Keeping passwords safe by staying up to date - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudflare.com/keeping-passwords-safe-by-staying-up-to-date?

<comment><USER2> As a HN non-hacker old-timer, I've read plenty of conversations about security and had a vague idea of what the heck y'all were talking about with hashes, salts etc.

But this post explained it all so clearly, I found it immensely useful to put some of the pieces together. Have already shared it with some of my even-less- technical colleagues so they too can appreciate 1) the complexity, 2) the problem, and 3) the importance of their role in setting passwords. Well written JGC!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words.

For those who are interested in how to do the hash upgrade, I wrote a blog post on my personal site here: [http://blog.jgc.org/2012/06/one-way-to-fix- your-rubbish-pass...](http://blog.jgc.org/2012/06/one-way-to-fix-your-rubbish- password.html)

<comment><USER3> Depending on the framework you're using, if any, there might already be a built-in way to upgrade your users' passwords.

For Django: [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/#password-...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/#password- upgrading)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really nice writeup, but why not also append a discussion of scrypt and its use of both CPU work factor and memory-hard functions to confound Moore's Law? It's the next step after bcrypt, after all.

It may not be be implemented across as many platforms as bcrypt yet, but there's plenty for people to experiment with [1], if only for learning and educational purposes.

1\. <http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/security/scrypt/>

[http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/oneiric/man1/scrypt.1.ht...](http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/oneiric/man1/scrypt.1.html)

<http://rubygems.org/gems/scrypt>

<http://pypi.python.org/pypi/scrypt/>

<https://github.com/search?q=scrypt>

<comment><USER5> Please not again. Discussions of passwords always brings up these stupid scrypt bcrypt fanboy comments.

Repeating it one more time won't change anything.

<comment><USER4> Easy there. You're projecting and reading a little too much into it. I'm not a fanboy, it simply struck me as a conspicuous oversight to write what appeared to be a survey of password hashing history and technology, and not mention scrypt at all.

It's very instructive, especially for people new to this stuff, to see the contrast between bcrypt's CPU-hard algorithm and scrypt's CPU-hard + memory- hard algorithm.

But jgrahamc's clarification above makes sense - it wasn't meant to be a general survey, but only what CloudFlare has done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here is a name-and-shame site for services that store and send passwords in plain text (or any reversible encryption): <http://plaintextoffenders.com/>

<comment><USER7> There are a number there that are new registration e-mail, which doesn't necessarily mean it's stored insecurely.

E-mailing it around isn't a great idea, certainly, but it's not _as_ bad as storing it reversibly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where do you store the individual salts, or the rules for creating the salts? Do you hash those too? It seems like they'd have to be sitting somewhere so that you could salt the input password before hashing to compare with the salted/hashed password in your database. If the salts are sitting in a database, and that database is compromised, aren't we sitting right back where we started with hashed passwords that may be subject to attack by rainbow tables?

// question asked by an attorney who knows nothing about this subject but what he's read on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> The salts are just random strings. They can be stored with the hashed passwords. The security of the scheme does not depend on keeping salts secret. It depends on the strength of the hashing algorithm.

Two things:

1\. Rainbow tables are today an irrelevance because of the speed of computers. What you need to worry about is not precomputed tables, but the ability to compute hashes when needed. The point of the salt is to prevent you precomputing anything.

2\. So, suppose you have a database where (hash, salt) has been compromised for each user. Assuming salt was chosen randomly for each user then attacking the database boils down to calculating the hashes for common passwords incorporating the salt. The security of that will depend on the security of the hash algorithm and its slowness.

<comment><USER9> #1 is not true. Algorithms like bcrypt rely on being so expensive to compute that brute-forcing is prohibitively expensive. bcrypt does use salt. If it did not then it would indeed be vulnerable to rainbow table attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> o/t,

jgrahamc, when does the spdy beta start? :)</comment>


React, JSX and ES6: The Weird Parts - <AUTHOR> http://ponyfoo.com/articles/react-jsx-and-es6-the-weird-parts

<comment><USER2> >> foo {'bar'} {'baz'}

well, you just should get the idea that these curly braces are not for interpolation. It's just convenient way to define a component tree. If you want interpolation, you should use {`foo ${'bar'} ${'baz'}`} syntax.

<comment><USER3> I dodged this bullet, because the first time I needed a string with two dynamic parts, was in an attribute.

This doesn't work:

...

So I did this:

        <h1 className={`${a} ${b}`}>...

And then simply used this style everywhere, because it worked for text-nodes and attributes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The criticisms about unexpected DOM elements and ugly conditionals are spot- on. Also, bringing back the confusing differences between XML and HTML (pop quiz: What does

 do? It's different in JSX and HTML), and introducing various other random incompatibilities, like having to write
 and <textarea value=...>.

</comment><comment><USER5> I disagree with this point: _Using conditionals in your view components_.

Putting if statements into your view is not the React way. You should be rendering something like {productList}, and that productList() function should be the one handling any outstanding logic. Even better, Your React should be generic enough to accept data you filter and edit in your controllers.

<comment><USER6> More on that point. The reason you cannot use if/else within JSX is because the statement needs to evaluate to an expression. If you really need to use if/else logic embedded, a ternary operator would work just fine.

return (  <Home /> { loggedIn ? <LogoutButton /> : <LoginButton /> }  );

<comment><USER7> I was hoping someone would mention this. Between this and an extended rant about `dangerouslySetHtml`, I would say this author was really scraping hard to find negative things about React. Poor quality article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love JSX because all it is one big javascript expression. I disagree with the statement

       For some reason, React's JSX make this unnecessarily complicated by not being able to use if statements inside code blocks.

Using if inside an expression isn't javascript! It would be some shitty templating language, and I'm grateful it didn't turn out that way.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Seems more of a JavaScript than a JSX problem for me.

I'd love to have a JSX like syntax in LiveScript, because it has if- expressions.

<comment><USER9> > Seems more of a JavaScript than a JSX problem for me

Well put, since the issue doesn't appear when using CoffeeScript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Funny that the author didn't list JSX/React's form behavior as "weird".

Basically, on every keypress you need to capture the change and rerender. It may be fast, it may be what the browser is doing under the hood, but it feels VERY weird.

It also means that things like divs with contenteditable on them are basically unworkable in the current version. :(

<comment><USER8> Yeah.. I ran into perf problems with that in IE9 in a VM. But that may be the price to pay for a single source of truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yeah the author seems to be thinking about the DOM from the server side, where the end point of all rendering calls is a string that gets sent to the client. This misses out on baaasically everything that sets React apart from all the template-based frameworks out there.

<comment><USER12> For faster initial render and SEO purposes it's important for many sites to render their content on the server first. React may not be targeted primarily at this type of application, but it's a legitimate use case for the author to consider and address.

<comment><USER11> Absolutely, but at the same time, sacrificing client side rendering performance isn't the answer, and some of his suggestions about how he wishes React worked would involve doing just that. The author's complaint isn't that server-side rendering is harmfully impacted, it's that JSX has some expressively awkward bits. But it has some of those awkward bits because it more or less has to if React is going to work as well as it does on the client side. JSX was designed the way that it was to enable client-side functionality, and the author doesn't seem to acknowledge that, so it seems like he's criticizing without fully understanding.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I find companies that are hiring new grads? - <AUTHOR> I have just finished my masters in CS from a top 20 school and it seems it has become particularly hard to find companies willing to hire fresh grads. Is there no better way than to just keep going from one company website to another to find who are OK with fresh graduates? And in my case, I honestly feel I am fairly strong on algorithms/data structures/coding but I don't have many internships (just 1; not at Google/Facebook/etc). Is there any resource that you can point me to find companies? <comment><USER2> I graduated (undergrad) in Dec. from a strong non-engineering university in CS w/ no internship. I got interviews and eventually a job by making a list of companies that i'd want to work at (based on my background, passion, etc), then finding contacts at those companies to inquire about them hiring jr engineers. A good place to start is the monthly 'whos hiring' post, because a lot of times those comments have contacts attached to them. Unless the post explicitly states "no new grads" and you like the company, add it to your list. if there are companies on your list with no contact, use LinkedIn to find engineers there, then search for their personal sites/blogs for an email address.

Once you have your companies and contacts, start sending cold emails. Give them links to relevant projects and see if their company is open to hiring jr engineers/post-grad interns (a lot of people will appreciate your humility here) and if they'd be willing to get coffee with you (if you have the chance to get there physically). I would group a bunch of these meetings together then buy a flight to a city for 48hrs and just bounce from meeting to meeting getting to know engineers and seeing if they are the type of people I could work well with. If you jibe well with them, your first round interview is already done.

Although engineers will remain in high demand, finding a job is all sales and a lot of work. People in this industry are some of the kindest around, but they are busy. make it as easy as possible for them to help you out and they will. Afterwards, regardless of the outcome with the company, thank them and stay in touch. Once you do find a job, let everyone who was willing to help you out along the way know. They'll remember you in the future when they're looking to fill experience-unlimited roles or for when you're ready to move on.

Also, if you are ever in LA let me know!

</comment><comment><USER3> When I went through this process a while ago I found that large companies are very receptive to hiring new grads. In addition to that I'd try the "standard" advice:

1\. Check the monthly hiring threads here.

2\. Try the standard job searching sites.

3\. Ask your network about opportunities.

Perhaps most importantly, ask your school. They almost certainly have resources you can use. At the very least, your alumni network might be of some use.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> Most big companies have specific recruiting for new college hires,f calling them something like NCG or emerging talent. Typically company recruiters will visit university campuses during the school year and interview students. Intel: [https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/jobs/locations/unite...](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/jobs/locations/united- states/students/campus-recruiters.html) Google: [https://careers.google.com/students/](https://careers.google.com/students/) Apple: [https://www.apple.com/jobs/us/students.html](https://www.apple.com/jobs/us/students.html) Facebook: [https://www.facebook.com/careers/university/](https://www.facebook.com/careers/university/) Microsoft: [https://careers.microsoft.com/students](https://careers.microsoft.com/students)

Or use any job search site with "NCG" or "new Grad", etc.

Your university probably has a Career Center office that helps students find jobs. At Stanford: [https://beam.stanford.edu/](https://beam.stanford.edu/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I run a Shanghai based firm creating English resumes, doing interview coaching, LinkedIn Profiles, and school picking/academic documents editing, for both Chinese and foreigners. I typically charge 200 RMB (~32 USD) for a general resume review.

Send me your resume and I will give you a brief review for free (swe_eats_world only) so you can DIY it better. My email is vfulco[@]weisisheng.cn. Give me 2-3 days as I have a full client roster the upcoming week.

Vince Fulco, CFA, CAIA

</comment><comment><USER6> The new Google Jobs Search might help. There doesn't appear to be an explicit filter by experience, but searching for "new college grad" found some things.

I can't tell how to share just the right part of the link, so sadly search for "Google job search" to bring up the right mode. Then filter and search based on your interests.

Disclosure: I work at Google, but clearly not on this...

</comment><comment><USER7> 1\. On-campus hiring events, but most employers say 'NO' to international students because of the immigration costs and complexity of the laws. And some have a policy of hiring only citizens or permanent residents.

2\. You can still apply via LinkedIn or company website, but the recruiters usually receive a huge volume of applications for fresh grad positions. So unless you are lucky the hiring manager may not even see your impressive resume from the lot.

3\. Internal referrals - If you know someone working in a company and if they are hiring, they can get you an interview. From my personal experience, if someone in our team recommends a person for the team, we will _definitely_ talk to that person.

4\. Finally, if you know the email address of a hiring manager (may be your friend who was rejected for a position might have it) it doesn't hurt sending an email. If your resume is impressive, you _might_ get a call. But don't spam. Or you can also msg the recruiters on LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER8> Here's a hint as to why you might be having trouble:

[http://blog.alinelerner.com/how-different-is-a-b-s-in- comput...](http://blog.alinelerner.com/how-different-is-a-b-s-in-computer- science-from-a-m-s-in-computer-science-when-it-comes-to-recruiting/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, that might be true overall. But I am not sure if it makes sense for hiring managers to rely on blanket statements like that.

However, with that being said, I want to be pragmatic. How do I overcome this bias? Also, I am willing to put in the work required to apply to the companies, etc. It'd be great to just find out which companies are even hiring junior engineers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> >> I honestly feel I am fairly strong on algorithms/data structures/coding

[http://www.techiedelight.com/list-of- problems/](http://www.techiedelight.com/list-of-problems/)

How many of these problems can you solve? Just saying, over-confidence might kill you.. good luck!</comment>


Ask HN: Python vs Scala for a fast web-project - <AUTHOR>

I was working on a web-project lately with a friend. We faced a situation where we realized that Python was being a bit slower than expected. Also, we were planning on using a database that was not native to Python (Python bindings used its REST interface).
So, we had to make a decision to either keep going in Python or port to Scala (Scala seemed apt for many reasons).
What would you have done in this case? <comment><USER2> If you are comfortable with Scala and think it fits well for your project go for it. There are some frameworks like Lift or Play with which you can start quickly a web app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we were planning for Scala/Lift only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Did you have any experience doing web development with Scala? I am now choosing stack for my new project and considered Scala/Play as an option. There are some problems both with Play2 framework atm(no Wax deployment support, long rebuilding after small changes, work with actions is confusing) and the language of Scala (complexity, version migration, SBT etc.) The situation is promised to get better in future but most need their work done now. If you are choosing bleeding edge, new shiny thing be ready to face additional problems which can slow your development. If you prefer just to get things done you'd review your Python code, find and fix bottlenecks. Maybe you can combine techs choosing what is appropriate for some work - say Python for web interface with critical parts in Java/Scala.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, we didn't have any experience with Scala/Lift/Play. We were aware of the learning curve of scala. But what we thought was in the the best interest of project. I've read about the problems ingoing with Scala, but the benefits outweigh the problems most of the times. And yes, learning a new technology will definitely slow down the development (especially Scala).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its not the language but your framework and architecture and your own proficiency in the language ( whatever that might be) that matters most for a fast web application.

Your code would spend most of its time fetching stuff from DB, external web services etc and rendering HTML. Does your framework allow you to easily incorporate database caches? Does it allow to to cache frequently rendered HTML segments ? Can you offload certain tasks ( such as sending email etc.) to a secondary process via a job queue ?

You could write a web application in C that could still suck big time unless you get the application architecture right.

<comment><AUTHOR> We had integrated redis in our project for server side caching. And I'd like to clarify that Python was being slow for regular cases (atleast not as fast as we wanted it to be).

As we were newbies to web development (although we have a lot of experience in development), we had put in our best knowledge while designing the architecture. We kept independent things independent. That's why we chose flask, it gave us the flexibility we wanted. We were free to choose the extensions we wanted to integrate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> First profile the Python app - is it being slow _in Python_ or is it waiting on something else? If it is being slow in Python, can you rewrite the critical section in C? And speaking of which, is there a C API to your DB that you can use from Python? The Python mentality has always been that it is easy to interface Python and C where necessary for performance.

<comment><USER6> Or better yet, have a look at Cython or PyPy. Both give a performance advantage over the standard intepreter.

<comment><AUTHOR> The API problem will still exist even if we switch to PyPy or Cython.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If your goal is to launch, stop fooling around with languages and rewriting your code. What exactly was slow?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) A NoSQL database best suited our project. So, the non-nativeness was a hurdle. Neo4j bindings for Python used JPype, which was rather unmaintained. And I read at some places that it was a bad idea to mix python-java (especially using the unmaintained JPype).

2) Using Flask gave us so much flexibility as a framework. SQLAlchemy was probably the best thing that I've ever seen. But the work was made complex by the fact that Python was not able to give us the performance that we wanted. We tested the web-project running locally, and we noticed some exciting results. Even though we had done proper memory management from our side, the memory consumption was a little high than we had actually expected. I'm not an expert web-technologies, but as a programmer for last n years, I've learnt a lot about memory management. We projected that when the load would be actual, python performance would suffer.

3) We wanted a real-time performance application so that the user experience was the best. We implemented a part of the web-application and tested it. The results were unsatisfactory. Then we planned on shifting to scala.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite videos relevant to entrepreneurs or startups?  - compass-seeker Here are a couple of mine:<p>- Vinod Khosla talks about the importance of team building, the startup life, and what it takes to be an entrepreneur. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5J7bd7nzmw<p>- Marc Andreesen talks about venture capitalist and the future of startups. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLNQZegq7KA<p>- Eric Ries gives a talk on his Lean Startup theory at Google. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEvKo90qBns<p>- Harley Finkelstein CPO of Spotify gives a talk on unique marketing tactics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBDOq5B4nTo <comment><AUTHOR> The best talks I've ever heard on the SaaS business which I know are publicly available:

[http://www.microconf.com/videos-2013.html](http://www.microconf.com/videos-2013.html) \-- no individual hyperlinks but you want the three of them: Rob Walling's, Jason Cohen's, and Erica Douglass'. Jason's is the best if you're pre-product, Rob's if you're in "OK, so the SaaS clearly works, how do I scale it" phase. (There are another few I would recommend from Microconf 2014 but they're not up yet.)

Long Slow SaaS Ramp of Death: [http://businessofsoftware.org/2013/02/gail- goodman-constant-...](http://businessofsoftware.org/2013/02/gail-goodman- constant-contact-how-to-negotiate-the-long-slow-saas-ramp-of-death/) <\-- single best talk about running a SaaS business I've ever heard

I also like the Mixergy interviews. My favorite ever is Andrew's interview with Team Wufoo. I don't believe it is publicly available anymore, as Mixergy archives are available to paying subscribers only. (Well worth the money, though I have to watch selectively because apparently Andrew can record them faster than I can find downtime to watch/process them.)

<comment><USER2> Is there a way to download audio files of these Microconf presentations in Vimeo?

<comment><USER3> Last time I looked at downloading movies from Microconf, it wasn't possible. I have used the tool youtube-dl ([http://rg3.github.io/youtube- dl/](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/)) to download movies/sounds from Youtube, Soundcload and Vimeo.

Unfortunately, Microconf have marked their videos as embed-only, which you probably need to workaround, the tools I have tried don't work.

Edit: Oh, it seems like they have opened up, you can download them with this command: youtube-dl "[https://vimeo.com/72140534"](https://vimeo.com/72140534")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clayton Christensen's Job to Be Done Analysis

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84LymEs67Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84LymEs67Y)

It's the famous, what do people hire a milkshake for anecdote from his book Innovator's Solution.

That thinking has been instrumental in guiding me to make stuff (Draft) that people have really connected to and helped spread like crazy - all because I've spend considerable time studying the jobs people have and then tried to make those jobs simpler. It's such a simple way of thinking about it, and I think people ignore it because it sounds so simple, but then they routinely create products that are small aesthetic variations of someone elses product.

<comment><USER5> Agreed 100% Nate.

The aha moment really makes customer development make sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> \- David Heinmeier Hansson talks about the "secret" to making money online [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY)

</comment><comment><USER7> Thank you for posing this question! I'm going to love digging through these videos.

Here are mine:

From PandoDaily, Fireside Chat With Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yPfxcqEXhE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yPfxcqEXhE)

From CoinSumm.it, Bitcoin Fireside Chat with Marc Andreessen and Balaji Srinivasan: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iir5J6Z3Z1Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iir5J6Z3Z1Q)

From The Lean Startup Conference, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, and Eric Ries: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpwSzyqTG0E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpwSzyqTG0E)

And by far the one that made the biggest impression on me, from PandoDaily, Fireside Chat With Nasty Gal CEO Sophia Amoruso: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y04gnM57Sow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y04gnM57Sow)

From that interview alone Sophia Amoruso became a huge role model for me.

<comment> compass-seeker Thanks for the suggestions. I'm looking forward to watching all of them, especially the Lean Startup Conference talk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I made a YouTube playlist of the videos on this thread, 22 hours!

[http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr9dpcMyX8ls5Ry3hqCbQJ...](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr9dpcMyX8ls5Ry3hqCbQJnD5zKIpXXny)

<comment> compass-seeker Awesome thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The "YC Female Founders Conference" was aimed at females interested in startups, but honestly the videos are applicable to everyone.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ- uHSnFig5PSIanlQ_x6...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ- uHSnFig5PSIanlQ_x6FApB4cX84aKX)

</comment><comment><USER10> For those still in college, I think Zach Holman's talk "If Only I Knew This Shit in College" is pretty good. He describes why he thinks startups are great, what they allowed him to do, what made him join GitHub, and how to keep improving.

[http://zachholman.com/talk/if-only-i-knew-this-shit-in- colle...](http://zachholman.com/talk/if-only-i-knew-this-shit-in-college/) [http://vimeo.com/92087878](http://vimeo.com/92087878)

<comment><USER11> I think most of this stuff applies if you're in industry as well. Basically the gist is don't be a dick, keep improving, and here's how to tell if you should jump ship or if the company you work for is worth sailing with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Kevin Rose does awesome interviews with startup founders - [http://www.foundation.kr](http://www.foundation.kr)

<comment><USER13> Along those lines there's also the Small Empires series that Alexis Ohanian did for The Verge. Here's all 10: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CE2TphJPgs&list=PLPCxoI2IU3...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CE2TphJPgs&list=PLPCxoI2IU3RJnYfqsyzbqXX5bSUH_bUuX)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Elon Musk on doing work when you're "not motivated" \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOPgM7Sc2VQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOPgM7Sc2VQ)

</comment><comment><USER15> 5 Biggest Legal Mistakes That Startups Make by Scott Walker (we made 3 of these):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F_vbfiScoA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F_vbfiScoA)

</comment><comment><USER8> Keith Rabois has helped build some of the most important companies in Silicon Valley including PayPal, LinkedIn and Square.

This talk shows huge tips quite relevant for startups (the role of a COO, why transparency matters, who to hire and more)

\- the article: [http://firstround.com/article/keith-rabois-on-the-role- of-a-...](http://firstround.com/article/keith-rabois-on-the-role-of-a-coo-how- to-hire-and-why-transparency-matters)

\- the video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnvUtbIy5ts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnvUtbIy5ts)

</comment><comment><USER16> For the small startup Mike Monteiro: F*ck You, Pay Me ; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U)

<comment> compass-seeker The title alone was enough to get me to add it to my playlist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> startup.com is a must watch for anyone day-dreaming of a startup. Not a video though, but an 1.5 hour long documentary.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuiUXOTE4M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuiUXOTE4M)

</comment><comment><USER18> The awesome talk 'Do what you love(no excuses!)' by Gary Vaynerchuk at TED pumps me up every time I watch it --> [http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_vaynerchuk_do_what_you_love_no...](http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_vaynerchuk_do_what_you_love_no_excuses)

It's specially suitable for people who want to start something of their own but aren't able to.

Another great TED video is by Larry Smith - 'Why you will fail to have a great career' \--> [http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_ha...](http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career)

I love the part when he says, what would you like to have engraved on your tombstone. I always had that feeling but this guy phrased it in words for me.

</comment><comment><USER19> Derek Sivers talks about how ideas don't necessarily have value, but are multipliers of value. This happens to me at least once a week.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaBvEO2LYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaBvEO2LYY)

</comment><comment><USER20> Purpose - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257019/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257019/)

While entertaining in its own right, it's interesting because (some people say) the movie somewhat chronicles the history of the Internet Solution ([http://www.is.co.za](http://www.is.co.za)), the South African internet service provider co-founded by Ronnie Apteker and eventually bought by Dimension Data. Ronnie wrote the script for Purpose. He's up there with Elon Musk and Mark Shuttleworth in terms of his impact on the South African tech scene.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a fantastic thread.

However, as someone else mentioned below, videos are terrible - too hard to scan, and far slower rates of information transfer than text.

So, I had an idea. I'm going to pay for transcription of some videos, and will share the transcripts (free, of course).

I'm choosing a transcription service now and will try and have the first one within the next 7 days.

If this is interesting to you, give me your email to help me validate it and I'll send out the transcripts over email.

Videos I'm planning on getting transcribed first:

\- All of the videos in the OP

\- A few more Naval videos

\- A few more Andreessen videos

Link to Google Form: [http://goo.gl/Hy5ob1](http://goo.gl/Hy5ob1)

</comment><comment><USER22> Aaref Hilaly's keynote: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIsiWro- Iao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIsiWro-Iao)

Useful for anybody building an enterprise startup that does extensive B2B sales.

</comment><comment><USER23> I love my collection of videos on app from [http://www.bizpunditz.com](http://www.bizpunditz.com) They have library on entrepreneurship to innovation to strategy...and many more directly from industry leaders

You can view the free ones here [http://www.bizpunditz.com/Library](http://www.bizpunditz.com/Library)

My personal favourite is [http://www.bizpunditz.com/Videos/How-to-build-a- career](http://www.bizpunditz.com/Videos/How-to-build-a-career) by Tiger Tyagarajan

</comment><comment><USER24> Yesterday, I saw Guy Kawasaki's talk on mistakes that entrepreneurs make.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHjgK6p4nrw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHjgK6p4nrw)

</comment><comment><USER25> 2.52 minutes of Alan Watts - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UxrdQRODuc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UxrdQRODuc)

</comment><comment><USER26> My favorite, because it's so full of great stories, is the Chris Sacca interview with Jason Calacanis on This Week In Startups. Pt.1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VOQnK7O2To](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VOQnK7O2To) Pt.2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK4ezQrTqFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK4ezQrTqFw)

</comment><comment><USER27> If you like that kind of thing, both the Business of Software conference and MicroConf put a lot of their videos on line.

[http://businessofsoftware.org/](http://businessofsoftware.org/)

[http://www.microconf.com/](http://www.microconf.com/)

Personally, I can't stand videos. Way too slow, impossible to scan, and generally an inconvenient way of absorbing information.

<comment><USER28> Agreed, which is why I prefer [http://mixergy.com](http://mixergy.com), it's audio only, easy to listen in the background, and it has a full transcript for quick scanning.

<comment><USER27> Transcripts are great, but audio suffers from the same problems as video. If you're listening to it in the background, you aren't really listening to it. Try, for instance, listening to your "significant other" in the background while you stare at the screen and then attempt to gauge their opinion of your listening!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Personal favorite is listening to Jerry Colonna on This Week in Startups. He talks of trials and tribulations of the startup life, acknowledging the often hidden fact that we're all humans: [http://thisweekinstartups.com/jerry- colonna-independent-life...](http://thisweekinstartups.com/jerry-colonna- independent-lifebusiness-coach-former-vc/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Doug Engelbart showing the first computer mouse, networking, a word processor, lists, a familiar UI, hypertext, basically all the modern computer stuff. In 1968, mind you! [http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html](http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> "Peter Jones How we made our Millions" is a very good one with great lessons. Jones is trying to find out the DNA of an entrepreneur by interviewing two British entrepreneurs [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foWMmY3xSuk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foWMmY3xSuk)

</comment><comment><USER32> Eric Wahlfors of Soundcloud telling 4 stories about early phases of Soundcloud and bootstrapping. Especially how they reached their core user base of electronic musicians by (accidentally) organizing the coolest parties in Berlin.

[http://vimeo.com/11420397](http://vimeo.com/11420397)

</comment><comment><USER33> Chamath Palihapitiya (who led the user growth at Facebook and currently the VC at The Social+Capital Partnership) at ThisWeekIn Startups. Very insightful! - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHslS0QPMSc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHslS0QPMSc)

</comment><comment><USER34> Fairly recent, but Nate Blecharczyk of airbnb at Startup School 2013.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya0I6oz7q9U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya0I6oz7q9U)

Great to learn the early days of airbnb and how (great) entrepreneurs persevere through the challenges.

</comment><comment><USER35> This link contains a lot of videos from TED that are relevant to entrepreneurs.

[http://sujanpatel.com/productivity/23-must-see-ted-talks- for...](http://sujanpatel.com/productivity/23-must-see-ted-talks-for- entrepreneurs/)

</comment><comment><USER36> "Unlearn Your MBA" by David Heineimeier Hansson: [http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2351](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2351)

</comment><comment><USER37> [http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action)

Not my usual cup of tea but I watch it once in a while.

</comment><comment><USER38> Defintely The User is Drunk by SquareWeave, some developers Melbourne. Link: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2CbbBLVaPk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2CbbBLVaPk)

</comment><comment><USER39> Steve Jobs classic - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UvEi...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UvEiSa6_EPA)

<comment><USER40> This is my go-to video when I need inspiration. Really opened up my mind when I first watched it a couple of years ago.

<comment> compass-seeker Just watched this video, very inspiring indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> One of my favorite's is David Cancel's no BS advice for startups:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lQ1NBUU_Us](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lQ1NBUU_Us)

</comment><comment><USER42> I though 'Riot On!' was funny - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427783/combined](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427783/combined)

</comment><comment><USER43> Jiro Dreams of Sushi. [http://www.magpictures.com/jirodreamsofsushi/](http://www.magpictures.com/jirodreamsofsushi/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Here, all of these : [http://startupschool.org/speakers.html](http://startupschool.org/speakers.html)

( Their Youtube video are linked )

<comment> compass-seeker I've already seen a couple of these but I'll be sure to watch the ones I haven't. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Xcopy.co [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk6P9FU4A48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk6P9FU4A48)

</comment><comment><USER39> pg talking about how business is like chess - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDA0t49AaZ4&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDA0t49AaZ4&feature=youtu.be&t=23m10s)

</comment><comment><USER46> Peter Thiel's talks are usually more philosophical but interesting.

</comment><comment><USER47> BTW, Harley Finkelstein works for Shopify not Spotify.</comment>


The truth about trade - <AUTHOR> https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/16/the-truth-about-trade/UWtu8jpAo8LTsTFlffaZ0K/story.html <comment><USER2> of course if your in the wrong bracket and your income is flat your screwed. of course, taxing trade goods and services directly is considered bad.</comment>


Huntbnb finds illegally sublet properties on Airbnb - <AUTHOR> http://www.huntbnb.com/

<comment><USER2> It should be noted that this startup has tried to astroturf Hacker News with a voting ring _three times today_. If you see any weird sockpuppet accounts in the comments, that's why.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8173540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8173540)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8173611](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8173611) (OP deleted after being called out; if you read the thread title on my second- most recent comment, you'll see it was a Huntbnb submission. A little HN protip :) )

Can't find the third thread unfortunately.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for pointing that out. I was away all day and didn't see any of this.

The third link was [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8173504](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8173504). I haven't seen people trying to game HN so outrageously in a long time.

Looks like I'll be up late banning sockpuppets.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, apparent third OP here. I saw this on Designer News and was surprised to see it wasn't on HN. I did the old "submit once with the URL to be redirected to the existing post" and it turned up nothing. Is there a better way to know if you're submitting a moot/dead link?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This post was killed by user flags. See minimaxir's comment for the likely explanation.

I noticed that someone in one of the deleted threads accused us of having censored the post. That is false. We didn't touch any of their posts [1]. It was the submitters who deleted it. Perhaps they noticed that our anti- sockpuppet mechanisms were preventing their throng of fake accounts and upvotes from working.

In general, we penalize posts _less_ , not more, when they are critical of YC and YC-funded startups—precisely because we don't want to be accused of venal censorship. That doesn't stop people from accusing us, of course, but at least we can in good conscience say it's not true.

When people try to game HN this horribly, though, it's a different story. I take that personally.

Edit: I just banned 22 sockpuppets. (Edit: 26.) The apparent ringleader is also banned until we get a promise that this will never happen again.

1\. We may not even have seen them. I didn't, at least—I was away from my computer all day. On the one hand, it's dismaying to see something like this at #1 when I come back after 14 hours. On the other hand, it's reassuring to see HN users taking care of it by the time I refresh the front page. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Hi dang,

We (huntbnb) apologize for the confusion. This is some genuine work we did and have been getting some great attention from the media folks ([http://pando.com/2014/08/13/thanks-to-huntbnb-people-who- sec...](http://pando.com/2014/08/13/thanks-to-huntbnb-people-who-secretly- list-their-apartment-on-airbnb-have-nowhere-to-hide/)) and several users across the country. Our only motive behind getting on HN is to get more visibility and take this to more users. This is our (at least mine) first time posting something on HN and obviously we didn't do it right. We initially posted it but couldn't view it and re-did it again twice. We had no intentions behind scamming the voting process nor we tried to up vote. It's just that we didn't do it right. And we apologize for one of our members accusing you guys for censoring our post, because we genuinely were frustrated for not letting us post something. Again, that was uncalled for and we apologize.

The recent post by "taitems" was by someone who read one of the articles about us online; it wasn't any of our members. We were so excited about a) someone thinking that our feature is a HN material, and b) getting good attention from a lot of HN users. Unfortunately, it didn't last longer since we were mistaken for astroturf'ing HN. Again, we sincerely respect your decision and this is a good learning lesson for us to be careful from hereon. The only reason I'm writing back is we strongly believe in the value HN brings to any new and upcoming ideas by giving them the right visibility and want you guys to realize that we aren't any sock puppets trying to move up HN for fun. That'd be the last thing we do.

Thank you for your time!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I enter first two digits of an address, the search box suggests some addresses through autocomplete, and upon searching one of the suggested address it says "Zip Code not found". It has thrown this error for even a complete address listed on AirBnB and same goes for searching only zip codes. Frustrating.

Can Airbnb pull a plug on the site? (technology wise and not in any lawyer kind of way).

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately as of right now we only support complete street address with a valid street number. Thanks a lot for the feedback, you can shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com with any other questions/feedback!

We are using a publicly available endpoint so they could always pull the access but we think that end point is used by other services too.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't work in Canada. Zip not found. I hope you're continuously scraping them and not relaying live queries!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great idea. Making it easier for property owners to enforce their contracts is a good thing that should not interfere legal Airbnb usage (I say this as happy Airbnb user).

It is a shame that Airbnb does not provide such a feature, but I see the conflict of interest. They may be able to even charge for such a feature. If it provided features like alerts for illegal listings based on the exact addresses, hands-off customer service on behalf of the property owner to remove the post and contact the poster, and was priced right it might be worthwhile to avoid the hassle.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a property owner, the idea is appealing. Especially if you could configure watches and alerts. This example is poorly executed however.

</comment><comment><USER10> It would be interesting to know how often illegal subletting happens.</comment>


Bluetooth Low Energy. Essentials to Effectively Develop BLE Software - <AUTHOR> https://stanfy.com/blog/ble-essentials-for-device-smartphone-software-development/?utm_source=news.ycombinator.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ble-essentials <comment><USER2> Interesting read.

A couple of points that jumped out at me from this article.

"In our experience, BLE did its job pretty well on a number of projects."

Ha. I have yet to see BLE work consistently. Which brings me to my next point. This "could" be due to the fact that products I've seen implementing BLE are not pushing past the data transfer limits.

In the write up, they are claiming you can push past the standard 23 byte limit through "...a procedure called "Read/Write Long Characteristic Values" that allows you to go over the limit with a series of messages. In practice this means that you'd be able to have a transfer ratio of around 125 kbps (133 connections per second * 6 packets * 20 bytes in each packet – see "Getting started with BLE")."

Would be very interested in seeing what sort of consistency an app could get out of this bump in bytes.

<comment><USER3> 23 bytes is a limit per one message and if you have a string that is longer than that - use "Read Long Value" \- basically gets that string via a series of messages. No real bump if you meant that. Same time not sure that there are many existing products that send a lot of data via BLE</comment></comment>


Samsung Galaxy S III hands on: fast, thin, and a little bit cheap feeling - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/05/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-hands-on-fast-thin-and-a-little-bit-cheap-feeling.ars

<comment><USER2> For those not in London - they really shelled out some money yesterday for the presentation (the public parts were also streamed live) - London Metropolitan Orchestra playing, big stage etc.

A few more things were mentioned there (not included in the linked article):

Eye-movement recognition: It does not lock the phone while you're still looking at it.

Besides the Siri like voice recognition also something that - by use of motion detection - e.g. you move the phone towards your ear - initiates a phone call.

A similar to the Blackberry introduced burst-shot feature that lets you select the best head shot(s) within a series of portrait pictures (recognizes multiple heads/faces in the picture)

Some more advanced uses via DLNA / AllSharePlay and a new AllShare SDK.

Bluetooth 4.0, USB supports MHL -> can be used as a HDMI port

Flipboard pre-installed, Dropbox integration (free 50GB for 2 years)

optional stylus

They claimed 0.01ms response time for the OLED display (vs 50-70ms for the avg LCDs I guess)

The S3 will become available first in Europe (UK?) as 3G end of this month then Asia, as 4G in the U.S. during summer.

<comment><USER3> 0.01? Is the period in the right place?!

<comment><USER4> It's an LED. That's how long it takes to switch it from one light level to another. (It affects things like ghosting.)

It's not the same thing as input lag which measures how long it takes to render things from a buffer (ideally that's 15ms or less, and no more than 30ms).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find this was a very interesting announcement. Almost the whole presentation was about software, services and addons.

Samsung did not talk much about the hardware, and not once used the term "Android" during the whole presentation.

This is how I want smartphone providers to make their android-based devices: Either use just AOSP and focus on supporting that well (updates), or make a very unique and improved experience for your customers.

Adding differences "just to be somehow different" will only make your phone worse. I don't care much about the gesture stuff, but what they do with the face detection API that came with Android 4 is very interesting.

The idea that the screen will not go black as long as I look at it solves one of the most annoying problems I have when using computers. E.g. you think for a few seconds about what you just read on your smartphone, and when you're back you have to turn on the screen again. So annoying.

There are also a lot of little nice touches to the ui, like this one:

"Pick up the phone when you've got a missed call or text and it will vibrate gently in your hand in combination with the notification light to let you know you're a popular bunny."

Or that you can hold the phone to your ear while you're texting someone and it will call the person you're texting.

Or that you can select a person in the camera and the focus will stay on that person.

Or that you can burst 10 photos with one shot and then have the phone automatically recommend the best picture to you. The wireless charger and the HDMI dongle are also very nice.

</comment><comment><USER6> To be honest, specs wise, while it doesn't significantly move things forward, it is pretty much the best, in pretty much every department. It has a massive removable battery, microSD, quad core, wireless charging and a killer GPU -- all advantages over the Nexus.

BUT.. I think people were really hoping samsung were starting to 'get it'- design, desirability and UX (yes, like apple). I thought the s2 was too boxy and now they have gone too far the other way. It's meant to be a flagship phone, but just doesn't look expensive.

        To make it feel more "natural", you tap the lock-screen and little
        ripples appear, and splish-splash noises are heard.

This is pretty indicative they don't 'get it'. It's a pointless gimmick- just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And my god, they are awful at presentations. Its not rocket science.

This is all especially disappointing considering the Galaxy Nexus coming from samsung-- a device that has plenty of desirability IMO. All they had to do was to take this, add a microSD and a slightly bumped specs, and they would have had a winner. A non-pentile screen would have been welcome, but really, it isn't a deal breaker for 99%- OLED outweighs it over RGB LCD, imo.

If there is a perverse silver-lining, this is good news for HTC, and perhaps the android ecosystem in the long-term.. it was seeming like samsung were becoming too dominant.

<comment><USER7> At some point I really began to cringe with all the "this is all modeled after nature!!!" talk. It really seems like corporate marketing got hold of the design in a very bad way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> TouchWiz ... oh dear, an immediate turn off.

I have a Google Nexus S with stock Android 4, and that works perfectly.

I also have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 with TouchWiz which I seriously regret. The interface is terrible, and unless you reboot it every couple of hours it just grinds to a halt on its own. And there's no CM9 for the Tab yet ...

<comment><USER9> Fully agreed, I had the same setup of phones, went from a HTC Desire with SenseUI to a Nexus S with stock android, to a SGS2 with TouchWiz, the Nexus S with stock ICS was by far the best. I now use a galaxy nexus with stock ICS, imo the best phone around, the SGS2 is purely got Boot2Gecko work now

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 felt pretty terrible with Honeycomb + touchwiz, I would be interested in what a stock android tablet experience feels like, although with androind tablets the lack of apps was also a pretty big factor in why it felt terrible compared to an Ipad

<comment><USER10> It seems like we're due for a new Google Flagship Tablet device soon, though I haven't seen any news to that effect yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The size of these things is getting pretty ridiculous. Has every new version to be bigger than the previous one ? Where will that end ?

</comment><comment><USER12> Not interested at all. Unless it's a Nexus - reflashed to get updates from Google - I'm not playing the "waiting for updates" game any more.

<comment><USER13> Why do you have to reflash it to get updates from Google?

<comment><USER14> Because Google only provides updates for certain builds (jakju), other builds (jakjuxw for example) needs to be tested by carriers in other countries (or some such) and the last stamp of approval comes from Samsung IIRC. If you flash the phone with factory build jakju you get updates from google when they're released otherwise there is 1-1.5 months wait for updates

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really like my SII but the toy feeling is obvious next to my Lumia and iPhone. It's a great phone and of my phones, outside app testing, I use it the most. However for the cheap plastic feeling the intuition says it should be at least $300 cheaper. Seems SIII is the same that way, so i'm wondering if only techies notice this as the SII did so well everywhere.

<comment><USER5> I think this "cheap plastic" meme is completely fabricated by competitors with heavier and less durable products.

Plastic is more elastic than metal, so if your phone falls on the floor, it takes some of the shock and significantly reduces the chance that the screen breaks.

Samsung's "cheap" plastic is also lighter than metal. The Galaxy S2 for example is much, much larger than the iphone 4s, yet the iphone feels like a brick in your pocket compared to the Galaxy.

Why do we associate "heavy" with "valuable" all of a sudden? Shouldn't it be the other way around? After all, a coin is not more valuable than a bank note, and a heavy bike is not better than a light one, right?

<comment><USER16> "Cheap plastic" is not a meme. People have compared build quality as long as manufactured goods have existed. Many people associate heavy with valuable because traditionally, making things out of metal cost more and increases durability. Maybe the use of composites will change this perception.

Does using a glass display instead of a plastic display increase the chance that the display breaks? Yes. Does it increase weight? Yes. But glass is more scratch resistant and has a better feel to it, so most people think it's a worthwhile tradeoff (Samsung seems to agree).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> 11 different fonts/sizes on the home screen - oh Android, why?

Edit: 12 if you count the Samsung logo on the phone.

<comment><USER10> If you're counting the Samsung, Google, AccuWeather, and ChatOn logo's, sure. Without those we're left with a still diverse set, but I think reasonably varied. If I could make one change it would be to make the clock font match (style-wise) the rest of the non-logo fonts, probably at a much lighter weight (ultralight serif).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For me the biggest turn-off is the pentile display. I think for now I'll just keep the HTC One X.

<comment><USER18> Are you actually happy with the HTC One X?

<comment><USER19> I'm happy with it. Coming from a SE Xperia X10, I was worried I made the wrong choice simply because of the One X's size. But the display is, to my aging eyes, fantastic. The camera is very quick to launch and the photos just fine for me.

Edit: "X10's size" --> "One X's size"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Samsung finally stopped copying the iPhone following a new design language: [http://versusio.com/en/samsung-galaxy-s3-64gb-vs-the-body- sh...](http://versusio.com/en/samsung-galaxy-s3-64gb-vs-the-body-shop-shea- soap)

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell I would literally rather have an Android G1 than this phone. It baffles me that more people don't demand phones with full qwerty keyboards. They're so much easier and faster and more pleasant to type on than a touch screen. I've got an HTC Desire Z at the moment. I'll stick with that until a better Android phone with a qwerty keyboard comes along.

</comment><comment><USER21> Disappointed by the plastic finish. I did not buy the sgs 2 because it felt cheap and flimsy and this looks to be the same.

<comment><USER22> The S II does not look cheap to me. The plastic backside prevents the phone from being slippery, which is a big problem with the iPhone. Dropping it on the ground is also no problem, the plastic is perfect in absorbing that. After a couple of falls there is still no damage to be seen on my model (it even fell _into_ water once - it is still working flawlessly)

<comment><USER21> My SonyEricsson phone is also plastic, but feels much more well built.

The cheap feel of the plastic was what made me not buy the SGS2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Slipping the word "cheap" to the title? Careful that author is known for his strong MS bias

<comment><USER10> He doesn't appear to back it well in the article other than as a quality of the plastic. Reviews are subjective, and as the next Google Flagship device, the S3 will be getting lots more reviews soon enough. Personally I like the Verge's Android phone reviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is this Engadget? Why is this here? Are there no things to read which are more interesting than the launch of yet another 10% more efficient iteration on a five-year-old phone design?

<comment><USER2> there were a couple of rather interesting features introduces - so if you're doing mobile development it certainly is interesting to know what the Android leader of the pack is doing or planning to provide for your next development platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> They forgot to mention that it's a little bit too big to feel alright, even as a smartphone.

<comment><USER26> Smartphone screens seem to be like cars, each new model has larger than the previous one.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: id3.org is down and i need documentation for id3v2 - <AUTHOR>

id3.org is down and i am working on a new project for which i need documentation for ID3v2 Specification, the google results did not yield good enough information. Can someone point me in the right direction??? <comment><USER2> Try the Internet Archive.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20110604131605/http://www.id3.org...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110604131605/http://www.id3.org/Developer_Information)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks ! Will let you know as soon as i release it. :)</comment></comment>


HN on Linkedin - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=86116&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1271355845770_1

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one that doesn't see the point in LinkedIn groups besides the ability to have more direct contacts?

<comment><USER3> More direct contacts among people that you consider your peer group is a worthwhile enough purpose.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, but we kind of have that already here. LinkedIn presents it a bit better I guess, but it also loses a lot of the context you get on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> OT question for entrepreneurial LinkedIn experts reading this thread: what would you do with 9 InMail grants to advance your project or startup?

Regarding the group, I'd love to join it but I don't have 20 karma points on HN.

<comment><USER5> I suggest you try and find people who would either be prospective partners or clients of your project, write a brief message to them, and ask them to review your work and comment.

Also, answering questions relevant to your interest area on LinkedIn is a good way to make contact with people who have problems they are trying to solve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see the point of LinkedIn groups, but it feels like the groups are starting to get polluted. It almost feels like Facebook. I really enjoy Hacker News and see why I would want to be part of that group on LinkedIn.

But I don't need another badge, another forum for questions, and another list.

Which is a shame because I think the a Hacker News LinkedIn group makes sense.

<comment><USER7> For me:

LinkedIn=Business

Facebook=Family/Personal

HN=Fun/Information/Learning/Peer Group/IT outside of Business

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this one (Y Combinator News Group, 234 ppl) dead? [http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=3426&trk=an...](http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=3426&trk=anet_ug_hm)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd gladly help you make that little logo/icon/badge more attractive, just for the satisfaction of knowing one less bad one is showing up in HN readers' profiles.

<comment><USER10> Thanks! Ping me, email in profile!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good idea. It's just too bad that for the general populace, "Hacker" is a bad term, and this logo on people's pages would be a turn-off for those who aren't somewhat tech-savvy. People think hacker = cracker.

<comment><USER12> I noticed a 'Change visibility' link next to the groups I belong to, in my LI profile page. I think that's a very recent addition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't remember if I ever used LinkedIn for anything useful, but why not.</comment>


Show HN: My news summarization side project - <AUTHOR> http://summary.io/technology

<comment><AUTHOR> Site owner here. A few thoughts: \- HN has been pretty hostile towards Summly and how it is "trivial" or "basic" to create an app that summarizes the news. I've always wanted to try. All of the negativity actually motivated me to think "Why can't I make something similar." \- This has been an incredible learning experience for me. \- Feedback is more than welcome.

<comment><USER2> I think the arguments against summly have more to do with the fact that they _didn't_ have any tech or in-house expertise. They licensed tech from SRI and even had another group build the app itself.

That aside, summarization is a relatively old field of study (in CS) and there is tons of good information to read and even many free libraries. My suggestion would be to try out an unsupervised learning algorithm such as LDA. You still need training data, but you don't need to label it with categories. The downside is that you will have no control over what it learns. Still, classic examples of LDA involve classifying news sources.

For standard linear classification, understanding Bayes is important, but for actual implementation look at something like liblinear and use logistic regression with regularization. The difference between Bayes and LR is that Bayes optimizes learning the underlying probability distribution while LR optimizes "getting the classification right", otherwise known as optimizing the expectation. Regularization controls for overfitting and there can be a _big_ difference between the type you use (L1 vs L2) and the settings. Dont' make the mistake of treating it as a minor tweak.

<comment><USER3> I've read a lot of literature on classification, but nothing about summarization. Do you have any recommended literature/libraries?

<comment><AUTHOR> jmduke, I started with (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_summarization>) specifically the unsupervised keyphrase extraction. In terms of libraries, there aren't a huge amount of small packages out there outside of the monolithic Stanford NLP package (<http://nlp.stanford.edu/software/lex-parser.shtml>) and such. When I get back to the house I would be glad to share my bookmarks with you if you are interested.

<comment><USER3> That'd be great! My email is in my profile if you'd prefer that method.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't it always going to be more efficient for the producer of said text to produce the summary him/herself? Couldn't resources be better spent trying to influence the production process of various news outlets to provide summaries?

In the legal community (and I'm sure many others), there is tremendous benefit to writing concise introductory and concluding paragraphs, as well as tables of contents that act as excellent skeletons for much longer documents. In policy-land, the one-pager is king...but I digress.

I guess I'm just kind of lost as to how or when the cost of _accurately_ summarizing text by computer is cheaper than basically "asking" the author to provide one. Will the quality of a computer-generated summary ever be >= the quality of an author-generated summary?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I guess it depends on how you look at it. My goal with this version of my project is not to produce a summary that includes everything.

When I approached this project I looked at it with this problem: I currently read 10-15 news sites. I spend too much time reading the news. How do I get to the stories that really matter to me?

Producing text-extraction summaries solve this problem well in my opinion.

 _> > Isn't it always going to be more efficient for the producer of said text to produce the summary him/herself? Couldn't resources be better spent trying to influence the production process of various news outlets to provide summaries?_

The quality of summaries would be SO much better if news outlets did this themselves. Again, I think it would be really cool to be able to have the influence to change the production process.

I really appreciate your insight here!

<comment><USER4> Interesting. Of I course, I'm not trying to discourage this at all. I really dig this stuff. Just writing my thoughts on another, complimentary approach. I guess this makes sense from the perspective of a hacker who wants to build a cool thing for his/her own use.

The questions of efficiency really come into play when you see Yahoo! spending $30 million for Summly. For that, you could hire 60 people to work for $50,000/yr for one year. I wonder how 60 happily-employed English majors might stack up to something produced by Summly et al.

<comment><USER5> _"For [$30 million], you could hire 60 people to work for $50,000/yr for one year."_

$30 million / $50,000 = 600

You wouldn't be able to hire 600 people, but you'd definitely get more than 60 English majors. Even after taxes, insurance, benefits, HR, management, accounting, rent, equipment, travel expenses, etc, you could probably afford at least 200 English majors at $50,000 a year.

<comment><USER4> Yea, I was off by a pesky decimal place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Speaking only for myself, I want a few different things out of a service like this.

For one, I want an article fingerprinting technology. One that can tell that multiple different sites are talking about the same original post, and not really saying anything that is materially different. Maybe they all just cut- n-paste (which something like Churnalism would hopefully address), but I also want to catch the sites that add a little unique content to an article, but not enough to make a real difference. Link analysis would have to be factored into this, based on the full expanded URLs -- Sometimes there are new articles that come out with additional information on a topic that has previously been discussed, and I wouldn't want to miss those.

Second, once you have the fingerprint for each article from each site, you need a fuzzy way to compare them for uniqueness -- I want to do a "sort -u" on all news articles, based on the fingerprint.

Third, I need a way to tweak the scores and settings, so that articles from a high quality site like Ars Technica gets rated better than a lower-quality site. Of course, a certain amount of automation can be used here to generate default scores and settings, but I may have a different idea of exactly what scores and settings I want to use as compared to someone else.

I do like the idea of taking input from sites like HN as an additional variable for the positive or negative weighting of a news story (or a particular news site), if the article in question is one that has recently been discussed there.

Of course, you also need the concept of pluggable modules, so that when the next new thing comes out (like Churnalism), it can be quickly and easily added to the mix.

I don't suppose this sounds remotely familiar to anyone? I've got a bunch of feeds that I watch, but there's a lot of duplication and I would dearly love to be able to filter out that chaff while still allowing through the occasional unique article from those sites that usually just jump on the bandwagon long after the horses have escaped the barn.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm interested in how you decide what sources to use, and then what subject to summarise, and then how each story is summarised.

Please don't take this the wrong way but: it's a list of sites that I dislike so I wouldn't use this service. I can, however, see the value, and I would use it if it was sites that I was more interested in.

I guess for a tech crowd I'm a bit confused about this and RSS: Why don't people just use a better RSS reader?

But for non-technical people who need to keep up with a few different websites this could be great. Once you get v1 sorted you could think about adding some kind of voting for v2. "Useful [y][n]" "important [y][n]" etc.

Good luck with it if you do decide to do any more with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree with you. Basically for v1 I just took my personal rss feeds and used those. Technology has about 15 sources, Business has about 7, Top has about 5.

Currently, the summaries are categorized on a feed by feed basis (eg everything from the Verge is technology), but I've been messing around with a Bayes classifier. I just need some training data.

Each story is summarized the following way: 1) Get link from feed. 2) If the link doesn't exist, scrape the content and image. 3) Break content into sentences (custom NLP based off of regex). 4) Tokenize sentences into words. 5) Porter-stem all words. 6) Run heavily customized LexRank. 7) Return best sentences, use no more than 15% or 3 sentences, whichever is less.

Right now, it's just a firehose of data. There's a lot I can do with it, but I'm exploring where to go: summarize the news? Product reviews? Public domain books? Try and hook up with an rss reader company? Build a chrome extension?

I really appreciate the feedback!

<comment><USER8> I love the user interface.

My feeling about the algorithm is that it works really well on some stories and poorly on others. For instance, how can you extract 3 salient points from "10 Tens To Spam The Web With A Top Ten List"?

Anyway, a key to advances in practical A.I. is being able to change the problem definition to something that is doable AND serves a need. Competitions like Kaggle and TREC attract smart and hard-working competitors but make a real advance only once every couple of years.

You want to beat the odds, rather than summarizing anything that comes down the pipe, you can throw out any articles that don't summarize well. If you could get rid of 50% of the strikeouts it would look much better and if you got rid of 80% it's going to be better than a committee of mechanical turks.

Shoot me a line if you want some help making this work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Paul, I think we just emailed each other.

Again, you are exactly right. Some of my problems I know can be improved using a better scraping algorithm. Another idea would be if the article is not at X length, don't try and summarize it.

I look foward to talking to you more about it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> <http://news.thetechblock.com> does an outstanding job with relevant tech news in my opinion. It's hand curated, though. There's also no summary. UI is great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bayan09, I will look into adding it tonight to what I scrape. I will comment and let you know how it goes! Thanks!+

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks good but tldr.io exists. Feedly now has, what comes down to, a rating based on how many times an article was saved. It just needs a tldr.io layer over it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love tldr.io and use it frequently. Really amazes me. Of course I think this approach might be more scalable. I agree with adding a rating layer would be a great addition. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Needs an RSS feed

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion! That could actually be added really easily. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good job. Hopefully someone has at least $30mm for you :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words! To be honest I am just looking to beef up my portfolio before I go job hunting next year (yikes!).

:)</comment></comment>


Nocera: It's Time for Apple to Come Clean - <AUTHOR> http://executivesuite.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/its-time-for-apple-to-come-clean/?hp <comment><USER2> Why exactly is it important to the public, unless they are shareholders? That people care I understand (so do I, I wish him well). But I fail to see a national interest. There will be computers, MP3 players and mobile phones available in the future, with or without Steve Jobs.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the most I've seen the media pay attention to one guy's health since Magic Johnson came out about being HIV positive.

It's a little macabre; and at this point, I honestly can't see the point in the constant obsession over it.

<comment><USER4> You are absolutely right about the futility (atleast by the non-shareholders), but media is all about emotions!!!

<comment><USER5> True, and this is probably the reason for media obsession with celebrity related talk.</comment></comment></comment>


Celebrating Mathematica's First Quarter Century - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2013/06/celebrating-mathematicas-first-quarter-century/ <comment><USER2> I was one of the first users of Mathematica and recently received a thank-you note from Wolfram Research for my early support. Unlike many early supporters and enthusiasts of Mathematica, however, I won't be encouraging others to join the Mathematica bandwagon.

I myself stopped using the software about a decade ago for one simple, painful reason: I don't want my work to be trapped inside of a system that prevents others from freely building upon it. (And, no, Wolfram's CDF and "player" software are not substitutes for real, live code that I can give to others and have them use, change, and build upon -- without having to license a proprietary software system.)

As I've written before, Mathematica is one of the world's great works of software, mathematics, and engineering. But, as I've also written before, it can't achieve but the smallest portion of its potential to do good for humankind until _all_ humans can use it. For real.

If Google wanted to do the world a _big_ favor, gain itself some serious PR points, and perhaps increase its supply of potential math-savvy engineers two decades hence, it ought to buy Wolfram Research, continue to fund WR's work, and release Mathematica as free software backed by an open development process. Maybe this feat is too big for Google to pull off. Maybe it would take a consortium -- Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and IBM together -- but maybe it could happen.

And, if it did, that would be a great day for humankind.

<comment><USER3> _> If Google wanted to do the world a big favor, gain itself some serious PR points, and perhaps increase its supply of potential math-savvy engineers two decades hence, it ought to buy Wolfram Research, continue to fund WR's work, and release Mathematica as free software backed by an open development process. Maybe this feat is too big for Google to pull off. Maybe it would take a consortium -- Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and IBM together -- but maybe it could happen._

What? Why not develop a Mathematica alternative?

<comment><USER2> That's an option. But it would probably set the world back a decade, maybe two, compared to freeing Mathematica. Even if your Mathematica replacement were ready today, it would take years and years and years to gain enough mindshare to begin overtaking Mathematica. The benefit of freeing Mathematica, then, is that it's _already_ dominant. No need to wait out the ever-so-slow shifting of mindshare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't stand to read Wolfram's ego-stroking for more than a few paragraphs. The guy is very into how great he and his software are.

<comment><USER5> I tried to look beyond that because it seems like a personality disorder he has little control over, but after spending some time on the site I still don't have a good idea of what Mathematica is or why I would want to use it. It seems to be all things to all people. If it's a computer language, then you could say that about any computer language. Mathematica seems to be a computer language with an IDE that provides a multitude of components (25 yrs worth.) It's even got a web dev component, but I couldn't figure out what benefits it brings.

<comment><USER6> It's a programming language and an associated IDE for doing mathematical and scientific computing. It is similar to Matlab in some ways, although Matlab has a strong "numerical" flavor and Mathematica has a strong "symbolic" flavor.

As a language it use an M-expression-like syntax. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-expression](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-expression)

<comment><USER7> I believe its IDE was also the first widely used one to take the "mathematical notebook" approach where you can sort of free-form arrange formulas on a page and link them to each other. Unless I'm mistaken, at the time the other computer-algebra systems (Macsyma, Maple, etc.) all used REPL style sequential interfaces. I mostly prefer the REPL interfaces myself, but a lot of people like the notebook style, and I think Mathematica's approach to that has been influential on some recent open-source interfaces like Sage Notebook and iPython Notebook.

<comment><USER8> MathCAD[1] was the first to use the notebook approach. It was/is a neat application, more along the lines of Matlab than a CAS like Mathematica.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathcad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathcad)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This really does make me feel old. I started using Mathematica 1.1 in my freshman year in college, 24 years ago. I still use it fairly frequently today. I didn't realize I was an early adopter :-).

<comment><USER10> Your comment makes _me_ feel really _young_! I'm younger than Wolfram Research but older than Mathematica.

Having just attended our 25 anniversary celebration in Illinois, it's clear there is an enthusiastic and long-lived community around Mathematica that is only going to grow.

With any luck, 2014 will be a "breakout" year in which the Wolfram Language that underlies Mathematica will start playing a more mainstream role in the software engineering industry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If he thinks it is so important for humanity, he should consider to open source it..

<comment><USER12> Perhaps he will, one day, but for now the large staff he has working for him all depend on sales of Mathematica to feed their families.

Curating the data sets behind Wolfram Alpha (and Mathematica) is a hugely labour-intensive endeavour. Mathematica itself depends on a large team of extremely well educated people; the pan-scientific domain expertise is significant in that company. Jeopardising that with a radical change of business model, like open sourcing Mathematica, would not be the choice of a sane businessman.

<comment><USER13> IMHO Wolfram would benefit from open-sourcing Mathematica, and continuing to license Wolfram Alpha (possibly through a 'Pro' version of Mathematica with unmetered Wolfram Alpha API integration).</comment></comment></comment>


Node.js modules you should know about: semver - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/nodejs-modules-semver/

<comment><USER2> This one might be a bit of a stretch for "modules you should know about". Perhaps appropriate for "how npm is on its way to becoming CPAN.

<comment><USER3> Did you mean that as a good or a bad thing?

<comment><USER4> Why would it be bad to turn into CPAN?

Is there a language packaging/install system with better infrastructure and range of code libraries? (Or is that bad, for some reason?)

Edit: It seems the semver module don't have much of functionality for running tests, keeping DBs of existing/previous libearies, sending feedback to module authors of install problems or show statistics about what O/S versions had problems? (And so on.) So it isn't really like the CPAN infrastructure at all...

<comment><USER5> Nor should it. semver is just about versions. npm does know about tests with scripts.test in package.json and there are some projects in the works to run tests automatically from npm like CPANTS but it's still early.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Two-Wheeled, Self-Balancing Gyro-X Vehicle from 1967 in Action - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTCVn4EByfI <comment><USER2> I want something as cheap as a motorcycle, but as safe as a car for commute.

this seems to be perfect

<comment><USER3> It reminds me of this thing that I saw make the rounds a few years ago: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lit_Motors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lit_Motors)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> really cool stuff, looks a bit unwieldy to drive though.

</comment><comment><USER5> amazing</comment>