Build yourself a weather station - <AUTHOR> https://blog.kdubovikov.ml/articles/hardware/build-yourself-a-weather-station <comment><USER2> For those that do not feel brave enough to build a weather station from scratch you can buy a 'Watson W-8681' Weather Station and hook up a Raspberry Pi to it to collect all the data.

Jim Easterbrook (ex-BBC engineer) has a really good write up on the process, and also shares his python code:

[http://www.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/weather/](http://www.jim- easterbrook.me.uk/weather/)

I don't know Jim, but I have done the same following his instructions.

<comment><USER3> This is more useful. The mechanics of the IoT is one problem that might need to be solved, but sourcing good sensors is more interesting to read about.

I unfortunately do not have a good site for a weather station, so I just use the NYS Mesonet: [http://www.nysmesonet.org/](http://www.nysmesonet.org/)

(They charge $450,000 a year for commercial customers but still don't have a TLS certificate. The weather stations are good, though.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got into weather stations just recently. If you don't want to go that far in the DIY way for the hardware I recommend getting [1] + [2] or if you are from EU like me [3].

You can see some of the data here [4]

You can hook this thing up to the internet over wifi and it will send data to [https://www.ecowitt.net](https://www.ecowitt.net) [https://www.wunderground.com](https://www.wunderground.com) [https://weathercloud.net/](https://weathercloud.net/) and/or post it to your custom endpoint. The gateway can also be queried for data over an API. This thing is quite new on the market but I am very happy with it. You can hook it up to already supported websites or you can use a raspberry pi to collect data yourself (WeeWx and Cumulus MX already support the API).

[1] [http://www.ecowitt.com/weather_station/5.html](http://www.ecowitt.com/weather_station/5.html)

[2] [http://www.ecowitt.com/wifi_weather/80.html](http://www.ecowitt.com/wifi_weather/80.html)

[3] [https://www.froggit.de/product_info.php?language=en&info=p44...](https://www.froggit.de/product_info.php?language=en&info=p444_dp1500-wi- fi-wetterserver-usb-dongle-inkl--1-x-dp50---wh4000se-all-in-one- aussensensor.html)

[4] [https://app.weathercloud.net/d7287072295#current](https://app.weathercloud.net/d7287072295#current)

<comment><USER5> Good tips, I would like to add that if you already have a weather station you can buy a $10 RTL-SDR like [1] and plug it in to a PI, then use ready made software [2] to extract the weather information. You can hook this data up to any API you would like.

[1] [https://www.banggood.com/USB2_0-FM-DAB-DVB-T- RTL2832U-R820T2...](https://www.banggood.com/USB2_0-FM-DAB-DVB-T- RTL2832U-R820T2-RTL-SDR-SDR-Dongle-Stick-Digital-TV-Tuner-Receiver-with- Antenna-p-1353904.html?rmmds=buy&cur_warehouse=CN) [2] [https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433](https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice. I love weather station builds. Here is mine. I added a pm air quality sensor, a infrared rain sensor, some light sensors, a CO2 sensor, an accelerometer, and a loudness sensor. There's a spot for my Geiger counter too but that installation is not done yet.

[https://partofthething.com/thoughts/weather-and-air- quality-...](https://partofthething.com/thoughts/weather-and-air-quality- monitoring-station-with-esp8266-and-home-assistant/)

<comment><USER7> This is awesome. Thanks for posting this. Question for you do you happen to have a soldering iron you recommend for the build out?

<comment><USER6> I should technically solder more of this, as it's mostly together with prototype cables at the moment. Any soldering iron should work, but I am partial to Weller Soldering Stations. I have one from ~10 years ago that has an analog adjustment, though now I see they look to be mostly digital. Their website has them around $300 for some reason but they are on amazon for closer to $100 (which is what I got mine for).

[https://www.weller-tools.com/we1010na/](https://www.weller- tools.com/we1010na/)

<comment><USER8> Just a warning, amazon has been pretty bad with fake soldering irons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm using weewx for my weather station. I pulled the weather station out of a bin at my former place of employment, which is an airmar 200wx, ultrasonic wind sensor that's typically used on boats. The humidity sensor doesn't work, so I wrote a python script, that acts as man in the middle, that reads in the data, and when it gets to the humidity values, it replaces them with numbers from a DHT22 humidity sensor instead.

Edit: [http://www.weewx.com/](http://www.weewx.com/)

<comment><USER10> Living in the PNW with many consecutive months of damp and cool weather, I've found most humidity sensors to be unreliable. Often their operating range is between 20% and 80%, which misses the very dry summers and very wet winters here. After a few weeks, I start getting bad readings, and finally failures. Lately, I've had better results using a small 5VDC fan within the weather station enclosure, with the hope that dew won't form on the sensor (probably the main culprit). It's a Silicon Labs Si7021 temperature and humidity sensors (I2C). So far so good.

<comment><USER9> Yes, they do fail. I guess that's evident by the design of the weather station, as the humidity sensor is modular, so it can be replaced.

Unfortunately, I think this design also means it has a low ingress protection value. The unit I ended up with had the humidity sensor replaced and it still wasn't providing numbers. I think it may have spent a year or so out at sea on a buoy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm currently working on something similar for the a new house I'm building, but for the inside.

I plan to have multiple ESP32 nodes with sensors (luminosity, temperature, pressure, moisture, presence detector), ble scanning (in order to detect who is in the room), and microphones for voice control (picovice porcupine library for stop word detection, then google speech 2 text). For the microphones, I'm still waiting for my mems microphnes to directly include them on the sensor node, or I will use an additional board like the esp32-korvo which works very good (already tested). For audio playback in the rooms, I'm planning on using the up2stream amp devices with ceiling speakers. As for powering it, I'm still unsure on what to use. I first ordered some olimex POE esp32 isolated (so you can power them from both POE and USB at the same time). However the ethernet interface will go up/down in an endless loop after a few minutes of sending data over mqtt. Strangely, the non ISO version works though as it seems, I haven't run it though in a box (higher temperature). So I'm still unsure if I use POE or a 220V->5V converter in each case, or feed them directly with 5V from a central place (which would require more cable length planning)

I did some programming at first, but then quickly switched top [https://esphome.io/](https://esphome.io/) which allows you to include your sensors without writing any code. It has support for all kinds of sensors, integrated API, mqtt, webserver, etc... and you only have to configure one yaml file which will then automatically generate the C code and compile/upload your firmware. No need to reinvent the wheel!

It's also easy to include your own components in case you want to do anything custom. The only disadvantage is that it's still based on esp32 idf 3 (in case you are adding components, I would prefer to do it for the new version and not the old one), but the v4 was only released a few weeks ago.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps this is too off-topic but I was just looking into home automation and perhaps someone might have good advice: I have an old (~25-30 years) radiant ceiling heating system with 15 thermostats that are starting to malfunction and I need to replace. I don't want to break the bank just doing this, but I'd love to have the ability to read temperature and command on/off on each of one.

I'm going through ESPHome right now, but in any case, any recommendations on very low-key but reliable thermostats that are amenable to hacking with them would be super welcome!

<comment><USER13> If you need to control mains AC loads, I highly recommend something like the Sonoff Wifi switches. They're similar to the wifi "Smart plugs" you can get these days but are aimed at fixed wiring installations and they're safety tested. You can also get versions with built in temp\humidity sensors in the switch, then re-flash the Sonoff firmware with esphome and control all 15 from a single raspberry pi running home assistant. This would allow you to set temperatures for individual rooms over the internet.

<comment><USER14> Do the new models still make it easy to reflash? I thought I saw something about them being somehow locked down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1-wire is a great technology for homebrew weather stations and environmental monitoring in general.

Once you get a 1-wire master, you can chain devices on a single cable (e.g. the ubiquitous DS18B20 temperature sensor). Digikey, Adafruit and Sparkfun have plenty of breakout boards and it's pretty easy to find code either bare metal (bit banging) or linux I2C

There's a pretty good intro book by Tim Bitson: [https://www.biblio.com/weather-toys-by-bitson- tim/work/56888...](https://www.biblio.com/weather-toys-by-bitson- tim/work/568884)

And some interesting projects such as this 1-wire rain gauge: [http://www.midondesign.com/Documents/1wire_raingauge.PDF](http://www.midondesign.com/Documents/1wire_raingauge.PDF)

[https://www.element14.com/community/groups/internet-of- thing...](https://www.element14.com/community/groups/internet-of- things/blog/2015/01/07/old-meets-new-the-1-wire-weather-station-on-the-spark- core-part-5)

</comment><comment><USER16> A word of advice: double-check you're actually getting a BME280. I accidentally bought a BMP280 which lacks the humidity sensor. -_-

So yeah, I have something similar myself, with a React frontend on the official Raspberry Pi display, a BME680 (never got the IAQ stuff to work though) and InfluxDB + Grafana. No remote/outdoor modules yes, because I'm undecided about the technology.

<comment><USER17> Also, doublecheck the readings from this sensor. There has been plenty of report about the temperature reading being much higher than the actual temperature (in my case, I got 4C higher than ambient). Some people says it has self-heating problem since if you put active airflow the temperature dropped.

<comment><USER18> Yes, the BME280 is very good at sensing temperature deltas, much less at sensing absolute temperature. A correction factor is most often needed with this device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I get that people like to play with hardware but for practical purposes, there are public APIs with airport weather station data that anyone can use, published at 5 minute intervals (typically).

Considering the data they output must conform to aircraft avionics parsers that are sometimes decades old, they are unlikely to ever change or go away. Since the weather observations are required for IFR flight, the FAA is quick to repair them when they break, too.

Whatever you can build with hobbyist hardware it won't compare to the airport's equipment.

[https://www.aviationweather.gov/dataserver](https://www.aviationweather.gov/dataserver)

<comment><USER20> Lots of reasons why you might want more local though. My local airport is more than 10km away (but there are other monitoring stations). Pilots and controllers assume some uncertainty because even within the airport perimeter there will be temperature and wind variation, but they will be in-calibration which is the main advantage. Controllers often rely on pilots to make reports if conditions differ to what the airport is recording, so it's not always considered the absolute truth.

At home, for example: more accurate irrigation control based on local rainfall, greenhouse control, microclimate variations (which can be significant if you live in a hilly or mountainous region), observatory control for astronomers etc. There are lots of reasons why your local conditions could vary considerably from the airport, but you do need to put some effort into enclosures to avoid biases from solar radiation. You can also add other sensors like buried temperature sensors to monitor the soil, cloud cover, etc.

Microclimate is significant. If you live in a city, you'll likely have urban heating effects. If you live up a hill, you will have significantly different measurements to an airport in a valley. Anyone who's been hiking knows that you absolutely need local observations to assess conditions (eg from a hut). Though this is more for illustration, if you're hiking there are normally special weather services for common routes (Austria has a nice site for this I think).

The Met Office runs an API where you can contribute your own measurements [1]. Sites are rated based on quality of instrumentation - note that the gold standard here could be a calibrated mercury thermometer in a Stephenson screen, nothing special. Calibration is key.

These simple weather stations can also be used indoors as cheap multi room thermometers. You can pair them with air quality, gas and particulate sensors. Also a nice exercise in mesh/multi sensor networking.

[1] [https://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/](https://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/)

<comment><USER19> Yes, I should have qualified that the airport API thing is much more practical in the US, I suppose, since we spend more on aviation than other countries.

Our government since WW2 has subsidized any city which wants an airport so they can have one.

I just took a look at the Dallas, Texas airspace as an example and there are 14 weather stations within the ring defining the metro area's restricted airspace. It looks like the airspace around London-Heathrow has 3.

<comment><USER20> Here you'd probably want to use local automatic weather stations (AWS), which are a superset that includes major airports. There are lot more of those around London than just Heathrow. I imagine NOAA has a similar setup.

[https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and- data/...](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk- synoptic-and-climate-stations)

I'm not sure if the CAA and Met Office share stations though. Airports often have more specific instruments like ceilometers to give measurements of cloud layer height, while AWS might have more cliamtologic things like pyranometers for sunlight hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This seems to be the same hardware that is used by the luftdaten.info [0] project from Germany to track fine dust in the atmosphere. They ship a firmware which is setup to connect to a local WiFi network and transmit your sensor data to a map.

[0] [https://luftdaten.info/](https://luftdaten.info/)

</comment><comment><USER22> In an easier setup, there is the open-source Ruuvi device ([https://ruuvi.com](https://ruuvi.com)) that works well: it captures temperature, humidity, pressure and delivers the data through bluetooth in an open/documented format, so you can do whatever you like with it after.

I use a few of them with a NUC server and some custom nodejs scripts.

</comment><comment><USER23> One thing that really improves your experience is storing your data in something that grafana can read. I like graphite, but your mileage may vary.

There are lots of DBs that you can use, including postgres. the flexibility and configurability that you get is outstanding. With the alerts subsystem you can easily attach triggers for bots.

Also having really simple and configurable graphs that look good.

<comment><USER18> InfluxDB and Grafana can run decently on a raspi zero-w, and it's my setup of choice for my self-watering/weather rig.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm by no means an expert on this, but I had some issues with the temperature reading of the BME280. It seems to be so sensitive that simply having it on top of a Wemos D1 Mini shield PCB cause the temperatures to differ by more than 2 degrees celsius because the heat of the ESP module seems to radiate up to the BME280 (or transfers through the wires/traces). Just having my finger right above it ticked off the temperature reading, so I assumed even indirect sunlight on it or similar things might give wrong readings too.

I resorted to adding a DS18B20 for temperature readings and only using the air pressure and humidity of the BME280. I could design a PCB that moves the BME280 further away from the D1 Mini with tiny traces to avoid heat transfer, but then again I didn't want to risk it and a quick research showed that the DS18B20 seems to be reasonably accurate as well.

<comment><USER25> The author didn't say so, but I'd assume these sensors must be placed in a small oven of some kind, so as to introduce averaging and hysteresis of temperature.

When I brew my beer, I need to look at the environmental temperature. I can't stick the thermometer in the beer because it'll be contaminated. So I put a thermometer in a glass of water which I place next to the beer vat.

I'd expect you'd have to put that BME280 in a small metal oven, or submerge in a volume of oil or water. It'll screw up the barometer probably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm more curious on how the nice I2c timing diagrams are generated. It doesn't look like the result from wavedrom[1] so I'm wondering if there are more tools like this out there.

Incidentally, I tried doing searches to see if those images are just copied from somewhere else, and ended up on what looks like a news site with what looks like content of the article after multiple passes through google translate [2]. Anyone has an idea why would something like this exist? Somebody playing with AI/ML perhaps?

[1] [https://wavedrom.com/](https://wavedrom.com/)

[2] [https://newshimalaya.com/2020/06/15/earn-your-self-a- weather...](https://newshimalaya.com/2020/06/15/earn-your-self-a-weather-save- of-dwelling/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Is there a network of people installing such weather stations and sharing their info? I thought a crowd-source weather information like that could be very useful.

<comment><USER27> Weather Underground is one: [https://www.wunderground.com/pws/overview](https://www.wunderground.com/pws/overview)

<comment><USER28> Weatherunderground hater here. There are a large number of stations (Ambient Weather is a big seller in the US) that hook up neatly and conveniently to _only_ supply data to wunderground.

But then you are 100% reliant upon them for their graphs and app displays, which are slow and often broken, and give you little choice in formatting. For example, the app doesn't display a wind history at all, but the web does. But it won't display on a variety of mobile devices very well.

I know they're free (at the advertising level anyway) but I would love to see some competition with better display options and broader browser / device support.

I currently "tee" my transmissions through another server, but only because I have a model of station (no longer made) that made this trivial. Now you have to intercept the RF which is much more of a pain.

<comment><USER29> Agreed - WU has really gone downhill. I pulled my station (KORTALEN1) off WU and moved it to PWS- pwsweather.com

<comment><USER28> Hey, looks pretty good - the hourly wind graphs are a primary chart for our local neighborhood here.

I'll have to see if the newer-model Ambient here can be pointed to PWS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Kudos for using MQTT <3

When I come home, my phone connnect to the router and opens the gate and my rpi zero tells me, "Welcome home." It's been working for a year now every day :D is a simple python script with openwrt script on router.

I wrote it on my blog [http://sebastian.korotkiewicz.eu/techlog/homeautomation- dete...](http://sebastian.korotkiewicz.eu/techlog/homeautomation-detect- presence-of-wifi-devices/)

it very simple to do!

<comment><USER31> Nice but that link appears to be broken: [https://gitlab.itunix.eu/skorotkiewicz/owrtwifi2mqtt/blob/ma...](https://gitlab.itunix.eu/skorotkiewicz/owrtwifi2mqtt/blob/master/presence_report) ... But yes the script can also be found at the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love this! Am super interested in building something like this.

IMO there is even more value if this is built with a central server in mind for each weather station constructed. A network of stations working together can begin to create their own hyperlocal weather network and could even be useful in small-scale, short-term predictions.

There are some startups that do a bigger version of this and for a long time I've been wanting to build a physical weather station network.

Super cool work.

<comment><USER33> This sounds pretty neat. How many stations/ how big of area would be needed to make some predictions?

<comment><USER32> Well, I think the most important metric you can measure on the surface is atmospheric pressure. Simple temperature and humidity is generally insufficient to make good predictions - but pressure at the surface, measured across a geography, can tell you about conditions in the upper atmosphere.

I use barometers in phones for this kind of purpose. I think that a minimum of 1 quality reading per 4 sq km would represent sufficiently dense coverage to create an improvement in forecasts. But more is better, since quality can be iffy.

Some papers published by Cliff Mass et al from UW might have more info on density work. I'll try to find a link. [1] [2]

The work I do is presently just in the US on Android: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.allclearwe...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.allclearweather.android) with future expansion planned to allow better data acquisition. Open source code I wrote for Android for this purpose (periodically measuring pressure) [https://github.com/JacobSheehy/AllClearSensorLibrary](https://github.com/JacobSheehy/AllClearSensorLibrary)

[1] [https://journals.ametsoc.org/waf/article/33/5/1375/40806/Imp...](https://journals.ametsoc.org/waf/article/33/5/1375/40806/Impacts- of-Assimilating-Smartphone-Pressure)

[2] [https://journals.ametsoc.org/jtech/article/35/3/523/107377/S...](https://journals.ametsoc.org/jtech/article/35/3/523/107377/Smartphone- Pressure-Collection-and-Bias-Correction)

<comment><USER34> Howdy, seen you posting before. I would be warey of any crowd sourced data. So now we have average american Joe running a weather station that feeds directly into our state of the art GFS model? What if joe forgets to maintain his station? How do you assert quality control?

I just am skeptical about this all. cant trust users phones to provide input for mission critical weather forecast models (GFS). Peoples lives depend on this information!

<comment><USER32> > So now we have average american Joe running a weather station that feeds > directly into our state of the art GFS model?

No way. The data is quality-controlled and bias-corrected before assimilation. Any bad data is thrown out. The papers I linked above do a good job describing how this is done.

> What if joe forgets to maintain his station?

No maintenance required. Individual data points are irrelevant, this idea only works if you can throw out bad data without caring. So throw out any suspicious data.

> How do you assert quality control?

Sorry to keep directing you to the papers above, but a team of really smart people spent years on this topic and they do a better job of describing it than I could. Cliff Mass et al.

> I just am skeptical about this all.

AFAIK the Weather Channel has been providing your forecasts for some years now in Apple and Google products with all of this barometer data from phones and weather stations in backyards. If you didn't notice a strong quality decline since some years ago, then I would say it's fine. You've probably noticed a forecast quality increase during this time I'd guess.

> cant trust users phones to provide input for mission critical weather > forecast models (GFS).

Why not though? What is wrong with any of this method? It is all scientifically tested, researched, peer-reviewed, published, analyzed, post- event-analysis, the whole deal.

> Peoples lives depend on this information!

Well yeah, that's why we need more data! We have so little data now that people are dying from preventable cases like a lack of storm warning or good communication about incoming weather events.

This all matters so much. Ignoring billions of deployed, internet-connected barometers is costing lives that could be saved if we used all the data available to us to make accurate weather predictions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> There's some good projects out there for the ESP family that come with drivers for the most common sensors and interfaces to communicate with the most common IOT protocols, and all you have to do is "wire them up" via a web GUI, for example: [https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/index.php/ESPEasy](https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/index.php/ESPEasy)

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm a big fan of Openhab along with the Homie 3 mqtt convention. There is nice homie library for the esp8266/32 that makes it very simple to create custom sensors/actuators, that support things like simple wifi based config and OTA firmware updates: [https://github.com/homieiot/homie- esp8266](https://github.com/homieiot/homie-esp8266)

</comment><comment><USER37> Does anyone know of any projects that allow you to do weather forecasting yourself at home? Of course it's going to be limited without a network of stations, but with measuring atmospheric pressure (and delta) should give you a pretty good indication of the local weather for the next few hours. Maybe you could tie into a receiver for satelite images.

<comment><USER32> This probably isn't quite what you mean, but WRF (Weather Research and Forecast) model is an open source and actively developed weather forecast model you can run at home or on the cloud: [https://www.mmm.ucar.edu/weather- research-and-forecasting-mo...](https://www.mmm.ucar.edu/weather-research-and- forecasting-model)

If you collect your own weather data at scale, you can write assimilation routines to get WRF to incorporate your data into the model runs along with NOAA/MADIS/etc-provided data.

I know that's more complicated than you are suggesting but it's worth mentioning.

There are a lot of simple ways to do home weather forecasting. You can write your own Dark Sky clone by downloading/scraping/APIing your local radar station and then write your own wind predictor a few hours into the future based on rain movement or simple statistics from recent local wind data.

<comment><USER34> good advice. Although running WRF locally, what are you a madman?

I would suggest looking into simple predictions. One of the first ones you learn in school is just basically just repeat what happened today. So if today was sunny, tomorrow sunny. Stupid, simple but decently effective. Except during transition periods between air-masses (when weather is changing).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> A bit unrelated to this.

For showing the weather forecast I have this by my door. [https://fluffyelephant.com/2015/12/reuse-my-ebook- reader/](https://fluffyelephant.com/2015/12/reuse-my-ebook-reader/)

A quick glance in the morning and I know if I should bring an umbrella or not.

</comment><comment><USER39> [https://github.com/jp112sdl/HB-UNI-Sen- WEA/wiki](https://github.com/jp112sdl/HB-UNI-Sen-WEA/wiki)

Fully OSS, nicely integrated into Homematic (home-automation system, mostly used in Germany/Europe tho)...

</comment><comment><USER40> This is a really cool project that I would perhaps like to try myself one day! A home weather station has been on my list for several years.

Now I will say something negative. It's a nit, but I think it needs to be said.

I've seen a lot of these "In which I write a (perhaps series of) essays on building X using all kinds of cool tech you'd probably like to play with when you could get the same result with less than ten bucks, maybe an hour or two, and just a handful of code, if any"

I'm okay with and completely love "Let's do something cool and learn!" I'm not okay with "I have this problem, so let me by implication teach you how you should architect problems when you run across them" We need to clearly differentiate. You should not, and you should never, start with an important project and begin speculating on what cool tech you could play with.

Playing and learning are great. Yay! Adding structure and complexity where none is needed is an antipattern if you're doing anything of value for yourself or somebody else. This stack might end up being necessary. Absolutely. Make the problem "prove" that it's necessary. You should have a clear and unambiguous process for choosing a stack; do it by necessity. Never even accidentally teach that you do it by "hey, that's cool!" People end up doing that, and somebody ends up having to clean it up.

tl;dr Love fun projects like this. Keep 'em coming. Just please be sure you're clear to the reader that they're learning/fun projects.

* Perfectly fine to add a tech or two to a new project in order to learn-as-you-work, it should just be done with the upmost care and a close eye to how much team bandwidth it's using versus the value being provided and how you'd back it out if you had to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Daniel. Thanks a lot for the comment. This makes sense. We all should choose right tools for the right job and architect our solutions according to the requirements and restrictions we have.

One of my original goals was to make the financial entry-barrier as low as possible. Another — to provide educational context for covering a full-stack IoT development from firmware to backend to frontend. This means using cheap hardware and open-source software. In fact, I spent around 9$ on everything that was needed for this project.

I wouldn't say that this project is over-engineered with cool tech. I tried to keep the setup as minimal as possible, sticking to industry-standard data exchange protocols and frameworks.

Of course, all of the software part could be written using ANSI C or C++, but from my point of view, it wouldn't make the project simpler, because there are more specialized tools that are better suited for the particular task, be it backend, frontend or firmware (Rust, HTML5+JS and C in case of this project). I have outlined rationalization behind this particular technology stack under the "Choosing the technology stack" heading.

You are right that in a commercial setting, there might be myriad more inputs that constrain the technology choice like team experience, your company's recommended technology stack and etc. Of course, we can't take into consideration all these hypothetical requirements, as they depend on the environment you are working in and the commercial goals of the project.

To make your comment complete, could you share your ideas on how to architect this alternatively to get the same result with less than ten bucks, maybe an hour or two, and just a handful of code, if any? If it is a viable alternative I'll consider adding it into the post as an alternative tech stack, so people reading it will see more alternative options on how to build this project.

<comment><USER40> Thank you for taking my comment in the spirit it was intended. I'm happy to oblige you.

If your goal is to play and learn about stuff, whatever you're doing is fine.

If your goal is to get basic weather information, buy a used weather station with usb access, plug it up to whatever hobby computer you already have (I have a pi, so I'd use that). Then write a cron to read from the station and write it out to some publicly-available spreadsheet or database. There are a bunch: Google, Airtable, and so on. Most all of these can be written by one POST.

Then you can figure out how you'd like to see the data. Add in a station ID for more fun and a distributed system. I'm seeing Ebay new weather stations as low as 24 bucks or so. That'd be the only cost I know of, and I think with some searching for used gear you could get it under $10.

There's a _huge_ difference between focusing on the problem and focusing on the tech. If you're preparing yourself for a world of corporate coding? Please keep learning about message queues and so forth! You'll need those skills. If, however, you just want to know the weather in various places with your own setup? Do that. Just don't do one of those things while pretending you're doing both. Each project has vastly-different parameters.

To drive this home, if I've decided I want a coder to come to my office and make a cool little way of telling the weather outside? I want the project that just does that. Code for an hour or two, then leave. If you come and start deploying a kubernetes cloud-based auto-scaling megasytem, you're coding for yourself instead of my problem. My only point was that since there is such a huge gap, when you teach people you should be clear about the hidden lessons of what you're teaching.

* Now traditionally programmers throw out a lot of "what if"s here. What if we needed split-second reports? What if we're dealing with an offline situation or a saturated net? All of those are great considerations. Also, all of those were not included in the spec I read back to you. Don't go inventing what-ifs where none existed. It's a good way to build unmaintable monsters. Hopefully you got the point. It was a minor point and not directed at you, just a comment on cool-tech articles in general. (Also, I'd love to demo actually building it, but it would probably be quite less dramatic and interesting than your version, for the reasons I explain above)

Keep up the good writing! Looking forward to reading you again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> If you have a Davis VP2 Weather station, I wrote a blog post a while back reverse-engineering the protocol, and showed how to sniff its wireless transmissions and receive it on something like an IM-ME Pretty Pink Pager. The Davis Outdoor stuff is very good quality for the price and has given me good service for many years.

[http://madscientistlabs.blogspot.com/2012/03/first-you- get-s...](http://madscientistlabs.blogspot.com/2012/03/first-you-get- sugar.html)

<comment><USER42> The video doesn't work.

<comment><USER41> It was a video clip from a Simpson's episode and not core to the technology or process discussed in the post ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> HN ML practitioners would probably find the Climacell method of weather forecasting to be relevant.

[https://www.climacell.co/](https://www.climacell.co/)

<comment><USER34> Why is it relevant? Do you know what they use for forecasts? I work in industry and have built weather applications for 5+ years now. Let me tell you, everyone uses the same source data. Machine learning is not going to help predict weather. If it was that simple, someone would have machine learned the weather already and they would be making zillions of dollars with their accurate AI weather predictions. Do you post climacell just because they say AI and weather?

OP i hate to break it to you. but a weather station wont tell you the right clothes to wear for the day. IT will tell you if it's raining outside currently. Consider this, station says it's raining and cold. You wear lots of clothes, umbrella etc. The rain storm is out of area by 9am and rest of day is hot and sunny.

<comment><USER43> So are you saying that they are only good at sales? Out of curiosity where do you normally obtain the raw sensor data?

<comment><USER34> Hi. first i'm asking you a question about why you posted climacell, not sure you answered it? Feel free to answer it or not.

To answer your question, if you want to obtain raw sensor data our government (and some volunteers) maintains a network of thousands of weather stations. Many are automated, many are people doing manual obs. If you know how to write code you can programmatically obtain these data.

However you might be confused... climacell does forecasts and you asked about finding station data? They are completely different things. I have no insight into what climacell does but i am a knowledge person in industry. I can tell you that nobody has some groudnbreaking 'AI' machine learning algorithm that is amazingly great at forecasting weather. If such a thing did exist, that person would have zillions of dollars because they can accurately predict weather better then anyone else.

<comment><USER43> I thought when they said they use existing wireless communication technology, they meant something like Microsoft's distributed signal processing arrays:

[https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/meeting...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/meeting-transcriptions-using-virtual-microphone- arrays/)

Perhaps using 4G and GSM signal quality as an ad-hoc doppler or metric for precipitation. Is their landing page inaccurate? Are they no different from other companies (besides the good at sales and marketing bit)? They seem to have a lot of big names on their customer list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I also made my own weather display. This one just runs on a RaspberryPi. It can be extended to collect info from other sources (I eventually plan to build some sensors for outside my home), but for now it gets indoor information from my Ecobee, and local weather and forecast from OpenWeatherMaps.

[https://github.com/Mrjohns42/WeatherDash/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/Mrjohns42/WeatherDash/blob/master/README.md)

</comment><comment><USER45> Shameless plug, here's my project:

[https://github.com/FlorinAndrei/WeatherStation](https://github.com/FlorinAndrei/WeatherStation)

The Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense has all the sensors I need. A bit of Python on a Pi Zero performs data collection and a bit of pre-processing.

</comment><comment><USER46> It would be great to have an open weather station platform where you can just plug in new modules to measure new things in an easy straightforward way... An Arduino + modules for the weather world.

I've been wanting to build a fully autonomous (solar panel + cellular network) for a long time...

</comment><comment><USER47> I've started using [https://smartcitizen.me/](https://smartcitizen.me/) for some of my own use. It uses MQTT internally so could probably easily flash it with your own server address to redirect it whenever you wanted.

</comment><comment><USER48> Very neat -- but I would love to see one of these that doesn't rely on WiFi or Bluetooth, using instead something like a Baofeng UV-5R and sending weather info updates by APRS (amateur radio license required), allowing for really remote observation stations.

<comment><USER49> or LoRa? It wouldn't require a license

<comment><USER48> The advantage of APRS is that there is a HUGE network of digital repeaters (digipeaters) across the US (and probably world-wide though the US is my main interest). APRS also has several internet cross-over listening points so you could hook into a service like [https://aprs.fi](https://aprs.fi) to listen for updates hitting the network from your weather stations.

The licensing requirement isn't steep in the US; if memory serves its 35 questions, all multiple choice, and the question pool is published. Readers of Hacker News should be able to pass the technician exam with about a week of light study and that gives you full privileges from 30 MHz and up (APRS runs between 144 and 146 MHz depending on which country you're in).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Built one a couple of month ago with bbc bit ... you have to dig around and I find it most challenging is to understand what those parameters meant. Still have to fix the rain. I thought wind is hard but programming there is no need to do much.

Moving to SQLite to ease analyse.

</comment><comment><USER51> I like that Kirill Dubovikov built a weather station and showed others how. The more people who do this, the better, not just for education and skills, but in terms of gathering weather information that can help forecasters. He wrote, "the Weather app on my iPhone is not very good at making accurate forecasts," and I thought, "he must have been using the wrong app." I hope in addition to building weather stations and inspiring others to do so, he'll also give the AccuWeather app a try. [I work at AccuWeather; I admire the work my colleagues do to make and deliver accurate forecasts.] Even if Kirill prefers his weather station, I hope he'll use good apps to cross-check his station. Kirill can help in other ways. I speak Russian, so I volunteered to help beta-test the upcoming new app in Russian. My whole iPhone is in Russian at the moment. But Kirill is a native speaker.

<comment><USER52> I had been very disappointed with the local weather forecast last summer, and then there was an interview with one of the meteorologists involved and they said they were quite proud of how accurate their predictions had been so far. I was taken aback, as in my mind their "success rate" had been well below 50%.

Then I got my answer: they focused on the temperature forecast, while since I bike to work what I was interested in was "is it gonna rain today?"

I get that it's difficult to predict when and where rain might occur, but I'd much prefer a rough probability scale to nothing. On the bright side, they have a real-time, radar-based 90 minute rain forecast now, so at least if I check it in the afternoon I can jump on my bike and get home before I get wet.

<comment><USER51> From talking with meteorologists, it seems forecasting actual rain is not very hard if you have enough current data on the state of the atmosphere. What can be difficult is mistiness that is just on the borderline between falling droplets and moisture just hanging in the air. Differences can be extremely local in nature. [I'm not a meteorologist, I program computers, but I'm a pilot so I have a pilot's appreciation of and contact with weather.]

<comment><USER34> Hi geoff - seems like you are pretty knowledgeable here. I have to disagree with "seems forecasting actual rain is not very hard if you have enough current data on the state of the atmosphere" ... Who told you that? accuweather meteologists?

Rain is not easy predict, especially long in advance. Just taking things with a grain of salt here. If you truly believe that forecasting actual rain is not very hard, please start a new weather forecasting company and give it all you got! However i'll tell you, it's not that easy. Just because a computer model 'runs' does not mean it correctly modeled the atmosphere. All models are imperfect bud and those imperfections get amplified by 10x when trying to simulate earth+atmosphere systems

<comment><USER51> No, I'm not especially knowledgeable, not more than others here. As a pilot, I have 42 years of experience flying through weather and helping get the word out w/r/t hurricanes, e.g., relaying info via ham radio in the West Indies from relays in Florida before getting hit by the storms, back in the 1970s when that was the way, so I have long interest in and appreciation of weather. But I do also have appreciation for my colleagues and their meteorological expertise. They have something called MinuteCast which in my experience has been very accurate in telling me when precipitation will begin or end (except when it is misty). Regarding my "forecasting actual rain is not very hard" remark, you are right that a "long in advance" forecast is hard, but I was talking about the short term. Specifically, a commenter had wanted to know if it was going to rain before going out to exercise, and for that example, I meant a forecast of precipitation was easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I built something similar based on node, chartjs, mqtt and dynatable: [https://github.com/sinnfeinn/featherweatherstation](https://github.com/sinnfeinn/featherweatherstation)

</comment><comment><USER54> I have also suggested that our ability to predict the weather at such scale and with such accuracy is one of the coolest inventions in recent history. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER55> I already have a setup with a Raspberry PI so I'm only looking for a temperature sensor that: \- Is rain proof \- Transmits over BLE or WiFi \- Can be battery powered

<comment><USER56> The way I solved this was by buying cheap weather stations from AliExpress. Many of them come with multiple temperature/humidity sensors powered by batteries - for as low as 70$ for a station with 4 sensors. Those sensors transmit on 433 MH or 838MHz radio which has excellent range (20m+ through walls) and long (months+) battery life.

On RPi side I only had to get an RTL-SDR receiver and run [https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433](https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433) on the RPi itself to decode the data.

It was significantly cheaper than going with BLE or WiFi sensors.

<comment><USER57> Just saw some of the references to RTL-SDR in the thread comments and started down the rabbit hole, and it looks like a fascinating area for hobbyists.

Can you provide some links to temperature sensors you've tried that work well with an RTL-SDR receiver? I'm also interested in setting something up with a Raspberry Pi.

<comment><USER56> The link to my original station which I used with SDR is sadly dead now, but I got one of these for 70$ now:

[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32810015137.html](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32810015137.html)

(Hopefully the link still works.)

The sensors are kinda bulky, but still more reliable than anything I managed to build by myself :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This doesn't actually _predict_ weather, though, correct? It just sits on your roof and tells you whether it's raining? So... the same could be achieved by sticking your hand out of the window?

<comment><USER59> This is for data collection. Your hand wouldn't be very good for telling you how many centimeters of rain fell.

<comment><USER58> I like data collection too, I guess I was just confused by the first part that was the author talking about their commute and how they would forget an umbrella.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Shame there is no github repo...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi. This will be a series of 4 posts, the next three will have a link to the GitHub repo</comment></comment>


Infringement Damages Increased After CEO Complains About Patent System - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111005/11133116225/judge-makes-company-pay-more-infringement-because-ceo-complained-publicly-about-patent-system.shtml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

<comment><USER2> Techdirt's near perfect record of misreporting on legal issues remains unblemished by this article.

The article makes it sound like the court decided damages should be 0.75%, then found out about the CEO's statements, and doubled the damages to 1.5%. That is not so.

What they overlook is that there are TWO damage awards--one for the infringement before the verdict, and one for future infringement.

The jury found that the infringement was willful, which allows the judge to enhance the damages. However, the judge ruled that there was not enough evidence to support a finding of willfulness and so overturned that part of the jury verdict. The damages for past infringement were then set based on non-willful infringement. That is the 0.75%.

InnoLux can stop infringing, and then all they owe will be that 0.75% royalty on their past sales.

The second damage award is for future infringement if InnoLux does not cease infringing. The court has decided that this infringement is likely to be willful, partly based on the company's attitude as evidenced partly by the CEO's statements. Hence, enhanced damages are appropriate, and the court doubled the rate to 1.5% (I believe the law authorizes up to triple damages for willful infringement).

So overall the judge has been quite fair to InnoLux. The jury said the past infringement was willful. The company's attitude, as evidenced by the CEO's statements, indicates that the jury was likely right about that. Nevertheless, the judge tossed out the finding of willfulness because the jury didn't have the information on the company's attitude, and so gave InnoLux the lower rate for past infringement.

The court DOES have the information that the jury did not, so is not giving them a break on continuing infringement.

<comment><USER3> So basically you just described a convoluted legal black box that works like this:

CEO statement -> Black box -> bigger damage award

Finally, Techdirt got the gist of it.

<comment><USER4> If that's all you got out of it, I suggest you reread. The CEO provided new evidence, which is indeed a valid input, that showed that future infringement would be willful. This is simple reasoning.

<comment><USER5>
      > The CEO provided new evidence, ...

Okay ... but part of what isn't clear is whether the "new evidence" was presented in court by counsel or found and entered by the judge.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it would be good to have clarity on that. Though I remember reading in a different article that it was possible for a judge to call their own witness so perhaps the rules aren't the same as what courtroom drama shows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note that this happened in the Eastern District of Texas, which should come as no surprise to those following the activities of certain NPEs (AKA "patent trolls"). From the article's conclusion:

"Judge Ward, of course, is the judge who put Eastern Texas on the map as the place to go for patent lawsuits, so it's no surprise that he seems to think saying something bad about the US patent system opens you up to greater damages. But it seems like a pretty serious First Amendment issue when the judge is, quite clearly, punishing someone for their speech."

<comment><USER7> What is the point of this comment just duplicating information in the article?

<comment><USER6> I think it's telling.

Often, people excuse the EDT saying that it's merely one of a few "rocket dockets" where cases speed through the system. Yes, it is also that, but there's a reason why so many lawyers have set up shop there and I think this story illustrates that nicely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would this provide reason to appeal and potentially have the ruling thrown out? I have no idea what the legalities behind something like this are, but it seems like a pretty clear attempt to quash first amendment rights.

<comment><USER6> Be that as it may, appeals are quite expensive and I suspect that whatever decision they'll make on that will have more to do with finances than free speech.

That said, in an appeal, you generally list any and every complaint about the lower court's errors that has any chance of success. I don't know enough about the relevant laws to say whether or not this was an abuse of the court's discretion (even though I _feel_ that it was an abuse), though.

As an aside, I really wonder how he happened to find out about a comment in a Chinese newspaper, which would presumably be in Chinese? I have to assume that the plaintiff dug that up, because learning enough hanzi to read one is pretty difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As I read it, the judge found the defendant's remark to be a sign of wilfulness and systematic disregard for patent rules. The article suggests that the judge isn't authorized to tack on damages for this, but I question whether this is entirely correct. Kind of like flipping off the judge at sentencing is a good way to test the limits of judicial discretion.

<comment><USER9> Also, I am baffled by the strong anti-patent bias in the comments--as if folks assume every suit is a troll at work.

<comment><USER10> Every suit filed by companies from outside Eastern Texas in that court (or by companies who set up shop there for the sole purpose of being in that district) is definitely a troll at work.

<comment><USER2> That's massively wrong. Did you do _any_ research at all before making that claim?

edit: could the down voters explain why, please? All you have to do is look at a list of cases from EDT to see that ak217's claim that there is no non-troll patent suits filed by companies outside the district is idiotic.

<comment><USER6> You're right. There are plenty who aren't NPEs who are just forum shopping.

It will be interesting to see how the AIA changes things, given that you won't just be able to sue dozens of people for infringing the same patent and consolidate the cases. But they probably still will be able to set up shop in Marshall, TX.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


iTunes Store temporarily inaccessible for older iTunes versions, seemingly fixed - <AUTHOR> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8406670 <comment><USER2> This is almost certainly due to the SHA-1 certificate used by iTunes Store expiring. It is most likely that iTunes and macOS either pinned the old SHA-1 issuing CA and/or simply don't support SHA-2 at all in this context. (No new SHA-1 certificates may be issued for any reason.)

Apple offers free software updates to newer versions of both macOS and iTunes, and has indicated that applying those updates will be necessary to continue accessing iTunes Store.

See also, for example, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16467490](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16467490) or [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208104](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208104)

<comment><USER3> The comments in the linked thread hint at the issue being related to TLS1.0 vs TLS1.2, which seems to align with some new upcoming PCI requirements for next month that will ban TLS1.0 for servers?

<comment><USER4> Ye I initially thought that but Vista supports TLS1.1 and 1.2.

src: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/kaushal/2011/10/02/support-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/kaushal/2011/10/02/support- for-ssltls-protocols-on-windows/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some of the latest comments say it is working again for them? So I don't know that the conclusion reached in the HN headline is accurate (yet)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Confirmed, it is working again as of a few minutes ago. Interesting timing, I will update the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been holding tightly onto version 12.4 because I really dislike the modifications, and increasingly bloated size of newer versions. I suspect I am in the minority as I never guy music from iTunes, and all of my app purchases are through the phone.

<comment><USER7> With the rise of streaming services like Spotify, GPM, and so on and the removal of App store purchases/iOS app management from iTunes in recent versions, you're probably in the majority.</comment></comment>


Eastern Europeans Tire of Being Sold Inferior Products - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/eastern-europeans-tired-of-inferior-products-a-1182949.html <comment><USER2> It's not just groceries. All big multinationals do the same. Electronics and appliance makers typically only sell mid- to low-end devices, and the low end is lower than what you find elsewhere. Samsung is particularly egregious, shipping some of their lowest-spec phones, mediocre washers and dryers, etc.

Cars are almost a world of their own. Already, (even Western-)European models of mass-market cars come with smaller engines and smaller frames compared to US and Gulf Coast models, but in the East they also come with lesser interiors, uncomfortable seats, and fewer features standard.

Even the weirdest products can be surprisingly inferior: food cling wrap, resealable plastic pouches, cotton-tipped sticks. It's frustrating and pervasive.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few years ago I wondered whether this happens in the Americas too. I live in the US and have eaten Oreo cookies throughout my life. One time I was in Canada and bought some Oreos there, and to my surprise the flavor was quite different. It was a markedly different recipe and I wondered why.</comment>


The HP/Hurd Accusations: Now With More WTF - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/08/the-hphurd-accusations-now-with-more-wtf/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> Hm, and I here I was thinking the either HP is illegally using some GNU Hurd code or vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER3> You spilled some TechCrunch on my HN.</comment>


How I made $500/month from blog micro-transactions - <AUTHOR> http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2012/01/19/blog-micro-transactions-a-follow-up/

<comment><USER2> I really enjoy your blog, in particular the posts on collision detection and physics engines. In fact looking for collision detection tips was what brought me to your site in the first place.

Personally, I would like to see posts on things that you need in non-trivial games such as scene-graphs, path finding or R-trees.

I may not be the audience you are aiming for, but I find you can explain things quite well, and when people are looking for ways to implement these things, they may be willing to pay for working code that's thoroughly explained.

</comment><comment><USER3> In regards to the Google keyword search when I do an "Exact Match" I see 2,900 monthly global searches for "how to make games". You may not be ranking as highly for the more broad matches. Could this explain it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It could do - I was never clear on what exactly the right option was to use in that tool in order to gauge good keywords... whether it was broad, phrase, or exact.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to hear what HN thinks I can do to become more profitable! :)</comment>


I'm being threatened by Magic Leap's lawyer. How should I handle this? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/magicleap/comments/8u3mlj/magic_leap_is_threatening_me_with_a_lawyer/ <comment><USER2> They're telling you to take down their IP. Do it. And refrain from being cute about it.

Ignore the tone of the request, that's how lawyers speak to ensure there is no wiggle room for interpretation.

If you're upset that you're being bullied, know that it probably wasn't a decision made by anyone in Engineering. Just businesses being businesses.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's unclear about this? You are publicly distributing intellectual property you have no rights over, and the owner is asking you to cease and desist. It doesn't matter how many people actually access it, that's not a valid defense.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. But are they really going to drag me into court?

I'm not trying to defend myself, or say that I wasn't doing that. But I was hoping to know whether it would be helpful to sacrifice myself for the greater good here.

If this is a situation where it merits taking a stand, I'm willing to do so. But if everyone agrees it's ok for magic leap to assert that those who are making them money need to toe the line and obey, then I guess I should back down.

Mainly I was hoping to judge community sentiment.

<comment><USER4> Throwing yourself under this legal bus isn't going to benefit you or anybody else. I mean you can poke them as much as you want, but is this the hill you want to die on?

<comment><AUTHOR> If it benefits others. That's all I care about.

It seems like tolerating this may not be in the best interest of the community going forward. And I would find it interesting to be able to claim that magic leap has sued me for distributing 3 month old api docs to myself.

<comment><USER5> > If it benefits others. That's all I care about.

I don't see this benefiting anyone at all, so please put aside talking about this like a martyr.

You took someone else's property and publicly hosted it. Dropbox or gdrive or sticking it on a private ftp or emailing it to yourself all would have done the job just fine - but you chose to do it publicly. It's not 1985; you have plenty of resources for making files conveniently accessible without violating folks' IP rights.

And then you got told to Stop It. You didn't get sued, though you could have. You didn't get DMCA'd, though you could have. You got the legalese version of "cut the shit".

So, what principle are you standing up for? Your right to appropriate other folks' property against their wishes? To distribute it against their wishes? To then make sure they ask you pretty please to stop?q

You're not protecting the community. This isn't a principle that people who make IP for a living are going to especially rally around.

Frankly, I think the answers here have been exceedingly courteous - beyond the point of reason. It's like Pirate Bay crying foul about being "bullied" by the companies whose property they're stealing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Drop the content, comply with any take downs and put less energy and enthusiasm into helping commercial APIs succeed in the future.

If you could have gotten a copyleft solution closer to competing it would have been a better use of your time than working for free on someone else's plan to make money.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get you. You ask 'How should I handle this?' and then you proceed to argue with everybody who tells you _exactly_ how to handle this.

You're violating copyright and the counterparty has indicated they mean business. If you stick to this then you will lose a lot of money and in the end it will still be removed. So there is no upside but a huge downside.

Pick your battles. This is not a smart battle even if you _feel_ that you are in the right (you're not).

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't mean to argue. Thank you for taking the time to explain that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a perfectly reasonable request by ML.

Also, their terms of service document [1] states very clearly that:

"You are not allowed to (directly or indirectly): ... (c) copy, imitate, distribute, publicly perform, or publicly display any Site Materials"

[1] [https://www.magicleap.com/terms](https://www.magicleap.com/terms)

</comment><comment><USER9> IANAL. Not legal advice, just bad opinion:

Seems banal and best to just politely take it down if no one is actually viewing your copy.

In no way is this a heroic hill to die on; you've just posted someone else's content accidentally and they are politely but firmly asking you to remove it. It's not "harassment" in the slightest.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Howdy,

I'm not sure if this is an appropriate venue, but I wanted to ask the community what to do. The details can be found in that reddit post.

In summary, a trademark lawyer is sending me threatening emails for uploading Magic Leap's API documentation to github. No one viewed these except me. Github's traffic stats show 2 viewers total.

Should I just take down the docs and forget about this? It feels wrong that a billion-dollar startup is threatening the very developers they're counting on to make them money, so I didn't necessarily want to encourage this behavior.

Ultimately, I think I'm willing to make a stand over this, but ideally I'd like to not be dragged into court over some 3 month old API docs. What are my options?

The ideal outcome would be that Magic Leap changes its behavior before it becomes the norm. It seems like if we tolerate this now, it's going to get worse later.

<comment><USER10> _Should I just take down the docs and forget about this?_

Why wouldn't you do just that? It's their IP, and they asked politely (as politely as you're going to get out of a lawyer).

 _It feels wrong that a billion-dollar startup is threatening_

What threat? The strongest word in there is "demand", and (IANAL) I believe that to be standard legalese for "could you not do that?" The implication, of course, is if you don't quit doing that, they'll sue.

 _so I didn 't necessarily want to encourage this behavior._

What behavior is that? "Could you not distribute our IP/documents w/o our permission? 'k, thx." Because that's what Google's Legalese->English translator gives me.

I mean, if you think you have a legal leg to stand on, knock yourself out. But from where I stand (and keeping in mind that IANAL), it looks like you took their IP, passed it around, and now wonder why they're being mean. Perhaps try putting yourself in their place for a few moments?

<comment><USER11> > What threat?

> if you don't quit doing that, they'll sue.

I think you answered your own question.

But there's nothing inherently wrong about a lawyer protecting his client / employer's IP. Sometimes lawyers have to make threats to do that. It's within their rights to threaten (make demands). If they don't enforce their trademarks they can even lose them.

You don't have to adhere to their demands, and if you think you're in the right and have the financial resources you should probably lawyer up and stand your ground and see what the court ruling says.

But from what I've seen Magic Leap is a very secretive company. Secretive organizations will want control of the distribution of information. It's just how they operate. Apple will fire their best engineers with a single leak. IANAL but if being in control of every inconsequential piece of information is that important to them (even if it's an API documentation that is distributed to developers), they're not letting off on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I understand properly, you're violating an NDA, or an alternative agreement to not copy and publish their docs.

This is the legal enforcement of same. You can, f'instance, not do it. Now that you've made frontpage on a major SV watering hole, you've put things in a bind, where their response to you will now be taken as their general presumed policy.

Unless I'm badly mistaken (IANAL), you're risking being sued in court for this, with varied and sundry penalties. And you're _not even being paid_ by Magic Leap.

Frankly, I suggest shutting down your magic leap work and contributing to an AGPL project, where redistribution is licensed and appropriate.

<comment><USER13> This appears to simply be a copyright violation based on the demand letter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Magic Leap have asked you to take down their documentation. How should you handle this?

<b>Bring your legal questions to lawyers, not to random people on the Internet.</b>

</comment><comment><USER15> @shawn Did Magic Leap ever reach out to you and try asking nicely before, or was this the very first contact?

<comment><AUTHOR> Very first.

<comment><USER16> Firstly this is how lawyers communicate. grow up and suck it up.

Secondly you are making something available to others that should not be. you are in the wrong.

thirdly, if they do not actively work towards protecting their copyrights they will lose the right to copyright it. The Law makes them do this.

do as they say, you're the one in the wrong here.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is data simpler than syntax? - <AUTHOR> Hi, I recently watched this talk (https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy) by Rich Hickey and I think he makes a convincing case for differentiating easy and simple. One thing that I struggled with during the talk was with the lack of examples.<p>One in particular is data being simpler than syntax. Are there any resources online that explain this idea in more depth? <comment><USER2> To me it feels like apples to oranges comparison. I watched this talk on strangeloop a long time ago, and a version of this talk given on RailsConf recently (watched recently, not given).

Here's what I see on the page:

> Complex constructs: State, Object, Methods, Syntax, Inheritance, > Switch/matching, Vars, Imperative loops, Actors, ORM, Conditionals.

> Simple constructs: Values, Functions, Namespaces, Data, Polymorphism, > Managed refs, Set functions, Queues, Declarative data manipulation, Rules, > Consistency.

And to dig deeper, it makes sense to search for "why state is bad", "why inheritance is harmful", "avoid conditionals", etc., and read whatever you find interesting.

Go has particularly simple syntax. Here's a talk by Rob Pike about simplicity, syntax, and language feature you might find interesting [https://youtu.be/rFejpH_tAHM](https://youtu.be/rFejpH_tAHM)</comment>


A study on the willful regulation of autonomic function during cold exposure - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811918300673 <comment><USER2> I have tried the Wim Hof method a few times but I just can't get used to the cold showers. I can do it for a few days but instead of getting used to it I dread it more and more.

Has anybody else tried it and got used to the cold?

I should add that I always got easily cold and there is almost no temperature where I say that it's too hot.

<comment><USER3> > _there is almost no temperature where I say that it 's too hot_

Did you ever ask a doctor about this? Especially an endocrinologist. One example of many possibilities: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothyroidism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothyroidism)

As for cold showers, I dreaded them but at some point in my life I just relaxed. I would call it "acceptance", in general, life throws bad stuff your way and all you can do is "exist", i.e. nothing, really. So if I want to or have to have a cold shower (e.g. when hot water was out once) I just turn on the cold water and get in and accept that it's uncomfortable, especially at the very beginning. Nothing I can do about it - and, more importantly, since I know it's only uncomfortable but not threatening, nothing I _have to do_. All I have to do is stand there and do nothing and feel whatever there is to feel. At that point I'm just an observer of my own body, with no active role to play. The conscious part does nothing, the forces at play are all controlled by lower level brain functions.

<comment><USER2> I think I could do cold exposure if I was active. Maybe swimming in cold water. Or even sitting in a bathtub where I don't get hit by cold water drops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Absolutely fascinating.

I have been practicing cold immersion for several years as part of sauna hot/cold cycles since I first discovered experimentally that it measurably improved my symptoms of acute and complex PTSD. Extremely heartened to see some initial scientific results in line with my anecdata.

"Our results provide compelling evidence for the primacy of the brain (CNS) rather than the body (peripheral mechanisms) in mediating the Iceman's responses to cold exposure. They also suggest the compelling possibility that the WHM might allow practitioners to develop higher level of control over key components of the autonomous system, with implications for lifestyle interventions that might ameliorate multiple clinical syndromes."

<comment><USER5> Do you you have any thoughts or speculation on whether cold immersion might offer more potential to mitigate ptsd symptoms than various intensive meditation practices alone?

(for those that didn't get to the abstract it describes both being used together, as part of of a routine that seems to enable atypical nervous system control but I did not notice specific mention of ptsd)

<comment><USER4> In my experience, both cold immersion and meditation practices have helped. Cold immersion helps more quickly and viscerally. Short of paying someone to hold a loaded gun to my head or jumping in to an MMA cage match, the cold is by far the quickest and safest way I have found to trigger my lizard brain into panic mode. Going to that place and then training myself to breathe through it is my form of exposure therapy for PTSD.

Re meditation specifically, 1) breath awareness helps me with general relaxation + increased awareness of triggers, 2) metta meditation helps to shift towards compassionate mindset to self and others, and 3) advanced tibetan insight practices (emptiness of self) as taught by Dr. Daniel Brown of [https://pointingoutway.org/](https://pointingoutway.org/) helps me shift from my normal sense of ego-centric self to an outside Observer perspective, which is impervious to triggers. I cannot recommend Daniel Brown's programs enough for any serious student of meditation. I took a Level 1 retreat at Esalen about 10 years ago and it proved to me that meditation isn't totally BS.

My strong recommendation based on what I learned there is to not engage in any deep form of meditative practice without first strengthening the physical body. This is what yoga was designed to do originally, to prepare the body and mind so that you could go to advanced meditative states with a strong enough structure to handle whatever psychic energy was released.

<comment><USER6> Part of me always thinks it is odd that as someone who is prone to anxiety/stress my main coping mechanism is to put myself into potentially tricky situations in mountains where you would expect anyone sensible would be anxious and stressed but rather the trickier the situation (bad weather, navigation) the calmer I feel.

<comment><USER4> I have wondered the same thing about myself. I came to two realizations, the first is exactly what you say about gravitating towards flow-inducing states (chess, esp bullet chess, mountain biking, motorcycling, etc) as a coping mechanism/reset button for processing difficult emotions. This is a healthy way of dealing with trauma. The second is that in some more extreme cases of obviously-in-hindsight dangerous or self-harming behavior, I realized that I was doing these things "unconsciously" as a way of echoing my original trauma, ie my psyche was still not strong enough to directly confront or even become aware of the root injury, so in my infinite wisdom I acted out these behaviors which were so stupid in hindsight that I was forced to look deeper to understand what my self was trying to tell me about my self. After processing some really heavy shit, I feel like I can get my "fix" of flow in safe(r) ways consistently. "Accident-free for [6] months", as they say...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've only read a small amount about the Wim Hof Method, but from what I gathered he basically altered the Tibetan Tummo meditation practice. [1] That practice requires quite a lot of visualizations and an understanding of Tibetan Vajrayana cosmology. WHM, at the basic level I've read about, are the pranayama techniques divorced of those elements.

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

<comment><USER8> You can achieve "inner heat" by moderate cold exposure and totally relaxing by suppressing shivers and clenched muscles. You don't need a metaphysical framework to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> TLDR; Win Hoff Method (WHM) has been one of the most mysterious things that has allowed people to climb snowy mountains almost naked in middle of the winter. The core interesting aspect of it has been that it can be _learned_ (see, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaMjhwFE1Zw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaMjhwFE1Zw)) and therefore the assumption that this is because of some extreme genetics has been overruled. The current research paper has following findings:

1\. WHM allows to control pain center of brain at will shutting down the pain response.

2\. WHM increases response in brain areas that keep sustained focus in face of adverse conditions.

3\. WHM does not cause increased metabolism to keep body warm.

4\. The mechanism of keeping body warm seems to be forceful respiration that increases response of fight-or-flee autonomous nervous system increasing glucose consumption in muscles around the lungs.

<comment><USER10> I don't see how point 3&4 add up, is it increasing metabolism or not?

<comment><USER11> #3 more properly put is that the body wasn't metabolizing brown fat to keep the body warm. It was a hypothesized method of warmth.

Instead, the warmth seems to come from the intercostal muscles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 3 am and I've been forced into a kind WHM because of a bad fever/flu. I've have to strip naked, open my window, and turn off the heat to be able lie on my side without overheating.

At first I could not give up my shirt and blanket as it felt too cold. It's now even colder yet I feel warm laying here. Fever hasn't increased.

</comment><comment><USER13> I saw Wim Hof speak at a conference and did the short, group breathing exercise and was blown away by how great it made me feel. Even just the specific breathing followed by breath holding I could tell something was legitimately different/better about my physiology after. I never pursued practice of the "method" to even get to the cold exposure stuff, but maybe its time to try.

</comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps somewhat related anecdata: I have been successfully using autogenic training ( which basically is training of conscious moderation of the fight/flight autonomous response ) to soften symptoms of my anxiety disorder. So I can confirm that such a seemingly automatic bodily response can be 'overridden' with practice.

<comment><USER11> How does the training work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've not been able to find anything in the past; is anyone here aware of a comprehensive guide to the WHM? Does one exist in circulation? I know the guy hosts retreats, but from a handful of YouTube videos he seems to be interested in sharing this technique, so I imagine there's a reference somewhere...

<comment><USER16> If you check out his website [0] there's a good bit of information on there ... It doesn't seem as though he's interested in providing comprehensive insight "for free", although I understand from a friend of mine that's into it, it's largely a case of just doing it. Find ways to condition your body on a regular basis, and you'll just gradually figure it out. Cold showers, ice- baths etc.

[0] [https://www.wimhofmethod.com/](https://www.wimhofmethod.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I would like to know how much subcutanious fat he has

<comment><USER18> He looks pretty lean, there's clearly something else beside being well- insulated going on :)

Check out this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaMjhwFE1Zw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaMjhwFE1Zw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> for a gentler, less gung-ho method to achieve similar results that doesn't rely on hand wavy science (that takes as a unit if measure someone with an exceptional body to begin with!), try this YouTube channel: [https://www.youtube.com/user/ReWildUniversity](https://www.youtube.com/user/ReWildUniversity)

you'll have to dig between all the forest navigation videos which might be a plus for some</comment>


How did "Handbook for Mortals" get on the NYT bestseller list? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pajiba.com/book_reviews/did-this-book-buy-its-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list.php <comment><USER2> Because the NYT bestseller list is essentially not an accurate report, but "fake news." In 1983 William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, filed a lawsuit against the NYT for failing to include his book Legion on the list, despite provable sales. The Times won the lawsuit by claiming that their list does not in fact reflect bestsellers, but their own editorial opinion as to what constitutes a bestseller. In other words, they massage and ignore real data: [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwimqaHy9vHVAhVSZFAKHbvVABAQFghEMAk&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmoney.howstuffworks.com%2F10-trade- secrets3.htm&usg=AFQjCNEcRDkUWxJOM8YB0AvjbOJ9WRq1iw)

<comment><USER3> Please consider reading the article. It was placed on the list as a consequence of a scheme to manipulate the sales data—exactly opposite what you suggest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The NYT bestseller list has been a horrible indicator of what's selling for a while. You can often see well-known authors make the list weeks before their books are out due to massive orders by big box stores.

A much better source are Indie Bound's Indie Bestseller lists: [https://www.indiebound.org/indie- bestsellers](https://www.indiebound.org/indie-bestsellers). While still able to be gamed, these lists are compiled based off of sales by independent booksellers. I've often found the books here to be better quality than the NYT bestsellers.

<comment><USER5> Handbook for Mortals is currently #4 on Indie Bound's Children's Interest Bestsellers list :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This sort metrics-buying isn't unique to books:

The RIAA changed its rules so Jay-Z's 'Magna Carta Holy Grail' would go platinum _instantly_ after Samsung bought one million copies to give away to its users: [http://pitchfork.com/news/51392-riaa-changes-gold-and- platin...](http://pitchfork.com/news/51392-riaa-changes-gold-and-platinum- rules-due-to-jay-zs-magna-carta-holy-grail/)

A similar partnership with Sprint meant '4:44' also went platinum almost immediately, even though it was only distributed on TIDAL: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/garysuarez/2017/07/05/jay-z-444...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/garysuarez/2017/07/05/jay-z-444-riaa- platinum/#7b1b60c02e96)

</comment><comment><USER7> This "buyer" is not going to buy any of the books.

The trick only works because the book is considered published yet it is out of stock so has to be back ordered.

And these back orders still count for the NYT bestseller list.

My guess is they somehow triggered some sort of last second revision for their own book at the publisher thus pausing the printing.

So the book is technically published and available in various catalogs yet you can't actually buy it. You can only back-order it.

I assume if you could actually order the book the "buyer" would have to shell out some cash.

An additional trick is that the "buyer" is being careful not to trigger bulk buying clause for each store.

It is basically the click farm equivalent online.

<comment><USER8> When the Ch\wrch of Sc\w+nt\wl\wgy did this they actually had their cultists pay for the books. Most of them were then sold to second-hand book stores.

Because money actually came through to them, Waldenbooks and B. Dalton were happy to order enough to keep up with the fake demand.

<comment><USER9> > _the Ch\wrch of Sc\w+nt\wl\wgy_

What's going on here?

<comment><USER10> You can get into trouble if you speak ill of the Ch*rch in public. This hinders discoverability.

<comment><USER11> Trouble with who? The Church? I'm familiar with their weirdo bullying tactics but you can't really take them seriously - they have no power.

<comment><USER12> There was a time in the 90s when Scientology was the main target of internet censorship, and they (mis)used copyright law to hinder criticism and to hide what they did.

South Park broadcast all the details of Xenu in 2005, which made it much easier for other former Scientologists (e.g. Kate Bornstein) to talk about it.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet_(South_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet_\(South_Park\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Indie publisher here. There have been strange things going on in the last year with best-seller lists, not only in the NYT but also USA Today and Amazon, often relating to ebook "box sets" that have coordinated marketing and borrow campaigns set up around them. See the following resources/discussions:

[http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2017/04/the-bestseller- list-b...](http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2017/04/the-bestseller-list-box-set- gig/)

[http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,250491.125.html](http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,250491.125.html)

I am not sure if the TFA example is connected to box set scams, though.

</comment><comment><USER14> From 2013:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/02/22/heres-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/02/22/heres- how-you-buy-your-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestsellers-list/)

 _ResultSource, a San Diego-based marketing consultancy, specializes in getting books onto bestseller lists, according to The Wall Street Journal. For clients willing to pay enough, it will even guarantee a No. 1 spot. It does this by taking bulk sales and breaking them up into more organic-looking individual purchases, defeating safeguards that are supposed to make it impossible to "buy" bestseller status._

One of the methods they use is getting people who show up to talks to get a copy of the book, I guess because you can stuff the price of the book into the price of the ticket. (I have a book at home I got from attending a Pop-Up Magazine show, for which tickets were a bit pricier than I would have liked. I haven't opened it yet.)

</comment><comment><USER15> I _believe_ NYT has a bookstore list for reporting orders. This is how the best selling books make it on this list. The buyer (someone tied to the book) probably knew the store was on the NYT list and made a massive order. The NYT will need to tweak things going forward. Any store telling people they are on the NYT Best Seller reporting list should be removed from the list.

<comment><AUTHOR> The story specifically mentions that there were suspicious calls asking if a store was a NYT reporting store, followed by bulk orders with no delivery date.

<comment><USER15> I was scratching my head because I didn't recall reading this. After dinner, I grabbed a glass of wine and I went back and read beyond the first 5 paragraphs plus the embedded tweets.You gotta do what you good do but don't get caught.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> During the article, I wondered what the writer's end goal was. Then I saw that she wants to portray the lead in a movie version, and I can only assume this will be some Neil Breen-level, awesomely-bad garbage.

<comment><USER17> Neil Breen, explained: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KolenE1GCyg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KolenE1GCyg) (NSFW audio, probably NSFW video)

<comment><USER11> God bless both of you for introducing me to Neil Breen

<comment><USER18> Incredible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I always assumed that the NYT Bestseller List was a marketing vehicle that you could buy into. Not that it didn't track legitimate "bestsellers." I just figured you could pay to play too. If people really care about knowing that for sure then I guess it's nice to see some actual proof of it.

<comment><USER20> Methodology: [https://www.nytimes.com/books/best- sellers/methodology/](https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology/)

<comment><USER19> Thanks! I probably should have looked for this myself...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The consensus I've seen from people in the publishing industry is that lots of books buy their way onto the NYT bestseller list, but this one is just being much less subtle about it.

<comment><USER18> I like this one better than people shelling out $200k to make the list because they exploited a bug in the system -- this didn't cost anything outside the manpower to place these orders which will never go through or be charged.

<comment><USER22> Thank you. The article is treating the NYT bestseller list as sacrosanct. Someone figured a (relatively) cheap way to hack it. Good for them.

As someone who just published a children's book if I thought this would work I would try it.

<comment><USER9> It's a scam regardless of how cheap it was. It sounds like you're trying justify the fact you'd be willing to do the same scam.

<comment><USER18> Years ago I became aware of how many wealthy people and "best-selling authors" bought their way onto the NY Times list and how even people with publishing deals are often "encouraged" to use their advances to use companies like ResultsSource.

Since the entire thing seems to be a scam to me I like this one because of it's elegance. Why bother _even selling the books_ or paying Results Source when you can just put it in a few hundred orders for 30 books across various independent stores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It Seems like some sort of Neilson Ratings System would be more representative than basing it purely on sales.

Or lower the bulk threshold to one. Meaning a single sale of a title "counts" while >1 sales in a transaction counts as 1.

Buying 5 copies of one book doesn't mean it's being sold (or willingly read by) to 5 distinct people. So it's popularity is really just "1" because only one person actually bought it.

That would be much harder to game since they would have to have a lot of single transactions to move the needle. Buying 29 at a time ought not count as 29 sales even though it technically IS 29 sales. But the intent of the Bestseller list is to determine popularity, not necessarily "units moved" otherwise, why disqualify bulk sales? Those ARE sales right? But the NY Times does have a bulk purchase flag which means the list isn't about volume, but about perceived popularity.

<comment><USER24> Our pastor bought our whole (small) congregation a particular book to read a little while back, it seems equally to fail to report that as a sale of 1; just as much as registering the publisher buying their own book a hundred (thousand, ...) times.

... Cue a book buying app that reimburses the first n people to buy a book and scan the sales receipt in order to provide "genuine" sales for skewing popularity lists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Spike Trottman's tweets around this present some interesting points: [https://twitter.com/Iron_Spike/status/900797323403554817](https://twitter.com/Iron_Spike/status/900797323403554817)

Mot notably: this has been used as a tactic to get books and comics optioned for films (which will make more money than selling books ever does), and the author is a no-name actor who - surprise! - is angling to play the lead in the film of her #1 bestselling novel.

<comment><USER26> How are movie options priced? Anything close to a "real options" approach?

<comment><USER25> AFAIK being optioned gives you a chunk of cash - you're selling an exclusive, sometimes time-limited, right for the studio to make the movie. If the movie doesn't get made, you still get to keep the money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Apparently the NYT released a new list, sans "Handbook for Mortals": [https://twitter.com/cupcakeandy/status/900830696226381826](https://twitter.com/cupcakeandy/status/900830696226381826)

Direct link: [https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/young-adult- hardc...](https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/young-adult-hardcover/)

</comment><comment><USER28> [https://www.amazon.com/charts](https://www.amazon.com/charts)

Amazon charts are much more useful.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm sure why this is news, the NYT Bestseller List has always be gamed. Usually the books are decent and true good books linger, but getting there has always been a $$ game

<comment><USER30> According to the article:

> Nowadays, you can make the bestseller list with about 5,000 sales.

That sounds pretty cheap. For a book that costs $10-20 that would be $50-100K to buy your way in. I'm not sure what the margins for books are these days (particularly the split between publisher and retailer) but that doesn't seem that expensive.

<comment><USER23> 5000 sales at a reporting store. So that probably represents 50,000 actual books sold since not every store reports.

I think Nate Silver ought to do some work on this area; it would be interesting to read his analysis.

<comment><USER31> It represents 50,000 actual books sold if the demand is legitimate. If you make sure to only buy from reporting stores, it's only 5,000 actual books sold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "Buying your way onto the bestseller list is not technically illegal, nor is it that hard if you know how. Many CONSERVATIVE publishers have found success through bulk-buying books then giving them away as, say, subscriber gifts if you sign up to Newsmax or the like. "

hmmm, conservative only? Biased much? Is the strategy of buying placement somehow undiscovered by publishers of liberal persuasion?

<comment><USER33> Yes, seriously. You're playing looser with definitions, but in the sense they used conservative, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wow, the goodreads rating got fixed fast: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35800325-handbook-for- mo...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35800325-handbook-for-mortals)

<comment><USER35> I love the fact that the author rated her own book five stars. [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2076269822?book_show_a...](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2076269822?book_show_action=true)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> btw, YA is Young Adult literature. I've never heard about this jargon.

<comment><USER37> Thanks, I was totally confused as it's mentioned several times yet never explained in the first paragraphs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> That just tells me the system is flawed. Sounds way too easy to game...</comment>