Registry Agreement Termination Information Page - <AUTHOR> https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/gtld-registry-agreement-termination-2015-10-09-en <comment><USER2> Surprised to see .theguardian tld there. They ask for donation and spend money on this ?

<comment><USER3> Lots of companies applied for "Brand TLDs", which are not the same as running a full registrar and not nearly as expensive but did require that you show you have the trademark for the name.

[https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD](https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > For the avoidance of doubt, ICANN's Preliminary Determination shall not > prohibit ICANN from delegating the gTLD pursuant to a future application > process for the delegation of top-level-domains, subject to any processes > and objection procedures instituted by ICANN in connection with such > application process intended to protect the rights of third parties.

So not really a graveyard. They can be registered again under the normal conditions that apply.

With Google's mission to remove the URL from the browser and these TLD's often being considered fishy (in terms of spam detection etc). I can understand there is little value for companies to obtain/keep these other than prevent squatting.

<comment><USER5> > With Google's mission to remove the URL from the browser...

What evidence is there for this? I searched and I couldn't find anything.

Is this[1] what you are referring to? Because that, in my opinion, is just a minor UI change -- not a fundamental shift in the browser experience, as you seem to imply.

[1] [https://www.ghacks.net/2018/08/28/chrome-experiment-hides- se...](https://www.ghacks.net/2018/08/28/chrome-experiment-hides-search-urls/)

<comment><USER6> Possibly this?

[https://www.wired.com/story/google-wants-to-kill-the- url/](https://www.wired.com/story/google-wants-to-kill-the-url/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Was interesting to look into Walmart's xn--4gq48lf9j.

Turns out that translates to chinese(?) characters for Number One Store:

[https://namestat.org/xn--4gq48lf9j](https://namestat.org/xn--4gq48lf9j)

</comment><comment><USER8> I never really got thr concept of having company names/projects/etc at the top level.

<comment><USER9> Each one generated revenue for the DNS system administratots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Corporates mostly, who have with (little) time realised that it makes no commercial sense to keep such an extension secured. We are yet to see graveyard for some (most) of those novelty consumer-facing gTLDs. Give it another couple of years.

</comment><comment><USER11> It was the stupidest idea in Internet History. How about stopping .zip, .exe .rar or .dll as gTLDs.

And the most important one .Web? Still no where to be seen.

<comment><USER12> I'd love if oracle used .java to store documentation.

<comment><USER13> s/store/expose/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> ironic that '.active' is now inactive!

</comment><comment><USER15> Remarkable for so many to have invested that amount of money, only to abandon the project so quickly.

<comment><USER16> yeah, most of them you have to wonder why they bothered and others you have to wonder why they would let go of them.

.mcdonalds for example seems like a strange one to let go of even if just for easy memorable addresses people see in store.

perhaps their lack of easy recognition for the user as a url in that context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://www.icann.org/resources/agreement/xn-- 4gq48lf9j-2015...](https://www.icann.org/resources/agreement/xn-- 4gq48lf9j-2015-07-31-en) ← What happened here? Seems like a real oddball from Wal-Mart, of all places.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised at how many techco's let go of their own gtld - from a security standpoint wouldn't it make sense for them to maintain their own SSL & Domains, especially for deployed hardware - URL must match regex of domain & SSL = list of valid certs?

<comment><USER19> There's no technical benefit to operating your own TLD for internal use. You get all the same benefits under a normal domain name, without the operating costs of a TLD.</comment></comment>


Figure Out Who's On Your Team - <AUTHOR> http://john.jubjubs.net/2011/09/16/figure-out-whos-on-your-team/

<comment><USER2> Nice post. I suggest you add a top posts on your sidebar as it will make it much easier to make a rss subscribe decision for your first time visitors.</comment>


Openness and security: a balancing act for the add-ons ecosystem - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/07/29/openness-and-security-a-balancing-act-for-the-add-ons-ecosystem/ <comment><USER2> I would happily be required to donate to Mozilla in order to have my Firefox extensions reviewed to get "Recommended". I don't want or need the promotion of my extension. I just want the scary "NOT RECOMMENDED!" warnings to go away.

It seems like the only way to get "Recommended" today is to be suuuper popular.</comment>


Taking a second look at free fonts - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/03/12/taking-a-second-look-at-free-fonts/ <comment><USER2> My favorite is still DejaVu (I mostly use the Bistream Vera portion) that strangely the article doesn't even mention. I like it enough and hate the way that most websites use fonts enough that I just use it for everything (I use it under urxvt also). I also set a minimum font size wich breaks a lot of things but is still a net benefit IMO. [http://dejavu- fonts.org](http://dejavu-fonts.org)

<comment><USER3> After every HN article about the next best programming font I go back to DejaVu Sans Mono, so you may be on to something here.

<comment><USER4> I used DejaVu Sans Mono until Ubuntu released their Ubuntu Fonts. Ubuntu Mono is a nice programming font! Sorry to tempt you...

The font grass is always greener in the next pasture. :)

<comment><USER5> Same here, always sought out DejaVu fonts until Canonical ? came out with the Ubuntu font. Now I literally even use it on Windows, not my preference to use Windows but Ubuntu fonts and Cygwin make the limited time I have to spend on it bearable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On a quick read, the article doesn't talk about the licensing for the free fonts. Several free fonts I've liked are free for personal projects or websites, but are chargeable for commercial projects - and one should be careful about selecting them.

Secondly, fonts are very easy to pirate. The commerical fonts (eg. TypeKit fonts) can be copied and reused with a bit of HTML+CSS knowledge. Anyone know of a way to enforce the font licenses?

<comment><USER7> We need a font DRM standard for the web! Quickly, to the W3C!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It really varies widely depending on how you use fonts:

Fonts for PRINTING: You need tons of sizes, really high definitions, as it can be printed 4" high at 300dpi. 3MB for a TTF? OK.

Fonts for iPad Games: You need TINY file size. <200KB, & won't need as high- res at all, esp. variations. You're fighting hard against the size for your game download, to get under the 50MB limit for mobile vs. wifi-only with most US carriers.

Fonts for Web: You need to ensure browser compatibility, size (for download times, which kill UX if it's slow). Too often, devs forget their homepage assets are cached, & don't see the critical first time user experience with their site as slow.)

<comment><USER9> >Too often, devs forget their homepage assets are cached, & don't see the critical first time user experience with their site as slow.)

I always consider running PageSpeed Insights to be a mandatory final step before making any significant change (that is, anything that loads new assets) live. That helps to avoid this issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Typefaces are a new passion of mine.

Wanting to start a blog, one of the things I focused were the presentation. I wanted something medium and svbtle like (big and serifed body typeface, clean and responsive design). I found here in HN the site [1] . It is a great read, very newbie friendly and sparked my love for typefaces. While the author, like the OP's writer, mostly scorns free fonts, it gives a lot of insights on the "other stuff" like line height and width, when to use bolds and italics and smallcaps.

Later I found out about google fonts and lost hours in there. I'm a big fan of serif typefaces. My favourites are Vollkorn, Merriweather, and Gentium Book Basic. I'm in love with Vollkorn, but I find that it's hard to pair it with others when used in the body.

For a monospace typeface, either for display or programming I use DejaVu Sans Mono everywhere.

I have a certain fascination for slab-serifs, but I dislike most os the typefaces I find, or can't pair it correctly with other.

I'm still procrestinating, and my blog keeps being delayed, but here's a sample of it, if you want to take a look: [2]

It was made with pelican and I adapted the theme "storm". You can check it here [3]

If you want some suggestions of font combinations, my "experiments" can be found in this source file: [4]

I'm still learning a lot (what the hell is a "humanist typeface"?), but I find it a lot of fun opening a website and going to the source to see the typefaces used.

[1] [http://practicaltypography.com/](http://practicaltypography.com/) [2] [http://web.ist.utl.pt/~ist155461/blog/posts/2013/Jan/25/moai...](http://web.ist.utl.pt/~ist155461/blog/posts/2013/Jan/25/moai-01/) [3] [https://github.com/Vaskivo/v-storm](https://github.com/Vaskivo/v-storm) [4] [https://github.com/Vaskivo/v-storm](https://github.com/Vaskivo/v-storm)

</comment><comment><USER11> On my blog, I use Noto Sans for text and Questrial for headings. On the rare occasion that I require a monospace font (anywhere, blog, programming or otherwise), I go for Cousine.

[http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Noto+Sans](http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Noto+Sans)

[http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Questrial](http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Questrial)

[http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Cousine](http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Cousine)

[http://theandrewbailey.com/](http://theandrewbailey.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I paired Playfair with Lato for my personal site. I'm happy with the results, particularly given that my web site is pretty much just unadorned text.

[http://steveasleep.com/](http://steveasleep.com/)

<comment><USER13> It looks kind of cluttered, like you're using too many fonts. I would limit where you use the serifed font to mainly the headline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am working on a MVP and am going for an elegant look. I have the <p> in Georgia 22px but would like something a little less common. Georgia is a nice font but it is everywhere.

My current main fonts are:

          p { font-family: Georgia, Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Times, "Times New Roman", serif;
              font-size: 22px; }

          h2 { font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
              font-size: 22px; }

Has anyone found a font combination with an elegant, "classical" look?

Edited: for spacing

<comment><USER14> Have a look at this book:

[http://practicaltypography.com/](http://practicaltypography.com/)

<comment><USER15> But it says in the opening salvo, "The fastest, easiest, and most visible improvement you can make to your typography is to ignore the fonts that came free with your computer... and buy a professional font". Not quite "in the spirit" of the OP!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was a typesetter for sometime(never released a typeface officially) and during another recent discussion on typefaces, I heard about source code pro. I swear I told many people that consolas is the best mono-space font. But source-code pro changed it. It became my main coding font now and it is simply amazing.

I request everyone to try it.

<comment><USER17> Do you have a link?

<comment><USER18> It was announced here: [http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source- code-pro....](http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code- pro.html)

the last paragraph of that post has links for the source, web fonts, etc.

DL link (from sourceforge): [http://sourceforge.net/projects/sourcecodepro.adobe/files/la...](http://sourceforge.net/projects/sourcecodepro.adobe/files/latest/download)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We went with the free version of Sofia Pro for our event titles/etc. Seems to display more smoothly than most free fonts.

[http://wesawit.com/events/imagine-dragons-at-the-staples- cen...](http://wesawit.com/events/imagine-dragons-at-the-staples- center-2014-02-25-5181b316218dd)

</comment><comment><USER20> I have been digging Karla recently and was pleased to see it mentioned. A few that I didn't know look interesting as well.</comment>


Internet Trends 2019: stalled growth, security dumpster-fires - <AUTHOR> https://www.bondcap.com/report/itr19/ <comment><USER2> Helpful hint: Browse the slides by using the 2 arrows in the bottom left. Don't think this ui received much usability testing.</comment>


Habits Always Form - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/habits-always-form/ <comment><USER2> Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

As one version of the quote goes.

<comment><USER3> Buddha said that. I think it represents intention (kamma) well</comment></comment>


Hexfoil Marks on Old Books - <AUTHOR> https://collation.folger.edu/2018/10/hexed/ <comment><USER2> Hexagonal arrangements of circles are about the easiest thing to draw with a pair of compasses as OA mentions. I wonder if we can distinguish 'meaningful' hexfoil's from the maths homework of previous centuries somehow?

<comment><USER3> That "can we distinguish" definitely seems to be the crux of the article. It's definitely a fascinating question with few current answers.

Did the British Roman builders use the symbol because the local tribes found it superstitiously useful or did the British Roman builders use it for some other reason (guild mark, perhaps? The fact that it is an early Euclid math problem suggests it's interest to early architects) and the local tribes picked it up as a superstitious symbol?

Presumably these are hypotheses you could start to test if you collect enough evidence, which this article is part of chain of people searching for more evidence/patterns. It seems likely we may never know the full story, but an interesting thing to wonder about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wayback Machine link: [https://web.archive.org/web/20181003155924/http://collation....](https://web.archive.org/web/20181003155924/http://collation.folger.edu/2018/10/hexed/)

<comment><USER5> Off-topic, but what is the reason for the archive being linked in the comments so often? In this case, the article was published just a few days ago, and is still online.

The site doesn't seem to be down, and it's a university blog that can probably handle heavy traffic. On the other side, directing a lot of traffic to the Internet Archive to use it as a caching proxy is going to be burdensome.

<comment><USER6> I've come across old HN posts in searches a few times, and the original article link was dead - the Archive link was live. I don't know if that's why it's done, but I appreciate it for that reason.

<comment><USER4> It was because the server took a very long time to serve me the page. I figured it was being hugged to death.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you hire contract software developers? - <AUTHOR> As a founder, I'm finding it very difficult to hire great software developers. I tried job posting portals, but that's not effective. I usually spend months to make a hire (most of them don't even pass the initial interview)<p>How do you hire developers? (Contract basis) How can I connect with great developers quickly? <comment><USER2> Upwork. You still need to be good at vetting and managing devs though.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's very difficult and time-consuming</comment></comment>


Facebook and Bing's Plan to Make Search Social - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/10/13/facebook-bing-social-search/

<comment><USER2> "The deal marks a big leap forward in social search"

It of course also marks a big leap in data mining.</comment>


Fire at Stavanger Norway Airport Destroys Cars, Grounds Planes - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-07/fire-at-norway-airport-destroys-hundreds-of-cars-grounds-planes <comment><USER2> > police said they were notified at about 3:30 p.m. that an electric car was > on fire in the parking garage</comment>


TDD is not a design methodology - <AUTHOR> http://pulloware.com/blog/tdd_no_design.html <comment><USER2> TDD doesn't really have anything to do with design, although it can help drive/refine/clarify design. It's a development methodology. Doesn't seem controversial.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you do career planning? - <AUTHOR> I'm 24, software engineer at a huge company that has roles for doing everything. They have a culture of holding career conversations, and give their people a shot at identifying and fixing what they want to do. I am due to go through this process soon, and I am really interested in advice on how others have handled their career planning. I personally don't like the idea of breaking my role into the Level I, II, III ladder, and I don't want to bind my professional life to that scale. I feel motivated towards understanding the business side of things, but I lack any background that would help me there. I want to have an educated roadmap (even if I don't follow it to script), and I would really appreciate advice on going about it. Thanks! <comment><USER3> As a ground rule, I aim to reconcile different aspects of a "career", like work-life balance, salary, future prospects. This is an ongoing process, there is no master plan for me. I don't aim for roles, money or status. I believe that most of that is by chance anyway. Instead, I let myself be guided by my interests, and try to be open for opportunities at the same time.

Most of the time I try to save energy and to avoid pressure. But if I sense something worthwhile, I can work really hard and go for the extra mile. For instance, at some point I realized unexpectedly, that I was aiming for a good university degree. So I pushed hard, and in the end my thesis was among the very best. This suddenly enabled my PhD studies, which enabled some grants, insights and relationships. I didn't plan to do a PhD, but it turns out that having one is also very useful outside academia. Therefore, instead of being powdered in the post doc mill, I left academia timely. Now working in industry, I lay dormant until I sense another capture. Again, I more or less do, what currently interests me (C/C++, Linux stack). This might change soon, and I would switch then in a heartbeat.

So I would advice you to avoid doing something, what you struggle against. Don't let yourself press or lure into some fixed scheme you don't like. Instead, find out what is important to you, what interests you, and go with the flow. Be patient, but don't hesitate to switch, if there is a good opportunity. As a software engineer, there should be plenty of it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I work at a small company and have about a dozen engineers under me. When I approach these problems I do this:

Identify where your want to be when you retire. This could range from anywhere between CEO to a fortune 50 company to an individual contributor at a small start up. Next identify attributes of the company or industry that are important to you. There wrong answer.

Next identify where you want to be in 2-5 years, ignoring job titles. This becomes our immediate action plan.

Now see what job titles fit into that at your current position, and develop a checklist to get there.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm 19, i am still studying as xybersecurity specialist but i am not sure i would work as this. I am going to try myself in any different working style

</comment><comment><USER6> I have three metrics of success: 1\. How much positive impact you've made. This is up to you, whether it's feeding your family or changing the world. 2\. How happy you are. 3\. What enriching experiences you've had.

Money and "work life balance" is a just a mix of these three options. E.g. you don't want to be running a business making millions a day if you're stuck in a room, divorced with no vacations. Some things like automated stock trading will make you decent money, but it scores poorly on social impact, so I'd avoid those.

Happiness is important too. As far as I'm concerned, if you are going to be unhappy for 20 years to retire a little earlier, that's pretty bad. There are jobs out there which are difficult and hard work, like farming and consulting, but if they truly bring you happiness, you should factor them in plans.

One example for the third is that I once had 2 months straight of work - <USER2> was traveling the whole country teaching programming, driving hundreds of kilometers per week. Not too well paid, but I got to visit all kinds of people and it was a fun road trip. It would fail all kinds of metrices like "work life balance" and "money", but I'd pay to do it again.

My own career goals do not include retirement, but yours may. I prefer not to be in upper management either. Again, these are all sliders which you have to define yourself.

The other thing to look for is a compound effect.

Everything massive in life is compounded. The simplest one most people understand is compound interest. It's better to have money earlier than later. Slow and compound is better than fast and one shot.

With work it's not so clear. You'll want things that can lead to better things.

Let's consider two options: 1\. Running a franchise or gas station - $100,000 a month 2\. Consulting gig - $80,000 a year

Let's say Option 1 still forces you to work 30 hours a week, doing management stuff, and the only way to stop is to sell the company, which may not be possible. It pays very well and you could probably buy anything you want. But you won't meet a lot of people who are interesting. You'd be too tied up to work on fun projects.

Option 2 isn't so good at a glance, but it exposes you to more options. You might end up an early stage employee in a good startup. You might be able to work with both Google and Huawei, or even some secret police stuff. Your experiences in those new roles could open up further roles.

Option 2 compounds, in that if you take this opportunity, you are likely to unlock more than 1 opportunity.

Option 1 doesn't compound. It is effectively a career dead end, and the option of selling the company is a step down from it. You might be able to open more gas stations, but why bother doubling your work hours, when you already have more income than you need?</comment>


Techcrunch appears to have deleted critical comments on Deepak Chopra's app - <AUTHOR> Techcrunch appears to have deleted critical comments on Deepak Chopra's app.
See for yourself:
Old: https://web.archive.org/web/20160611130251/http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/09/deepak-chopra-launches-jiyo/
Currently: https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/09/deepak-chopra-launches-jiyo/ <comment><AUTHOR> Please let me know if you think I am mistaken.</comment>


Alibaba Cloud Single's Day Promotion - <AUTHOR> https://www.alibabacloud.com/campaign/singles-day-11-11-2017 <comment><USER2> Web Hosting Package Hong Kong & US West Regions 1 Website 5 GB Web Space 512 MB Memory 50 GB Data Transfer/month 1 Domain (.win/.club/.loan/.bid) Free DNS Has any body tried this?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the biggest sales event of Alibaba Cloud, you can get Elastic Compute Service(ECS) and RDS with up to 50% off.

<comment><USER3> Some of the offers are up 95% off, like cloud server and data transfer package. Seems like Jack Ma invests a lot in Cloud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cloud Server + Data Transfer 12 Regions Globally from $4.5 per month? Anybody tried?</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good non-fiction books on politics - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I would like to use my free to time learning some history and politics. Let me know your favorites

<comment><USER2> A great book at the intersection of politics and history is George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. (1) It's about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War.

(1) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia)</comment></comment>


Mobile is eating the world - <AUTHOR> http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/10/28/presentation-mobile-is-eating-the-world

<comment><USER2> [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mobile+eating+world#!/story/foreve...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mobile+eating+world#!/story/forever/0/mobile%20eating%20world)</comment>


'Babylon 5' is great, so why does it look so bad? - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/22/babylon-5-digital-video-quality/ <comment><USER2> My partner has, for 20 years, hated Babylon 5. An ex-boyfriend apparently forced her to watch an episode, which generated a lot of hate for the show. I re-watched it a few years ago, and she incidentally watched this scene: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GOHqe0vokU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GOHqe0vokU)

She laughed herself silly, and told me that the show isn't what she thought it was. I gave it a few months, and showed her some funny bits from it every now and then. The last one I showed her was this scene: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkwF5BBL26I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkwF5BBL26I)

She smiled a little, but clearly didn't get it. I explained that it's much, much funnier if you know the backstory of the characters, the how and why of G'kar's hatred for Londo, and she said "OK, I'll watch some of it."

I showed her the pilot and a few episodes, and she kept saying that it didn't make as much sense as she expected, and wondered why I kept pointing things out; "remember this for future reference."

So, we got halfway through the season, and she started asking to watch more of it. We're stalled just now, part way through season five, but she's firmly a fan of it.

When I watched it back in 2015/2016, I did notice how some of the scenes appeared to have been cropped and zoomed for the DVD release, The composition was off, and as noted in the story, some shots looked very much like a low res MPEG in fullscreen. I wasn't certain if they were originally like that or not. Glad to know it wasn't, although I would much rather watch a standard def (or plain upscaled) rather than the crappy video we got.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is sad but also fitting as B5 was always a bit uneven as a show, but also very ambitious and entertaining at the time.

<comment><USER4> It was also weird how J. Michael Straczynski, who was hailed as a visionary creator at the time on par with Gene Roddenberry, kind of disappeared. Yes, he has been involved in things like Netflix's _Sense 8_ , but even that was mostly credited to the Wachowskis.

<comment><USER5> JMS has also been heavily involved in comics. He wrote Spider-man for 6 years, had a stint on Superman, as well as many other projects.

I don't recall him being hailed as a "visionary" for making B5, but looking back, some eps were pretty bad (the Jack the Ripper episode, for starters.) Some of his comic output was pretty uneven, too. I've only read Rising Stars and Midnight Nation, and while they both had interesting concepts, they also had serious flaws.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Cantools – an extensive set of CAN bus tools - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/eerimoq/cantools <comment><USER2> Thank you for making cantools. I'm using it daily and enjoying how easy and powerful it is.

Two other projects also deserve to be mentioned. The opendbc is attempt to make sense of CAN traffic in different cars, they reverse-engineer messages and provide descriptions to each. It's part of comma.ai open source autonomous driving effort. The other project is CANboat which does similar thing for NMEA2000 protocol used on boats.

The industry so far is very closed and rejects concept of interoperability. It's nice that somebody is taking steps in right direction.

<comment><USER3> > The industry so far is very closed and rejects concept of interoperability. > It's nice that somebody is taking steps in right direction.

Sadly very true. I've worked in the industry, and while there has been a lot of standardization, there's definitely not a lot of interoperability. Car makers and tier 1 suppliers in my experience are very insistent on keeping their knowledge in-house, distrustful of open source tools and extremely unwilling to share any technical information that could lead to greater interoperability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Throwing out there that Wireshark has CAN parsing ability. For any else of y'all that have been stuck with a legacy non standard CAN protocol running on industrial automation, writing a Lua protocol parser and a little script to convert whatever internal format you've been using to pcap-ng will be an afternoon or two very well spent.

<comment><USER5> In industrial automation there are mainly 2 standard protocols, which can obtain easily: DeviceNet and CANopen.

<comment><USER4> There's also an ton of shops using literally no standard above the 8bytes+IDbits that CAN controllers spit out and accept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you work with J1939 there is a can-j1939 kernel module which was mainlined in the 5.4 Linux kernel. It handles address negotiation and other time- sensitive matters which would have had to be done in user space previously.

[https://github.com/linux-can/can- utils/blob/master/can-j1939...](https://github.com/linux-can/can- utils/blob/master/can-j1939-kickstart.md)

<comment><USER7> Welp this makes my day-job a touch simpler now. Thank you for the heads up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would like to suggest that in your "About" suggestion you provide a short description what a "CAN bus" is (with links to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus) \- or whatever you feel is appropriate ).

I'm a very technical person, and I honestly don't think I'd ever heard of it. I spent a decent bit of time looking on the site trying to figure out what it was before resorting to Google.

It's not a huge deal, but seems to me like it would be helpful, and worth the effort.

<comment><USER9> If you saw a library for say Image Processing or cattle husbandry for Java/JVM would you insist that the project provide a description of "Java"? I'm going to guess if you're being honest you'd say no. CAN really is not an obscure thing at all. Also it is ones of those things that if you don't know what it is, you probably don't need this. Otherwise the google burden is minimal for the curious.

<comment><USER10> Obscure or not, I think the latter part of this comment is the important part. If you don't know what it is, you are not the target audience and you won't become the target audience by suddenly knowing what a CAN bus is.

So no, I'd say it's actually not worth the effort to add an explanation. It may even give real users the wrong idea.

<comment><USER11> _If you don 't know what it is, you are not the target audience and you won't become the target audience by suddenly knowing what a CAN bus is._

So you've never visited a web site, read a bit about a topic you knew nothing about, and then thought, "Wow, that sounds like something I'd like to get into?"

There are a lot of people out there who are curious about the world around them and enjoy expanding what they know instead of stagnating in a knowledge silo.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but I don't think this is meant to be pedagogical tool to teach you about CAN. You're always free to look up anything you don't know, yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here is another project for working with CAN:

[https://github.com/hardbyte/python-can](https://github.com/hardbyte/python- can)

I used it (as well as Cantools) for importing various CAN-specific data formats.

</comment><comment><USER14> Has anyone taken canbus and deployed it on a greenfield non-automotive system? If so, what was the thought process to justify use of this protocol vs. something like ethernet? The selling point seems to be 'save copper' but the associated overheads (tooling, training, reduced throughput[0], larger connectors, multidrop bus debug drawbacks, etc.) seem like they would _far_ outweigh any nominal savings in all but the highest volume production scenarios.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELM327#Protocols_supported_by_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELM327#Protocols_supported_by_ELM327)

<comment><USER15> Yes.

It was used as an industrial communications bus to coordinate slave devices from a master controller. Drop-length was a non-issue as the majority of our devices used an in-rail (DIN mounted) interconnect bus. The larger "drops" were often a under 10" and just jumped one DIN rail to the next DIN rail in the cabinet.

This was selected for the following reasons:

1\. These devices were installed in HEAVY EM environments (think in close proximity to very large electric motors) and the electrical characteristics

2\. The system topology physically supported multi-drop

3\. We had a good deal of talent with CAN experience

4\. Our device was already supporting a bunch of wired and wireless protocols (rs422, rs485, ethernet, btle, wifi, etc) and tbh CAN support was a gimme on the SOM we used as the device's core, so initially it made it into consideration by chance

<comment><USER14> Interesting. I wasn't aware of any EMI benefit. I wonder if this is true with shielded ethernet cables at lower data rates (eg. 10BaseT)? It seems maximum CAN drop length is far shorter than ethernet, which I guess could become a consideration in industrial deployments.

<comment> kube-system The EMI resilience is one of the big reasons why it's used for automotive applications.

Many (all?) CAN standards transmit on redundant copper, in opposing polarities, making it really easy to identify a signal vs noise. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus#/media/File:CAN-Bus- fr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus#/media/File:CAN-Bus- frame_in_base_format_without_stuffbits.svg)

It's like a one-wire serial signal, but redundant.

<comment><USER15> yeah, differential data lines; common in serial applications where you want to protect from noise. a lot of the higher level dialects are built off something like (if not the) rs485 electrical layer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This looks well designed and thought out. Does anyone know if it has been applied to NMEA-2000 (a marine electronics flavor of CANbus)?

<comment><USER17> I was thinking the same question. I could only find C++ implementation at [https://github.com/ttlappalainen/NMEA2000](https://github.com/ttlappalainen/NMEA2000) which I assume you have found as well.

<comment><USER16> Yes. And that ttlappalainen project generally inherits from the CANBoat project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for all your hard work! We used this constantly at $oldjob and it saved us a ton of time and effort.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm very interested in beginning to monitor some information on my vehicle. Is the usual workflow involve pulling a dbc file off the vehicle with a CAN bus reader and using software to look into it? Or is it more complicated? Anyone have recommendations as to the reader itself?

<comment><USER20> You can get away with ELM327 based readers (the cheap bluetooth/Wi-Fi OBDII readers you see on Amazon/eBay) if you want fairly standard data like speed, and some manufacturer specific data in the form of PIDs ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD- II_PIDs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs))

If you want more involved data, or to send messages, it's mostly sniffing, doing an action, and seeing what changes.

`can-utils` has a nice UI for this, which lets you filter messages that don't change easily.

(Also, I've actually never seen a `.dbc` file before, but it looks like a map of PIDs, usually you [or the community for your car] have to reverse engineer those with the sniffing method, afaik)

-

The ELM327 can technically stream all the CAN messages on the bus and do that type of sniffing, but it has a very small buffer and gets completely hosed with chatty cars.

I personally use the MCP2515 with a Raspberry PI for more involved car hacking.

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=141052](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=141052)

The electrical modification mentioned is needed for the most common MCP2515 modules because the PI isn't 5v tolerant, but it's an easy enough fix

I have two of them hooked up to a Raspberry PI (one for each of my car's CAN busses, some cars have more), and that with `can-utils` has gotten me pretty far.

<comment><USER21> People should be aware that many of the cheapo "ELM327" readers on Amazon/eBay are counterfeit chips that merely identify themselves as ELM327. They do not perform as well as the real chip, but may be good enough for reading your check-engine code. For example, I had a fake one that choked if I tried querying engine RPM in a loop, while the real deal had no issues.

<comment><USER20> I've had success with clone ELM327 for reading stuff like RPM in real time, but it is hit or miss.

They're just generally slower and usually missing features of the newest ELM327 revisions.

The problem is if you just search for ELM327, most of them will be clones, so I just use the MCP2515 when I need lots of data, and use the ELM327 for basic stuff

<comment><USER22> If it's in the budget, I would highly recommend the Macchina M2[1], especially if you need to access more than one bus at a time. It's based on the Arduino Due, with dual CAN transceivers (and LIN). It has a lot of bells and whistles - but can be simplified down to just a can sniffer if needed. I'm currently using one with SavvyCan to reverse engineer a vehicle for a project, and it has no problem keeping up with the high-speed network.

[1][https://www.macchina.cc/m2-introduction](https://www.macchina.cc/m2-introduction)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For those interested in CAN bus for UAVs, there is [https://github.com/uavcan](https://github.com/uavcan) as well.

</comment><comment><USER24> Ugh, where was this when I needed it in 2013? At $OLDJOB my boss and I wrote pretty much this entire thing, in an unholy mix of bash and Tcl, much more poorly.

<comment><USER25> I cant tell you how many times I've seen this type of thing done at different companies. Many of those projects died.

The last one was a LIN tool written in python. My coworker wrote it. He wanted to open source it, so I talked our boss, the local IP guy and eventually the legal department. Legal thought I wanted them to write a license. No, that's not useful, I needed to know which of GPL, MIT, BSD the company would approve. They came with some of the misguided concerns companies tend to have. The other question I could not get answered is who in management needed to OK it. Oh and would the copyright belong to the company or the guy who wrote it. None of my questions could seem to find definitive answers. The guy who wrote the tool quit and it became abandon ware inside the company. I had mentioned that nobody stays around forever and the author would have done some maintenance after he's gone. I said this well before he left as an argument in favor of open sourcing it.

Anyway, I hope a lot of people bring this to life so we can all stop reinventing this wheel or paying certain companies to rent theirs.

Related: Busmaster, but its Windows only.

<comment><USER26> > Legal thought I wanted them to write a license.

I'm not surprised. I once had a conversation with some business lawyers that were specialized on what is easiest described as "IT law" [1] (mostly intellectual property, licensing, contract law, data privacy) who were working in the field of IT/software. You could talk with them about client-server and p2p systems or even basic encryption and data security, so they definitely knew a bit about technology.

They knew about open source software but I was surprised that they had never heard about source licenses nor about the creative common license. I tried to explain the basics to them but they didn't seem to get the concept of a license that could be reused by more than one licenser and were confused why a license would need a name (like 'MIT license'). In their view, licenses were always individual drafted documents with terms that needed to be negotiated with business partners or were imposed on customers. They didn't believe me that you don't create your own custom license for open source projects and thought that I was talking about copy&pasting bad license templates from the internet. When I told them the basic concept of the GPL they thought I was bullshitting them.

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

<comment><USER27> Whats that saying about a person not being able to learn something that threatens their livlihood?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> We have been using proprietary CANoe for well over 6 years. Will evaluate this. But don't know if corporate will like it or not.

<comment><USER29> Different use cases in my opinion.

As it is described this would more likely meet the use-cases of CANalizer (sniffing, logging, lightweight scripting) but not CANoe (bus simulation, node simulation full on HIL Simulation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This seems to work with a candump format input, does it works with canalyzer *.asc format ?

<comment><USER31> Yeah, using -L you can shell redirect to a workable log file. I've done this a few times. They also build the asc2bin conversion utility to convert any logs to the more common *.bin format.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Beautiful - I've been using Intrepid Vehicle Spy for awhile but the cost is hard to justify for a hobbyist.

</comment><comment><USER33> What's missing is a can bus sim

<comment><USER34> I've recently become interested in a can bus sim, actually. If you know of any resources I would appreciate any pointers.

<comment><USER35> There are some basic simulators out there that use single board computers. I've been meaning to try to build one at some point.

[https://github.com/carloop/simulator](https://github.com/carloop/simulator) (RasPi)

[https://github.com/limiter121/esp32-obd2-emulator](https://github.com/limiter121/esp32-obd2-emulator) (ESP32)

<comment><USER34> Thanks. I'll check them out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


MIT researchers plan "death of the traffic light" with smart intersections - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh7X-UKm9kw <comment><USER2> Could something like this be done/tested with human drivers with optional speed signs some way back from the intersection "speed required to hit the green light"?</comment>


Getting started with Play Framework - <AUTHOR> http://www.baptiste-wicht.com/2010/07/getting-started-play-framework/ <comment><USER2> Nice article. I did write about the Play Framework once in my blog. Some good things to consider for Play:

\- No maven, no deal with anything heavy - Play uses Python!

\- Fun and joyful.

\- No configuration to begin with.

\- Routing is easy.

\- Influenced by Django, Rails and Grails.

\- Testing is easy and great.

And the most amazing thing for me on Play is, the Scala support is growing more and more so we will be able to use Play with Scala instead of some nonsense Scala web frameworks.</comment>


Bleve: full-text search and indexing for Go - <AUTHOR> http://www.blevesearch.com/ <comment><USER2> Well since someone submitted us here with no apparent reason or context, allow me to provide something of interest. (primary contributor of bleve here)

Just recently we merged support a new experimental index scheme called 'scorch'. This new index scheme is designed from the ground up to reduce index size and improve performance. It features:

\- a segment based approach, much like Lucene

\- vellum FTS for the term dictionary - [https://github.com/couchbase/vellum](https://github.com/couchbase/vellum)

\- roaring bitmaps for the postings lists - [https://github.com/RoaringBitmap/roaring](https://github.com/RoaringBitmap/roaring)

\- and compressed chunked integer storage for all the posting details

It's still experimental at this point, but shows considerable indexing speedup, index size reduction, and similar query performance to the old index format used today.

The code for this new index scheme can be found here: [https://github.com/blevesearch/bleve/tree/master/index/scorc...](https://github.com/blevesearch/bleve/tree/master/index/scorch)

<comment><USER3> Are there any plan to have sharding mechanism implemented on the blevesearch? IMHO it should be on the application level, but having this on blevesearch would be good.

Regarding segments based approach like lucene, means we will need to do segments merging which in my experience quite resource intensive. I don't actually know how blevesearch handles this prior segment based approach.

<comment><USER2> Bleve has support for querying across multiple indexes (shards) but does not prescribe any mechanism to split the data. So, it's up the application to divide the data how it sees fit, but you can use Bleve functionality to execute the same query across multiple indexes and merge the results.

Merging is required and is indeed somewhat resource intensive. Bleve's current indexing approach has no segments, instead all index data is serialized into a key/value store. This approach allowed us to experiment and plug-in a variety of implementations. Unfortunately, the key/value abstraction limits the way you interact with data, so there are a number of drawbacks. One key gain we get from the segmented approach vs the key/value store approach is that we no longer need to maintain a backindex to handle updates/deletes.

<comment><USER3> Yes and if I'm not mistaken that's what alias on bleve for.

Not yet looking into scorch. So scorch would replace other storage engine like rocksdb and leveldb?

<comment><USER2> Yes, when you create a new index, you can choose the index implementation. The previous one was called 'upsidedown', and this one used key/value stores for the actual storage. So, you would also specify BoltDB/RocksDB/LevelDB/Moss/etc. The new index implementation is called 'scorch' and it writes directly to disk instead of going through a key/value store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I ran into some significant performance issues with Bleve during a weekend hackathon a few months ago. I was trying to index the stackoverflow data dump for fun and I couldn't get it to successfully complete. I'm guessing i was running into some boltdb related limitations but I didn't have the time to dig deeper before the party ended and I had to get back to the day job.

SQLite's FTS5 allowed me to load the entire data set without breaking a sweat, but query performance was unexpectedly poor for some combinations of terms with no apparent consistency, and it became unusable due to a temp table I couldn't work out how to avoid when attempting to search in descending primary key order.

It was many months ago now and I have forgotten some of the particulars but thought it might make an interesting jumping-off point for discussion about any ideas anyone might have for indexing 60gb of data into a flat file setup like Bleve or SQLite uses.

Would the new scorch experiment perform better with an index of that size than the boltdb backend?

<comment><USER2> Yeah, the old index format had many factors contributing to it taking up considerable space. As a single data point, we have a beer-search sample app, this includes a data directory with 29MB of JSON files. In the old index format, with mapping that did a realistic configuration of indexing many fields, and storing some of them, the bleve index size was over 200MB.

With scorch the index size is 22MB. Query performance is comparable (and we haven't even gotten to really tuning this yet).

<comment><USER4> Nice one! I'll keep my eyes peeled for a release and give it another crack. I think all those creaky old scripts still work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am using elasticsearch on production with golang as the both indexer and search service. Last holiday I played with blevesearch to make it works like Elasticsearch search, but the work is far far far from complete. [https://github.com/wejick/balasticsearch](https://github.com/wejick/balasticsearch)

<comment><USER5> >"I am using elasticsearch on production with golang as the both indexer and search service."

Can you describe how this golang plus elasticsarch hybrid works? Is this is distinct from the link you provided?

<comment><USER3> Basically my applications are consuming elasticsearch REST API. One acts as indexer, the other one is using search API. I'm using this amazing package [https://github.com/olivere/elastic](https://github.com/olivere/elastic)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some related work:

[https://github.com/go-ego/riot](https://github.com/go-ego/riot)

[https://github.com/huichen/wukong](https://github.com/huichen/wukong)

</comment><comment><USER7> What kind of index size does Bleve work with well? Megabytes? Gigabytes?

I'd love to understand at what scale people are using this engine.

<comment><USER2> With the current index scheme we would regularly do 10s of gigabytes (which is embarrassingly small in our opinion). We haven't done large scale testing with scorch yet, but in some smaller configurations the new index is 1/10th the size of the previous one, so we hope to have moved the bar considerably on data sizes that work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm new to Go - but it looks like the example code completely ignores the error codes.

Is that a common thing?

<comment><USER2> You are correct. I think when I originally designed the homepage I wanted to show how you index and search in just a few lines. I thought omitting the error handling boilerplate was acceptable, but properly handling these errors is also key for a good initial experience. So I'm persuaded to at least revisit the decision.

[https://github.com/blevesearch/blevesearch.github.io- hugo/is...](https://github.com/blevesearch/blevesearch.github.io- hugo/issues/12)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> is there a c++ library like this?

<comment><USER10> Xapian [https://xapian.org/](https://xapian.org/)</comment></comment>


Life gets better after 50: why age tends to work in favour of happiness - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/05/happiness-curve-life-gets-better-after-50-jonathan-rauch <comment><USER2> Accumulated wealth + approaching retirement? Not rocket science.</comment>


Netflix is on Fire - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@diymanik/netflix-is-on-f-ing-fire-1675d47e722 <comment><USER2> I wonder how much of Netflix's success is that its show are good, and how much is that they are easy to watch.

Anytime I want to, I can go to Netflix and watch any episode of their shows. I ca watch the first season; I can watch the intervening seasons; I can watch the current season. There are no blackouts; there are no embargoes.

I can binge-watch if I want, or I can pace myself, at _my_ pace.

Compare that to the big companies' offerings, where I may be able to watch every episode this season, but not get started by catching up on previous seasons (I know that they hope I'll pay up for boxed sets of those early seasons, but I'll just skip their shows altogether instead), or I may be able to wath previous seasons but not the current one, or (my favourite) I can watch previous seasons and recent episodes but not early episodes this season.

Why would I want to get involved with a show which is such a pain to watch?

<comment><USER3> I'm a prolific pirate. The Amazon offerings as pointed out by the author (Transparent, High Castle..) sit on my HTPC - downloaded from torrents because Amazon's streaming services are not offered here in Canada so how else would I get them.

I haven't pirated any Netflix shows because it's simply too cheap and too easy to just do it legit.

<comment><USER4> I have Amazon Prime and I've been forced to pirate the content because their streaming app on the Roku 3 sucks ass. On the same device, the Netflix app never buffers (I have a 55 Mbps connection). So, I recently downloaded a series I was watching. Turns out, I had paid for it (Hannibal season 3), in HD. Just couldn't stream, over a few days, without stopped. So, torrenting I went.

I have the same complaint about HBO Now on the Roku. Man, does it suck.

Lest people think the problem is my network, often when I have the issue I switch to Netflix and never once have I had a problem after the switch. Seems unlikely I just happened to switch when the network problems went away.

<comment><USER5> It could also be congestion at the peering points your ISP uses to connect (directly or through transit) to Amazon or HBO.

I think Netflix also still uses caching boxes in a few locations, but they are being phased out.

In other words, there are a lot more variables in the equation than just your home network and the Roku app.

<comment><USER6> > I think Netflix also still uses caching boxes in a few locations, but they > are being phased out.

Proof? I don't see any indication at [https://openconnect.netflix.com/](https://openconnect.netflix.com/) that their appliance is being phased out.

<comment><USER5> I think Dave Temkin mentioned this at a NANOG or two. Or maybe it was at the bar. I'm not sure. I could be completely wrong. That's why I typed "think"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Brit here wondering how this shift within the industry will affect the BBC. We own a screen, Netflix subscription and Chromecast, and do not pay for a TV License. While this setup is not even remotely commonplace yet, it could be a real threat over the next decade, especially as iPlayer usage is free without owning a License.

I would like to see the TV License flipped on its head: you pay a subscription that gets you access to everything the BBC offers, except what they broadcast live (and maybe online news), which you get for free (the exact opposite of how they charge now).

A much better proposal for the streaming generation, essentially a tax-cut for the older generation, and none of the nasty TV License policing issues.

<comment><USER8> I thought you had to pay the tax for any screen, regardless of where the content comes from?

<comment><USER9> Only if the screen has a tuner and aerial I think; a monitor wouldn't require one.

<comment><USER10> No, you're wrong. A person using a laptop to view live tv on eg BBC iPlayer would need to be covered by a licence.

The licence is needed for any "live broadcast tv". The equipment used is not relevant; and the source of the signal is not relevant. So someone in England watching French satellite TV still needs a licence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In addition to it; netflix actually knows that when you watch a series you don't care about already seen episodes. Good old TV never really labeled episodes correctly and is a pain to use when you are just interested in the next you haven't seen. In netflix it is painless. Yes, the feature is simple, but still I value it every time i can just watch the next episode ( or pick up where left in the middle of the episode).

<comment><USER12> Not only that, Netflix even does a decent job of handling multiple people watching the same series at different points, even on the same virtual account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't know if the catalogue is the same here in the UK than in the US, but in the UK Netflix is only good for TV shows. The movie offering is very light. The other thing is the lack of offline viewing, which is useful when travelling.

The media industry is so backward. I can't believe most of them still live in the 90s and these problems haven't been solved yet.

<comment><USER14> >The media industry is so backward. I can't believe most of them still live in the 90s and these problems haven't been solved yet.

Part of the problem is the broken status of international copyright law and the many incompatible local laws and regulations. If the international community could at least settle for an standard approach to digital distribution over the internet, the world would be a happier place for consumers.

<comment><USER15> Is it really copyright law, or is it business-driven content deals?

Content publishers make separate deals with distributors (cable & satellite) along their service-area borders, and can therefore sell the same content multiple times over to different regions, most likely charging pricing based on income levels and audience size, etc.. And no doubt a lot of these deals are exclusive, or at the very least timed exclusives..

I know this isn't news to anyone, but I feel like this whole "sell the same thing over and over" must have a much bigger impact on the very slow internationalization of media, rather than any kind of legal hurdles.

<comment><USER16> Ostensibly, this market fragmentation was forced by legislative fragmentation. However, excuses are wearing thin: the EU market, for example, is now unique, if distributors actually _wanted_ it to be. But they don't. Because distributors are the fat middlemen without a real future in the digital economy, so they'll try to squeeze every last drop of cash before they're forced out, exploiting every monopoly and every loophole they can. It's up to productions and audiences to bypass them as much as they can.

<comment><USER15> That's my point..

Publishers want the status quo because they make multiples of licensing income on the same content, and established distributors want the status quo because they fend off competition (and lock in their customers) from new global competitors who have better business models.

I can see why content producers may want these new deals, to get better control, but don't count on anyone else in the gravy train media chain to do anything other than fight new models tooth and nail until the bitter end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What is the purpose of this article? Was it really some random person SO EXCITED about a video streaming company? I struggle to find a thesis here. Do people need an entire essay that just says "Netflix is making money and producing content"?

<comment><USER18> Three-day holiday weekend.

There are currently two separate posts on the front-page about 1999's "Age of Empires 2" being a nice video game.

<comment><USER19> Yes, when people return from their holidays we'll go back to our regular schedule of marketing blog posts disguised as technical articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We are huge Netflix fans (my wife and I have our own streaming accounts, which is stupid now since they offer family options for separating play lists). That said, I think that Hulu Prime, the version without commercials, is also a fine product and Hulu is owned by the large network stations.

We get Amazon Prime free shipping via my brother's business so we have not signed up ourselves and don't get the free Amazon Prime content which friends and family members say is amazing.

The thing is: there is so much good content that it is fine, at least for me, to not have access to everything.

Another distribution model that I like is Google Play Movies and TV. It is a little pricy but I wanted to watch the Worricker Triliogy (fantastic!!) the the new scifi Expanse and it was so very convenient simply buying both series and watching them anytime on any device. If the cost was a little less, and if Google Play had most content, I think that I could be happy with a completely a la cart pay per view experience.

A suggestion for anyone working in this industry: when content is rented, offer a purchase option that is valid for a week. Sometimes I have rented movies and liked them enough that I would pay the difference to own permanent viewing rights.

<comment><USER21> > I think that Hulu Prime, the version without commercials

The last time I looked, the commercial free version of Hulu still had commercials for some shows. Has that changed?

<comment><USER22> There are a few shows that large cable companies wants to have with ads. But it's minimal. I think one of them is "Once upon a time".

<comment><USER21> > large cable companies wants to have with ads

Any guesses why this is? It seems so strange to me that it isn't possible to offer a commercial free service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It should however also be noted that the people who rate stuff on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes (namely, people who go on the Internet to look at movie reviews, discuss, rate etc.) are also probably most of the target audience for streaming services in general. While "Big TV" also caters for the older demographic, people who like reality tv (yes, apparently they do exist, I don't know...) etc., which still make up probably the majority of the viewers. Things will most likely change in the next decades, when the older viewers die out and a whole generation expects streaming and on demand and maybe even expect "stuff that is not shit" on TV - though I won't hold my breath for the latter.

<comment><USER24> I don't think the entire massed effort of the entire entertainment industry for all time can provide 6 hours/day of "stuff that is not shit." Roughly 6 hours/week is close to doable for the current industry if they don't make too many mistakes.

Reality TV began with GenX/millenials (MTV in the '90s with The Real World) and I'm not familiar with people older than that who watch that. I say that; I'll watch Counting Cars now and again. Reality TV represents a trade of quality for volume. Us boomers endured dreck like "Dallas".

I think the future is in _non_ fiction. I am biased to like things like BookTv. The costs are relatively low, it's got a pretty high hit rate ( some subjects will simply not engage some people ) but it's not really _media_ any more. Add some "media" to it and you get the execrable TED talks.

I can't see that supporting much in terms of ad revenue. But it might stream on some sort of modest subscription basis.

<comment><USER25> Did reality TV begin with Real World on MTV? What about shows like "Cops"? I think that predates Real World.

<comment><USER26> I feel like it's worth distinguishing between reality TV with a consistent cast like Real World, and those without like Cops, which is almost more like a documentary in that sense.

I'm not sure how I'd make the distinction clear though, because stuff like "Ghost Hunters" _feels_ a lot more like the Real World kind, despite being (ostensibly) more like a documentary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looking at the top series, they're all semi-obscure or obscure, early seasons of very new shows. This means they follow some key trends: obscure things typically have higher ratings in general than the mainstream, because you're unlikely to hear about them / watch them if you're not already in some narrow niche. Compare that to something like The Big Bang Theory, where people watch it just because it's on.

Ratings also tend to go down as a show matures, both as the quality and novelty drop off (even The Wire has its critics of the last season) and as the show is exposed to a wider audience.

Taking this into account, I don't think user ratings are the best measure of a show's appeal.

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't think online reviews are a good reference for TV shows. My impression is that, different of movies, only fans do reviews. So the average TV show rating is much higher than for movies.

And I also have the impression that Netflix shows have a stronger "fan review only" effect, as you must be proactive to start watching that show on the first place.

Another effect is that for movies, after you decide to watch it is easier to get to the end even if you are not liking (more so if you are on a theater). So most people watched 100% of the content. If you don't like a show, you do not pass the first episode. So if you did not watched more than 10% of content, I assume you won't feel confortable with giving a negative review.

So that is why I dont trust reviews for TV shows

</comment><comment><USER29> Hollywood is ripe for disruption. They remind me of the old 1970s auto industry: fat, happy, and stagnant. They don't do "plot" anymore, churning out nothing but totally formulaic rehashes and reboots and franchise flicks. I don't think viewers are as dumb as Hollywood thinks. Hollywood gets away with this schlock because they have little competition at the high end of film making.

Netflix can do what the Japanese autos did: start at the lower end with good but inexpensive TV shows and then eat up the value chain until they are producing blockbuster flicks of superior quality at a lower price. Give me a great blockbuster movie with an actual plot and actual dramatic tension and it's game over.

<comment><USER30> The super hero movies are getting annoying. The same goes for arkward unfunny comedian movies.

I hope Hollywood revives action movies (1980/90s style; eg Die Hard 1/2) with real stunts and little CGI again, as well as films with good realistic stories, realistic characters, funny and with a little drama (eg The Family Stone).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Another interesting thing to see is the response by a lot of those inside the television content industry.

Many of the companies that produce content are retooling and reorganizing specifically to deliver that content over the internet. None of them want to use Netflix, instead wanting their own service, but the growth of such streaming services has emboldened them. They both see that it's possible to go directly to consumer, -and- that it will be necessary at some point in the future, as the increase in cord cutters means less money on the incumbent TV providers to pay them with in contract negotiations. They realize they either are looking at ever dwindling fees, and thus, dwindling business, or they have to be able to circumvent the existing distributors.

So it's not just that Netflix is managing to create great content; its mere existence is leading to much of the content that TV distributors currently have a stranglehold on to be distributed directly by the content company.

<comment><USER32> Sadly in some countries such as Denmark, there are some TV licensing fees you can't stop paying, because you can access the content online... Even if you never intend to use it.

<comment><USER33> Just the national broadcasting though, which is not much different from how you pay for highways, even if you don't have a car.

<comment><USER34> Dane here. I pay about half of what the biggest channel package costs in mandatory license fees every month, and it is a very poor offering.

Netflix is only 80kr, or about 12 dollars, whereas I pay almost 30 dollars for the tv fees. I watched about 10 minutes of broadcast tv last year but many hours of netflix. I don't get why I should be forced to pay for something that doesn't produce any value for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> While I think it's pretty f __*ing obvious that traditional TV channels are going to be in a lot of trouble in the years to come, I couldn 't verify his statement that "Netflix now produces 3 of the top 5 rated video series according to Rotten Tomatoes". I did find the exact list he posted under "Top TV Comedies"

[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/browse/tv- list-2/#](http://www.rottentomatoes.com/browse/tv-list-2/#)

Also, on their "Top 10 TV Shows 2015", I only see two Netflix shows in places 8 and 9 on the list.

Netflix do produce some top quality shows, but the aren't currently killing it as much as the author claims.

<comment><USER36> Unless I'm missing something, your link does match his list, but it's labeled "Top TV Shows on RT", not comedy. Most of those shows are definitely not comedy.

<comment><USER35> Fair point on them not being comedies. This could be an RT issue. This is what I see:

[http://imgur.com/PdqztD9](http://imgur.com/PdqztD9)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Netflix has it easy on content production, all they need do is fill evening TV viewing for a younger generation, and content that can be put in front of children.

They do not have the overhead of filling 24 hours a day with new content, Netflix is all killer no filler in terms of content production.

And it turns out, that that's only a few hundred hours of TV per viewer per year, many of whom belong to those same small demographic groups that share great overlap in interest.

BTW, I'm really glad they turned down Top Gear whilst at the same time producing shows like Jessica Jones. One seems so dated and a decade ago whilst the other feels now or from the future.

<comment><USER38> The thing about Netflix is that is isn't just USA, here in the UK we've sat and taken USA content 3 years late, in the mean time the internet and newspapers full of spoilers and memes about those shows. So what to do? Pirate them? When Netflix turned up it was amazing!!

But the biggest selling point? For us is ... reception. Yeah, in the old days TV was full of snow. Now we've gone digital TV is just glitches and pops and whistles. We go from around 180 channels to 20 every time we re-scan the TV (which is about once a month) .... most of the time the TV is unwatchable.

Everyone I know is now Netflix and/or Amazon and/or both.

Whoever gets Premier Football, Ruby, F1, Moto GP, Formula E and the olympics will win TV forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> And Netflix is the only source of UHD, at least in my parts of the world. Which made me pay them even more for that subscription now when I bought a UHD TV last week. Oh, and I just ended my good old regular cable subscription one month ago.

<comment><USER40> Out of curiosity, how good is the streaming UHD? I've always wondered how the tension between bandwidth consumption and "actually looking better than 1080P" would pan out.

Last week with some Christmas funds we bought a 24" TV. Even at the point- blank range it is sitting at, 1080P isn't worth much so I got the nicer (and non-Smart!) 720P Samsung rather than the off-brand "we have 1080P!"-bullet- point-feature brand. We also got a Amazon Fire stick to stream to it. We took perverse glee in making the first thing we streamed to it Netflix's 4K Fireplace stream: [http://www.netflix.com/title/80092839](http://www.netflix.com/title/80092839)

<comment><USER41> On bigger screens and/or ones closer to the viewer it's definitely a noticeable improvement. It's obviously compressed and not up to the standard of a really high bitrate 4k video file but I guess it's equivalent to how "HD" on cable doesn't look as good as HD over the air but it still looks a lot nicer than standard def or DVD.

One major downside is that you can't stream 4K Netflix or Amazon to your browser so even on my 27" 2560x1440 monitor (or if you have a fancy 4k or 5k display) you won't get the option. It's only available on various streaming "sticks" or TV-based "apps" at the moment. As far as I know, it's only really meant as a roadblock to casual ripping of 4k content since it wouldn't be difficult to determine whether a viewer's computer had the proper hardware decoders to ensure smooth playback. Unfortunately for viewers, it means you can't get those higher quality streams without buying a device or using a "smart" TV. And last time I checked, there's no shortage of pirated 4K content out there. It's currently one of the only ways to do it if you don't want to rely on a Fire stick, another set top box, or some possibly-secured TV app platform. Not a huge deal on my 2560x1440 monitor since it's not too big and 1920x1080 looks fine. But I'm likely picking up a 4k TV in the next month thanks to a $500 gift card and wanting to game at those resolutions. It's a shame I'll have to either pirate 4k shows or plug in the ethernet cable to the TV when I want to stream legit.

<comment><USER42> I also have a 27" 2560x1440 monitor and while the content looks fine, the video gets really choppy if I don't configure my monitor to 1920x1080, as if it's struggling to resize the video. Does this not happen to you?

<comment><USER41> Sorry for the late reply, but whenever I stream from Netflix, Amazon, or Youtube, I just let it stream at whatever their site determines as the max my connection can handle and it never looks choppy in fullscreen. The only time there's any issue is when bandwidth is limited for whatever reason and the site needs to drop down to a lower quality stream.

I assume you've already covered this but just in case, do you have the most recent drivers and software for your GPU? I know in the past that (on Windows systems at least) using the default "mostly works" driver that comes with the OS, I'll notice issues with performance because I'm missing any hardware acceleration that the Intel/nVidia/AMD GPU can do.

Typically I notice it on work machines that just got reimaged with a generic OS image and don't have the relevant GPU drivers installed yet. Moving windows around, resizing, and other windowing tasks are a bit choppy until I download the appropriate package.

Again, I assume you already thought of this if you're specifically buying a higher resolution display than the average cheap PC comes with. Still, it's the only thing that I've had affect framerate/refresh in fullscreen video in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The key is how are the younger generation consuming tv content? My daughter and all her friends love YouTube, Netflix, etc. They don't bother with cable.

That's where the future is heading, me thinks. And yes I have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. Sure the cost pretty much equals what I would pay for cable but I prefer this way.

</comment><comment><USER44> Marco Polo — 92% (Fun Fact: Critics rated it 24%. How's that for incongruity?)

Narcos — 94% (Another crazy disconnect as critics only rated it 78%)

The author preaches shows produced by data driven companies, then when a rating data driven company has results he judges abnormal to his taste he insinuates something is wrong.

Personally, I found Marco Polo okay, the visuals are good, but the plot got boring after a while. I would not give it more than 50%. As for Narcos, 78% seems legit, I found the whole traditional drama show mixed with documentary interventions awkward. And would not give it more than 75%.

As for the article, of course linear TV is going to get disrupt. But I doubt Amazon or Netflix will get a monopoly. AMC and HBO will simply put their content online, and TV providers will make their revenue loss from linear TV on higher internet consumption.

<comment><USER45> The author is simply highlighting the disconnect between critics ratings and audience ratings for Netflix shows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Netflix content is indeed amazing, Narcos is my favourite show by far, house of cards and others are also top notch.

In the beginning I was always wishing that Netflix would get famous TV shows/ new movies to the platform ASAP.

Now a days I really want to see more of their own content in the platform instead.

</comment><comment><USER47> I wonder if ratings are higher because viewers don't have to endure annoying commercials?

To me, the absence of commercials definitely makes the experience far more enjoyable, and I can better relate to the stories and characters when the experience isn't constantly interrupted.

</comment><comment><USER48> So here's the catch 22. The Hollywood content producers and deliverers won't just sit back and let Netflix and Amazon eat their entire lunch. They will fight back, and presumably with their own streaming services. So we will have a proliferation (more so than now) of services to get specific content through. Usually this is a good thing. People want choice and choice breeds competition which is good for consumers. However in this instance most people I know, myself included, just want one streaming service to subscribe to so it's not such a hassle. But wishing for that is like wishing for Hitler to be replaced with Stalin. It will end poorly with just another monopoly taking the place of the old.

<comment><USER49> Well the way to prevent that is to with your wallet. Don't pay for a cable subscription (I don't), and refuse to watch sporting events unless they are available openly for streaming for a non-ridiculous price. It's seriously not such a big deal. Don't watch the shows that are only available via DVDs or on "boutique" services where you end up with a subscription when you only wanted a specific thing.

Eventually, content producers will realize that their delivery is usually horrible, and causes a lot of pain for consumers (I have to pay Comcast $300/month to watch the occasional football game? Sorry, not watching football.) and come up for better, more convenient ways for consumers to pay for the content they consume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Other than a few good streaming shows you're left with the leftover movies that the studios are willing to license to them. Most of the good stuff you have to get through other means. Sometimes I miss blockbuster.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm an Australian. I barely watch television any more. The TV Networks have basically screwed over Australians for a long time. We don't get the same content at the same time as the rest of the world, it gets shown out of order and at times they even missed entire episodes.

The only thing that the TV networks might have had going was to produce their own drama. They didn't - they just produced home improvement shows in the 90s, and really bad reality TV in the 2000s. Very little in the way of drama, and what _was_ created was dross.

So, goodbye TV! Hello Netflix!

</comment><comment><USER52> It'll get interesting when they make the first play for sports rights. Not because I think it's necessary or anything but that would be a pretty strong signal for the general audience that the paradigm has shifted. I think streaming quality isn't quite there yet but there's plenty of not super premium content they could try.

<comment><USER12> It turns out that my interest in sports did not exceed my hatred of cable companies. I canceled cable and don't watch nearly as much live sport coverage as I used to. Every so often I'll catch something in a bar or go to a friend's place to watch the Super Bowl, and that's it.

Point being, I don't think live sports is enough for cable to survive on. Once that's all that cable is good for, I think an increasing number of people will simply give up on sports, especially at $100+/month.

<comment><USER41> At least where I live, the cable companies are the only real option for broadband internet access so we're already paying Comcast for something. And once you are paying for internet access, cable TV is typically a lot less than $100/mo. The only reason we still have it is because internet access is $70/mo while internet plus cable (major channels in HD, minor ones in SD), plus HBO (main HBO channel in HD, secondary HBO channels in SD) costs $100/mo with their tuner/dvr rental.

So for a lot of people, they don't need to be worth $100+/month but they do need to be worth $30-ish per month. Whether they are is debatable but if anyone in your house still likes to "flip" channels and watch the latest cable/network TV, it's not always a done deal. If it were up to me, I'd ditch the cable TV because I hardly watch it and would spend less just renting "season passes" to the handful of shows I do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Why is the argument framed as Netflix against the other TV companies? That is wrong. I don't think people care who makes the show as long as its good and available/accessible. They will all change one way or the other. Their viability in the long run will depend on how good their online offerings are. We are still in the nascent stages of this.

The big issue here is the service providers like Comcast will be relegated to becoming purely pipe providers as they are supposed to be. They are getting hit from both ends by Google and Netflix.

<comment><USER24> Comcast will have to be reorganized as purely a pipe provider. It won't survive as it is. It's not clear that DSL will not then eclipse cable altogether.

As it is , they feed a lot of cash to local stations and ESPN. Those probably won't survive at all, unless as some sort of premium online content.

HBO/SHO?: Who knows?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> They spent the last 10 years conducting massive studies of what people like to watch.

If they weren't able to come up with some hits after that, then they weren't trying.

Somewhere behind the scenes, Netflix is applying sabermetrics to Hollywood.

Except it's worse than in baseball... Unlike Oakland, all their competitors (except maybe Amazon) can't just copy their approach, because all their data is private, not public.

<comment><USER41> Sure, but you'd think that with all of the market research done by TV and cable over the past several decades (and it's not as if Comcast and Time Warner don't track what people watch on their digital cable services) they'd have some inkling as to what's currently in demand and what may be underrepresented.

Perhaps it's just more efficient for Netflix to commission content or buy it and then distribute it themselves. The on-demand model means no concerns about finding the right timeslot and that's something even NBC has to deal with despite their Comcast ownership.

Or maybe as the newcomer, they have to take more risks whereas the older networks are more risk-averse. Right now Netflix reminds me of nothing so much as it does HBO. It's got older movies and content that it's licensed from others and it's got its own content that often seems less concerned with getting the broadest and widest appeal.

Netflix streaming is basically the evolution of premium cable and all they really did differently was jump straight to online-only delivery.

<comment><USER54> > they'd have some inkling as to what's currently in demand and what may be > underrepresented.

My working assumption is that the lessons learned from the prediction engine they've built are a qualitative leap over just "what's popular, assuming all of the US is composed of identical viewers." Or even a few demographic divisions.

Eh, I could be wrong though. Maybe this is just a gutcheck, I think Netflix is better at data science than other studios, because they have more experience working with programmers and large datasets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> As long as netflix can dump cash to generate quality original content they will have great success.

Redbox likes to advertise "not on netflix for years" on certain titles.

And they are right.

For someone who never goes to theaters like me, I hope redbox stays in business.

</comment><comment><USER56> Mom: "We got Sky now, so many channels and we get the newest Soccer and Movies!"

GF: "Oh nice... so where can I choose the movies?"

Mom: "You select the movie channel at 20:15 and it shows it"

GF: "What? I that's in four hours! Who pays a company to wait? This sounds like Netflix in bad to me..."

Classic cable TV is basically dead.

First Netflix&co had better airing times (on demand, haha) and now they invest in better shows.

Besides Rick and Morty and Game of Thrones, every show I watched last year, was made by Netflix or Amazon.

And this seems to be a good thing. Just look at stuff like orange is the new black. These new producers are far less conservative than the old media companies.

<comment><USER52> Sky (in Germany) has a service called Go which streams to cell phones/tablets. They also have Anytime for the box. No need to watch at the time if you don't want to + you can always just record it and watch later.

They've been pretty aggressive in rebuilding their platform content wise. If you use a regular cable (not wireless) the online archive is actually pretty big and they have all the latest blockbusters.

They even offer a DRMed download of content which I haven't seen on any other platform (quite convenient if you commute via train through low-bandwidth areas :D).

That being said...Netflix is awesome and they have excellent developers and understand software. Their original content is amazing, very bullish on them :)

<comment><USER9> Sky UK has Go too, plus thousands of films available to stream, built-in catch-up TV and Sky Box Sets which has loads of programmes, from HBO, Disney, C4 and many others - all built into the Sky Box and accessible via the remote.

Truthfully, it's not as cost effective as Netflix, but hey, where else can I watch the Premier League and La Liga?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Author seems unaware that Apple is already in the streaming space also.

Otherwise, yea Concast et. al. Seem to have their heads in the sand.

<comment><USER58> Apple is producing content? All I see in the iTunes store is a bunch of crummy network TV reruns and stuff I can get on a dozen other platforms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Does anybody worry that people will just subscribe for one month out of the year and watch everything and then cancel?

<comment><USER60> How much TV can you (and do you want to) watch in a month? Plus, with their ongoing series, you can get caught up on a show or two, but a year later and there'll be more content for the shows you watched.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Sadly, half those shows are not actually available on Netflix.

<comment><USER62> What are you talking about?

<comment><USER63> Netflix has sold distribution rights abroad to some of their own shows such as House of Cards, then entered the market shortly after.

As a result, you can now subscribe to Netflix in these markets and not get access to their own programming. Yes, it is as terrible as it sounds.

<comment><USER51> And yet, you can get around those restrictions quite easily.

<comment><USER64> Or you can torrent it quite easily and don't pay a dime. The point is : if I have to do illegal stuff (getting around geoip is against TOS) and start installing software, search on the internet for a tutorial to learn how to watch my stuff, I might as well look for "House of cards torrent", it's faster and cheaper. I can pirate any music I want, yet I pay Apple Music $10/month to get it because it's easy, the UI is nice, everything is in there, and the service "just works". If I have to install a VPN, to change my IP so that the service I am paying will let me watch a show they are producing, something is broken. Period. Fix it or I'll pirate it.

<comment><USER51> You are still paying the content creators if you bypass the geoblock and pay the monthly subscription fee. And that fee is not at all onerous.

In Australia, all the streaming providers have the problems of not being able to show all content. There is stuff in Australia that we can't watch _at all_. Bypassing Geoblocks makes me a citizen of the entire world, which I gladly pay for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> ... and data caps will put it out.

Serious question: Would nationalizing Comcast fix anything, or make it worse?

<comment><USER38> This is a problem in the US, not everywhere (nearly everywhere) else in the world.</comment></comment>


Self-documenting Code with OneTab - <AUTHOR> http://datasyndrome.com/post/106761986894/self-documenting-code-with-onetab

<comment><USER2> I like Tabs Outliner [1]. I like the tree organization, and you can easily move (multiple) tabs from one window to another (open or closed tabs), as well as naming the window. It has a bit of a learning curve, but the documentation is decent and the videos provide a good demo.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs- outliner/eggk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs- outliner/eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl?hl=en)</comment>


Startups Cooperative: Workable or Pie in the Sky Fantasy? - <AUTHOR>

As you know, the idea behind the corporation is the pooling of assets by many individuals to provide greater operating money and to spread out the risk of failure among the group.  Could such a collective approach work for startups?
The idea here is less like a corporation and more of a cooperative bent.  Each individual startup is still independently run and operated.  However, because infrastructure can be troublesome and expensive, some sort of sharing agreement is in play.  Instead of everyone writing all the components necessary to make their own startup function, such an arrangement opens up the possibility for code reuse.  Granted if the component is a vital part of what makes your startup valuable or unique, it would not be reasonable to share it.  Authentication code, web GUI frameworks, database(s) and the like seem like reasonable candidates for this sort of arrangement.  Labor pooling and/or sub-contracting possibilities may also be viable as well.
Obviously, two startups in competition would not be ideal candidates for such a strategic partnership.  However, companies using similar platforms and languages could benefit tremendously from such an approach.
One last thing of note, cooperation may also be useful in matters of platform creation.  Consider the possibilities for say a purveyor of blogging systems, a photo hosting service, and a collaborative news service to join forces and build a common social graph to compete against Facebook, Google and Myspace.
I realize people don't usually get along very well together.  However, some frameworks (like constitutional government) have succeeded in the past.  So what do you think, is this idea totally ridiculous? <comment><USER2> Not at all ridiculous. In fact, I was thinking something very similar about a week ago but I didn't really dwell on it. After reading PG's most recent article, a couple things he pointed out seemed like a solidification of what you and I are thinking. Particularly, the last section: 'Faster Advances'. I don't want to be redundant, so if you don't remember, here you go: <http://paulgraham.com/webstartups.html>.

More broadly, simply sharing some of the things you mention is cool and all, but what if teams with _complementing_ ideas collaborated. If our team is accepted, I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for teams who may be in related problem domains, or are approaching issues we expect to encounter further down the road.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about a start-up coop on a beautiful island somewhere?

Cheap-as-dirt living, gorgeous surroundings, fun as anything.

Get enough of us out there and we'll have that spark of community we all need, too.

Even if a group doesn't want to ultimately headquarter there due to distance from end-users/investors/whatever, set up a place where groups/duos/individuals can come for retreats (2 days --> 6 months, whatever you desire).

I'd go. Heck, I might do it myself.

(I'm not saying it wouldn't take some ingenuity to make this work practically. But it just might be worth the trouble.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been thinking about this for a long time now.

The idea is sound, but I really think what it comes down to ultimately is People. If you have a bunch of the right people working together, previously difficult things suddenly become possible.

My idea revolves like yours around shared infrastructure. I would like a physical space, with servers, domain registration, payment gateways, and networking already set up, where groups of people can congregate for a long weekend of hacking. But to really produce quality work, it depends on the quality of the people, and the passion they have for the particular project.

Perhaps with enough different groups congregating often enough, eventually good ideas can take shape and good work can be done. I feel that creation of a platform may be aiming too high, I would be happy for just any type of startup to be created out of it.

So I think the idea has merit in some shape or form, but to my knowledge it hasn't been successfully done before.

</comment><comment><USER5> Kaizyn:

The whole entrepreneurial system is based on competition, my friend. However, there's no need for each startup to re-invent the wheel. I, for one, welcome a change and a bit of experimentation of the startup variety is definitely keeping with the spirit of things. Why not see if a kind of parasitic, symbiotic relationship can be setup? I cross-posted on your piece to <http://blog.innovators-network.org> The Innovators Network is a non-profit dedicated to bringing technology to startups, small businesses, non-profits, venture capitalists and intellectual property experts. Please visit us and help grown our community!

Best wishes for continued success,

Anthony Kuhn Innovators Network

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't like the idea and here's why.

At the earliest stages, you don't know what will give you a competitive advantage. You may think you do, but you really don't. As things get off the ground, you may find yourself in a totally different business that what you planned.

I have had several experiences where I rolled out several tools needed to do the real work, and it turned out that the tools became the product. Who knew. Good thing I didn't share them or I would've ended up with nothing.

Finding a community of like minded people, either in person or a place like here is a great idea. Sharing what you've got before you know what's really important might not be.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an excellent point. Had Joel Spolsky 'shared' the bug tracking system in such a cooperative pool, things would have turned out dramatically different for FogBugz.

<comment><USER7> Who actually uses FogBugz? All his blog marketing does is make you think people use it but here in Silicon Valley I've rarely heard anyone use it.

<comment><USER4> I did a stint at a company who had bought it, and no one was using it. All the developers expressed disgust at its user-interface, and management didn't care what they used so they ended up writing their own.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The U.S. Should Defend Hong Kong - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-22/former-u-s-envoy-says-america-should-defend-hong-kong <comment><USER2> (Quoting a comment I made on another thread)

Some critics _speculated_ that one way out for Hong Kong is for her to be integrated into Taiwan, and then get transitive protection by the United States.

The handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997 in based on the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which China declares is merely historical and no longer holds any "practical significance." [1]

Note that Hong Kong was given to the Britain by three treaties in the 19th century (1842 Treaty of Nanking, 1860 Convention of Peking, 1898 The Second Convention of Peking), and the true copies of all treaties are in the hand of Taiwan, which were brought to Taiwan by the KMT government during its retreat to Taiwan before 1950.

So if the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, the declaration behind the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China, is revoked (partly because CCP declares it invalid), Britain _might_ declare that Hong Kong should return to the holder of the three treaties–Taiwan.

Extremely unlikely, but arguably has legal justification.

As a side note, Hong Kong and Taiwan are the two main places sharing the use of traditional Chinese characters (besides Macau), and Taiwan has a good track record of respecting sub-languages of spoken Chinese (not just use Mandarin), so culturally they share a lot. And they also value democracy, freedom, and rule of law as core values, so _ignoring geopolitics_ their integration is plausible.

[1]: [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/br...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/britains- responsibility-to-hong-kong/594142/)

<comment><USER3> Very interesting. My heart says "Let Hong Kong become part of Taiwan." But as unreasonable as mainland China is, I think they would be justified in objecting to US meddling in Hong Kong.</comment></comment>