The smart home freak show stops here - <AUTHOR> http://www.thememo.com/2016/03/02/the-smart-home-freak-show-stops-here/ <comment><USER3> It's the surveillance home for marketing and ads. Actual smart homes need a lot more dumb and existing technology first.

If it were really smart, I'd have a toilet and shower that uses 1/4 of the amount water, my gas stove would not have a pilot light, and "dumb" motion sensors for light have been around quite a while - but not ubiquitous (more common the EU).

Commercial buildings have had computers driving heating and cooling systems for a couple of decades (without thermostats but with temp sensors) so you don't need internet for that either. And I've never seen a house with VAV's installed in the ducts to actively heat/cool only the occupied portions of the home. And the easiest of all before construction - just "rotate" the foundation towards the sun to take better advantage of passive heating and cooling, that's an easy 15% energy bill savings.

<comment><USER4> Well put. I was even surprised that most US homes don't have an electric kettle for boiling water but put a 'dumb' kettle on a stove!

<comment><USER5> We in the USA can't get as much power out of a wall, so boiling water with an electric kettle takes twice as long as in the UK/europe (same amp breakers, with half the volts (115 vs 230), means half the watts.

<comment><USER6> A typical electric kettle puts a heating coil right into the water, and is better insulated against the escape of heat from its jacket.

<comment><USER7> Thankfully this is false. This would be incredibly dangerous and unreliable. The general design is a heating coil with an insulator that is then then jacketed in a steel or iron sheath.

When the element on my neighbors electric stove failed, the heating coil found its way through the insulator and the steel jacket. The electric current bored a hole through the aluminum pot she was using.

<comment><USER6> The entire insulated assembly consisting of a heating wire embedded in casing is commonly called a "heating coil".

I didn't say anything about a bare, uninsulated electric coil being immersed in water.

The point is that this assembly is immersed in water; all the heat which escapes from it goes into the water.

This is not true of a stove top heating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked for a short stint at a product development company that was getting into IoT. I came to the realization that IoT products are going to be just like the WWW in the early days - we are going to have a lot of dumb ideas before we have some really smart ideas.

We will have to endure the Internet of Stupid Things first, sigh.

<comment><USER9> One thing i wonder about - why does it take so much hardware and sales to try out a new consumer product concept ? Isn't there a process to aim the products better and a simpler way to verify them ? What is it, and why aren't more companies using it ?

<comment><USER10> I think its to ensure that they are in the 'first to market' group with Internet of Things. Right now, like Malic mentioned, its a gold rush of throwing money at anyone that can hook up bluetooth to a 'dumb' device. Its the same reason that after the Pebble was created, every consumer electronics company started spitting out smart watches as well.

We need the IoT bubble to happen so people realize you don't need everything controlled from a single device. I think its more of an uncanny valley of what is wanted and what is excessive. The Roomba, for example; doesn't need to be a wifi-enabled device, but can still have a computer inside it driving. People are adding wifi to it, but does it was successful without it.

I think as we mature in the IoT market, the sales and hardware will drop, but as of right now, we don't know what works and what doesn't, so we are trying everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "No Wi-Fi, no heating" \-- this makes no sense to me. I had a Nest and when the wireless network went away, it did the sensible thing and maintained its current schedule. The only thing it lost was remote control/monitoring and the ability to talk to Nest Protects.

This is not to say that Nest doesn't have problems, but there's no way I'd have allowed it in my home if an Internet outage meant freezing my family.

<comment><USER12> Just from January - for some reason it was unable to call home, temperatures plummeted.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/fashion/nest-thermostat- gl...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/fashion/nest-thermostat-glitch- battery-dies-software-freeze.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER13> That wasn't because it couldn't "call home", that was because an update caused a bug on the nest to lock up.

It might not be any "better" of an excuse, but it's not the same thing as "not being able to call home"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For my home, I fully believe that if things continue this way, I will need to have three networks at home. The household network and wifi for my wife and our family to use, the work network (hardwired Cat6 because that's how I like it) for my multiple work computers and NAS, and a third network with its own wifi just if IoT. IoT devices need not have access to the other two networks. It would be nice if this level of segmentation were to be built into the higher end home routers.

Personally, I enjoy setting my house up "like a data center". But that is far beyond most home owners' abilities or desires for their network.

<comment><USER15> Don't many wifi routers offer a "guest network" feature?

<comment><USER14> Yes, my router does have this. Which we use to have a simpler wifi password just to give to guests. It can only access the Internet and nothing on the LAN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I remember some years back an interview (maybe Bill Gates?) mentioning that software have a long way to go compared to other technologies. E.g. If you turn on the oven and it doesn't work it's baffling, while for any program to just fail is expected.

Great to see we are fixing the gap by going in the opposite direction :)

<comment><USER15> > I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; > my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my > telephone.

\- Bjarne Stroustrup

<comment><USER17> Says the inventor of the language used to write most of the complicated unstable software he was probably rethinking of.

<comment><USER15> I still think C++ is the best possible language that could have come out of the constraints they'd given themselves - near-complete backwards- compatibility with C, while adding OOP features in a style that maintains the C ideology of being as close to assembler as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You can improve the reliability of stuff like this by minimizing programmability and by using reliable parts. I have a mercury thermostat in the basement set to 12C connected directly across the heat demand leads. So my house is pretty much not going to freeze down no matter what the software does.

I have a mercury thermostat upstairs set to my normal indoor temperature. It is connected across the heat demand leads through a software controlled switch. So no matter what the software does, the house can not get too hot or two cold. This means that I only have two set temperatures, but in practice that is enough. Setback occurs whenever the system detects that the alarm is set or when I set it before I go to bed.

The alarm panel is a traditional system in a box with a separate backup battery. It tells the automation when it is armed. It can be disarmed from the automation with a code, which the automation has to generate as a hash from an electronic key.

</comment><comment><USER19> Its an interesting point in the article about the indignity of smart TVs. I was contemplating getting a new TV, but I felt I was getting ripped off. I have a ton of external devices which handle providing Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, whatever. I don't want to pay a huge premium on a TV because the manufacture thinks this is a novelty to me. As is evidenced in the article, I also don't want my TV to have a complicated OS that can literally crash when I attempt to change the channel.

Fundamentally, I just want my TV to be a display - an amazing display. I don't even want or need it to have those shitty speakers TVs necessarily have - <USER2> already have a fantastic sound system. I want as close to 100% of my money going into the quality of the picture, not huge feature lists I have no need for.

<comment><USER20> Then search for "Large Format Display", for example:

[http://www.newegg.com/Large-Format- Displays/SubCategory/ID-6...](http://www.newegg.com/Large-Format- Displays/SubCategory/ID-633)

or just big monitors:

[http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_hi_eb?rh=n%3A172282%2Cn%3A541...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_hi_eb?rh=n%3A172282%2Cn%3A541966%2Cn%3A1292115011%2Cp_n_size_browse- bin%3A2633652011&ie=UTF8&qid=1456934293)

<comment><USER21> Main problem here seems to be a lack of reviews/testing. Every aspect of mainstream TVs is thoroughly tested and reviewed, but with these monitors you're basically rolling the dice. You don't know the color accuracy, viewing angles, black uniformity, etc. until you get it back to your house. That's a big gamble when you're spending ~$1,000 and planning to keep the device for several years.

The DELL E5515H looks nice though. Wish they made a 60" or 65" version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You can also use component following the KNX standard and build a smart home based on a standard (with about 400 providers of appliances, switches, etc.) and control it fully using open source software[1]. Note that the components can be programmed to work without any cloud or centralized control system. So, your heater will work even if your "app" to control it is not working because of a faulty update as everything can work in "standalone" mode.

[0]: [http://knx.org/](http://knx.org/)

[1]: [http://www.openhab.org/](http://www.openhab.org/)

</comment><comment><USER23> The fundamental issue is that, if I were to put down a list of things I wish were easier/automated around the house, there's very little that overlaps smart home or home automation products.

\- Heat control. OK but I have a non-network connected programmable thermostat that's really pretty effective.

\- Vacuuming. OK. Roombas are a start in this direction although how effective they are depends a lot on your house layout.

\- Clean up dirty dishes, wipe down counters, etc. Nope, unless you count my dishwasher.

\- General food prep. Cutting/chopping. Nope, unless you count things like my food processor.

\- Smarter light control. Eh. A few dimmers work pretty well.

\- General dusting, bathroom cleaning, etc. Nope.

\- Laundry. Nope (other than my dumb washer & dryer).

\- Lawn cutting, general yard maintenance. Nope.

\- Water plants. One can setup complicated systems but you still need to get water from a water source to individual pots without leaks.

The list goes on. The bottom line is that the tasks I'd like to eliminate or streamline are largely not things that I can buy devices to help with.

<comment><USER24> General cleaning is an amazingly hard to define problem. I think "general food chopping" _might_ be within reach, if computer vision lives up to the AI promises. I'm thinking of a breadbin or printer-sized object into which you place (e.g.) an onion, a carrot, and a turnip, close the safety interlock, and come back in a couple of minutes to diced onion, carrot batons, and cubes of turnip. Empty the waste container and possibly change out the knife and it's ready for re-use.

(The classic problem with kitchen labour-saving is devices that take longer to clean than the effort they save. Dishwashers help a lot, but your device has to be dishwashable.)

<comment><USER25> Precut seems to be the better solution than a machine.

It doesn't even have to be low paid humans doing the precutting, it can be a big machine that only needs to be cleaned every 1000 potatoes or whatever.

<comment><USER23> You're probably right. Although precut vegetables don't last nearly as long even if you don't mind paying the premium. (And, of course, you don't have the same degree of control.)

Generally though, in the absence of additional home automation options that could save time and effort, the overall approach has been to do exactly as you say. Eliminate end user work in the manufacturing process and other places.

There are lots of examples in food. Modern clothing wrinkles less (and many people just don't care as much). Autopayments and online banking. Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Remember the good old days when software was designed from the assumption that Internet wouldn't be available, and then if it happened to be, it would do some other interesting things? I get that these are connected "smart" devices, but is it that difficult to tell the NEST thermostat that when the service is unavailable to simply keep running whatever settings were last used and just wait for it to come back? I cannot imagine sitting through a features meeting where we decided if our support smart thermostat has no internet connection, it just shuts everything the hell off.

My beefs with smart devices are numerous, but I think their most offensive component is software that seems to have been all designed by the same kind of moron.

<comment><USER27> It's a failsafe to shut things off. If it fails on then there are disastrous possibilities, failing off leaves more annoyances, no?

<comment><USER26> Losing power is a disaster, a ruptured gas line is a disaster, and both of those things are required to have an operating furnace. Losing Internet is not a disaster, it's in fact a pretty much daily occurrence for I would argue the majority of Internet users (at least here the States, where Internet sucks). Losing the Internet shouldn't break my thermostat, much like having a clogged toilet shouldn't cut my power. They're two entirely different systems in the home.

<comment><USER27> If your toilet clogs and literally floods the house then it's safer that the power gets cut, hence circuit breakers and the like.

When you connect your thermostat to the Internet then they're no longer entirely separate systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> _" My Nest thermostat, which after some early teething problems I've come to like, falls flat on its face when my broadband connection goes down."_

The implication here is that like the other thermostat mentioned, it doesn't work. That's simply not true, the Nest still works albeit only from the device itself like a traditional thermostat.

</comment><comment><USER29> There have to be open protocols and control needs to happen locally (as in: on the home network). The good news is, you can absolutely have that, today. The bad news is, it's not as easy to set up as a Nest. People have to understand this tradeoff.

</comment><comment><USER30> Software is an inconsistent thing, it takes years of effort to make it right. With IoT we are, literally, spreading inconsistency all over the place.

I usually see industry tendencies (such as "big data" or "machine learning") skeptically, but this one I'm just plain pessimistic. I hope I'm wrong.

</comment><comment><USER31> The thing to realize is that outside of very simple cases like connecting your Echo to your lighting, the smart home is a high-end product. If you can't afford a custom installation and hands-on support, you're not a real customer of the smart home. That means, for the 97%, it isn't a usable product.

People who can afford it can get a well-integrated smart home that works and continues to work and isn't spying on them (to the extent that anyone with a home security system isn't being spied on). Just don't try to do it yourself. Sure, some people can, but it's in the same category as home-built airplanes. For every one that flies, there are 500 sitting partially assembled in teh garage.

</comment><comment><USER32> I have interesting tales from the trenches to tell. I used to work for a company that did home automation devices. This was quite a few years ago, when the whole craze was in its incipient stages, but I didn't lose contact with it.

I could fill a small book with reasons why IoT products are so bad, but the top reasons would have to be:

1\. There is an intense pressure of _delivering_ simply because everyone thinks the market is ripe for the taking and being first offers some kind of guarantee of winning it. Truth is, there is a very significant overlap between people who are interested in this whole IoT crap and people who involved in its development. Most products are so embarrassingly bad that no one in their right mind would want them.

2\. Products _could_ be better, but most of them are...

2a) ...developed without any kind of vision, because the management and product design teams don't really understand these things. The vision behind developing most smart home appliances is "we'll make a <insert company's top selling appliance here>, BUT ONLINE".

2b) ...developed by bad engineering teams, because projects are perceived to be too high-risk to be worth investing much into, so they're outsourced somewhere cheap (before you start yelling racism at me, please realize I was one of the cheap guys these were being outsourced to.)

2c) ...seen as little more than platforms for service and/or ads delivery. They see little investment, because management teams completely unfamiliar with hardware design believe the vehicle through which services and/or ads are delivered is pretty much irrelevant and/or can be easily fixed. They treat hardware platforms for delivering ads and services much like they treat web platforms, because that's all they ever built.

3\. Standardization in this field is... exaggerated, at best. Even platforms that standardize things at the application layer (e.g. Z-Wave) routinely get it wrong. 90% of the "ground-breaking" gadgets that "open up the exciting world of <whatever> to everyone" only work with five or six phones, at best.

4\. The main challenge of every marketing department in this field is coming up with reasons why someone would buy these things. Oftentimes that's done ad- hoc: a device already exists because someone with C in its title had a "strategic vision" and the device is already in beta, and now someone has to figure out how to sell it because the money have already been spent.

5\. A lot of big names are in this game pro-actively, in case it actually turns out to be of some value. This is why you see big companies that should know better demoing embarrassing things (like LG's drunken robot). They need to be sure they have a foot in the door in case this actually takes off, but aren't willing to invest the funds needed to provide a serious, integrated system.

6\. Testing is virtually non-existent and safety standards are embarrassingly lax. Half of the things that plug into a socket and do fancy Internet things are fire hazards.

7\. Virtually every device that does fancy Internet things is a privacy and security hazard. Companies either lack management and development teams that realize how important these things are and know how to build them, or are actively disinterested in fixing them because it's detrimental to their business model.

The true "smart home" won't come until all these funky devices will be integrated in a single system. With everyone competing and raising walled gardens because they don't want to share profits from ads, that won't happen until a big enough player decides to invest the huge amount of money that's needed to create a comprehensive line of devices, that can cover everything from thermostats to sound system.

Until that happens, "smart" homes will be so incessantly dumb and annoying that no one who isn't paid to say they're awesome or build "smart" devices will want one.

<comment><USER33> Couldn't agree with your points more.

Found this one particularly salient: 5. A lot of big names are in this game pro-actively, in case it actually turns out to be of some value. This is why you see big companies that should know better demoing embarrassing things (like LG's drunken robot). They need to be sure they have a foot in the door in case this actually takes off, but aren't willing to invest the funds needed to provide a serious, integrated system.

Many big companies are hedging their bets and playing catch up, which is downright dangerous when you're selling devices that scale up the threat vector for life-critical devices such as refrigerators, security cameras, door locks, thermostats, and cars.

I think Apple has the best shot at winning the connected home game due to their ownership of the iPhone ecosystem (used as a remote for the smarthome), tight product control, and their new marketing story of _we are security_ \- and they actually do implement the most rigorous key management and cryptography standards in the industry. I'm looking forward to their next hardware reveal - I think a Siri-integrated router (ala Amazon Echo) would complement their portfolio really well at the moment.

<comment><USER34> Negatory on Apple winning. I think Amazon is much more likely. They're dominating the connected home right now with the Echo; as a developer, integrating the Echo with Plum's Lightpad _is extremely easy_ , I can't do the same thing with Siri.

<comment><USER33> > They're dominating the connected home right now with the Echo

Have any numbers to back up this assertion as opposed to sales figures of iPhones, iPads, AppleTVs, Macbooks, AirPorts, etc. - all integral fixtures in the smarthome ecosystem?

> integrating the Echo with Plum's Lightpad is extremely easy

Amazon does not have tight enough control over its smart home ecosystem. While it may be easy for you to integrate your thoroughly designed and tested product, it's also easy for shady vendor x to integrate their cheap, disaster of a product, and Amazon will not expend the resources to vet it, but in the end the user will blame Amazon when that product catches fire because they branded it as OK to work with Amazon products.

Apple doesn't want an outside dev ecosystem building up around its products before its in a position to tightly vet and control what engineers create to enhance the ecosystem. Third party applications/devices are an integral part of the user experience, and by extension, the customer's feeling towards Apple as a brand.

<comment><USER34> > Have any numbers to back up this assertion...

Nope, just anecdata (based on being a startup in the IoT space).

> Amazon does not have tight enough control over its smart home ecosystem...

I don't know that for sure, TBH, though I think the more open and universal platform will win. Currently the Echo is that, it's not an app you have to launch from your phone (Revolv), you just talk to it, and it does things for you.

Echo's superbowl ad also catapulted it, we have emails from people left and right asking for Echo integration (not Apple TV integration).

Also, why would the customer blame Amazon if their bulbs cause a fire? The customer clearly bought the bulbs, then hooked Echo up to the bulb (in the case of Philips Hue), I'm not saying Echo is infallible but I do think your criticism is unfair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> [http://money.usnews.com/money/business- economy/articles/1997...](http://money.usnews.com/money/business- economy/articles/1997/11/23/xanadu-20)

Keep in mind that in the 1990's it was rare for Windows uptime to exceed 24hrs and Microsoft demos of new features barely worked if at all. Not to mention that "security" was not yet on the PR agenda.

Gates' home, replete with low quality software a la Microsoft, sounded silly if not scary back then. But what do I know? Maybe it was all very stable and reliable.

</comment><comment><USER36> IMO, part of this is the current "simple" systems-design that's been happening everywhere. Instead of giving users good defaults, with the ability to override almost any setting, we've designed things so it's "manufacturers choice, or none at all". This used to be just web-pages, and then it started leaking to browsers, then phones, etc.

There are a lot of other issues (security, phoning home, etc), but a lot of these wouldn't be as noticeable if they didn't follow the "simple" design.

</comment><comment><USER37> Do not automate your home itself, but let an autonomous robot automate it for you. That way you have a hardware "fallback" that is robust, cannot be hacked externally and can be adjusted manually. Think of R2D2 moving around the house and taking care of adjusting the lights and temperature and stuff. Additionally the robot can be equipped with sensors and such. Beware: the robot should not be controllable via WLAN!

</comment><comment><USER38> Following "smart" trends and countless problems it causes, I guess it's not long before "dumb" will be the hot marketing slogan.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is a software problem at its root. It seems software of all kinds is struggling to keep up with the exponential gains in hardware. CPUs are cheaper and smaller with more cores than ever before. But there is no Moore's law of software engineering. Software quality is a more abstract metric than number of transistors on a die.

</comment><comment><USER40> Am I right in thinking televisions need to be 'smart' in order to run an OS, televisions need to run an OS to run apps therefore we need 'smart' TVs in order to rid ourselves of these 'set top' boxes?

<comment><USER41> Sure. Or, alternatively, you can buy a big reliable dumb TV and upgrade the set top boxes (TiVo, Roku, AppleTV, Android-whatever) cheaply every couple of years.

<comment><USER42> Even better, have the set top box as a device you control, such as raspberry pi running Kodi, so the software is flexible and less likely to become horribly obsolete. Not a solution for the mass market however, due to the setup work involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So much possible downside to these smart things and very little upside.

</comment><comment><USER7> The reason why the smart home is such a failure is because even the "smarter" home is a total failure. I had a programmable thermostat in my residence. I always used it in "hold" mode and just turned it off when I left for the day. This thermostat also had the option for the power company to disable the AC during peak load. I could care less about this as the interruption was brief. The problem was after they re-enabled the AC, the thermostat always returned to "program" mode. Twice this turned on the heat with a setting of 85 F in the middle of the summer. Needless to say, that thermostat is now sitting in a cupboard.

</comment><comment><USER44> Air travel is safe now because people died, died and then died. IoT companies will probably have to kill a sizeable bunch before understanding what responsibility means.

</comment><comment><USER45> Hire a maid, much smarter than all those devices :-)

</comment><comment><USER46> If the WIFI goes down on the nest you just go poke the heatlink and it starts the heating. Then sort your WIFI out.

<comment><USER47> I don't know what a heatlink is, but if I have to be physically present, that's a non-starter for vacation homes.

<comment><USER48> So it's a non-starter that you can't remotely control a Nest when the broadband connection to your vacation home is down?

If it's that critical maybe you need to design in some network redundancy. That's not really a Nest issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _My Nest thermostat, which after some early teething problems I've come to > like, falls flat on its face when my broadband connection goes down. No > wifi, no heating in the house._

Could this be due to relying on the broadband provider's box for Wi-Fi instead of your own Wi-Fi router for running your local network?

I can still reach my webserver or printer when broadband is down. Gee, why is that?

<comment><USER49> You don't need any Wi-Fi to turn the dial up or down. :)

<comment><USER6> Though that may be true of that unit, my point is that you don't need broadband to be up to have Wi-Fi. The whole Wi-Fi based control should be contained within your LAN, which has no reason to be down, other than a power outage or equipment failure.

If someone's local Wi-Fi LAN dies when the broadband connection isn't up, they should buy their own Wi-Fi router and then get some fifth grader to set it up for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> If you went on holiday the cat would more likely starve than roast. Australian and many other cats also regularly endure high heat - 32 degrees C plus. The author really should have left that out or thought it through a little more, detracts from the argument</comment>


This high school class builds an entire house every year - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/a18632/high-school-class-builds-entire-house-every-year/ <comment><USER2> Does the school pour the foundations too? It is clear from the article they frame it, but it is unclear overall what is and is not included in what the students do (electrical? plumbing? interior walls? kitchen/bathroom installation? etc).

A project like this wouldn't shock me in other countries, but knowing how litigious the US is and the potential liability, I am surprised it got green lit. From other articles I've read even a lot of fieldtrips in the US are denied because of the supposed "danger."

<comment><USER3> In the article:

"We hire a team to dig out the foundation and get professional help for the plumbing, electrical work, and drywall, but everything else we do ourselves. We'll frame and raise walls, add windows, and even put up the roof supports, or trusses.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one of the most inspirational articles I've read in months...incredibly creative approach to providing internships for willing students, especially at a time when funding for education is limited...

Bravo! Birt Hansen(founder) and Chris Higginbotham(current administrator)...

>In four decades,it's remained completely self-sustaining: The profits from one house pay for the materials for the next.<

That sort of longevity blows my mind...

I've volunteered on a couple of Habitat for Humanity work sites and recommend it...the way you feel at the end of the day, well that's the best kind of "tired" out there...the kids who have access to this program are lucky indeed...

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my Alma Mater and I participated in in it (95). Birt Hansen was one of the most inspirational people in my life hands down. He convinced students that the world is conspiring in your favor, that that everything within your reach if you just want it bad enough.

When I met him I had little direction other than liking to draw and tinker with electronics (when I wasnt chasing girls). He convinced me to take a drafting class. In a few years I was doing advanced architectural drafting and learning this fancy new "AutoCad" stuff that we managed to get a grant for. With AutoCad I discovered Object Oriented methodology and scripting. Things grew from there.

Long story short, 21 years later I am enjoying a career as a software engineer doing exactly what I love and want to (they pay me for this? really?) and I have no problem giving Birt massive credit for what I've achieved.

Sorry, bit of a tangent but just wanted to say this guy was awesome.

<comment><USER5> What kind of supervision was there?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't speak much to the construction end of it, but things like plumbing and electrical were still contracted out because of code/liability issues. There were many "subject matter experts" checking things out.

For the drafting side, we agreed on a design and used our learned techniques to create the drawings, guided by Mr. Hansen and a residential architect. The plans had to be proofed by an engineer and the usual building code folks with the city.

The kids design and build the thing but there is some oversight to make sure everything is up to snuff. From my experience and what I've been told over the years the houses exceed code standards in many ways which is one of the reasons they always sell quickly. Word gets around fast in this area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My highschool (Spring Lake Park, MN) had a program like this when I was a student in the 90s. It was a specific course you signed up for like autoshop.

The basement and foundations were dug and laid by contractors but all of the other, non heavy equipment, construction was done by students under supervision from pros (like helping out a habitat for humanity project). Everything from framing, plumbing to electrical. Students would rotate and get their hands on every part of the house. Returning students took on leadership roles and more skilled tasks.

<comment><USER7> My Junior High in the early 1980s had a class like this as well. These sorts of classes are more common than some think...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know someone who once bought a house built by students, but I'm not sure whether they were high school students or community college students. They didn't do any excavation work though, and it ended up being moved to the final site rather than any excavation work being involved. This was in southern Maine.</comment>


Ask HN: Selling Software and Sarbanes-Oxley? - <AUTHOR>

A while back a friend and colleague of mine told me something that I found a bit incredible: that Sarbanes-Oxley imposed special accounting rules that made it complex and cumbersome to sell software via the old licensing models, and that this is one reason almost everyone is moving toward software-as-a-service in the cloud.
He said SOX imposed onerous per-feature accounting requirements that made it really hard to sell "boxed" (with or without a physical box) software, etc.
I have been unable to find any information on this one way or another, so I wanted to ask around here: is there any truth to this? Is this a reason that larger vendors have moved away from actually selling software as opposed to SaaS?
Or is it just that SaaS offers recurrent income? <comment><USER2> From dim and distant memory (ie 10yrs ago), I think the issue is establishing a true value for your IP if you're not selling to a price list. I believe that the addition of S&M components to a sale can assist in evidencing the value.</comment>


Ask HN: Server-side web framework in Swift/ObjectiveC? - <AUTHOR> I know this has been asked before, but hoping for a more current review by HN folks.
Are there any good emerging Swift web frameworks, especially micro-frameworks, to keep an eye on? Objective-C even.
As a Swift app developer it would be  neat to be able to just write a few API endpoints in the same language.
Here's what I've found so far: Webappkit (ObjectiveC) HTTPkit (ObjectiveC) Kitura (Swift) Perfect (Swift)
Perfect seems to be the most loved so far. <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/qutheory/vapor](https://github.com/qutheory/vapor)

Vapor has great documentation and is really easy to use.

</comment><comment><USER3> Zewo for Swift, as far as no other micro-frameworks seem to popular yet especially Nodejs with Expressjs has come a long way and Laravel an instant success due to PHP fatigue with many web frameworks.</comment>


Yet Another Government-Sponsored Malware - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/yet_another_gov.html <comment><USER2> Recent discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253632)

</comment><comment><USER3> More detailed post from Kaspersky here [https://securelist.com/analysis/publications/75533/faq- the-p...](https://securelist.com/analysis/publications/75533/faq-the- projectsauron-apt/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I find it ridiculous that any time a really well written malware is found it is assumed that it must have been written by a government. Since when has government been the example of efficiency and clarity that is requisite to high quality software? The Open-Source world is full of examples of non-state programmers writing excellent code that does amazing things.

</comment><comment><USER5> Stoxnet was discovered by Belorussian anti-virus company, Duqu & Project Sauron were discovered by Kaspersky Lab. Are US-based anti-virus companies that bad or ...?

<comment><USER6> Or what? I'm not following, but I think its clear that state malware disclosure is political.

If Kaspersky finds a Russian FSB trojan, they won't go to the press. They'll call their pals at the FSB and ask what to do. In an authoritarian state, revealing such a thing could be life threatening. In other words, Kaspersky isn't going to report on Russian state malware, which we certainly know exists considering the documented attacks on Ukraine, Baltics, Georgia, etc.

The US/EU has a stronger freedom of the press tradition and doesn't often follow autocratic staples like murdering inconvenient journalists and serving them polonium tea, but obviously jail-time can be in the cards if laws were violated. I imagine its just safer to report on Western state sigint compared to autocratic/authoritarian state sigint, thus we hear about Western sigint efforts a lot more, especially in the Western press. One of the downsides of having an open society is that you see the warts and all, but a more closed autocratic one has better infomation and propaganda control, so the perception of "those things don't happen here" is easy to sell to low-information constituents, and special efforts are made to keep them low-information.

Also, I think its clear Russia uses Kaspersky to make western intelligence look bad. Its more demoralizing to have a AV vendor point this stuff out than one's own security apparatus and its a good cover for the FSB's own hacking. Wired has written about the FSB/Kaspersky connection before. Note its almost always Kaspersky finding Western state malware, not the dozens of other competent AV firms and thousands of top tier researchers. Funny how that works.

[http://www.wired.com/2012/07/ff_kaspersky/](http://www.wired.com/2012/07/ff_kaspersky/)

<comment><USER5> How is that relevant to my question?

Also, in US you are free to talk about anything unless you are under GAG order.

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

<comment><USER7> >I think its clear Russia uses Kaspersky to make western intelligence look bad. Its more demoralizing to have a AV vendor point this stuff out than one's own security apparatus and its a good cover for the FSB's own hacking. Wired has written about the FSB/Kaspersky connection

This seems like the most relevant part -- it's not that Kaspersky is THAT much better, but that they have a lot of help from the state, which has way more resources than an anti-virus company. How much of that is true, I have no idea.

Also, "free" in the way you use it is a pretty shaky concept: In theory, you're "free" to record police officers acting in the course of their duty, but that doesn't mean the authorities won't ruin your life because of it. (To say nothing of how eerily easy it is for the government to issue gag orders.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am not a security expert, but it doesn't seem that hard to figure out how this is being done. Lots of money to an insider/spy/human that has access to the places one would like to install said malware. Most of these stories seem to involve good, old fashioned social engineering. Albeit, social engineering with with lots of money or another kind of leverage.

Or... maybe I am naive. I just tend to look at this stuff with how can we get this done the easiest way??? Human emotions are much easier to target than silicon.

</comment><comment><USER9> Do any consumer AV suites actually try identifying and removing or quarantining state-actor-level malware?

<comment><USER10> Anti-Virus only finds the very most common virus' and malware.

I think only 30% of malware is detected~ I remember reading about that a while back and this was after advanced heuristic methods had been around for a while.

<comment><USER9> That's not really what I meant. I mean in the cases where such 'super-malware' has been clearly identified and plucked apart by security researchers, could your average commercial AV kill it? I did some googling and found out for myself that apparently, they do:

[https://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid...](https://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2011-101814-1119-99)

[https://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/threat/encyclopedi...](https://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/threat/encyclopedia/entry.aspx?Name=Worm:Win32/Stuxnet.B)

<comment><USER10> Oh in the case where they're very publicly known they will, even if the US government wanted to suppress it, they do not have power over all AV companies. So it would be damaging to those companies.

And in any event, when we find out about nefarious state-sponsored software it's almost always super old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Schneier is basically blogspam. Quotes entirely from another article, follows up with "I don't know what this means???" Why do people keep reading him?

<comment><USER12> He's a content curator for a particular category of content. Would you prefer to follow all of the relevant sources and sift through the cruft yourself?

<comment><USER13> But people should be submitting the original source, not Schneier's link, unless he adds something useful.

<comment><USER12> I can agree with that, however his interest in an issue is a primary indicator of its importance for me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


French President's Residence 'Busted' For BitTorrent Piracy - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/french-presidents-residence-busted-for-bittorrent-piracy-111215/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

<comment><USER2> Once again the laws that are pushed by the elite are only for the masses, not for the elite itself. How can they propose laws with a straight face that they themselves know they are constantly breaking?

I'm really starting to think we need to chip away at the politicians' immunity. Too often they try to pass laws that they themselves wouldn't be held accountable for breaking.

<comment><USER3> Do you honestly think this was Sarkozy himself? I'm surprised this is the highest comment at the moment.

<comment><USER4> While it probably wasn't the president himself, that makes no difference at all in the context of the French "three strikes" law that allows disconnecting file sharers for up to 12 months without the possibility of judicial appeal. I don't know how to express this, there's simply not a chance in hell, not even in a million years, that the Élysée (the French equivalent of the White House) will be disconnected from the Internet because of file sharing.

<comment><USER5> I believe the three strikes only applies to homes, not offices.

<comment><USER4> I am by no means an expert in French Law but after reading through the text of the law on Legifrance I did not find an provisions that would limit the law to private or home users only. Perhaps someone from France could confirm this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Let's not forget that Sarkozy already has at least one strike. He used a song from MGMT on multiple occasions without permission. And then he insulted them further by offering 1 Euro (yes, 1 Euro!) as compensation.

<comment><USER7> Why did they not sue him for millions in damages? Is that not an option in the EU?

<comment><USER6> They did, and later reached some kind of settlement.

It should still count as a copyright strike under hadopi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> French gov is always prompt to make a fool of himself... Remember the EPIC fail of france.fr launch: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/14/france-launches- multi-lingu...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/14/france-launches-multi- lingual-tourist-website-it-goes-down-and-stays-down/)

<comment><USER9> Don't forget their copyright enforcement agency, HADOPI, whose own logo ripped off a commercial font: [http://fontfeed.com/archives/french-anti-piracy- organisation...](http://fontfeed.com/archives/french-anti-piracy-organisation- uses-pirated-font-in-ownlogo/)

<comment><USER8> Hadn't seen this EPIC one... I'm speechless!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The law is not just about enforcing property rights. It also needs to be pragmatic. If almost everyone is doing it, it's wrong to try to outlaw it.

OK, you could use a similar argument about Greek taxes - everyone cheats the system, and brings it down. But it's pointless blaming the people. Maybe the system has to change.

<comment><USER11>
      > OK, you could use a similar argument about Greek taxes

That just means they have to 'find another way.' They could raise sales taxes or lower spending by reducing services provided.

<comment><USER12> > They could raise sales taxes

When transaction taxes become too high, they're evaded as well.

For example, post-prohibition bootlegging in the US lasted as long as the booze tax was "high enough" relative to production cost.

We already have folks smuggling cigarettes in the US to evade taxes. And, in high tax states, some merchants don't collect sales tax.

No, a VAT doesn't stop this - smuggling and off the books manufacture isn't VAT-taxed. (Yes, you may get the VAT on the inputs, but not on any of the downstream value.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The source of the article (<http://www.nikopik.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi>) doesn't exist anymore. Is there some kind of confirmation somewhere ?

edit : fixed the link. sorry, bad copy-paste.

<comment><USER14> The article still works in the US: [http://torrentfreak.com/french-presidents- residence-busted-f...](http://torrentfreak.com/french-presidents-residence- busted-for-bittorrent-piracy-111215/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)

To verify the results: <http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/?q=22.214.171.124>

If you want I can post screenshots of both

<comment><USER13> I was referring to what the article said was its source : <http://www.nikopik.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi>

I mean... Do we have to trust YouHaveDownloaded.com ? Evidence seems scarce...

<comment><USER15> There is no evidence either that Trident Media Guard (the company that reports IP infringers to the 3-strike authority) should be trusted more than youhavedownloaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The "YouHaveDownloaded" webiste had, until a few days ago, a list of downloaded files for impossible addresses like 0.0.0.0 and 192.168.0.1.

Isn't this addresses easy to spoof? I thought they were only suited for scaring friends, not basing investigative articles.

<comment><USER17> It is known[1] that tracker sites insert random IP addresses.

[1] [http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect- deniabili...](http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-deniability/)

<comment><USER18> On clicking one of the random IP addresses it showed me that they had tracked, the right sidebar Facebook comment column had a comment from a developer that stated they tested the application locally, and then pushed the same database live, so many of the 192.168.0.0/16 block (and I could assume other RFC 1918 blocks) are the actual developers traffic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fake IP poisoning from the tracker? Unless "YouHaveDownloaded.com" actually connected to this IP as part of that torrent, this seems highly unlikely to be real.

</comment><comment><USER20> It is possible to access the source via Vtunnel [1]

[1] <https://vtunnel.com/>

<comment><USER21> I have flashblock turned on. vtunnel is full of flash, and does some sort of not-a-popup popup at the beginning, with nothing but flash in it.

They could be angels for all I know, but a site that promotes anonymity and loads up with flash makes me pass it by.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Governments around the world have been given the excuse to create overreaching and piracy laws because we let them. I'm not surprised this has happened but we should be asking what is the bigger problem. Is it people pirating and distributing copyrighted materials or is it us, the downloading public, that should be punished for not being able to resist the lure of pirates.

I personally feel that if all of us as users realized that we're handing them excuses to censor the web on a silver platter we would quit downloading copyright materials. There is such a fine line between sharing and piracy that it's hard to decide which side any person falls on. Now, a person who records a movie in a theater and puts it online is guilty. No doubt about it. But what about the person who buys a CD, rips it to his computer, then wants to share it with some friends? If he sends a few copies to friends via email or other non public way, is he doing wrong? I'd argue no. But that's what makes this whole thing so scary. On the one hand there's a clear case we are the reason these laws happen. Our inability to resist the lure of free, pirated media. But then we also cannot restrict our right to share our own property with some people.

So I'm wondering, when does it stop being sharing and turn into privacy. Never is not the answer. Whether you support or think it shouldn't exist, the fact is that copyright laws have been in effect for a long time. So considering that, where does the line get drawn?

<comment><USER23> Again, copyright law (and patents, and trademarks) exist to help the public. It takes the form of a monopoly to create an incentive for works to be produced.

There's absolutely _zero_ proof that even with all this piracy going on, that the amount of creative work has diminished. In fact, from my anecdotal evidence, I'd say there's even more creative works available now than ever before.

Thus, stronger copyright laws targeting non-commercial users are simply unneeded. The public is already getting the benefit of having huge amounts of art being generated (with no signs of slowdown), so there's no justifiable argument for these stronger laws, despite piracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> good :)

</comment><comment><USER25> And him married to Carla Bruni! She should slap him.</comment>


Launchaco 2.0 – The Simplest Way to Build a Website for Your Startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.launchaco.com/ <comment><USER2> Absolutely love the UI and the quality of the websites you can make

</comment><comment><USER3> I saw this earlier today and was blown away that it's only ~430kb. It loads crazy fast on my shitty university connection! Good job guys!</comment>


Dispelling The New SSL Myth - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/2/10/dispelling-the-new-ssl-myth.html

<comment><USER2> The original source is [http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2011/01/3...](http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2011/01/31/dispelling- the-new-ssl-myth.aspx) and it does not disclose this is a company manufacturing SSL accelerators. It also does not mention SNI.

</comment><comment><USER3> I tried to understand where the article is coming from, but there is no data, and the conclusion seems to be "SSL will increase load on your server when you use 2048 bit keys". Well, yeah. A couple of things smell fishy about the argument in the article, and the author seems to equate "Web server" = "Apache".

The only quantitative speculation (without data) from TFA:

"A typical server that could support 1500 TPS using 1024-bit keys will only support 1/5 of that (around 300 TPS) when supporting modern best practices, i.e. 2048-bit keys."</comment>


Designer/Programmer Harmony: Not Just a Myth - <AUTHOR> http://factore.ca/on-the-floor/22-designer-programmer-harmony-not-just-a-myth

<comment><USER2> This is a difficult dynamic to manage and depends really heavily on the designer and programmer involved, how good they actually are and how much they credit the others expertise.

I've worked on projects at one job with a designer that was top notch. He knew and understood the medium despite having started as a print designer. As he did with print, where he learned about the pre-press process, he made sure he learned about the web, usability and understood HTML and CSS. What a joy it was to work with him. His designs were beautiful and understood usability without sacrificing appearance. He's gone on to do independant work and now makes double what I do. Good on him.

Then there's the other side. I've worked with another designer who thinks design exists in a silo, refuses to learn anything about the medium and has very firm (and misguided) ideas about usability. They see no point in involving a programmer in the design phase because the programmer is just supposed to make things work and doesn't understand design. They have learned nothing about the web and feel learning HTML or CSS dilutes their focus; any designer that does know these things is looked down upon because they're spreading the attention to far and will make a poor designer.

Programmers can make it hard on a designer, even good ones, and we shouldn't. This is the most valuable working relationship you can form in my opinion.

If you find one of the former, hold on to them like they are the only life preserver in the ocean. If one of the latter, run like hell. There are, of course, many skill/knowledge levels in between but it really makes me appreciate it when I have a good one to work with.</comment>


Screenqueri.es | Pixel Perfect Responsive Design Testing Tool - <AUTHOR> http://screenqueri.es

<comment><USER2> A really cool tool, and extremely well presented. At first I thought: 'well why not just resize the browser window?'. But the options for device screen size is what makes this useful. Great job.

Just one point. The dark overlay that comes up when the mouse is over the preview is a bit distracting. Maybe you could make this more subtle?

What's the motivation for making this tool? Any ideas to monetize?</comment>


Why we make you type "$0" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.elementaryos.org/post/110645528530/payments

<comment><USER2> I get what they're saying here, but given the fact that the UI is almost an exact ripoff of OSX, it's a little hard to take it seriously. "Give us money for building this OSX ripoff, we deserve it." I agree that people should be paid for their work, but I also have a problem with asking for money for stolen ideas.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is so stupid. If you want $10 for your product, then charge $10 for it.

If you're offering your product that your team worked hard on for $0, then someone paying $0 for it is not cheating the system.

Your company's profitability is your responsibility, not mine.

</comment><comment><USER4> If anyone deserves my donations, it's the Linux Foundation, GNU, Debian, Ubuntu, Gnome, and every other giant on whose shoulders Elementary stands.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't argue that its worth more than zero, but let's say the whole OS is worth $50 then what % of the source code is from the elementary team? They deserve their fair share.</comment>


Sources: Vegas Downtown Project entrepreneur Matt Berman has died - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/05/22/sources-vegas-downtown-project-entrepreneur-matt-berman-has-died/ <comment><AUTHOR> "If officially confirmed, Berman's death would make him the third Downtown Project figure to have died suddenly in the last 18 months, following the deaths of Ecomom's Jody Sherman in 2013 and Downtown Project employee Ovik Banerjee earlier this year. Sherman and Banerjee's deaths were both ruled suicides."</comment>


How the Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 <comment> I-M-S Notice how at 23:08 he asserts that have-nots start resenting the haves at the moment re-distribution starts, whereas in fact the exact opposite is true. Also notice how this is followed by a scaremongering implication re- distribution leads to social disorders and wars.

While I respect Mr. Dalio for creating this high-quality explanation video, viewers should not forget his net worth is $18B USD [1] and his interests are not necessarily aligned with the general public interest.

Taxing the wealthy and ensuring they cannot avoid taxes is a perfectly legitimate way to ensure overall prosperity of a society.

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/profile/ray- dalio/#696b597e663a](https://www.forbes.com/profile/ray-dalio/#696b597e663a)</comment>


Kubernetes Wiki - <AUTHOR> https://www.stackrox.com/wiki/ <comment><AUTHOR> Kubernetes Security Wiki, where we examine some of the most critical security- related topics in the world of containers, Kubernetes, and cloud-native application development.</comment>


So who wants to come code and surf in September in France? - <AUTHOR> http://surfcamp.lewagon.org

<comment><USER2> I do! I've been wanting to go to Biarritz and master code for a long time, but wait --- what about my friend who speaks English only... is the course in English or French?

<comment><USER3> Is this in English or French? I would love to attend a surf/code hack event!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, if we have at least one non-French speaker we'll do them in English obviously :)</comment></comment></comment>


Generating a full-stack application from a database - <AUTHOR> https://notes.eatonphil.com/generating-a-full-stack-application-from-a-database.html <comment><USER2> This is neat. What are some other projects in this space?

<comment><USER3> For Go, there's xo/xo, sqlboiler and gnorm. But they mostly are used to generate data access code only.

Hasura, couchdb, supabase and PostgREST wrap your database but don't generate code they just run in memory (and you have to deal with Haskell and Erlang).

Prisma is most similar in spirit but has it's own data description language whereas this uses SQL. This generates a Go backend currently (I'm working on Java though too) but Prisma generates typescript.

<comment> steve-chavez Just to clarify :)

> PostgREST wrap your database but don't generate code they just run in > memory.

PostgREST generates an OpenAPI output, which in turn can generate code with tools such as openapi-generator[1], Go being one of the many langs supported.

> (and you have to deal with Haskell and Erlang)

I guess this is only as true as saying that you have to deal with Erlang because you use RabbitMQ. Or you have to deal with C because you use PostgreSQL. Same applies with PostgREST, you don't have to write Haskell to use it, only SQL.

[1]: [https://openapi-generator.tech](https://openapi-generator.tech)

<comment><USER3> > First the server is written in Haskell using the Warp HTTP server (aka a > compiled language with lightweight threads).

From the PostgREST readme. Even if you generated the controllers with openapi, I'm not aware that openapi will generate you an entire application already hooked up to the db?

> guess this is only as true as saying that you have to deal with Erlang > because you use RabbitMQ. Or you have to deal with C because you use > PostgreSQL. Same applies with PostgREST, you don't have to write Haskell to > use it, only SQL.

In my experience you will undoubtedly end up dealing with the oddities of it as some point. Would you rather deal with oddities in Haskell or in C? For most of the world, for better or worse, C (or Go or Java) is probably more pragmatic.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NVIDIA GeForce driver deployment in datacenters is forbidden now - <AUTHOR> http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/licence.php?lang=us&type=GeForce <comment><USER2> This is a great time to remind everyone that AMD does not have this restriction for their Radeon graphics cards. Also, AMD has always been very supportive of the community and they've always respected their customers.

After decades of being the principled underdog, hopefully everyone can rally around them and make sure their open source projects work well with AMD products and contribute to their new open source initiatives.

<comment><USER3> For most Deep Learning developers, using AMD is out of question until DL frameworks like TensorFlow start natively supporting them. I am not really sure if/when this is going to happen. AMD needs to really step up their game.

<comment><USER4> Why is it on AMD to support TensorFlow? Pretty sure it is on the machine learning people to use the standard APIs like OpenCL or Vulkan etc instead of CUDA...

<comment><USER5> The're not running a non-profit. It's on them to respond to the market.

<comment><USER6> Goes the other way around too. This whole debacle demonstrates how dumb it is to base your product on a proprietary API with just one vendor.

<comment><USER7> Here you go: [https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/22](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/22)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, my summary:

Unsourced Japanese news outlet published an article claiming this clause was added to the EULA. (Edit: located here: [https://wirelesswire.jp/2017/12/62708/](https://wirelesswire.jp/2017/12/62708/) )

This version of the EULA, located at: [http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload- March2009/licen...](http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload- March2009/licence.php?lang=us&type=GeForce), has the no-data center clause. Note the "2009".

The version linked from the actual driver download page (at [https://www.geforce.com/drivers/license](https://www.geforce.com/drivers/license) ), has no such clause.

I think I'll postpone my outrage until the clause appears on the EULA that I actually have to agree to when I download GeForce drivers.

Alright, edit: For me, downloading drivers through [https://www.geforce.com/drivers](https://www.geforce.com/drivers) gets me the second EULA that I linked to. However, downloading drivers through [http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en- us](http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us) gets me a EULA with this data center "limitation". This seems to me to be pretty problematic and an ineffective update.

<comment><USER9> The "2009" license is the correct license. If you try to download a GeForce driver from NVIDIA's website today, that is the license that you must accept before in order to download the driver.

On Windows, it's also the license you must accept during installation time before you can use the driver, even if you did not accept it during your download.

Interestingly, the license inside the Linux package does not include the data centre clause at this point in time.

[https://www.geforce.com/drivers/license/geforce](https://www.geforce.com/drivers/license/geforce)

[http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload- March2009/licen...](http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload- March2009/licence.php?lang=us&type=GeForce)

<comment><USER8> I went to [https://www.geforce.com/drivers](https://www.geforce.com/drivers) and searched for 1060 on Linux.

Then clicked through to [https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/126577](https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/126577). This page has the standard "*By clicking the "Agree & Download" button, you are confirming that you have read and agree to be bound by the License For Customer Use of NVIDIA Software..." That sentence links to the EULA that I linked to.

EDIT: Alright, it matters which site you download the driver from. See the edit to my original comment.

<comment><USER10> Try downloading drivers for a Titan V - it goes to that very specific 2009 license (complete with the absurd exception for the blockchain). This is very specific and targeted at crushing small system vendors who were selling to scientists across many domains who preferred GeForce over Tesla because of the huge price difference. They have already pursued vendors and they have tried to shut them down. If you don't believe me or you're OK with that behavior, be my guest to continue enabling it.

<comment><USER8> I just tried for Titan V on Linux through geforce.com and got a EULA without this clause. Downloading through nvidia.com probably gets the no data center EULA.

<comment><USER10> Windows 64 got me the datacenter-limiting license, Ubuntu 16.04 as well. No idea how you're getting past this:

"2.1.3 Limitations.

        No Modification or Reverse Engineering. Customer may not modify (except as provided in Section 2.1.2), reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the source code.

        No Separation of Components. The SOFTWARE is licensed as a single product. Its component parts may not be separated for use on more than one computer, nor otherwise used separately from the other parts.

        No Sublicensing or Distribution. Customer may not sell, rent, sublicense, distribute or transfer the SOFTWARE; or use the SOFTWARE for public performance or broadcast; or provide commercial hosting services with the SOFTWARE.

        No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted.

"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/hiptensorflow](https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/hiptensorflow)

Everyone on HN knows to always go with free, open software. Without competition any company (Intel, nvidia, etc.) starts to exploit the consumer.

</comment><comment><USER12> 1\. Write a Tensorflow wrapper that mints a new private cryptocurrency where the proof of work is training your deep learning model.

2\. Sell it to companies who bought racks full of GeForce GPUs for deep learning.

3\. Profit!

<comment><USER13> Alternatively, you could simply have your GPUs calculate a few hashes every hour. So technically, you're doing blockchain processing...very slowly...

<comment><USER14> They don't care. But more importantly, _courts won 't care_. Your compute is all tainted and has the wrong colour, due to your intent of working around the licensing restrictions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this even at all legal? Wouldn't the First Sale Doctrine and the extremely, extremely limited rights to use software that courts have defended (the implied license to use software necessary for a purchased device HAS been defended in court) protect the purchaser? I really don't think nVidia would be able to go after anyone legally for deploying the software in a datacenter. Companies can put whatever they want in software licenses and most of it is totally unenforceable bunk that just hasn't been tested in court. And if it comes to it, they will normally drop the case or do whatever they can to avoid it ever being tested.

<comment><USER16> Not first sale as this isnt the sale of a copy. This is a contract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Linus tried to warn us! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_36yNWw_07g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_36yNWw_07g)

<comment><USER18> That "NVIDIA, fuck you!" from Linus comes in expensive now that NVIDIA cares about Linux. They were jerks with Linux before deep learning became famous, and that's why Linus was so French about them.

<comment><USER19> Nothing's changed, still jerks. No hardware docs, no cooperation with the open drivers beyond ensuring distribution install media do work (i.e. basic modesetting).

<comment><USER20> There are docs for some things, including beyond basic modesetting: [http://download.nvidia.com/open-gpu-doc/](http://download.nvidia.com/open- gpu-doc/)

They at least used to be responsive to questions a couple of years back when they started publishing the docs, but I'm not up-to-date on the present situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >> No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted.

I thought they were trying to mitigate the diversion of gaming gpus towards mining, apparently not.

<comment><USER22> it's for deep learning

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Quick question: Why? What does NVIDIA have to gain by forbidding people from using GeForce for ML in datacenters?

<comment><USER24> The Titan V is $3000 (GeForce)

The Tesla V100 is $17,000: [http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?2782569_g10e](http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?2782569_g10e)

We're talking the difference of ~5.5x the price here for otherwise similar cards.

<comment><USER25> I've spent some time training tensorflow cnns on nvidia 1080gtx.

It works pretty well, but i couldn't reliably train production models for work on it. it's just too flaky. I mentioned this to our 'trustworthy' dell rep who suggested that a good v100 suite would surely solve all the reliability problems, what with it's greatly increased memory bus, or something...

<comment><USER26> You mean your algorithm is too flaky. The hardware is fine. A V100 won't fix your convergence problems.

<comment><USER25> yes. salesman bullshit. i think it was tensorflow that was flaky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you want to know what Nvidia are afraid of, look at the last figure in this O'Reilly blog on distributed tensorflow.

[https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/distributed- tensorflow](https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/distributed-tensorflow)

On a DeepLearning11 server (cost $15K), you get about 60-75% DL training performance compared to a DGX-1 (cost $150k)

</comment><comment><USER7> What surprised me in the first place is why Tensorflow an "OpenSource" initiative by Google chose proprietary CUDA over "OpenSource" OpenCL.

Check Tensorflow issue 22 for more info.

Just sayin.

<comment><USER27> CUDA is superior to OpenCL. Also NVIDIA provides CuDNN, a proprietary library with very efficient implementation of deep learning primitives. If you want to train models faster, you have to use them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [Merry Xmas Nvidia! - Torvalds]([https://4bds6hergc-flywheel.netdna- ssl.com/wp-content/upload...](https://4bds6hergc-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/09/Linus-Torvalds-Fuck-You-Nvidia.jpg))

</comment><comment><USER28> discussion here

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15983587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15983587)

<comment><USER29> thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What is a "datacenter"? I try to come to these things with an open mind but EULAs are really the dregs of legal writing :/

<comment><USER30> If you label your place "datacenter".

<comment><USER31> Then I'll just call mine "data processing farm".

<comment><USER32> That's not how contract interpretation works. The vast majority of things are clearly datacenters or clearly not datacenters. Assuming the contract is enforceable for other reasons, if you use it in something that is clearly understood to be a datacenter, you would be in breach.

Do you really think a judge would be swayed by your little word game?

<comment><USER30> I doubt it would come to trial.

<comment><USER32> My point is that you're mistaken in saying above that something is a datacenter only if you call it such. Words must have meanings if we are to have agreements.

Whether this particularly contract will result in a court case is beside the point. And I wouldn't be so sure it wouldn't. Nvidia's lawyers might have something to say if you start a business reselling GPU time for ML tasks and run it off thousands of GeForce cards with these drivers. And if they don't get what they want, they would have good reason to go to court to defend their market segmentation strategy.

<comment><USER30> Because that is how such things work. People and companies trying to find loopholes. And renaming your stuff is exactly that. On a side note you can just go to countries where you are not at mercy of corporations.

There are other examples too: Software that is not allowed for more then 1 CPU socket; just create a VM with as much cores as you like. Loss in performance is often not an issue, problem solved. Standard practice.

<comment><USER32> For that interpretation of a contract to fly, you would have to argue that a reasonable person would believe that the meaning of datacenter is nothing more than "a thing that is called a datacenter".

I should make a contract to sell you gold, take your money, then give you a pile of rotting wood and argue that I call it "gold", so you have no remedy.

<comment><USER30> Well yes. The definition of data center (which is laking from Nvidia) is very wide. My room in the house could be a data center. Besides that, since the contract wasn't made at the point of purchase (datacenter clause) I can ignore it anyway.

Why should I give you money for rotting wood in the first place?

<comment><USER32> Have you never paid for something before receiving it? The whole point of the example is that you pay for a contract for gold, then I deliver rotting wood.

Playing dumb about a definition doesn't do much for you. Barring the other party having good reason to expect you to be confused, you are held to the _objective_ meaning of a contract. And for all of the situations Nvidia cares about, it is obviously a datacenter.

<comment><USER30> I have. If the quality or the product isnt the correct one, it goes back.

I don't have a contract with Nvidia to begin with when buying cards. The driver EULA is hardly a contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is one way to help the competition immensely. The premium nvidia charges for their tesla cards just isn't worth it. It's not enough of a performance advantage to warrant the price increase, and reliability wise you can by 6-10 1080ti's for the cost of one p100.

</comment><comment><USER34> So it will be profitable for a third party company to develop a GeForce driver.

This will also not be enforceable in all countries. It is probably not enforceable at sea where maritime law rules.

<comment><USER35> firmware needed by modern nvidia cards is cryptographically signed

<comment><USER36> The keys will leak eventually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The NVIDIA website has a whole section on Data Center graphics cards: [https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data- center/)

Won't this just be hurting their own sales possibilities? I can only guess they'll be announcing some datacenter-specific version of the software soon, which is essentially the same but mysteriously more expensive.

<comment><USER38> This is about the GeForce products, which are consumer/gaming targeted GPUs. Pro-style Quadro, Tesla, etc. cost quite a bit more for similar hardware due to the firmware, drivers and licensing.

<comment><USER17> I searched the site for high end Quadro drivers and they all link to the same "March2009" license.

EDIT: I was wrong. Apparently they dont include this "datacenter" provision [http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload- March2009/licen...](http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload- March2009/licence.php?lang=us)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Was this actually an executive-level decision? The announcement of this change (if you can call it that) was so bungled it creates the impression some low- level person in legal did this without coordinating with the rest of nVidia.

</comment><comment><USER40> Obligatory Linus Torvalds response, re: NVIDIA: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ)

</comment><comment><USER41> If I understand the underlying issue here, it's that Nvidia presumably doesn't want it's consumer graphics cards used in Datacenters, and instead wants to sell more expensive cards.

Isn't this similar to how movie studios used to require Video Rental Stores pay more money for a film, vs the retail cost?

</comment><comment><USER42> Somebody should write an adapter that hooks into their GPL shim and forwards requests over the network to a machine not in the data center that runs their binary blob. Trying to limit use of certain hardware via stupid legal means just begs for stupid technical solutions.

<comment><USER43> Did you mean 'GPU' instead of 'GPL'

<comment><USER42> No, since the linux kernel is GPL, as far as I understand, their must be some part of their driver that is also available in source form to interact with the kernel API. I haven't investigated this at all, but it feels like it may be possible to hook that. It's a terrible amount of work of course, but would be kinda fun to try. Perhaps an easier thing to try would be to run something like QEMU and have it forward activity on the PCIe bus over the network to a host system. Not sure if that's something people have done before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Eeh I have quite a few of these in data centers for Deep Learning work. What am I supposed to do now. Swap them out for Tesla/Quadro cards? Switch to AMD or Xeon Phi? Or just ignore it and possibly violate ToS. Nice move Nvidia ...

<comment><USER43> [https://4bds6hergc-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp- content/upload...](https://4bds6hergc-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/09/Linus-Torvalds-Fuck-You-Nvidia.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone else bothered by the 2009 in the url?

Edit: Some driver download pages currently link to this page.

<comment><USER17> While these EULAs are head bangingly dumb, generally untested, (and sometimes totally unenforcable) i just wanted to say that i think that's just a CMS artifact. Can confirm that this is still linked as the "software license agreement" throughout the site for current driver downloads

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> "No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted."

</comment><comment><USER46> Just laugh and do it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is why open source drivers are important.

</comment><comment><USER48> "Datacenter" undefined.

</comment><comment><USER27> That's a great example of why we need open source hardware. 10-20 years ago this was a norm in software field. Now, you can license world class products with complete source for free.

</comment><comment><USER49> They're nuts and I'd love to see them try to enforce this. Coming soon to a DC near you: The Nvidia inspectors, picking locks on cages and racks looking for humping.

</comment><comment><USER50> Sounds like one of those hilarious EULA clauses that is void in many countries with laws around companies not having the right to control the use of their product after sale.

</comment><comment><USER51> Between this and the high Tesla prices, they really want to move people to use Google's TPUs...

</comment><comment><USER52> And THAT'S WHY it's good for corporations to have closed non-libre drivers :) They can make an easy buck by selling 'more expensive' licenses. You are the buyer, you decided for a closed solution, so pay more for it!

</comment><comment><USER53> Nowhere in the document does it define "datacenter," very nebulous term. Perhaps too nebulous to enforce.

I have 2 racks in my basement, if I had an NVIDIA GPU in one of my servers for playing games, am I violating their EULA?

<comment><USER32> The law is not so obtuse. If otherwise enforceable, the inability to draw an exact line where something starts being a datacenter will not void a contract. The vast majority of things are on either side of that line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Is there some legal reason why AMD can't implement a CUDA compiler for their architecture? Seems like the obvious move right now.

<comment><USER55> AMD has a CUDA compiler. It requires two-step compilation, though. First into GPU-neutral code, and from there you can use AMDs actual compiler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I think the card itself takes more power and wears out faster compared to the data center versions. Is this true in practice?

</comment><comment><USER57> I think this is designed to deal with the low prices offered by ovh and heizner. And in favor of Google and Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER43> Does that blockchain clause target miners? Aren't they called Mining Farms, not Data Centers?

</comment><comment><USER58> How does NVIDIA define a datacenter exactly?

</comment><comment><USER59> It's beyond sickening to see one more product you buy attempt to control you via license. when will this shit end for hardware or is it just the start?

<comment><USER60> This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that NVidia do. This is the kind of thing they ALWAYS do.

Don't be surprised. NVidia are assholes.

<comment><USER61> What are some other examples?

<comment><USER62> Here is another interesting read:

[https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hacking-nvidia-cards- into...](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hacking-nvidia-cards-into-their- professional-counterparts/)

The difference between their "professional" GPUs and regular ones is literally a few sub-cent resistors.

<comment><USER8> Sometimes. The GeForce GTX 690 used the same chip as the Quadro K5000 (the GK104). More recent generations typically have different silicon (or bins with defective regions) in the pro and gaming lines. For instance, high end pascal gaming cards use GP104, but Tesla P100 uses the GP100.

For more details, see [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_proc...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units) (Notably the "code name" columns).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How many slaves work for me? - <AUTHOR> http://slaveryfootprint.org

<comment><USER3> I'd really like to know if they're equating low wage jobs to slavery or if they are actually talking about true slavery in which the workers are paid nothing and not allowed to leave. Because there's a big difference there.

edit: they clear it up here: <http://slaveryfootprint.org/about/#methodology>

<comment><USER4> _Note: Forced Labor, also known as involuntary servitude, may result when unscrupulous employers exploit workers made more vulnerable by high rates of unemployment, poverty, crime, discrimination, corruption, political conflict, or cultural acceptance of the practice._

Wait, so people who live in areas of high unemployment with jobs are slaves? How do they define corruption? What about political conflict?

Further, if I own a laptop, and I buy 1 every 5 years, do I have all those people working for me, or do I have an average of 1 slave per 5 years etc.

While I get that they are trying to do something good, this type of "tool" is more about making people feel bad than actually doing any good.

\--I will say the interface is pretty cool though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The results are useless. It tells you that xxx slaves work for you, with xxx beeing something between 20 and 100.

This great exageration makes no sense.

What would have been usefull is the amount of slaves working for me... full time (versus "involved" as described in their methodology).

<comment><USER6> Yeah...not sure I buy it. I put pretty conservative responses and probably had a footprint smaller than the average middle-class American and still got over 20 slaves. Which doesn't really extrapolate well to the country as a whole.

What does it mean that 20 slaves work for you? Does it mean there are 20 slaves who at some point or another use products that you consume, or does it mean that there are an equivalent of 20 slaves working full-time for you (in terms of man-hours or something)? The former metric is rather meaningless since it's unclear what proportion of the labor of those 20 slaves benefits you. Is 1/1000th of their labor output? 50%? This makes a huge difference. The latter metric is meaningful, in that it would mean that you "employ" around 20 slaves. However the mathematics don't really work out in that case, since 20 slaves per person for hundreds of millions of Americans obviously doesn't make sense.

The way it's written as you point out seems to indicate that they're using the former metric, that is, the number of slaves involved in stuff you use, regardless of what proportion of their labor goes toward your lifestyle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's good to bring to light problems of slavery and unfair labour practices, but it doesn't seem at all accurate. I probably share an overall level of consumption with between 500M to 1B people.

If _all_ of the others are our slaves, then that means an average of 6 - <USER2> slaves per person. But this website says I have 38. And I still have to hang up my own washing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here is how I know this is a vast over exaggeration!

I can't get less than 20 slaves as an American so far:

Roughly 300,000,000 people in America

20 slaves each

=

6 Billion People.

That means that after accounting for americans, only 700 million people on earth aren't slaves.

<comment><USER8> It wod explain all the freedom giving anerica spends its time and military on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I get a "permission denied" dialog opening this page in Safari & clicking on the 'how many slave work for you' button.

Is there something weird on that page?

<comment><USER10> They're attempting to use geolocation to identify your location. Safari must be blocking it automatically (er... automagically?). FWIW, I couldn't get past that screen either, even after allowing location tracking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> content aside, loved the presentation and interactivity. the intro page's use of scroll-based animation was great. Gave me some ideas, thanks for posting.

</comment><comment><USER12> Amazing presentation (well done there). Terrible idea.</comment>


Netflix streaming speeds on Comcast jump 65 percent after controversial deal - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/14/5613280/netflix-streaming-speeds-on-comcast-65-percent-faster

<comment><USER2> That is beyond messed up. We really need to get the internet classified as a utility.

<comment><USER3> What exactly is messed up? The bottleneck was the Comcast/Cogent interlink, which Netflix has now bypassed, which was the entire point of the deal.

The idea that Netflix is paying protection money so that Comcast doesn't do the old "Nice service you got there, it'd be a shame if someone throttled it" (as is implied in the article) is just incorrect. Netflix was buying transit from Cogent. Cogent couldn't deliver the transit that Netflix bought due to conflicts with Comcast. Netflix stops buying transit from Cogent and starts buying transit from Comcast. Comcast delivers all the transit that Netflix buys. Everyone is happy except for Cogent.

<comment><USER2> My concern isn't that they bypassed the middle man; in theory that could be a good thing in the long run. I'm more concerned about Comcast becoming the arbiter of who gets access to their network, and how much that access will cost. By classifying the Internet as a utility, Comcast has to standardize access (again, in theory).</comment></comment></comment>


Ancient oak's youthful genome surprises biologists - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/news/ancient-oak-s-youthful-genome-surprises-biologists-1.22166 <comment><USER2> Not so surprising as we could think.

First of all we have access to less than half of this organism only. What about root mutations?

And second, we have accces only to the 'bad half' in our search for mutations. Trees act in some ways as 'colonial organisms'. Each branch competes with other branches. Some can place itselves in a better place and trive, and other not. Is a well known fact by gardeners that mutated branches are outcompeted and die more often. Mutations in cells of flowers, leaves or fruit peduncles are simply auto-cleaned in winter, and some barks fall also.

Oaks are customed to having several of types of 'cancers' and react actively against, isolating the tissue or nurturing the tumor for a while before 'autopruning' it.

There is not need here of a genetic mechanism to protect cells from mutations. Such system may happen, but not necessarily.

<comment><USER3> > First of all we have access to less than half of this organism only. What > about root mutations?

The study specifically examined the issue of mutations arising in the cell line from zygote to terminal branches, since that is where reproduction takes place and we are most interested in mutations that are passed from one generation to the next. If stem cells at the root tips show more mutations, so what? The authors established (pending peer-review) a surprisingly low rate for this particular sequence, that's sufficiently interesting in itself.

> And second, we have accces only to the 'bad half' in our search for > mutations...

"Sixteen of the 17 SNVs identified in the Napoleon Oak occurred in introns or non-coding sequences that are probably neutral... These results... demonstrate [the mutations'] gradual, nested appearance and fixation in developmentally connected branches during the growth of the oak tree. Thus, while the exact ontogeny of the Napoleon Oak may be difficult to reconstruct, our SNV analysis generated nested set of lineages supported by derived mutations"

They sampled across many independent cell lineages and across noncoding regions, and they are looking specifically at mutation rates in the cell line that leads to gamete formation. The kind of mutational "auto-cleaning" you describe is mostly just your unsubstantiated thinking about growth-related phenomena that are actually explained by a host of non-mutational factors; in any case undersampling due to rare deleterious mutation self-pruning would not have a confounding effect on the results here.

>There is not need here of a genetic mechanism to protect cells from mutations.

Just because trees can tolerate certain kinds of pathogen and insect-induced tumors doesn't mean they are entirely without need of protecting genome sequence integrity. Plants like other organisms do have sophisticated mechanisms to repair and maintain DNA, this becomes especially important in the stem cell lines leading to reproduction. The study shows these mechanisms in this oak are particularly efficient.

<comment><USER2> > If stem cells at the root tips show more mutations, so what?

So then, we couldn't say that oaks have a surprising absence of mutations. And we should remember that roots can work as part of the reproductive systems in this organisms. Could change our interpretation and point of view about results. The biggest trees in the world (heavier than Sequoias) are root clonal colonies.

> The kind of mutational "auto-cleaning" you describe is mostly just your > unsubstantiated thinking about growth-related phenomena that are actually > explained by a host of non-mutational factors;

I'm not sure that I'm understanding this. Specially the host of factors part. Could you please rephrase it?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a Google for searching website source code? - <AUTHOR> If a website was referencing a JS file at https://evil.com/keylog.js, how could I see how many other sites this is embedded in? <comment><USER2> Here: [https://publicwww.com/](https://publicwww.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I hate to say it but Bing (ew) actually added this support recently. [https://blogs.bing.com/search-quality- insights/2018-07/Intel...](https://blogs.bing.com/search-quality- insights/2018-07/Intelligent-search-Coding-answers-at-your-fingertips)

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://nerdydata.com](https://nerdydata.com)

</comment><comment><USER5> Builtwith may be helpful</comment>


Ask YC: How much equity/participation should I ask for in a spinoff? - <AUTHOR> (Throwaway account for obvious reasons)
I work for an IT services company. They wanted to build a product similar to something I built at a previous company, and brought me in as an employee to run the effort. I have worn every hat for the last 2 years: product manager, architect, devops, recruiting, marketing, sales. We have achieved product/market fit (though still pre-revenue) and we're considering spinning the product off into its own company at some point in the near future, and possibly seek outside investment to grow aggressively.
Now is my moment of maximum leverage--without me their ability to execute on growing the product would be extremely hamstrung, if not impossible. They've spent >$1m on my salary and that of the team over the past 2 years, at a slightly-below-market rate, and I haven't taken the bonus I initially negotiated.
Lawyers I talk to all say completely different things, from 5% to 75% share, equity at a zero valuation, options (or absolutely NOT options), profit/sale proceeds participation above a valuation cap, phantom stock, or just increased cash comp based on growth targets. It's conceivable they might not ever spin it off, and if they do they have no conception if it will be LLC, S-corp, C-corp, etc.
Beyond paying the bills the owners have been minimally involved. One could argue because it's my ideas, and my execution, that it's just like they were an angel investor in my hypothetical company. I've certainly treated it as if it were my product, my company, and spending prudently. (my email signature says co-founder, since to the outside world that's what I am.) On the other hand, on paper I am indeed an ordinary employee.
I have a kid and live in the Bay Area so taking a big pay cut in exchange for equity is not really an option, so my risk profile is a bit lower than your average 20-something founder.
 What on earth should I ask for?
Many thanks! (also anyone know a good lawyer representing founders?) <comment><USER2> I think ideally you would want to structure this somewhat like a seed funding round where you and the other people who will be working on this retain somewhere between 50-70% of the equity after spinning off and injecting new funding. However, based on the situation and investor profile you will probably have a hard time getting to think of you as anything more than an employee. Be prepared to walk.</comment>


The World's Largest Tesla Coil? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/648673855/the-lightning-foundry

<comment><AUTHOR> Why you should care, and why this is revolutionary science:

Lightning has recently been found to generate positrons via gamma rays. This is very recent science and definitely underexplored and not yet solved via theory.

[http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2011/11...](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2011/11jan_antimatter/)

<http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011EO220001.shtml>

A Tesla Coil this large looks a lot like a lightning generator, an opportunity to explore the space where electrical arcs become lightning.

Lightning had also been hypothesized to produce x-rays for a long time, with evidence of x-rays in lightning only confirmed in 2001. The creation of x-rays by lightning bolts is also not completely explained by theory.

Basically, lightning is extremely poorly understood for such a basic natural phenoma and there is ample room for exploration, possibly leading to economical ways of generating antimatter.</comment>