Migrate Your Instagram Photos to Flickr in One Click. - <AUTHOR> http://freethephotos.com <comment><USER2> "Think of the kittens, think of the breakfast plates, think of the converse shoes. Free the photos."

Best quote ever and pretty much encompasses everything about Instagram in one sentence. I don't see what the big deal is, Instagram issued a clarification statement about the TOS changes. And in all honesty it's not like the photo quality of an iPhone image is that great, especially not for advertisement purposes let alone the subject quality of the images themselves.

As an aside: you can't argue Flickr's $25 per year pro account is extremely good value for money. Especially if you're uploading a lot of photos. I've seen photo shoots that resulted in thousands of images before from just the one shoot. Instagram isn't a site for pro photographers, it's more teenagers at parties and hipster eateries.

<comment><USER3> Haha, definitely agree. It was mostly a fun exercise for us to build for the community so people can send a copy of their Instagram photos over to Flickr. We love data portability and we also understand both Instagram and Flickr are businesses and they want to make money. This gives users the freedom to move, don't move, use both, etc.

<comment><USER4> just downloaded all my photos! That was fast! Great job on the app! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really hope this Instragram black-eye (even if they fix it) triggers a rebirth of interest in Flickr. Flickr was a great site once and remains a great idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely. One of Flickr's biggest problems was it's lack of mobile support, and now, their iOS app is awesome, so I can only imagine good things from them.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it's good to see a new iOS app from them. Looks like they're starting to get the attention they deserve within Yahoo. I just hope that it remains a photo site with a social element, rather than the reverse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      Think of the kittens, think of the breakfast plates, think of the converse shoes.
      Free the photos.

Best quote ever.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nicely done! Flickr's API is a big reason why despite lacking growth in other departments, I'm still a happy paying customer of theirs. When I heard about the Instagram hubbub, I figured something like this would appear within a day or two, given how easy their API is to work with. That's not to downplay the work done here - great, simple, effective implementation

<comment><USER8> The Flickr API has some fun quirks, but it was a good experience overall. I'm glad you liked the app :)

<comment><USER9> I had a go with it fairly recently and I was generally really impressed. Some odd naming conventions but you can't half get some great data out of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And hello to good old friend, Flickr! Instagram's loss is flickr's gain. Time for some Real photography, beyond filters!

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't like that Flickr is so focused on the iPhone. It's a free app, and yet it chooses to make a big SEND TO IPHONE button on the screen, and completely hides that it even supports Android, even though there are more Android phones in the world at this point. I just don't understand what's the reasoning behind focusing _so much_ on the iPhone. Are they trying to pretend they are focusing on a niche or what?

<http://www.flickr.com>

<comment><USER12> Android may be the more popular platform in general, but there sure are an awful lot of iPhones being used to take pictures for Flickr, and apparently not a whole lot of Android phones.

The most popular camera on Flickr: the iPhone 4S. Not just the most popular cameraphone—the most popular camera. The second most popular at the moment? The iPhone 4.

Cameras brands, in order of popularity on Flickr: Canon, Nikon, Apple, …, Samsung, HTC, …, Nokia, Kodak, Motorola …

Cameraphone popularity, in order: iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone 3GS, Samsung Galaxy S II.

Source: <http://www.flickr.com/cameras/>

Perhaps they're causing some bias in these numbers today by not pushing the Android app, and some more bias by not reporting Android phones as a group, but given the data they have, I'm not surprised they push the iOS app over the Android version. It looks like their user base is very heavily biased towards the iPhone.

<comment><USER13> To add, perhaps iPhone users are more engaged with Flicker to the point where iPhone interactions outnumber Flicker interactions.

Taking this a step further, perhaps Flicker is trying to align more with the iPhone/Apple brand than the Google (Picassa/+) brand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This might be a good time for Flickr to consider changing their import policies for new users.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is awesome, also don't forget to delete your account from Instagram afterwards and delete the app, here is how to for account and also alternate to download your photos: [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/how-to- download-your-...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/how-to-download- your-instagram-photos-and-kill-your-account/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only one who will keep all photos on Instagram? I seriously don't understand what the fuzz is about. Not one single time have I've seen anything bad happen after privacy "scandals" like this and I'm pretty sure nothing will happen this time either.

<comment><USER17> Do you mean "anything bad happen" to you personally, and that things that only happen to "other people" don't count?

[http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1012/gallery....](http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1012/gallery.5_data_breaches/index.html)

<comment><USER16> I don't see the big deal with any of those incidents to be honest. Would you really care if someone saw your Netflix history? Anyway, what I meant was that alarmists think Instagram is going all evil which I seriously doubt will happen. When have those fears come true?

<comment><USER18> Maybe you didn't read them all, but I believe that someone finding you and killing you with a gun is a fairly big deal to most people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Under "Why are we doing this?" It just says

 _"This is a migration service built so you can keep the rights to your photos. If you haven't read Instagram's new terms of service, read more here.

Update: Instagram has updated their stance on the issue. Read the blog post here.

We don't store, keep or use your data, information, or photos in any way. All data is streamed directly from Instagram to Flickr. When it comes to your photos, we agree with Flickr."_

I understand what the tool does but I still don't understand _why_ you're offering this service. I'm guessing it's a fun hack and a service to the community but I'm curious to hear why you decided to build the tool.

<comment><USER3> It was mostly for the fun of building it and using a couple APIs that were new to us. We use APIs all day long at Cloudsnap so this was more of a fun exercise for the community to use if they want to send a copy of their Instagram photos over to Flickr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I never understood what was so great about Flickr. I can only upload 300 MB a month of photos? And only view my last 200 photos? What's great about that?

Instagram is a huge hit and is the defacto standard for taking and uploading photos to social services. No monthly limits, no limits on viewing photos...

Flickr needs to free people's photos more than Instagram does.

(Great service though to the OP. I am actually trying it now too despite Flickr's limits!)

<comment><USER21> The 300 MB/month limit is their free product. For $25/(Correction - not month, but year!) you get their pro package which includes: (from their upgrade option link):

      o Unlimited uploads (up to 50MB per photo)
      o Unlimited viewing of your entire photo library
      o Post photos in up to 60 groups
      o Download your original, high-resolution photos – whenever you need them
      o Upload and play unlimited HD videos
      o Browse Flickr completely ad-free
      o View stats on your account

I can't begin to explain how ridiculous the Flickr value proposition is for $25/year - and, indeed, there are some photographers with upwards of 100,000 pictures on the site.

[Edit - I was inspired to go try out Flickr just because of the hoofrah and this cool tool that let me move my instagram pictures - Wow - great Batch Editting, Set Collection, Image management. You can see the advantage of a tool with a decades worth of work into it. Signed up for a pro account]

<comment><USER22> We use flickr at our lab as a photo dump for an eyefi, and absolutely adore it in every single way. I seriously cannot say how valuable that is to us.

<https://www.flickr.com/photos/hslphotosync/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow - this is great. I was just looking for a quick tool to do exactly this. Worked perfectly - within 5 min. Thanks!

One question - does the Instagram API not facilitate location export? As in... none of my Instagram location info was moved over to Flickr location data.

<comment><AUTHOR> Both of them do support location, but we weren't able to get this done within our timebox today. It's something we'll look to add in the near future, and moving tags over, as well. Sorry about that.

<comment><USER23> Hey - I understand! If you had to move something to the top of your to-do list, that would be it. I can't be the only one that is addicted to seeing my photos on a map. Either way - thanks!

<comment><USER3> We rolled this out last night! You now get the locations and proper "photo taken at" timestamps if the data exists in Instagram.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The transfer would take longer if Instagram hadn't already thrown out nearly all of the bits from the original photo.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is awesome, nice work. Although I'd prefer one that transferred them to Picasa/Google+.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Treeder!

<http://pi.pe/> might be able to handle those transfers. I haven't looked into it too much and I'm not sure what the experience is like, but I have seen it posted several times for that type of request. Might want to check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> <http://instabyebye.com>

1 click export from insta

</comment><comment><USER27> it worked

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. Glad it worked!

<comment><USER28> Wonderful UX with this, very simple and efficient, took less than a minute for me. The only thing that could make more sense is to upload the photos oldest first.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Glad it worked out.

We're currently experiencing an uptick in users right now, so it's not uncommon for some users with 2,000+ photos to take about 15 minutes or so to sync.

Edited: Yeah, we're uploading the newest ones first. We may look into changing that tonight sometime when we get a chance. Sorry for not clarifying that anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> news shock.. business tries to make profit. freeloaders complain..

</comment><comment><USER13> I see you, Marissa . . .</comment>


Iceland has largely kicked teen drinking. What can it teach other countries? - <AUTHOR> https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/World/Europe/2017/1229/Iceland-has-largely-kicked-teen-drinking.-What-can-it-teach-other-countries <comment><AUTHOR> A couple of takeaways:

\- One of the problems (enabling teenage drinking) is an ambiguous view of the line between child and adulthood, she says; the resistance to call a kid a kid, and treat them as such, and really make it easy for them to pick among fun kid things to do with their time, to keep them interested

\- the opposite of the D.A.R.E. approach, the Icelandic approach makes the community responsible rather than the individual teen.</comment>


Chrome won't connect me to Facebook – SSL error? - <AUTHOR> https://facebook.com

<comment><USER2> If Windows XP, it's usually that the root store is corrupt [1]. Otherwise it's usually a bad system clock. If nothing else, see chrome://net-internals and you can repo the problem and find the SSL socket under "Events" to see the actual chain and error code.

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=3594...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=35945)</comment>


Hayabusa2 is leaving the asteroid Ryugu and heading back to Earth - <AUTHOR> https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/hayabusa2-is-leaving-the-asteroid-ryugu-and-heading-back-to-earth <comment><USER2> The level of engineering behind this is such an amazing feat.

Landing a satellite on an asteroid, and then shooting it with rare minerals to cause debris to shoot off, to then be collected and later analysed by scientists here on Earth? All while in flight? And there's enough fuel to give this another crack on a _second_ asteroid?

I remember buying dinosaur and space magazines that often had collectable assets (like, each magazine collection would build an entire glow in the dark T Rex skeleton or similar, each magazine came with one bone and you had to get 20+ magazines for the entire 1:200 scale skeleton... we'd probably call this DLC now) and being absolutely amazed at what was written within.

This article brings about the exact same glee and nostalgia.

<comment><USER3> > This article brings about the exact same glee and nostalgia.

Phil Plait is one of my favourite science writers, and has been consistently putting out great "bad astronomy" blog posts for years (decades?). If you want more of his writing you can check out the website: [http://www.badastronomy.com/index.html](http://www.badastronomy.com/index.html)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the recommendation. After spending some minutes browsing the content, I was delighted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know we don't live in the Apollo era, and timelines are much longer for space missions - but it's such a great time to look to the skies and imagine where we'll be within our lifetimes.

Hats off to the people that work night and day to get these widgets to their destinations, perform their jobs, and bring them home. I wish my skillset translated to these fields because I'd take a 50% paycut and ditch all my options to go into the field in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER6> You're right. The timelines are so long, I'm pretty sure more than a few exciting and really expensive space missions you will not see in your lifetime. We are at hundreds of years from real space colonies.

<comment><USER7> Invest in cryonics and be able to wake up in time.

<comment><USER8> Entrust your body to a corporation? Only once the end of normal life is nigh anyways.

<comment><USER9> Welcome to Night Vale has an interesting take on this, which is:

Why should the future care about you or your desires? To the future, you are simply a resource.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "...accelerating the probe to a meager 9.2 centimeters per second relative to the asteroid (slower than a snowflake falls on Earth), but that was enough to give it enough velocity to escape"

That is pretty insane.

<comment><USER11> Without gravity and atmosphere you can do pretty neat tricks with very little energy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm going with Arthur C Clarke on this one

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

</comment><comment><USER13> If we could just get these probes to be cheap enough we could conceivably mine asteroids. Then again the economics just don't make sense since we have plenty to mine on Earth already.

<comment><USER14> If we can get a few metal asteroid to earth, prices would fall to near nothing and we could close all mines for the metals that are out there.

<comment><USER15> No they won't. Even if you get as big as this one the article is talking about to be full of gold and drop it directly in backyard of a gold smelting factory it will barely make a dent in the price of gold. Plus our entire technology is based on using silver and gold for circuitry, so it will get absorbed really fast in the market. Currently we have so much of a shortage that we recycle old boards to extract the metals in them.

<comment><USER16> All of the gold that has ever been mined by humanity over the last few thousand years would fit in a cube about 21 meters per edge. So I think that actually it would make a big difference to grab something this size made out of gold.

[https://www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-supply/gold- mining/how-...](https://www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-supply/gold-mining/how- much-gold)

<comment><USER17> I wonder what the best way to sell that would be? Maybe just slowly release it and use the asset as security on loans. That way you maintain the high price and get access to capital.

<comment><USER18> Depends on whether you keep it private.

If people know it's going to be released, it doesn't make too much of a difference exactly how long you are going to take.

(Unless you go really, really slow.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm always reminded of Warren Ellis' talk "How to see the Future" when I read stuff like this. We have to strive to reduce the banality with which we view the world, and things like this go a long way.

[http://www.warrenellis.com/how-to-see-the- future/](http://www.warrenellis.com/how-to-see-the-future/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is it me or those asteroids seem so lonely in space ? Their black skies and cold light makes them so desolate...

</comment><comment><USER21> What about possible contamination from something on or on the asteroid?

</comment><comment><USER22> Definitely the beginning of a sci-fi horror movie plot...

</comment><comment><USER23> Imagine how much rain forest we could have saved with the money used to fund this program.

More wasteful space spending to satisfy the less than 1% of space geeks that are interested in this nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER24> I am now worried that this day will looked back on later in history as the start of the alien wars.

<comment><AUTHOR> I doubt it. We've been crashing things into comets and asteroids before this.

Like the Deep Impact mission in 2005. [1]

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


The Encryption Debate Is Over: Dead at the Hands of Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/07/26/the-encryption-debate-is-over-dead-at-the-hands-of-facebook/#7bbd40525362 <comment><USER2> Just load this python script, and done.

</comment><comment><USER3> you could always just not use Facebook products...</comment>


Introducing scdoc, a man page generator - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/2018/05/13/scdoc.html <comment><USER2> Looks very cool! Small question: why did you write the parser by hand instead of using a parser generator?

<comment><AUTHOR> An explicit recursive-descent parser for a simple grammar is smaller, less complex, and easier to maintain than e.g. flex+bison. Lack of dependencies is a bonus.</comment></comment>


Snap Inc. Reports First Quarter 2017 Results - <AUTHOR> https://investor.snap.com/news-releases/2017/05-10-2017-210059250 <comment><USER2> Some quick highlights as to why the stock is being punished.

> Adjusted Ebitda Loss $188.2M, Est. Loss $176.9M

> 1Q Daily Active Users 166M, Est. 168M

> 1Q Rev. $149.6M, Est. $158.6M

> 1Q Loss/Shr $2.31

I'm guessing the big issue is the miss on Daily active users. This is the same thing that caused the street ot hammer twitter.

Rule of thumb for non profitable tech companies....

If you are a company that isn't making a profit and you continually preach look at the users, look at the users. and then fail to even hit your target on that, you're going to get punished.....heavily.

Or put another way, you can either make a profit or make your non GAAP numbers, but you have to atleast hit one of the two.

One other issue from the Bloomberg momentary....

> A very key number here is revenue per user. Snap's results today are > indicating average revenue per user at 90 cents. This is down from $1.05 > (14%) from what it reported for Q4 2016, before its IPO.

To be completely fair, SNAP management wanted full control to build for the long term and Facebook was down 12% after their first earnings report and Twitter was down 24% so it might just be that its painful for rookie CEOs to manage a public company.

Too bad for employees that this comes before the lock up period ends.

 __EDIT __

Just on the earnings call, they said they don 't break out Spectical's numbers but the revenue it generated was about $8 Million.

<comment><USER3> Sluggish user growth probably doesn't look much better when Facebook's overt effort to clone their product seems to be working.

Instagram Stories alone already outpaces Snap 200M to 166M. Looks like an uphill battle from here.

[http://www.thefader.com/2017/04/14/instagram-stories-more- po...](http://www.thefader.com/2017/04/14/instagram-stories-more-popular- snapchat)

<comment><USER4> Just out of curiosity, what kinds of things can a startup do to avoid being copied and killed out of the gate by Facebook? Poison pill? Patent?

<comment><USER5> I'll indulge. When Facebook seriously have you in their sights, financially, the smart move is what Snap did: rush for IPO before your numbers start getting affected. Product-wise it appears that if Facebook make a billion dollar offer, accepting it is a wise choice to maximise usage growth and interaction.

<comment><USER6> Isn't it better for everyone who's a part of Snapchat or a pre-IPO investor that they didn't allow FB to buy them for $3B? Even if Snapchat goes to a $10B valuation (which likely won't happen this year) and stays around there, that'll still be worth it for almost everyone. Since a lot of insiders will have already taken some money out before then as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I almost wonder if there's going to be a "liked it before it was cool" paradox to a lot of these social sharing startups dreams of continued user growth and eventual profitability. Facebook seems to have reached escape velocity as a quasi public utility, a ubiquitous enough communication medium that almost everyone is peer pressured into using it even though they increasing dislike it.

But the other social sharing platforms then become escape hatches for the cool kids to hang out and share stuff in more authentic/novel/exclusive communities, fueling a few to rocket growth and unicorn valuations. But like that indie band you discovered that's now playing on the radio every damn day, the bigger it gets the more the early adopters will move on to something else. And especially in a situation where your primary market is teenagers, there's nothing less cool than what was cool 5 years ago.

<comment><USER8> I get your point but that seems like a bad example to me. If the startup is the local indie band that makes it big then yeah, maybe they lose the trendy first users, but presumably they "made it" and are far more profitable by staying on the radio, even if they lose the few original fans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is one of the ugliest financial statements I've ever seen. The multi- billion dollar loss is due mostly to stock compensation, but still their COGS or cost of revenues sold was greater than their revenues. That's probably the first time that's been seen for a sizable software company in the history of the industry.

They said their revenue per DAU is $.90 and their server costs per DAU were $.60...so that means server costs were around $100mn while total COGS were $160 mn. So what was that other $60 mn spent on? Admins? But I thought they used the Google App Engine infrastructure to avoid any server admins and such.

Their revenues are exploding with their revenue up nearly 400% from last year, but were below estimates as was user growth which are probably causing the current stock price drop.

<comment><USER10> "server costs" (Google Cloud) is an affordable $450 million per year commitment.

They apparently have 2,360 employees doing who knows what (not growing the user base).

My favorite part:

"Spiegel laughed out loud when asked if he was worried about Facebook copying his features. "Just because Yahoo has a search box doesn't mean they're Google.""

We'll check back in a year to see if he feels the same way.

<comment><USER11> > They apparently have 2,360 employees doing who knows what (not growing the > user base).

I don't understand what all these people do all day. Same with Twitter, they have 3860 employees according to their website. It seems like 10X as many as needed. I've worked in a few offices with less than 100 employees total, and while I have no idea what it takes to run a service with that much traffic, Snapchat runs on Google's cloud service.

> "Just because Yahoo has a search box doesn't mean they're Google.""

Maybe it will be a classic in the same genre as Ballmers answer to what he thought about Apple's new product the iPhone.

<comment><USER12> A large % of that number is in sales.

Unfortunately B2B sales is still very much people driven. Lots of calls, emails, meetings x 10 until you close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> User growth is plummeting:

Q4'15 - 13.8%

Q1'16 - 14%

Q2'16 - 17.2%

Q3'16 - 7%

Q4'16 - 3.2%

Instagram Stories launched Q3'16\. Going forward, growth is going to be flat, maybe even negative, now that every messenger service now has their own Stories clone.

<comment><USER13> While a very small market segment but I've noticed that my user demographic's snap story usage has been in rapid decline. The people whom I saw using snap stories the majority of time, have since cut their usage in half if not completely and switched to Instagram stories.

Going to be very interesting to see how they handle user growth & user engagement.

<comment><USER12> Yeah I see the problem as double-edged:

1) Teenage users, their bread and butter, are leaking out to Instagram

2) Older users, their growth market, are being "stolen" by the various messaging apps that they're already on (plus Instagram)

So now they have to simultaneously fend off Instagram draining their primary userbase, while also competing with all the popular messenger apps cloning their main product feature.

The latter is going to be just as difficult as the former. Overseas, WhatsApp (Europe), and WeChat and Line (Asia) are going to seize whatever int'l growth they were hoping to grab. In the US, chances are that if Stories catches-on with the older crowd, it'll be through either Instagram or the various messenger apps they're already on.

During the IPO roadshow, SNAP was trying to position itself as a media/entertainment company, but media companies will follow the audience, and it's hard to see them sticking it out with SNAP if viewership numbers falter.

Hard to see how they claw their way out of this. The comparisons to FB are poor IMO because they at least strong MAU growth going for it and no real viable competitors with an alternative product. Even the comparisons to Twitter are flawed. The doubly whammy of decline growth + decline revenue per user is creating the perfect storm for SNAP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there any public company that releases earnings in realtime rather than quarterly and/or annually? Has this ever been tried? Is there any rational behind earnings being reported quarterly/annually besides it being aligned with existing regulatory and accounting procedures?

<comment><USER15> The procedures to produce an SEC report take time and aren't automatic. Management discussion, etc.

As a former professional investor quarterly is fine. i want mgmt focused on running the business, not reporting to investors. Anyone who wants more frequent data so they can trade the stock can hit the road as far as I care.

<comment><USER14> Interesting! Thank you for your perspective and insight.

Do you think that having some data reported automatically in realtime could minimize surprises such as what we see here? Perhaps then the quarterly reports could be more focused on describing the longterm strategy and market landscape?

<comment><USER15> Annual reports are for strategy. If you buy shares in a business that changes strategy on a monthly basis, you don't need more rapid reporting, you need to get out.

Go read Buffetts annual shareholder letters, they are free on the internet going back 40 years. He repeatedly makes the key point that your investments need to have some enduring competitive advantage, if they do you don't need constant upgrades, if they don't sell. Enduring competitive advantages don't disappear over night, if they degrade they do it slowly over many years.

<comment><USER16> > If you buy shares in a business that changes strategy on a monthly basis, > you don't need more rapid reporting, you need to get out.

I think that with new companies, like Snapchat, Instagram, or even Uber, changing strategies on a monthly basis has become somewhat of a requirement.

<comment><USER15> If true it makes them terrible investments, because their future income streams can't be estimated with any accuracy, so they cannot be valued.

But in reality it's not totally true. SnapChat and (probably) Instagram have huge installed bases, but haven't yet figured out how to monetize them. They aren't businesses or investments, they have no strategy other than just pure speculation.

But Uber provides a service connecting riders with drivers that costs pennies per ride to deliver and earns dollars per ride in revenues. If you know how much Uber is spending to build out markets, and on unneeded distractions like UberEats and self driving cars, you can estimate the value of their core business. Uber's strategy has never changed, they've just obfuscated it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It still seems overvalued. What would you rather own?

Snapchat -- which, after dropping 23% today has a market cap of 21.5B.

Or ALL of...

Yelp - 2.21B

GoPro - 1.21B

FitBit - 1.38B

Groupon - 2.01B

Twitter - 13.59B

Sonic - 1.27B

...for a total of 21.67B

<comment><USER18> I would most certainly buy $SNAP over every one of these companies. People don't get it. For everyone between the ages of 13 to 26, Snapchat is their only social network, their only messaging app, their go to camera! That is inherently more value that any of those companies combined.

<comment><USER19> Facebook is big, it's everywhere. That's not cool for teens. Being different is what teens want. This can backfire on snap too if there is something even "cooler".

I will definitely buy some SNAP after they employees sell like crazy in desperation. I am optimistic about future value of SNAP and pessimistic about Facebook

<comment><USER20> In my area, VSCO is on the up-and-up for picture-sharing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _[Net Loss] primarily due to the recognition of expense related to RSUs with a performance condition satisfied on the effectiveness of the registration statement for our initial public offering._

This reads like they gave out $2 BILLION in RSU's that vested if the company went public. _That_ is a pretty sweet payday.

EDIT: It is a sweet payday unless you can't sell the stock to pay the taxes owed right away. Then if SNAP tanks you have a HUGE tax bill and no way to pay it.

<comment><USER22> Snapchat was known for its unusual RSUs--they would evaporate in a set amount of time unless a liquidity event happened. Apparently, if there's what the IRS considers a substantial risk of loss, they're considered unvested and you don't have to pay taxes on them. It looks to me like the situation worked the same on the accounting side of things.

<comment><USER21> Ok, so that would confirm the 'creative use of tax law' feature which was also part of the dot com world. Thanks for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> But! SNAP is doing AR, Spectacles are a stroke of marketing genius, distributed to cool influencers, instead of boring geeks like Google Glass or HoloLens. \s

Guess you can't fool all people all the time.

<comment><USER24> On the earnings call they reported 5 million snaps taken using Spectacles, and $8 million in revenue from Spectacles this quarter. Maybe 55-60,000 units sold (?). That was the only thing I was curious about on the call.

<comment><USER23> 5 Million / 50K (worse if you use 65K) = 100 Snaps per spectacle over a 90 day period = 1 Snap per spectacle per day. Thats super low engagement. For one its not going to alleviate any growth concerns. I see an Apple buyout looming.

<comment><USER24> Spectacles aren't really comparable to Google Glass, they're more like an action camera, such as a GoPro, but dumbed down and really easy to use. What counts as high user engagement for such a product? It's the sort of thing you only take out for events and special outings.

<comment><USER23> If they are supposed to function as action camera, then they are probably the lousiest ones ever designed/made. While I am sure the weather is always perfect at the Venice beach with enough sunlight. For nearly all other scenarios, where you might want a camera, you might NOT want to wear sunglasses. This is the reason why Google Glass had detachable attachment for sunglasses. The fact that they are tied to sunglasses, makes them useless in most other situations.

How are you going to wear sunglasses (unless of course you are on a beach) to any indoor or late night event/outing without looking like total douchebag??

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure you understand what action camera's are for, they're not for late night events, that's what the camera on your phone is good for, and you already have one of those. I've taken them Rock climbing, I took them out on a trail ride, I took them to the zoo, Everybody in my town is hockey crazy, I got shots of fans going nuts after a game. I shot a little cooking video, and they were actually coolest for that (or any type of instructional video)- they're simple enough that your grandma could make a cooking video, edit it, and share it.

The downside is you can't really get the video up on youtube or somewhere where it can easily be shared with anyone other than your Snapchat friends. But whatever, there's probably a half dozen Shenzen startups cobbling together open source Spectacles knockoffs as we speak.

<comment><USER25> How can you create "any type of instructional video" when the Snaps are limited to 30 seconds.

<comment><USER24> Although Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s disagreed about how exactly to view montage, Sergei Eisenstein marked a note of accord in "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" when he noted that montage is "the nerve of cinema", and that "to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem of cinema". Its influence is far reaching commercially, academically, and politically. Alfred Hitchcock cites editing (and montage indirectly) as the lynchpin of worthwhile filmmaking. In fact, montage is demonstrated in the majority of narrative fiction film available today. Post-Soviet film theories relied extensively on montage's redirection of film analysis toward language, a literal grammar of film. A semiotic understanding of film, for example, is indebted to and in contrast with Sergei Eisenstein's wanton transposition of language "in ways that are altogether new." While several Soviet filmmakers, such as Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov, Esfir Shub and Vsevolod Pudovkin put forth explanations of what constitutes the montage effect, Eisenstein's view that "montage is an idea that arises from the collision of independent shots" wherein "each sequential element is perceived not next to the other, but on top of the other" has become most widely accepted.

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

<comment><USER25> Send that to your grandma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So, let me get this straight: they expect to able to be a viable advertising outlet for brands, despite having no demographic targeting besides a rough guess at geolocation?

Hey, cool.

Good thing you're paying Google and Amazon about $200 million a year while your user growth plateaus!

<comment><USER27> They can analyze which stories you look at and subscribe to, which branded lenses/stickers you use, and I'd be surprised if they weren't using facial recognition to analyze selfies to look for age/gender/etc data

<comment><USER28> None of which brands buy on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Tech companies, and startups in particular, are touted as the powerhouses of American innovation and economy.

And yet, it seems that the past 5 years of economic activity have been illusory. I expect a similar fate of Uber and Airbnb. Once the dust settles only the staid big co's shall remain.

<comment><USER30> Top 5 companies by market cap in 2007:

Petro China, Exxon, GE, China Mobile, Industrian and Commercial Bank of China

Top 5 companies by market cap in 2017:

Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Berkshire

That's a hell of an illusion

<comment><USER29> It's a good point. But I'm alluding more to budding companies, not established companies. Granted Facebook didn't IPO until 2012.

But, as far as I can tell the software industry has contracted into those big 5 tech firms. The siren call of working at a startup and making it is sounding strident.

Knowing what you know now, what startup, if any, would you have joined 5 years ago?

Would you join any startup now?

<comment><USER31> I think it's getting harder and harder to justify. Especially given what mid- career devs at these companies are earning. $150-200k base plus 100k/yr or more in stock after a few years, that's far cry from 90k + 0.1% of some junky seed company with about a 1% chance of IPO.

If you look at my comment history you'll see I've been saying this for a while and I think it'll only get more true with further industry consolidation, which will make it both harder to displace incumbents product-wise, _and_ harder to compete with them salary-wise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Lets not forget that Facebook lost a lot lot of money before finally discovering a way to monetize its services. This is SNAP's first public earnings report.

Disclosure: Not a user or stock holder of SNAP

<comment><USER33> With a company like SNAP, it's not a matter of monetization. It's a matter of growth. SNAP better get its act together or it's gonna end up like YHOO or TWTR looking for another company to buy it out.

FB grew at a faster rate than SNAP from a much bigger base.

<comment><USER34> Who wants to buy a social media platform that's not growing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "Hosting costs per DAU were $0.60 in Q1 2017"

This figure represents pure lunacy in the infrastructure department. Nobody leading this team cares about cost.

<comment><USER36> Care to explain?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> They lost $2.2billion on revenue of $150 million. Ouch (and yes those RSUs very much count). Even on an EBITDA basis they lost more than they had in revenue.

They've got to turn the ship around. With user growth rather anemic they're not going to easily "grow" their way to profitability. They need to sort the fundamentals of the company to get the costs in check.

Problem is even if they had 50% margin today they'd be valued at a very rich valuation. Long story short there's not much in the fundamentals other than pure hype holding up the value of the stock at this point.

</comment><comment><USER38> I wonder if they're hobbling their user growth by not having some alternative lite app. I've come to associate their app with poor performance and battery drain while Facebook apps are relatively fine, perhaps with the exception of Messenger which they're slowly releasing Messenger Lite as an alternative.

<comment><USER39> Oh, since when has Facebook apps been better? I uninstalled them when I saw how much battery they were using without me even opening them.

<comment><USER38> Hmm, that isn't the first time I've heard of that, but the Facebook app only constitutes about 3% battery usage for me. Either way for Facebook and Instagram you can just use the mobile web versions, but Snapchat doesn't have such an official site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Average revenue per user (ARPU) decreased 14% over Q4 2016.

DAUs increased 5% quarter-over-quarter.

$2B in employee stock compensation.

Net loss of $2.2B in this quarter alone....

This looks really bad.

</comment><comment><USER41> Under "costs and expenses":

        General and administrative
        Q1 2017: 1,174,476
        Q1 2016: 24,011

Am I reading this right? $1.2B? Is this because of the IPO?

<comment><USER41> After reading a little more I think this is stock compensation mostly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Wow, company makes an app and is valued at 1/5th the value of GE, an international conglomerate making an enormous range of products.

Seems wildly over valued to me still. Compare to yelp even at a market cap of ~2b vs this 21b mkt cap behemoth. Yeah, time to short some Snap.

<comment><USER43> Can you not discount a lot of companies like this? Google makes a web page (after all, that's where most of their revenue comes from), Apple makes just a phone (that's where most of their revenue comes from), etc and they are many times bigger than any conglomerate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> 2B in employee stock compensation!

<comment><USER45> One of the funnier parts is that for revenue, they grew +286%. for losses (which +2200% if you include the stock comp), there is no percentage listed, just "NM" (Not meaningful)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> #1 metric investors were focused on was user growth, similar to Twitter

</comment><comment><USER47> And Facebook is up in after-hours trading

<comment><USER33> It's down 25%.

<comment><USER48> That's Snapchat, not Facebook.

<comment><USER33> I know. Aren't we talking about SNAP's earning?

Edit: Nevermind. I replied to the wrong comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Amazing how you can have a $2 billion loss which represents a 2000% growth year-on-year and which is 15 times higher than the revenue and yet you label it as NM (Not Meaningful).

</comment><comment><USER50> Down 18%~ right now. Low of 18.15. #s are worse than could imagine.

<comment><USER51> I don't know. Some of us could imagine them pretty bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Plenty of Snapchat users (the ones who created the hype) are no longer teenagers. They are moving away from Snapchat to more concrete (perceived adult-ish) platforms like Instagram or not use them at all. Snapchat failed to evolve their product. I mean seriously do we really need those creepy glasses to record whomever you want?

</comment><comment><USER53> This puts me in awe of how Facebook/Instagram have been achieving such phenomenal growth year after year.

</comment><comment><USER54> really a net loss of two million on a revenue of 167000. that revenue is way too low for a company with global reach. a single person can make that much. my 'revenue' was 40k ish but at least i'm making a profit. so i'd be a better 'investment' than snapchat. sorry investors, currently not raising capital. literally anybody can do better than this. they will go the way of the dodo pretty soon.

ah ok...just saw that. dollars in thousands. that's slightly better but not really. my rating for this stock remains 'dodo'.

</comment><comment><USER55> For those who don't realise immediately, Snap Inc. do Snapchat.

</comment><comment><USER56> It cost them $2.3 billion to generate $149 million in revenue. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER57> "User profiles with persistent content, what's the point of that anyway," said Snapchat. "Oh look, our users are ephemeral too."

</comment><comment><USER58> Cash and equivalents went up by $1.3Billion - they're just stocking money in a cookie jar and declaring it as a loss? Great company for stock owners!

<comment><USER59> What do you think a public offering is for if not to raise cash? It's not like they are giving it back as a dividend, so I'm not sure what the "stock owners" are getting that is great? If the company grows, shareholders might reap some rewards. Because it is a gamble, shouldn't the shareholders profit from their belief in the company whereas most comments here decry Snap as worthless?

Please pick a side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Should. Buy. GoPro.

<comment><USER30> I've been spending way too much time on the finance boards so I can't tell if this is sarcasm - because it would be in many other places

<comment><USER61> Curious: what / where are go-to finance boards?

<comment><USER62> /r/wallstreetbets

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> The bubble is bursting.

<comment><USER64> The SNAP bubble or tech or equities in general?

Many tech companies are posting growth inline with guidance and performing quite well. Many publicly listed companies are performing quite well in terms of projections. Condemning an entire sector because a single company shit the bed in their first earnings call is a bit much.

Consider that even after this huge drop they are still at their IPO price. Not that I'm a buyer of this company (I don't understand them - doesn't mean they are bad but just that I don't understand them enough to invest directly in them) but it isn't a disaster.

I've seen bubbles burst. You'll know it. This isn't it. This is a correction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> why is net loss tagged as "not meaningful"?

<comment><USER66> The percentage change is "not meaningful": net income increased by 2100%! (non_sequitur commented on that point a few minutes before you asked, by the way)

<comment><USER67> And the change is "not meaningful" because it includes a one time charge for stock compensation issued as part of the IPO.

<comment><USER66> I was going to say that it would have been not "meaningful" anyway, but I have just noticed that they report EBITDA growth. It's a bit misleading to say that EBITDA has doubled (from -$93mn to -$188mn). This is why growth is usually not calculated when the baseline is negative. Going from losses to profits implies growth "lower" than -100%, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Where's Zynga hanging out these days?

</comment><comment><USER68> Snapchat will quickly learn than obfuscating growing losses with "Not Meaningful" is swiftly punished by investors...

I know it's not the main reason for the -23% in premarket, but it show a certain culture and disdain for shareholders, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER69> People keep mentioning that Facebook is taking their (few) features, but it's more than that. Snapchat has always had garbage UX, and for awhile people tried to claim this was a feature because it kept the olds off of Snapchat.

But Facebook takes user experience very seriously (hence why it is so huge), and even though Facebook does so many more things than Snapchat, it's easy to use.

My retirement-age Mom uses Facebook just about daily. I'm an older millennial (who builds software UIs), and I find Snapchat baffling to use. It's such a bad UX that I can't bring myself to want to use it.

Facebook is crushing Snapchat because it's more than just features that keep users coming back on a daily basis.

<comment><USER32> Nah, their UX is fine. You and I (and your grandmother, incidentally) are not the target demographic. BTW is the UX really that confusing? Sure its not 100% intuitive but after playing around with it I was able to operate it fine.

<comment><USER69> I'm am an (older) millennial, so I should be in their target demo, and I lead a UX team that builds enterprise SaaS products. I also head up our user research efforts that include user testing.

I'm saying that in my professional opinion, Snapchat's user experience is not good. And if you guys want to start a Go Fund Me over this, I'll bring in real users and run tests on it. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my working hypothesis.

If someone may age is already out of the core demo, how did Snap have that valuation? Teens and college kids are just not that valuable of a market.</comment></comment></comment>


Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously) - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I'd use a continuation based framework to get started. Seaside for smalltalk, plt-scheme or UCW in lisp. I've been using UCW to develop my project. It makes it really easy to think about the problem. You serve a page, the page has actions (method calls) which take parameters. The parameters are fields on the page. It's really easy to think about an application. It lets you prototype in code.

For our stuff, I started with rails, just found it too hard to get started. I had to decide what the tables looked like, how I was going to divide the data, write a model for every table then connect it to a page.

With UCW, I write code which connects to a function call. Simple.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a detailed link on setting up a scheme server (perhaps more detailed than many system admins would need). I'd err towards mod_lisp under Apache rather than run SISC Scheme under Tomcat, but this is a pleasant read: <http://www.lisperati.com/quick.html>

<comment><USER4> Why did you decide to go with Scheme as opposed to Lisp? (I'm very curious about the pros and cons)

<comment><USER5> Scheme is a dialect of Lisp.

<comment><USER4> I know - what benefits do you get from Scheme over CL?

<comment><USER5> I can't speak for the GP, but since it has been 11 hours and he haven't answered yet I'll give you my answer: it's mostly a matter of taste, or sometimes if there is a particular library/app/framework for one which you'd like to use.

<comment><USER5> I would also add that at least in my experience the Scheme community was much friendlier the the Common Lisp one. They don't particularly like novices over there and it is quite easy to get flamed if you're not careful enough...

<comment><USER6> There are multiple CL communities. comp.lang.lisp famously sucks, but (for instance) #lisp isn't so bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's an overview of different approaches: <http://bc.tech.coop/blog/041017.html>

And here's a list of different web server resources: <http://www.cl- user.net/asp/tags/web-servers>

<comment><USER4> The libraries we're currently using:

Portable AllegroServe: Lisp Webserver (with Webactions Session control) <http://sourceforge.net/projects/portableaserve/>

ASDF: Another System Definition Facility <http://www.cliki.net/asdf>

CLSQL: Database interface Library <http://www.cliki.net/CLSQL>

UFFI: Universal Foreign Function Interface <http://www.cliki.net/UFFI>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's also this resource which is very much for beginners but if you're just starting to find out all about using Lisp to do web development this might be a good read:

<http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-web-programming-with- allegroserve.html>

<comment><USER9> Thank you for the link. I used to code in Scheme and enjoyed it very much, it would be great to get back into LISP one of these days. However, whenever I see HTML generated from within the code, as it is in that tutorial, it just feels like it is 10 years behind the state of the art. I think it is much better to use some kind of HTML templates (but maybe I am wrong?).

Another thing I was looking for when I last evaluated LISP was an OR-mapping library. I can't go back to executing SQL statements from within my code - that is also so 90ies. I think there is one project underway to provide OR- mapping for LISP, but I am not sure if it was ready for prime time yet.

<comment><USER10> It's possible, and reasonably common to use templates with Lisp web apps. HTML-TEMPLATE and Tal (from Zope) are widely used.

HTML-TEMPLATE: <http://weitz.de/html-template/>

Tal support in yaclml, part of Uncommonweb: <http://common- lisp.net/project/bese/yaclml.html>

CLSQL provides object/relational mapping; it's quite good: <http://clsql.b9.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow, what a response. I am excited by the prospect that at some point in the near future I can dive into lisp with a clear goal in mind and the resources to make it happen. I have been hearing for years about how lisp is really the ultimate programmers language. I respect this lisp-lover's oppinion and experience ultimately, and put him right in the list with Paul and Carl. So, 3 elite programmers who sing the graces of lisp. One was enough for me to want to learn to think in lisp. 3 in support should be a point to ponder.

The problem I have always encountered with trying to build a solution in lisp is the lack of resources. It sounds like lisp is inching closer and closer to the critical mass where tools and libraries will finally be available for more then a few uses.

This lisper I know said "Don't hold your breath." when I suggested that lisp may be coming close to getting its due. I know that there are alot of people out there like me. We will start using lisp when the great advantages of the language finally outweigh the disadvantages of implementation. I think its just a matter of time until lisp is a clear win, as long as the tools come.

I've never written a line of lisp. I want to save my lisp cherry for a time when I can have more "Yay" then "Doh" while I learn and use it. I think it will be worth the wait.

</comment><comment><USER11> From my limited perspective, it looks like one of the major drawbacks (evidenced in this discussion) is the lack of critical mass for one specific Lisp stack. Having so many competing setups makes for:

-little documentation

-little support

-limited libraries

-super tiny communities

Compare that to LAMP(P = PHP, Perl, or Python) and Rails. Their communities, docs, support, libs, etc are HUGE compared to the tiny fractured Lisp ecosystem.

Do LAMP and Rails have their own problems? Of course. But the point is that they have been proven over and over and over. Lisp is certainly sexy and will give you that toned body and hairy chest you always wanted, but beyond Viaweb and Reddit (cough, cough) can you readily (and without searching) think of other top sites that have delivered a major hit with it? Second, can you think of any hit Lisp sites that didn't involve Paul Graham? I rest my case.

I'd love to see this change, but unfortunately that's the current reality.

\</comment><comment>

Update: After doing some searching, I also found ITA's backend Orbitz software written in Lisp. That certainly was a hit and is also used by many other systems. The author is Carl de Marcken and this hit is also mentioned in pg's "Great Hackers" essay.

So, Two Lisp Hit-makers:

Paul Graham, Phd in CS from Harvard

Carl de Marcken, Phd in CS from MIT

So, if you're a Phd in CS from one of the top programs in the _world_ \- I'd say Go For It! ;)

<comment><USER12> <http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/netfonds-primetrader.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sorry, I spent years demonstrating to people how Lisp is better for everybody doing web development, not just elite programmers. I'm done. My new philosophy is, if you can't get them to join you, beat them.

Now I'm at a point where my venture absolutely must succeed. I'll take every advantage I can get.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's scheme, not CL, but don't forget HOP <http://hop.inria.fr/> and whatever the PLT people have in store <http://www.plt-scheme.org/>

<comment><USER15> btw, HOP uses the Bigaloo web server and so isn't quite adequate apparently for a high traffic site (like I assume most here will have). here's an email exchange I had with the author the other day- sorry if the comment's a bit big:

I apologize for such a late answer. I'm always fighting with email. I'm definitively not good at it because I'm not able to answer at a decent pace.

Hi Manuel. I've just been playing with Hop. Well done. It's just beautiful. A couple of questions about it: first, the bigloo web server- is this completely necessary? I guess one of 4 things would need to happen for hop to be totally ideal: _Bigloo implements light-weight threads Gambit-scheme style so that it can have erlang-like load capacity (<http://www.sics.se/~joe/apachevsyaws.html> ) (most preferable option, IMO, though I have no idea what your feelings are here. To me this would make bigloo light-years ahead of all other scheme imps.) I have tried several things concerning the multi-threading. You can read our FairThreads proposal (<http://www.inria.fr/mimosa/Manuel.Serrano).> When I did this study I though that FairThreads was a decent solution. Now that's no longer clear to me. Hop does not use Fair threads but Posix like threads. I'm quite aware of all the troubles that come with this kind of threads. I have not considered an Erlang- like solution yet but that's something I could envision.

_ Get hop to work with a gambit-scheme server instead of bigloo (where would i start with this? can you point me to relevant points in the code?) No, I think that you cannot. Hop is really not a portable Scheme program. It extensively relies on Bigloo features. I'm afraid that you will have to rewrite entirely. It's not a huge program but it is not that small either. The problem is that it uses a lot of libraries that you would have to re-implement too. All in all it's about 40.000 lines of Scheme code. I don't really recommend to try to re- implement that (except if you are very brave ;-)

_Get hop to work with mod_lisp (less preferable, IMO) No. I don't think that a solution too. Hop needs to be running permanently. That is two successive requests must be handled in the same execution environment (i.e., the first request may set a global variable that is read by the second request). Hence, even if you want to use Apache you will be forced to have a server running somewhere and you will have to establish a communication between Apache and that server. Why not directly using Hop as a server?

Second item is the overall latency and possible redundancy... actually, I don't know how to phrase the problem- but it boils down to this, I counted over 27 distinct "connecting to server" cycles when you click on the "weblets" tab of the Hop Home page. It took quite a while re-establishing the connection to the server 27 times. Are there thoughts on overcoming this? Not really but... First, the Hop server supports keep-alive connections. This should help. Then, honestly, I have hoped to find time to optimize the server for months. I have not found that time yet but I think that I will have it around the end of Spring. At that moment, I will study the problem you are mentioning.

However, I'm using Hop on a daily basis. Even more, in order to push it to its limits, I'm using it as my regular proxy. That is all my HTTP connections, on all my machines, go through a Hop proxy/server. The performance are acceptable. That is, I'm not annoyed by an important slow down due to Hop.

Thanks again!! You are welcome. Thanks for the encouragements.

\-- Manuel

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> if you're thinking of developing a web app in lisp but haven't looked at python or ruby, you might consider them -- remember, it's not just the raw language but also the surrounding infrastructure, and python (django, turbogears) and ruby (rails) have arguably much more developed frameworks, and also arguably have most of the interesting language features that would draw you to lisp in the first place.

the point is the language is only one piece of the equation -- you want to be spending your time developing your app, not rolling your own supporting elements (templating systems, init scripts, form validators, sql bindings/mappers, etc.) and of course i'm sure others will point out reddit's switch from lisp to python.

<comment><USER2> Most people say that you shouldn't use lisp because it doesn't have libraries. Well they are only half right. You shouldn't use lisp, because most lisp libraries have very little documentation. Lisp has a lot of libraries. You have to be willing to read code (i.e. examples/tests) to figure out how to use them.

<http://www.cliki.net/Library>

Assuming that the most precious commodity is development time. I'd say rails/django don't even come close to UCW in getting stuff done.

<comment><USER17> Why is lisp so sparsely documented?

<comment><USER2> For me saying what a function does isn't good enough, when one is documenting an api. Examples are a must. The other problem is that the lisp packaging system is a bit weird. If a library doesn't have an ASDF definition its almost non-existent for me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Configuration (mis)management or why I hate puppet, ansible, salt, etc. - <AUTHOR> http://www.scriptcrafty.com/configuration-mismanagement-or-why-i-hate-puppet-ansible-salt-etc/ <comment><USER2> Yup, the essay is still about author not understanding the paradigm.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10857173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10857173)</comment>


Show HN: Exorbitant Email Addresses - <AUTHOR> I posted this a couple of months ago, but "anon" user gatherhunter (or something), jumped straight to name calling it a "joke" and "creepy" and "illegal" and killed the thread.
The main criticism was against the terms. I checked the terms of GMail, FB, and so on and see they all include provisions for inspecting all data in the system to comply with the law, and for the operation of the service. It's actually pretty normal, and illegal to not check if content complies with the law, just as I thought.
Also, as the purchase is so huge, verifying identity is part of KYC AML regs. So again, it seems this anon user's hysterical name calling was a high pitched shriek that the tribe responded to without thinking,
 but actually goes against the law, while pretending to be for it.
How does this sort of counterfactual, abusive comment get through the HN hivemind / filters, again?
Anyway, reposting now to get some love and affection for this beauty of an idea.
https://unobtainium.email/?ukyli=udiyd <comment><USER2> Maybe don't do side projects like this if you can't stand criticism. Especially since the entire concept actually seems like a practical joke.</comment>


IntelliJ IDEA 2020.1 EAP is open - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2020/01/intellij-idea-2020-1-eap/ <comment><USER2> No matter how hard I try, I can't get away from JetBrains. I've been grandfathered into their original pricing for the toolbox, so that makes it even harder. I have a plugin I've written for VS Code that was part experiment to see if I would have good uptake into the editor and part as a way for me to learn how to contribute to the plugin ecosystem. VS Code just isn't fast enough on medium to large projects. And it's never felt as much of an ide in comparison to JetBrains tooling.

I love the JetBrains toolbox. Webstorm is wonderful for all things frontend and I've heavily used Intellij for Elixir development. The level of polish for this tooling is ridiculous and I would recommend anyone who hasn't given their work a shot to go out and try one of their editors for your language of choice.

Things I can't live without in the JetBrains ecosystem

\- VCS integration

      - Hands down the best integration in comparison to GitLens or any other plugins I've used for VCS in other editors and it's built right in.

\- Local history

      - This has saved my ass a few times over. It's amazing how far you can go back. And yes I know what version control is.

\- Refactoring

      - It's just worlds better in comparison to what VS Code/Atom/Sublime/Eclipse/NVIM offer.

\- Language support

      - The number of well written plugins out there makes the VS Code ecosystem pale in comparison.

\- IdeaVim

Things I wish were a bit easier in the JetBrains ecosystem

\- Sharing configs

      - I love VS Code's philosophy of making all configs accessible/shareable as json.

Nice job to the JetBrains team. Seriously, you've made a fanatic out of me.

<comment><USER3> I'm also a huge fan of JetBrains products and how they work together. It's at the point where I'm thinking of slogans for them, like 'At JetBrains, the E in IDE stands for experience'... or maybe 'ecosystem' (needs work). Several times I've realized I could use a tool for X, and found it's already a feature they've already created.

One more great thing to add to the pile:

\- Teamcity, the only CI/CD software doing actual 'configuration as code' using kotlin. Others (that I know of: jenkins, github action, gitlab) use an arcane-DSL-backed yaml file and call that 'code'. I'm not sure why copy- pasting plaintext files that throw away most the benefits of using code and IDE's have taken the software world by storm. They've become the standard API, or even UI in some cases, and it's just slow/unabstractable/non-extensible. I'm glad JetBrains has not jumped on that bandwagon and continue to focus on making a streamlined end-to-end dev experience and cater to the coders within.

<comment><USER4> Jenkins has a Groovy DSL for several years. YAML support came much later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I adore IntelliJ. Some neat features I've discovered recently.

\- Structural replace is sed with ASTs. It's really cool. [https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/structural-search-and- re...](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/structural-search-and-replace.html)

\- Task tracking to report how long you spend on a task. This is nice to see how far off the estimate was and include integration with Jira.

\- The database extension (datagrip) is awesome for figuring out Database structure and building queries with auto-complete.

I'm looking forward to performance improvements. I get bouts of ~150ms typing latency which are not fun.

</comment><comment><USER6> Really excited about the speed improvements they promised for this version. Even on a machine with 16GB RAM and increased max. memory for the JVM the UI just feels too slow.

<comment><USER7> Easy fix: replace the the existing _GC_ line with

      -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions
      -XX:+UseZGC

and enjoy no more visible lag spikes.

<comment><USER8> If it was this easy, we'd have enabled this by default. Unfortunately by far not all UI freezes in IntelliJ IDEA are caused by GC, and ZGC is not a wholesale performance improvement even for those scenarios which do depend on GC.

<comment><USER9> [deleted]

<comment><USER8> A lot of our work is open-source. You can easily see that our investment into improving our products, visible through the open-source repositories, has been steadily increasing every year.

<comment><USER10> I don't think you guys should feel like you need to respond to these sorts of comments. JetBrains products are so clearly genre defining and to have some of them for free is just a cherry on top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My prediction/hope for 2020 is that JetBrains will release lightweight competitor to VSCode

<comment><USER12> This is actually on the 2020 roadmap! They're planning on releasing a lightweight editor mode. [1]

1\. [https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2020/01/intellij-based- ide-f...](https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2020/01/intellij-based-ide-features- roadmap-for-2020/)

</comment></comment><comment> a-wu > With v2020.1 EAP we are fully moving to JetBrains Runtime 11 (JBR11), and > will no longer distribute builds with JetBrains Runtime 8 (JBR8). Please > note that all the IntelliJ IDEA 2020.1 updates both in the IDE and the > Toolbox App are coming with JBR11.

Does this mean I need to have JDK 11 installed too? We're still using JDK 8 because Spark 2.x doesn't support JDK 11, and having multiple JDKs sounds like a pain.

edit: nvm. Looks like JBR doesn't have a JDK dependency.

<comment><USER13> >having multiple JDKs sounds like a pain.

If I may, I'd like to recommend jabba for JDK switching, it's not my project, but it's really making my life easier: [https://github.com/shyiko/jabba](https://github.com/shyiko/jabba)

<comment><USER14> Thanks, haven't heard of jabba. I use sdkman! and others I know use jenv.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does this mean we can finally use a 4K monitor on OSX? [https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-526](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-526)

<comment><USER16> I'm using WebStorm 2020.1 EAP on my LG UltraFine 5K and it works well, and I have done so for at least a year. Connected via TB3, 2016 MacBook.

One thing that could help is killing Docker, everything becomes more responsive -- on Mac that is, given that it's literally a VM running on Hyperkit. That's especially the case when you have a big project on in Jetbrains IDEs (CLion, WebStorm, IntelliJ, ...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> One of the things I find interesting here is the SQL support via JaSync. A competitor to JDBC using netty and kotlin coroutines, or on Java Completable Futures..

[https://github.com/jasync-sql/jasync-sql](https://github.com/jasync- sql/jasync-sql)

Spring R2DBC and Vertx are built atop that library. I'm also working on a micro orm using it. But it's really nice to see that become a first class citizen in the IDE.

<comment><USER18> Nitpick: I think it's J-Async not JaSync. As in an asynchronous SQL implementation.

For anyone else wondering, I believe it targets just MySQL and Postgres.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> EAP means early access program.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm buying a jetbrains sub in a couple of weeks. Is it correct to say that the webstorm features come with rider? I'm confused by their marketing descriptions.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wonder if they are using the Graal JIT compiler that comes with JDK 11...

<comment><USER8> No, IntelliJ IDEA doesn't use Graal at this time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I tried IDEA and liked it, but I noticed that it's perpetually spinning my CPU at 10-15% even when sitting idle. That's a battery killer that I don't need. I like editors that use no CPU and do nothing when I'm not using them. Anyone else experience this?

<comment><USER23> If I remember correctly, there's a battery friendly mode that can be enabled in the file menu which stops background indexing.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, PowerSave Mode definitely makes a difference, but you lose a ton of functionality (like highlighting errors, missing imports etc).</comment></comment></comment>


The portfolio entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://bijansabet.com/post/81416619/the-portfolio-entrepreneur <comment><USER2> Lean start up talks about starts ups as searching for a business model. Why not do that search in parallel? In the beginning, it's about finding a team that can work together and validating experiments. Obviously once a team needs to execute a vision it's different.

</comment><comment><USER3> This post is originally from 2009. Was he correct in thinking that we'd see more portfolio entrepreneurs? A high-profile example might be Jack Dorsey.</comment>


Gitlab is down - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/gitlabstatus/status/886084897189892096 <comment><USER2> It is up now [https://twitter.com/gitlabstatus/status/886192178200023040](https://twitter.com/gitlabstatus/status/886192178200023040)

</comment><comment><USER3> Omg. I should remember to always check the status when I get errors trying to push.

</comment><comment><USER4> Related to Azure storage issue apparently.</comment>


Lessons Learned: Writing a filesystem in D - <AUTHOR> http://blog.experimentalworks.net/2015/07/lessons-learned-writing-a-filesystem-in-d/

<comment><USER2> Did you consider Nim? It compiles down to C, has a very similar syntax to Python, and is quite fast. It also has a robust standard library.</comment>


Facebook growth continues in spite of Beacon - <AUTHOR> http://blog.compete.com/2007/12/05/rip-facebook-unique-visitors-facebook-jumped/

<comment><USER2> Facebook users don't care about Beacon ... not yet anyway.</comment>


Netflix synthesizes a brainwave symphony for 'Sense8' - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/29/netflix-synthesizes-a-brainwave-symphony-for-sense8

<comment><USER2> Haven't seen Sense8, and most probably won't any time soon since Netflix is not available where I live. But trailer looks nice. One thing, maybe call me ignorant, but if you take any wave, pick random points, use "algorithm" to pick notes from it and then remaster it to create something like music it's not going to be "brainwaves music" but just reorganizing random data and assigning notes that sound nice together to it. In this way this is more accurate "part of body" symphony [might be slightly NSFW]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk-5RVMerfI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk-5RVMerfI)</comment>


Ask HN: What VPN Providers do you use? - swagasaurus-rex Looking for a good trustworthy VPN. Don't mind paying for the service. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://azirevpn.com](https://azirevpn.com) because their documentation is straightforward, their website is pretty and it seems like they were one of the first to support WireGuard VPNs, which I'm a big fan of.

If you don't want to use WireGuard (you should though), [https://privateinternetaccess.com](https://privateinternetaccess.com) because of that one time they didn't produce logs when they were legally compelled to.

But you should really Google "site:news.ycombinator.com VPN" there was a big thread on this not that long ago.

</comment><comment><USER2> I rolled my own for my primary but I use Private Internet Access for the other. the price is right, they're trustworthy, and have been stable for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Boot node in digital ocean, .... done</comment>


Google launches Our Mobile Planet, Analytical Charts - driftsumi-e http://www.ourmobileplanet.com/ Looks like Ipsos and Mobile Marketing Association were involved in gathering the data.
Methodology:
http://www.ourmobileplanet.com/omp/omp_about <comment> driftsumi-e Looks like Ipsos and Mobile Marketing Association were involved in gathering the data.

Methodology:

<http://www.ourmobileplanet.com/omp/omp_about></comment>


How One Small Company Is Using QR Codes - <AUTHOR> http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220359

<comment><USER2> This is even more useful for wines primarily marketed through AOC, vs. the specific vineyard. I have a hard time figuring out who made a specific Chauteuneuf du Pape even when I see the label; my general selection criteria includes "label with cute animal on it", since that's simple.</comment>


Tell HN: Dalf – A New Application Development and Deployment Platform - <AUTHOR> http://dalf.io/ <comment><USER2> Hello Everybody,

Hasan from Dalf here. I hope you like the video and of course Dalf itself. :)

TLDW: Dalf is an Open Source application framework for building web and mobile apps in Go, HTML, JS, and CSS. It is very suitable for applications with cloud-based backends and multi-platform clients.

As you can see in the video, Dalf requires zero configuration, delivers full- stack automation, and is open to any change you may ever need. It helps us, developers, from the first line of code to the deployment of production systems.

What you see is just a glimpse of Dalf platform. We would love to get your feedback before our launch which is hopefully very soon.

I will be online and waiting for your kind comments and questions.

Thank you very much for your time!

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting concept. Some questions. Is is a cloud based service? When do you to launch and what's the pricing model?

<comment><USER2> The framework is free and open source with MIT-like license. We will share the code base publicly very soon.

On top of it, we plan providing fully-automated deployment on Dalf Cloud and also a tool-set with graphical user interface and features such as team collaboration, code-sync, CI, and CD. The tool-set will also be free-to-use for open source projects.

As for being cloud-based, system works on Windows, Linux, and MacOS and once you install Dalf on your computer, you can work fully offline. Cloud is used for deployment and collaboration between team members.</comment></comment>


NSA Classifies Linux Journal Readers, Tor and Tails Linux Users as "extremists" - <AUTHOR> http://www.in.techspot.com/news/security/nsa-classifies-linux-journal-readers-tor-and-tails-linux-users-as-extremists/articleshow/47743699.cms <comment><USER2> At this point i simply avoid to every visit america, whatever what. Way to risky to get shit because of a broken backlight anyway.</comment>


Conversations About The Internet #5: Anonymous Facebook Employee - <AUTHOR> http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the-internet-5-anonymous-facebook-employee/?full=yes <comment><USER2> Many SaaS products, especially enterprise software, have a "login as a different user" feature that engineers use for debugging. It's good that non tech savvy users aren't always aware of the amount of information leakage that happens in situations where privacy is important. It would lead to a mega freak out.

For example, if you receive SMS alerts from your bank about transactions, account balance etc. there are multiple engineers in the chain who have access to the information, but should not -

* At the SMS gateway company to which the bank has outsourced the services

* Your mobile service provider

* People who run the SMSC (if the mobile operator has outsourced that)

Unfortunately, there is no way to secure it end to end in its current form. The same is applicable to a lot of services.

<comment><USER3> > _Unfortunately, there is no way to secure it end to end in its current form_

How about supporting public key encryption for SMS?

Oh sorry, I forgot that the government wouldn't like that too much. Everything should be out in the open so that everyone can view it to make it easier for law enforcement (at the same time making it easier for criminals to access the information of 'normal/average' people).

<comment><USER2> > How about supporting public key encryption for SMS?

The protocol in its current widely deployed form does not support it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Facebook employee:

\- checked a guest named "Phil Wong" into the new Facebook office in the recent past (after the move)

\- is a woman

Holy shit guys, "anonymity"? Protecting her job? I think not.

<comment><USER5> She's not a woman - "her" word choice was totally male.

That detail is just a really poor attempt at anonymization, IMO.

<comment><USER6> How do you know that the responses aren't all paraphrased?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "I don't think there's any question that Stanford is the number one CS department in the world."

Whomever it is certainly is a Stanford graduate :-)

<comment><USER8> If a graduate at all. Consider:

"PHP is an example of a scripted language. The computer or browser reads the program like a script,..."

Hard to remember the last time my browser was reading a server-side script. ( or was it just "all those beers" they were drinking? )

<comment><USER9> Their statement is logically correct..

After all, the server is a computer, so you can replace 'computer' with server. Which makes the first evaluation true, and the word 'browser' is never evaluated, or at least irrelevant. You could even say that either the server or my pet ferret reads the program like a script...

But seriously... the guy/girl was talking generically about scripting, not specific to server-side web scripts. So the statement is accurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They mention having a "global" password that allows access to any user account. I've thought about doing this in the past, as a means of troubleshooting user support requests, but haven't implemented it on any sites.

Are there better ways of doing this, rather than having a global admin backdoor password? Is there a recommended "best practice" for logging in as a user, to see what they see when they use the app? I get a decent number of support requests where the user is seeing something in particular, and my being able to see it would be useful. At the same time, there's a pretty serious risk that's opened up by having this in place.

Anyone have any thoughts / suggestions?

<comment><USER11> This might be horrible idea from a security perspective, and if it is, please tell me, but what about allowing the hashed password in the password field, that way, you could copy it from the db, and sign in?

<comment><USER10> That seems like a really good way to handle it. Each account has a unique password, then, and it's only available to the admin. As long as the controller's coded well, this seems like a great solution. (If anyone has any concerns, I'd love to hear them.)

<comment><USER12> There's a security issue with this idea obviously. If I'm not mistaken, the whole point of hashing passwords is so that a loss of the user database in some way does not compromise any accounts. You might as well store passwords in plain text if you allow hashed passwords as passwords.

It might just be acceptable though, since almost nobody would guess that a hashed password would be accepted as a password. That is, unless they have access to the controller source code too, and check it out (as you'd assume since the database itself has been compromised).

A better solution may be to create a second temporary password, hashed in another field in the database, and wipe it out when you're done.

It's fine to use an extremely long master password too, making sure it's stored as a bcrypt hash or something. Just run the calculations to make sure that it couldn't be broken in 2^999 years.

<comment><USER10> Hrm. You're right. Secondary benefit of the hashing is so that a user's re- used password isn't compromised for other sites, but ... yeah.

Your dynamically-generated temporary password is probably a better way to go about it. Or the hashed master password.

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's probably just because I don't go to Stanford or Harvard, but I think it's silly and diversity-lacking to have almost all your hires come from those two schools. Good CS students can come from elsewhere, though they are probably a bit harder to sift out.

<comment><USER14> It may be unfair to candidates trying to get a job at Facebook if they didn't come from Stanford or Harvard, but it's completely reasonable to focus their hiring efforts on those two schools. It makes it less work for them.

As a plus for non-Stanford/Harvard grads, it means if you don't want to work for Facebook, you have less competition from Stanford/Harvard grads!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The facts that Facebook saves and keeps all interaction and user generated data and their engineers can access that data should be nothing new to you: Google, Amazon and every sane internet company do it too because they want to make decisions based on data.

The author clearly doesn't understand what he is talking about and doesn't try too hard to understand it; he wants to be sensational instead. Oh well.

<comment> loup-vaillant They don't need the raw data to make decision. Statistics are enough (and even better, most of the time).

Keeping information that almost anyone would think of as private (search history for Google, list of purchased goods for Amazon) is insane. Literally. This kind of data can sort people by political opinion and sexual preferences, for one thing. This kind of data has already been used to spot or incriminate dissent. At the scale of these companies, this can go very wrong.

How they are using this data right now isn't relevant. The fact that every big internet company is doing it doesn't make it acceptable. The fact that no one bother doesn't make it normal.

The risks are just too high.

<comment><USER15> You need the raw data in order to be able to calculate statistics in the future about relations you don't anticipate now. Also keeping only aggregated numbers would mean you give up on data mining.

I don't know if this use of data is "insane", but companies doing it get a clear competitive advantage over the rest. If governments decide to restrict it with some kind of regulation, there would be a clear cost in a less efficient economy. People are willing to give up privacy in order to gain convenience, otherwise they wouldn't be using these services. All these factors say we are going to see more data gathering in the future.

<comment> loup-vaillant The advantages you speak of seems stronger than what I was thinking about. But I still think the current trade off is too dangerous.

Plus, I disagre about people willingly giving up privacy. I think most of them either undervalue their privacy or don't know they are giving it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Everything in here sounds believable and I have no doubt that things like that have happened and do continue to happen at FB.. My only problem with this interview is that it seems very scripted..

Either this person had the questions in advance, the interview is an elaborate hoax, or she just happens to be really articulate and alert after a few beers.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am completely shocked by "her" casual admission that Facebook employees have in the past logged in as other users on a whim, and potentially continue to do so via database access and user-switching.

In some countries -- for instance the UK -- data protection laws mean that viewing personal data without a specific business reason is itself illegal, even if that data is not manipulated (this may be why the new user switching system requires a reason to be entered). Even if this casual viewing was done before they opened a data center in the UK, this seems a pretty shocking admission to make so casually.

<comment><USER18> _I am completely shocked by "her" casual admission that Facebook employees have in the past logged in as other users on a whim_

I doubt there's any company that has user data that this doesn't happen at. I bet it happened a hundred years ago at mail order companies. A claim that it had never happened somewhere would be suspicious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It makes a lot of sense for a site of facebook's size to do away with most of the dynamic language coded stuff on the backend.

In terms of identity, this is facebook, I'm sure they could work out what employee it was (if it was an employee) without the office visit details.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm somewhat disquieted by these admissions, and I think that eventually there are going to be some social networking privacy scandals. Ultimately the solution is probably a peer-to-peer equivalent to facebook.

</comment><comment><USER21> _For example, this guy right now is single-handedly rewriting, essentially, the entire site._

Well, at least we know the end of facebook is coming then ;)</comment>