc.

The solution is for all countries to co-operate and create a global system to keep a close eye on the flow of capital. A change in america might actually lead to it, since america is good at bullying other countries to get its way.

Btw the same thing happened with China - its not that the Chinese are somehow inherently more capable - its just that they did not have the same level of obligation to their workers - health, pension, etc - as industrialized nations.

This is why its important to create a even and common playing field before talking about the "magic of the free market".

</comment><comment><USER6> Not entirely related, but progressive taxation schemes make me extremely uncomfortable. It's a shame so many people want to continue even farther down the rabbit hole.

<comment><USER15> Why? I think progressive taxes are the price you pay for living in a civilized society.

I see paying a high taxes as a privilege since I still get to keep much more then less fortunate, less talented, or lazier people. I say this as someone who is living in Europe, where I'm paying almost 50% of my income to taxes.

<comment><USER6> It's discriminatory. It doesn't treat people fairly under the law.

But it also really bothers me that it's just so arbitrary. I can't imagine the arrogance necessary to think that you know how much to tax a certain segment of society relative to another.

<comment><USER16> _" It's discriminatory. It doesn't treat people fairly under the law."_

"Fairly" is begging the question.

"Discriminatory" isn't necessarily a bad thing, and needs to be further refined if it's going to be meaningful. Progressive taxation (in isolation) does not discriminate between people. It discriminates between dollars. My first dollar is taxed the same as your first dollar; my ten thousandth dollar is taxed the same as your ten thousandth dollar; my millionth dollar is taxed the same as your millionth dollar. It is true that my millionth dollar is taxed differently from my first dollar, and that is discrimination between dollars, but generally people don't hold "equal treatment of dollars" as a moral principle.

 _" I can't imagine the arrogance necessary to think that you know how much to tax a certain segment of society relative to another."_

Roughly the same arrogance necessary to think you know how much to tax in the first place, or really any other decision making on that level.

<comment><USER17> God bless you sir for using "begging the question" correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No idea why we're still not doing this.

Just tell the 1% that if they want the government to provide them security from the marauding masses (we're getting there), they need to pay up their fair share.

<comment><USER18> Because then the 1% moves all of its money to a tax haven and invests it somewhere where the margins are thicker.

<comment><USER9> It's not like the US can't legislate against that. Just need a couple of more pen strokes to stop that from being a possibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> No, just no. Taxation (of individuals at least ) is theft. If one person puts a gun in your face, or threatens to, and demands your money, you would have no problem seeing it so. But because of the societal construct we call "government" some people are deluded into believing that "many men with guns" have some innate authority that "one man with a gun" lacks. But being robbed by many men is no less robbery than being robbed by an individual.

Now, if you want to talk about corporate taxes, that's a somewhat different story. Corporations owe their existence to the State (whether they should exist or not is a separate question) and since they derive benefits from the special status granted to them by the State, I can see a reasoned argument that they should pay for that special status. Of course there are potential, negative, unintended consequences to raising corporate taxes, but the concept is more palatable than the individual income tax (which needs to be completely eliminated).

<comment><USER20> > Taxation (of individuals at least ) is theft. If one person puts a gun in > your face, or threatens to, and demands your money, you would have no > problem seeing it so.

Property is a fiction made reality by government. Society agrees to let individuals have exclusive access to particular resources based on a system of rules. One of those rules is that people pay taxes. It is not "theft", because it's part of the property system. I could just as well insist the car in your drive is "mine" and call it "theft" when you try to drive it.

Presumably you have absolutely no issue with the government putting guns in other people's faces to stop them using "your" stuff. So don't complain when they try to stop you hoarding "their" stuff.

If you would prefer a different set of rules, then you're free to try and enforce them yourself.

<comment><USER19> _Society agrees to let individuals have exclusive access to particular resources based on a system of rules._

That's close, but you're missing an essential point. To the extent that we can speak about "society" in an general sense, it would be more accurate to say that "society agrees to help you defend your property rights if you play by their rules". That doesn't mean that property is a fiction that requires government or society. And by the same token, there's no reason you couldn't construct a system where everybody helps everybody else defend their property simply in terms of "mutual aid". Taxation is not an inherent property of all systems for defending property. In fact, I will continue to argue that taxation is inherently inimical to the idea of property.

<comment><USER20> >there's no reason you couldn't construct a system where everybody helps everybody else defend their property simply in terms of "mutual aid".

Are there penalties for not providing this "mutual aid"? If so, you're just describing a highly localised tax system.

EDIT: And if not, I think you might find your system struggles in the presence of noticeable inequality. (Why should we protect the rich guy's stuff?)

> Taxation is not an inherent property of all systems for defending property.

Of course not, but it is a feature of pretty much all existing such systems.

>In fact, I will continue to argue that taxation is inherently inimical to the idea of property.

I believe a property system will inevitably trend towards inequality over time, because those with more money have more power, and thus greater opportunity to earn more money. Inequality makes the system less efficient at utility generation, because it diverts production towards more marginal utility improvements. In order to avoid this, you need some system of wealth redistribution.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Protocol Misidentification Made Easy with Format-Transforming Encryption - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/redjack/FTE

<comment><USER2> What looks like a related paper can be found here: [http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/494.pdf](http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/494.pdf)

(I don't see this linked in the repo.)

<comment><AUTHOR> More contest from the tor-dev announcement. Not sure why they don't have the paper in the repo:

 _The latest version of our paper is available on the Cryptology ePrint Archive [4]. In the paper we describe our framework and provide a comprehensive security evaluation of FTE 's success in evading six DPI systems --- including using regular expressions from open-source DPI systems to evade detection by a closed-source black-box commercial DPI system. By "evade" we mean that it's easy for FTE to tunnel arbitrary TCP streams (e.g., Tor) such that they are (mis)classified by DPI systems as a configurable target protocol (e.g., HTTP, SMB, RTSP, etc.) of one's choosing.

We release FTE in its alpha stage because we believe it is well positioned to evade the suspected protocol white-listing [5] recently reported in Iran. More generally, we're optimistic FTE has long-term potential as a tool to enable users to control how their traffic is classified by passive DPI systems. As one example, over the last month, we've successfully tunneled Tor through the Great Firewall of China, using FTE to make our traffic "look like" HTTP.

We're eager for feedback on this alpha release, so please do not hesitate to contact us with questions.

-Kevin P Dyer (and his co-authors)

[4] [http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/494](http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/494) [5] [https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- dev/2013-May/0047...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- dev/2013-May/004787.html) _</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I don't trust welding - <AUTHOR> I see so much quick welding on TV shows these days (cars, motorcycle shows) but not being an engineer I just can't trust the weld to hold.<p>What's the math? <comment><USER2> Actual welding is very, very strong. I think the "as seen on TV" aluminum "welding" products are actually doing something called _brazing_.

Brazing is not as strong as it doesn't melt 2 pieces of metal together. Instead, it more or less "glues" them together with a different, lower melting point metal/alloy.

It is easily possible to make bad welds so if you don't know what you are doing, bolted construction would probably safer.

Example: suppose you wanted to add a roll bar to you car for track days. If you welded it in and didn't know what you were doing, you could change the characteristics of the car metal close to the weld such that it would become brittle. In an accident, the roll bar would just punch through the sheet metal.

</comment><comment><USER3> If they are certified, welders have taken a test that uses x-ray to determine if they are a good welder. You could have your own welds tested....might ease your mind a bit. [https://goo.gl/jrECSv](https://goo.gl/jrECSv)

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's the math: [http://web.itu.edu.tr/~halit/Makel/Ch_9_slides_m.pdf](http://web.itu.edu.tr/~halit/Makel/Ch_9_slides_m.pdf)

The PDF is an excerpt from Shingley's mechanical engineering design textbook. It's is considered to be one of the Mech E bibles. If you like buying random interesting books, buy it.

Food for thought: Most welding applications that "normal" people would do would experience forces that range from 1lb to 2000lbs. (This a bad assumption, but whatever) If you actually do the math, it's even a small weld bead would have the strength of several hundred pounds force.

Another general rule of thumb is that the base material will fail before the actual weld, if done properly.

The easiest way to mitigate the risk, is to weld the entire seam, but you risking warping your part.

The other thing is making sure you have full weld penetration when doing the weld. Penetration is affected by a multitude of parameters(amps, speed, technique), easy way to check is to look at the backside of the weld. Harder way is too cut a cross section at the weld. Or if you're going to ball hard. X-ray it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's how engineers thinking about welding joints: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZiEoN8tYvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZiEoN8tYvI)

You'll note in those calculations that he assumes that the weld is basically the same as the base metal. As long as the weld is performed properly, the assumptions should hold to within a factor of safety.

For the relatively thin material used in cars and motorcycles, it doesn't take very long for the metal to melt all the way through in a single spot, so very strong welds can be created quickly. Further, between the skill of the fabricators and editing for TV, it is hard for someone without familiarity with welding to know what all is going into a joint just by watching the footage after.

Do you have a specific show in mind?

</comment><comment><USER6> There are always rivets, nuts and bolts and other such fasteners. Products can be composed of interlocking parts (slid into place and then locked) so that stresses are dispersed w/o welding.

But perhaps a talk with someone who is or has been a welder might best boost your confidence.</comment>


Root privileges through Linux kernel bug  - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Root-privileges-through-Linux-kernel-bug-Update-1061563.html <comment><USER2> This is not really a kernel bug. The exploit exhausts the address space of Xorg (which is already running as root) to make it possible to write to its stack using a shared memory segment. While the kernel can help prevent this kind of issues by simply denying to map a page from the top of stack segment, it's still an Xorg's problem that it allows to exhausts its address space. In that state an attacker has much higher chances of making the process do desired memory writes and using shared memory segments is not the only option (as described in the original article this post links to).

</comment><comment><USER3> Debian:

Stable (2.6.26) updated it's kernel today, and this fix was included.

Experimental (2.6.35) updated yesterday with this fix.

Testing/Unstable (2.6.32) has not updated yet.</comment>


Coronavirus testing using binary search method - <AUTHOR> Would getting fluid samples from 2 groups of say 50 people, combining the samples and testing that, then keep halving and testing recursively the groups  that return positive, be a viable way of testing large sums of people with far fewer tests than individual person by person tests.
I'm not very familiar with all the tests run, but surely something like this could be applied to the antibody one?
Would love to hear if anyone with more knowledge of the testing process and capabilities could give their thoughts... <comment><USER2> Yes. There are a whole lot of approaches that are far more efficient way of doing pooled tests.

There have been around half a dozen pre-print papers published on this concept in the COVID-19 section of biorxiv in the past couple of weeks [0].

0\. [https://connect.biorxiv.org/relate/content/181](https://connect.biorxiv.org/relate/content/181)

</comment><comment><USER3> Testing in the US is a waste of time because of our lack of coordination, and the very contagious nature of corona.

What point is there in testing somebody if they can catch it on the next trip to the grocery store? Do you test them after every grocery run?

Let nature run its course, like every other flu season.

<comment><USER4> This kills considerably more people than the flu, please stop making the comparison.</comment></comment>


Aaron Wall: Is SEO Science or Art? - <AUTHOR> http://www.seobook.com/seo-science-or-art <comment><USER2> According to the article, it appears to be war.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was before this proclamation.

This is a very important warning for all new to the game. And a waking bell for the rest.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: At what point did you just start working on a prototype? - <AUTHOR>

I'm ready to quit and move to another job but I started to think about a prototype for an idea I have. I've worked on it off and on, and maybe I should try to carry it as far as I reasonably can. It'd be nice to have a change of pace.<p>Do I just quit one day and then start work on it? Will it sound OK to employers in silicon valley if I took 3-6 months off to work on it and had nothing to show for it? <comment><USER2> If you have some savings and are passionate about it: Why not? I have done the same thing. Is it a success? Well, from an experience side it very much is, financial or carreer: Don't know yet.

Two things I would advice: \- Give yourself somekind of milestone and target date to help keep focus (for instance, working prototype and share with 10 bloggers in 2 months) \- Get out there: Go to meetups, etc. Not to sell your thing, but to meet people and when they ask share your idea, progress, experiences and see what questions and advice/ideas they have.

Good luck: It can be awesome!

</comment><comment><USER3> Prototype can be as small as Wireframes, Product Specs, HTML mockups. You dont need to change/leave your job to do that.

If you have been living with the idea for few weeks/months are also very passionate about it. Three four nights or weekends are sufficient to start with the sketches and wireframes.

Once you have it ready, show it to few friends, industry experts you know and iterate until you will confident to take the next plunge. Because after that there is no going back.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps my definition of prototype is wrong. I'm working towards a decent 1.0 version with very basic functionality that people might use.

I used to think that having a prototype was enough but now I hear that is not enough to talk to investors or people. I dunno.

<comment><USER3> Why don't you outsource some of the work. At least version 0.1 - you will get a working prototype and market validation as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps but I think I would want to keep something like that close to my heart, not because I'm paranoid but because I really want to learn the code behind it so I know what's going on.

Besides, it's using technology I'm not used to and I need all the practice I can get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't do it - unless you can find customers first. Read: [http://blog.bufferapp.com/idea-to-paying-customers- in-7-week...](http://blog.bufferapp.com/idea-to-paying-customers-in-7-weeks- how-we-did-it)

</comment><comment><USER5> But you would have something to show for it. You'd have gained the experience of actually doing it. And you'd be showing good decision making skills ;-)</comment>


What I expect From Apple Tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewmachado.com/blog/what-i-expect-from-apple-tomorrow/

<comment><USER2> Yea, I'm hoping for some nice video features.</comment>


The Surprising Benefits of Dogfooding - <AUTHOR> http://blog.blogic.com/the-surprising-benefits-of-dogfooding

<comment><USER2> > OrangeSlyce, my last startup, developed a marketplace where small business > owners could browse and hire local graphic design students for freelance > projects. I did not regularly use OrangeSlyce, ... Had these problems been > spotted earlier, maybe OrangeSlyce would have ended up a different and more > successful service.

> From this comes our first surprising lesson: Dogfooding may be the ultimate > form of customer feedback. Surveys, GetSatisfaction/Uservoice, usage > statistics – all fine ways to peer into people's heads. But using your own > product is like mind-melding with a motivated user. It's instant feedback.

Dogfooding is usually seen as evidence that someone believes in their product. But as this article shows, the more practical part of dogfooding is that the product has benefited from some of the best possible feedback. It's better stewardship.</comment>


Streaming Data Analytics – Big Data Streaming Analytics - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Business seems to move faster by the day, with the most cutting edge companies taking advantage of streaming data analytics for heavy duty analytics. But with so much innovation happening in so many places, how can companies stay ahead of the game. For More info: www.streamanalytix.com</comment>


Ask HN: How do I clean a Laptop from a previous setup by a Law Firm - <AUTHOR> Hi,
My wife left an old firm that had a tech guy setup the entire look an feel of the OS to the Law Firm style.
I am looking for resources how to clean the laptop entirely without leaving anything that can get the firm access to my wife's laptop in the future.
I had the access to see exactly what the tech guy was doing since I had the laptop next to me and he had remoted in to do the changes.
Where can I go to learn how to make sure the laptop is clean without the complete wipe.
Thank you for everyone's input. <comment><USER2> I know you said "without a complete wipe," but that's honestly the best approach. Drag all documents and files to an external drive, take note of all programs your wife still wants on the computer, then clean install the OS. After, drag all files back from the external drive and reinstall all programs you made note of. That guarantees a clean slate.

Otherwise, you'll have to go through the OS and attempt to uninstall anything that appears to be installed by the law firm, but usually you'll leave behind small trace files and things that might keep them up and running.

<comment><AUTHOR> traviswingo,

That is my concern that there might be some traces left behind. I agree with anyone that will suggest a clean wipe but at this time I don't have that time allocated as my wife is in the middle of a few cases.

However, once I will get laptop for a longer duration, my goal is to do a complete wipe and re-install.

Thank you for your response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Make a system restore backup, and preferably a full disk image backup, in case the below screws something up. Run it overnight on the weekend, to an external hd enclosure.

Any programs she is using with keys from the Law Firm. Look up how to export settings and how to change product keys.

This is the most potentially problematic thing that could bork you if it resets stuff she needs, but you can always restore from your full disk backup.

Change the styling

See [http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/how-can-i-restore-my- window...](http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/how-can-i-restore-my- windows-7-theme/)

Remove unneeded programs.

go to control panel, add remove programs, and remove any programs that your wife doesn't need.

Reset and turn on the windows firewall

[https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ff428142(v=ws.10...](https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ff428142\(v=ws.10\).aspx)

</comment><comment><USER4> There's a network and system activity monitoring tool called GlassWire[1] with good visualizations and intuitive reports. When it was first shown here couple of years ago [2], I was very impressed. I don't use Windows anymore but hopefully the tool's still as good and maintained well. Maybe you can run it for a few weeks to either convince yourself there's no mischief from the old firm, or take more targeted actions.

[1]: [https://www.glasswire.com/](https://www.glasswire.com/)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8222652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8222652)

<comment><AUTHOR> lovelearning,

I am going to give this a try. Thank you for the share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just buy a new laptop. Disable the network card on the old laptop, and transfer the files via usb.

It will probably cost you $2000 tops with all of the software, etc. The cost of wiping the old one will be much greater considering the amount of time it is going to take to make sure everything is off of the old laptop and the risk of missing something.

You mentioned that she doesn't want to lose all of the software on the laptop. Does she own the license for the software or is that property of her old firm?

<comment><AUTHOR> jklein11,

Thank you for your response and advice. Yes, she owns the license as well as the new firm she joined has purchased the software they use. She doesn't want to go through re-installing and asking for the software again because of the time crunch she is in.

The suggestion in buying a new laptop at this time is not an expense we can take on. I will have to think of something else as the clean wipe is the only way to do it I guess.

Thank you.

<comment><USER5> If this is a temporary solution you could use the laptop with the network card disabled.

If this isn't a license issue the price of replacing the laptop would be way less. The model you mentioned previously sells brand new for $900 or less. I saw some refurbished models for ~$300.

Is her new firm providing her with a laptop? It strikes me as odd that law firms have a BYOD policy when the data that is stored on them is sensitive and proprietary

<comment><AUTHOR> jklein11,

The purchase of the laptop when bought new was over $2K. My wife is frugal and won't spend more money on another "new" or "refurb" computer.

Licensing is not an issue. It's the scarce time and how busy my wife is that I can't wipe and re-load.

But, reading everyone's comments the best way is to wipe. I will provide that option to my wife and proceed when I can to wipe and re-install.

Thank you for your response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's far wiser to get an official, new copy of whatever OS you prefer. And then install that OS.

<comment><AUTHOR> The laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad T450S that has a built in recovery partition with the original Windows 7 OS.

The issue at hand is that she doesn't want to lose all the software nor does she have the time to go through the complete clean up.

I would rather at this time be able to do a clean sweep and then when i will have more time to do a complete overhaul.

Thank you for your response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Make a system of restore for backup</comment>


Ask HN: Experienced devs getting a new job using a new language? - <AUTHOR> I'm sure many of us have a fear of using the same stack for years and years and becoming obsolete.
For those of you that have been in tech for 10+ years, how was it like to stay at a company for many years and get a job in a new company that uses a different language? (e.g. switching Java to Go, switching C++ to Java, etc).
What was it like both in terms of interviewing and once on the job?  How painful/pleasant was it to spend a long time in one language and have to start again in a new one with a bunch of 25 yr olds? <comment><USER2> A few years ago, I took a job temporarily running a struggling engineering team at a startup. Since it was a startup with client deadlines, I had to work on code. It was a totally new language and new stack.

As someone who had been coding professionally for 10 years, I was far more productive than everyone else on the team (measured by how buggy my code was and how well I turned specs into code). The next-most-experienced coder had about 4 years of experience in a large enterprise environment, which required a lot of coaching and re-learning.

My point is that you can Google your way through the specifics of a lot of languages, but your most valuable experience and skills will work across stacks.

This is actually the reason I never make prior experience with a language, stack, or framework part of a full-time job description. For temporary contract work, I'll be hyper-specific, but if someone is part of the company long-term, I just need to know that they have all the skills that are related to working on a team, understanding tradeoffs, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm 4 months into a new job.

I was a C# dev. Now I am a Java dev.

The hardest part isn't the language. Once you know a couple, picking up a language is easy.

The hardest part is learning new frameworks and new tool chains.

Interviewing wasn't difficult. Any company worth a damn won't ask you language-specific questions.

Working with a new team is pretty nice. It's humbling being the new guy. It feels nice knowing that there's a whole new mountain of information to learn, and knowing that I've conquered previous mountains makes this one feel surmountable.</comment>


Play this game for 20 minutes - learn about concurrency - <AUTHOR> http://scarybuggames.com/2008/05/chronotron

<comment><USER2> This game is pretty awesome. You can actually get yourself into a paradox, in which case, a big Paradox warning sign comes up reminding you to be careful with causality.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> You have to play through level seven to appreciate my point -- fork-and-exec is basic Level One stuff but you need to play for a bit to appreciate the full horror of shared-resource contention.

<comment><USER3> I want to create another instance of myself so it can play this game all day while the other one works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> (shameless plug) - If you are an achievement addict try it on my site - <http://www.kongregate.com/games/Scarybug/chronotron>

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm stuck on level 15. I found the key is to alter as little as possible and make each life of your bot do a simple action repeated for longer than you think you may need to.

</comment><comment><USER6> Conceptually reminds me of this game:

<http://www.nekogames.jp/mt/2008/01/cursor10.html>

<comment><USER7> Once you win that game play it again, this time trying to click on all the triangles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really fun game, but there's probably better ways to learn about concurrency... Like reading about it and implementing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, yes. It's not so much a teaching tool as it is a _riff_ on concurrency.

Playing pool really well isn't a great way to learn physics, either. And, yet, if you know a little physics pool becomes more fun, and vice versa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nifty game.

It runs slow on my 4-year old computer. Maybe because of all the ads on the page. Using the .swf file directly works better: <http://www.scarybuggames.com/chronotron.swf>

</comment><comment><USER10> I had this idea a while back. But I think it would be fun in the context of a massively parallel action or arcade game. Imagine an assault on Normandy. Continue till you get killed, then jump back in time into someone else. If you manage to take out the guy you got you last time, that character is available to play to continue from that point on.

It could also work with a zombie invasion, and as an MMO.

</comment><comment><USER11> Only one-way interaction between different selves? And you call this time travel.

<comment><USER12> A paradox could result if you could influence the behavior of the other versions of yourself. That's why it makes sense to use senseless robots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm stuck on 31, I'm so stuck I lowered myself down to looking in the walkthrough and I'm still stuck.

Is it a bug on that level? I throw down the block and try to jump on it but I don't get high enough.

<comment><USER14> You need both blocks down there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's a great ide but there is too much timing involved in it. I prefer either timing or thinking, not both.

<comment><USER13> I find the combination of timing and thinking is what makes it very interesting.

Really superb game. Few games make you think both logically and philosophically.

Very cool mindbender!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> up to 19, haven't seen anything that is hard to figure out, just things that are tricky to time.

<comment><USER17> There is a clock built into the game. Just perform every action on a multiple of 5s and it is very easy to remember when to move.

<comment><USER16> duh :p it's not the movement of the character that's obnoxious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This would be a great way to teach kids programming if you combined it with Logo.

</comment><comment><USER18> has anybody finished it? I'm stuck on level 11.

EDIT: looks like there are 35 levels of increasing difficulty. This could waste a LOT of my day away...

<comment><USER19> I got to level 13 and saw another see-saw thing and decided I was done. It was really cool while it lasted though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> what's the song playing in the background? i'm tired of leaving the window open and letting it loop lol

<comment><USER13> I misunderstood.

<comment><USER21> reading comprehension...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I got to level 35, awesome!

</comment><comment><USER20> this is great =]

</comment><comment><USER21> the game is way too easy. even high levels are repetitive and simple and there is a lot of waiting.</comment>


mpv - a free and open-source general-purpose video player - <AUTHOR> http://mpv.io/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Apparently I was living under a rock, because I was unaware of mpv... Maybe you too?

mpv is a free and open-source general-purpose video player. It is based on the MPlayer and mplayer2 projects which it greatly improves.

Changes from mplayers: [https://github.com/mpv- player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/man/en/ch...](https://github.com/mpv- player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/man/en/changes.rst)

Quoting JEEB's explanation from IRC:

> sounds like mplayer2, which used to be uau's patchset for mplayer. And then > mpv was forked out of mplayer2 because uau wouldn't merge things from other > developers

Lachs0r's Windows binaries: [http://mpv.srsfckn.biz/](http://mpv.srsfckn.biz/)

<comment><USER2> I discovered it few days ago. Currently trying to set up Xmonad to work with it's fullscreen.

What are the main pros comparing to, lets say, VLC?

<comment><USER3> The main selling point of mpv, IMHO, is video quality and color correctness. You can get pretty nice results (on par with MadVR on Windows) with --vo=opengl-hq and it's many suboptions.

Minimalism is also something people are interested in. mpv has 1/5 the code of mplayer and 1/6 of VLC but still has relevant features.

They appeal to different kind of users. For example, even if I am in the mpv team, I will recommend VLC to my 'average Joe' friend as I know he would be put off by the CLI usage and config file editing.

<comment><USER4> It's nice to see a renewed interest in developing mplayer. Do you know if there are plans to get it packaged by the major distros?

<comment><USER3> I know it was added to deb-multimedia some days ago and it is also in the gentoo-multimedia overlay and on AUR.

I think many distributions would consider mpv a duplicate of mplayer, so for one to be packaged officially the other would have to be removed. Realistically that's not going to happen anytime soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > (from the changelog) Support for playing URLs of popular streaming sites > directly (e.g. mpv > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...))

While a nice effort, this will really put a fast freshness date to their builds. Popular streaming sites continuously changes their api's to prevent third-party software from using their service.

<comment><USER6> The support is done through libquvi, so the distro only needs to update libquvi-scripts to make it behave.

<comment><USER7> It's really rare to see SRUs (or the equivalent back-porting) for things like this, though. On distros I've used, amsn would break in stable for months at a time when Microsoft decided to change the protocol; the generally-accepted advice was "use the package from {development/unstable/whatever the newest branch is}" which would itself require bringing in all the random new dependencies and possibly breaking X/the desktop environment/something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have been a VLC user on Windows for years. I've actually stuck with VLC 1.1.5 for 2 reasons:

1\. It plays any local video I throw at it. Other people tell me "It doesn't play some of my videos" but I haven't seen this actually occur. Or when I do, it's because they're using a _newer_ version of VLC which has removed support or changed processing. VLC has terrible license problems and awful feature creep. I had some .mkv files which didn't play correctly, so I _down_ graded from 1.1.10 to 1.1.5, and they play just fine. That's right, the 3-year old player plays the newest .mkv files much better than the 2-year old player or the newest player.

And unlike mplayer, mplayer2, wmp, and most other players out there, you don't have to goto some random website and download some random codec pack, and install it with who knows what malware.</FUD> All the codecs are included with the program.

Reading this github doesn't tell me why I should use mpv instead of vlc 1.1.5. Actually, it tells me I'll have to go find these random codec packs again, opening myself to possible CSRF attacks and other malware from poorly-secured or malicious codec providers. I'm already trusting the media player install package to not be evil, and I'd rather only have to trust 1 install package instead of it and several codec install packages.

2\. I actually _down_ graded from VLC 2.0 to 1.1.10 because of VLC's terrible responsiveness. I don't know what changed, but it has made VLC 2.0 too annoying to use. The delay is a second or 2, which is a second or 2 longer than it used to be, and a second or 2 longer than it needs to be. When I go from a quiet video to a loud video, and I roll the mousewheel to lower the volume, that volume change needs to happen immediately, not after a 1-2 second delay.

I like that responsiveness is one of the bullet points.

I would have downloaded it and tried it out, but I don't know how to make this on Windows.

<comment><USER9> VLC may play lot of videos, but it has the most systematically terrible user interface of any program I have ever seen. Just absolutely horrible, on a level that could not possibly just the results of ignorance and carelessness, but it actually seems to optimized to actively fuck the user on purpose.

<comment><USER8> Uh...what?

The UI is plain, but all of the controls I regularly need are there. And I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that _every_ hotkey is rebindable. If you don't like "change subtitles" to be V, you can change it to be P or even Alt-V. (Why can't we rebind Windows Copy to be Alt-W instead of Ctrl-C?)

And last I checked, the UI can be skinned too, but I grew up with plain interfaces.

<comment><USER9> So why does it have one set of controls in window mode, and a totally different set of controls in full screen mode? Who decided that?

<comment><USER8> I don't know -- I'm using a 3 year old version where the windowed and fullscreen controls are almost the same. (the only difference is fullscreen doesn't have "shuffle" or "playlist")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a user this is all just a big mess. Mplayer2 had some nice improvements (does straight mplayer support mkv segment linking yet?) but also removed some important features (e.g. mencoder). (Side note: ffmpeg has been refusing patches to add new filters because they're working on a new filter infrastructure. For something like 4 years now). It's even worse if you're on windows and want to use a frontend as well.

Here's hoping the various groups resolve their differences somehow or a clear winner emerges.

<comment><USER11> mencoder is an abomination. Unless you have an actual real-life use case where mencoder works and ffmpeg doesn't, use ffmpeg; practically everything else does, regardless of licensing (ffmpeg has a wall of shame, which I'm sure comprises only a small sample of infringers, on their site).

<comment><USER10> Last time I tried encoding with raw ffmpeg it couldn't even render subtitles.

<comment><USER12> It does now, even supporting libass to render ASS/SSA subtitles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Been using mpv for many months as my only video player on my laptop Archlinux setup and everything has been great. Been telling people to check it out and no single complaint has been given, and most have changed solely to mpv.

The -opengl-hq option is a great option to easily get acceptable quality playback without the hassle.

But even still, Windows is so much ahead in video playback by just a hobby of one guy (Madshi, software being Madvr) that it is a shame to Os X and desktop linux. FRC (smooth motion without any of the soap opera effect people hate) completely removes the need to use 23.976 Hz on your monitor, so you can use what your monitor is build to use. With Jinc + anti-ringing filter as the scaler, your image looks gorgeus even how much you need to upscale it.

These are the reasons my HTPC still runs Windows even though I love mpv and would like to change but my eyes can't make the jump just yet.

<comment><USER11> Been using mpv the last few days, replacing mplayer2. It doesn't seem to be activating VDPAU correctly despite using the sample config file as a template. The console output clearly indicates VDPAU vo, but I still get 40% CPU usage with HD footage and occasional slowdowns (including the slightly-modified classic MPlayer "your computer is too slow to play this!" message) while playing videos.

While mpv sounds like a good thing in theory, I might just remain content with mplayer2. Now at least a single point has been given.

<comment><USER3> Did you actually activate vdpau with `--hwdec=vdpau`? If you did can you please open a issue so that your specific problem can be investigated?

The switch changed from mplayer/mplayer2 and mpv uses the new hwaccel api where available (instead of the custom decoder).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The whole media playing world is just a weird place with lots of twists and turns, and lots of sharp edges. There is always a new fork, some new clever filter, or a new API spawning somewhere, nothing never stabilizing. And of course lots of things being subjective and/or hardware-dependent making finding the "best" solution difficult.

<comment><USER15> Reminds me of [http://mod16.org/hurfdurf/?p=12](http://mod16.org/hurfdurf/?p=12) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's great to see mpv talked about on HN. I started using uau's patches for MPlayer a while ago (mainly for mkv segment linking, which has already been mentioned in the comments here and is a feature that MPlayer-svn still lacks.) That set of patches got renamed to mplayer2 and since mplayer2 development ground to a halt, mpv was the logical next step.

Development is fast and the developers are friendly and helpful. It's exciting to see improvements in the accuracy and quality of the GL video output and, since I like to use the same video player on Windows and Linux, it's also nice to see much needed attention to detail in the Windows port, including support for Unicode filenames. Overall, mpv is probably my favourite media player and I recommend it to any MPlayer/mplayer2 user.

The lack of a GUI may be a problem for some users, but hopefully that's fixed soon. A new slave mode is planned that doesn't suffer from the problems of the old MPlayer one, which was always very incomplete and required GUI frontends to parse MPlayer output that was intended for users. There's also the possibility of using lua and libass to draw a minimal QuickTime-like on screen display with a seekbar.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sadly it doesn't work with SMPlayer. They seemed to have changed some options.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why not VLC?

I suppose mplayer and its forks are good for cross platform.

On Windows, and if you ask me, the best experience i have now is MPC-BE. Which is based on MPC-HC, which is based on MPC.

<comment><USER19> Lets see if VLC has finally added sane output support... /me checks [http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.php?cat=av](http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.php?cat=av)

Nope. _sigh_

[X11, SDL, FrameBuffer] These are all basically dumb framebuffers.

[XVideo] Ahh, the X Video Extension... from 22 years ago. It only accelerates some specific parts of the process such as the final colorspace conversion.

[ASCII Art] I assume they mean libaa. How last decade. Besides, everybody knows the Cool Kids all moved on to libcaca's seductive ECMA-48 color escape sequences anyway. :p

In all seriousness, I've used mplayer{,2} because it brings my CPU usage down into to the <1%-2% range on most videos thanks to pretty much all of the work being done on the video card by way of VDPAU. How much do I care about this? Well let's see:

      (100% == one fully ussed core of my old 3GHz Core2, gpu is a 9800gtx)
      video is: 1280x720 23.976fps h.264 High profile L4.0   (no audio)

      CPU usage w/ vdpau: mpv  2.8%, /usr/bin/X 5.2%
      CPU usage w/ x11:   mpv 10.4%, /usr/bin/X  36%

[aside]Wow; it seems mpv has improved the software rendering engine. mplayer{,2} used to be about 10% to 15% higher![/aside]

Even on non-Nvidia hardware, the software has always had a very strong focus on efficiency. Their GL output drivers are great, and even the bad, old Matrox G200 I was stuck for far too long was fully supported. I wouldn't have been able to watch some videos without the hardware-assist.

There are other reasons I've always liked mplayer too, but the fact that it _actually plays_ the videos that were a slideshow in vlc (and most other players) made the choice obvious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've been using mpv for a few months now and have to say that I grew to like it. Coming from mplayer I'm used to not asking myself "Can my player play this piece of data" but just throw it in and see what happens. mpv does this just as well (if not better) than mplayer.

Besides that theres a zillion little usability improvements that make using it much better than mplayer, which is one of the main reasons why I stuck with it.

The integration of libquvi is also pretty nice; Just throw a youtube URL into mpv and it'll play - even the ones you can only view with flash in the browser. :)

But beware, this was a bitch to get running on Gentoo. YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been using [http://mplayerx.org/](http://mplayerx.org/) exclusively. It seems to handle files better than vlc for me, and has a nicer mac like player.

<comment><USER3> That player has a nice GUI but renders colors incorrectly with common h264 HD videos that use planar YUV colorspace (pretty much all of them use it).

It always uses the BT.601 colormatrix to perform the YUV -> RGB colorspace conversion. While for HD material one should use the BT.709 colormatrix.

In practice you will notice darker reds that are closer to purple for this implementation error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I remember when I had to use MPlayer as it was the only video player with dual core support (some special build) and as my graphic cards are always rather old that was the only way for me to watch 720p videos :)

Some general comments about comments here:

Never checked back on VLC, back when I tried it 4-5 years ago it was terribly buggy and crashed all the time.

Codec Packs are a thing of the past for me ever since I discovered CCCP [1] many years ago

MPC-HC [2] or SPlayer [3] (back when it was released there were some GPL violations,open sourced afterwards [4]) are my go-to players. MPC with CCCP plays everything, SPlayer is extremely simple while maintaining top quality.

[1] [http://www.cccp-project.net/](http://www.cccp-project.net/)

[2] [http://mpc-hc.org/](http://mpc-hc.org/)

[3] [http://www.splayer.org/index.en.html](http://www.splayer.org/index.en.html) (down, cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.spl...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.splayer.org/index.en.html))

[4] [https://code.google.com/p/shooter- player/](https://code.google.com/p/shooter-player/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Aw, I was hoping to see that slave mode was fixed. I want to use slave mode to make a music player with my own user interface and library/playlist manager in Ruby without having to worry about how to actually play the music. Unfortunately slave mode in mplayer seems kind of unstable and sometimes even gives the wrong answer (I think it's a known bug). I wasn't aware of mplayer2, I'll have to try that and see if it works any better.

But does anyone know of a program or library with a proper interface for controlling a music player?

<comment><USER24> Have you heard of MPD? I think it's pretty much what you're looking for, there's even a ruby library. Check it out, it's a great piece of software. [http://www.musicpd.org/](http://www.musicpd.org/)

<comment><USER25> That or xmms2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> With all the talk of VLC for media playback...

I use mplayer almost daily for no-frills internet radio listening. I have my terminal window open all day anyway, so no need to waste resources (screen real-estate or otherwise) on iTunes or VLC.

For example, Groove Salad's AAC stream:

mplayer -playlist [http://somafm.com/groovesalad130.pls](http://somafm.com/groovesalad130.pls)

Seeing a focus on OSX improvements in mpv, I am hoping we'll see it installable via homebrew some day soon.

<comment><USER3> It is installable via homebrew very easily: [https://github.com/mpv- player/homebrew-mpv](https://github.com/mpv-player/homebrew-mpv)

The formula also builds `mpv.app`, I use that to open files directly from the Finder.

<comment><USER26> Great, thank you for the tip. It worked!

I ran in to a few speedbumps along the way, but it turns out I just needed the HEAD version of FFMPEG installed first.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, it should actually build with ffmpeg 1.2 correctly (as a matter of fact I have been using it until 2 days ago).

If you can reproduce it, I'd love a bug report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've been trying to use it after reading about it on reddit, but so far I've been unsucessful at getting mpv to do "real" fullscreen. I'm using XMonad with a xmobar at the top of the screen, and with all --fstype modes I've tried, it has always been laid over the actual video. Has anybody been able to get it to do fullscreen with xmonad?

<comment><USER3> I know people have been using it with XMonad. There is a fresh issue from today ([https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/issues/179](https://github.com/mpv- player/mpv/issues/179)), is this helpful in any way?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there a GUI frontend like SMPlayer?

<comment><USER29> I found one, but I haven't tried it since I got used to the keyboard shortcuts, and it's also Windows only.

Baka MPlayer - [http://bakamplayer.netii.net/index.php](http://bakamplayer.netii.net/index.php)</comment></comment>