YouTube CEO calls EU's proposed copyright regulation financially impossible - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18087250/youtube-ceo-copyright-directive-article-13-european-union <comment><USER3> I watch a decent amount of YouTube, but if it went away, I don't think that it would be a net loss to humanity given what YT shows to children [0], and how YT radicalizes viewers [1]. It's actually Patreon that pays my favorite creators, not YT, so they could protentially distribute videos via any other site. A new site for discovery would likely rise up, if Patreon didn't do that themselves.

This is the entire platform vs publisher argument that tech companies have been hiding under for years. No one is responsible for content, and look what that's gotten us. I would shed no tears if YT ended operation in the EU, where I live.

[0] [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-for-kids-videos- prob...](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-for-kids-videos-problems- algorithm-recommend)

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube- po...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics- radical.html)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/youtube...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/youtube- extremism-and-the-long-tail/555350/)

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-youtubes-far-right- radi...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-youtubes-far-right- radicalization-factory)

<comment><USER4> You're severely downplaying the amount of educational content that it has to offer. If youtube went down overnight, it -would- be a huge loss.

If you give your children unfettered access to youtube, that's your own fault as a parent. Youtube should be better about handling this but I think it's more of a communication issue.

Youtube is essentially a medium unto itself. A LOT of people use it so there's going to be good, and there's going to be bad. You can make the case of "radicalizing people" for just about any other medium that people consume.

In the end, it's basically what you make of it. You can find a wealth of diverse channels to watch and grow from, or you can watch drivel.

It isn't any different than the trash on tv or in pulp novels, except that individual people have more power and freedom to create things. If you think differently then you're just looking at older mediums with rose-tinted glasses.

<comment><USER5> > If you give your children unfettered access to youtube, that's your own > fault as a parent.

How do you propose to prevent the disasters described in this thread? YouTube have loose standards and virtually no demonstrated ability for enforcement. I'm specifically worried about giving locked down PC to kid with my best effort and still kids getting exposed to content that they are not yet ready to process. How does YouTube enables me to to make sure that kids are protected?

<comment><USER4> > How does YouTube enables me to to make sure that kids are protected?

It doesn't. I don't know why this expectation exists; youtube has not shown itself to be trustworthy in this sort of thing. Clearly an alternative needs to be used, like downloading youtube videos beforehand or using something else entirely.

<comment><USER6> This is basically the all-American argument of "sure, the advertising is a complete lie but it's the consumer's fault for being gullible".

YouTube Kids presents itself as specifically for kids. You don't expect weird fetish porn on daytime kids TV and it's completely reasonable to expect a similar level of moderation for an app that positions itself as an equivalent of that.

Blaming the parents really understates how much YouTube has fucked this one up. YT relies on a wonky algorithm and crowdsourcing to moderate its content at scale but their dirty little (open) secret is that this is error prone and exploitable. In a typical Google way they thought they could eliminate paid humans from the equation and still deliver quality -- they can't, and it's entirely their fault.

If a company misrepresents a product in a way that results it to cause harm when used exactly as advertised, it's the company's fault.

<comment><USER7> Your problem is then with YouTube kids, not YouTube.

Not everyone wants their content censored by dogmatists.

<comment><USER6> What are you even talking about?

YouTube Kids is from YouTube and is advertised as a kids-friendly filtered version of YouTube. YouTube Kids however failed to filter tons of disturbing and inappropriate content. The entire raison d'etre of YouTube Kids is to provide a filtered YouTube experience -- it failed hard.

EDIT: I can't even begin to comprehend how you think any of this is about "dogmatists censoring YouTube". YT Kids only providing kids-friendly content is no different from YT Music only providing music. It's not censorship, it's filtering. You can still go to YouTube proper and watch everything.

<comment><USER7> Your problem is still with YouTube kids and not with YouTube.

Your entire argument is the filtration they tried failed. We agree. Great.

My point is that the conclusion you draw is that everything needs more censorship. We disagree. I think parents need to take responsibility and not blame a company for providing a product they don't like.

Its the equivalent of censoring the radio because think of the children. It was a dumb idea then, it's a dumb idea now, because everyone knows that's not where it ends.

<comment><USER8> I don't see where you get the idea that that's the conclusion they draw. It seems like you arguing against something they never said.

<comment><USER7> How do you understand the arguments.

<comment><USER8> That they're unhappy with how they handled YouTube Kids, nothing about censoring the main YT product.

<comment><USER7> And I said his problem is with YouTube kids not YouTube.

Not sure what part of that you disagree with.

<comment><USER8> > _My point is that the conclusion you draw is that everything needs more > censorship._

That claim about their conclusion I do not understand, since I don't see where they are saying anything like that.

<comment><USER7> They believe YouTube kids is possible if only YouTube were to censor more content.

My argument is that more censorship won't help, because not everyone agrees on what is, and is not, kid friendly. So the entire enterprise is doomed to failure. The only solution I see is parents taking responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even if YouTube could afford to do this, nobody else could, which would lock us into an EU-sanctioned YouTube monopoly...

<comment><USER10> Market leaders are generally in favor of regulation, for that exact reason. Sometimes they'll play the protest game in public, but privately they are happy to see regulation.

If YouTube is actually lobbying against this both in public and in private, then I would personally consider that extremely strong evidence this is really bad. However, I have no inside info on their private position.

<comment><USER11> Well, they _can_ be, but what if the regulations substantially shrink the market as a whole? May be more profitable to have 30% of a large market than 90% of a small one.

<comment><USER12> A lot of tech industries seem to be winner-take-all, so aiming for 30% might not be a sustainable plan in many cases.

<comment><USER13> Not really. Vimeo shows that you can corner niche markets successfully.

Profitability and growth aren't dependent on market dominance, even in tech.

<comment><USER14> YouTube Vimeo is more like 1% / 99%. By almost anybody's definition, that's winner take all.

Vimeo aims for $100mil this year: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iac- interactive-vimeo/iac...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iac-interactive- vimeo/iacs-vimeo-aims-for-100-million-in-revenue-this-year-ceo-idUSKCN1G71PN)

YouTube Could be a $15 billion business this year: [https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/18/youtube-could- be-a...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/18/youtube-could- be-a-15-billion-business-this-year.aspx)

<comment><USER13> Again, success isn't measured by marketshare, but profitability and growth. Vimeo has 15% of the embedded market by domain, and has managed to be profitable.

Even in your article it talks about how Youtube isn't exactly profitable, and is dragging down Google's average CPC for the business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious: are there any supporters of the copyright regulations around HN that can provide some thoughts on the "pro" side of this? I'm trying to get my head around both sides of the argument, and I just can't see why it might be a good idea - but I may be biased by the strong "against" views from HN posters.

<comment><USER16> A newspaper curates their content and is legally liable for any copyright violations along with civil liability in the US. Many platforms like YouTube are curating content, but don't want to have the responsibility. It gives these platforms a unfair advantage, to the detriment of media outlets and because of the pseudo monopoly status of them has a chilling effect on diverse ideas. Many, who are experts on the law also feel that it is going beyond the "good samaritan" allowance of section 230 the way they are currently being performed.

<comment><USER11> There's a fundamental difference between curating content like a newspaper does vs what Youtube and similar sites do. It's a whitelist vs blacklist approach: a newspaper approves things one by one and only has so much content, while Youtube allows anything by default and then removes thing in certain categories.

And even newspapers use the latter approach for some things. I doubt the New York Times wants to be held responsible if someone posts a link to pirated content in an article comment, for instance.

<comment><USER17> When you visit youtube.com, you are shown a small slice of all the videos in the YouTube database that YouTube thinks you should watch. Isn't that curation?

YouTube tries to automate curation with the use of algorithms that cater content to who they think their visitor is.

<comment><USER11> > Isn't that curation?

It's not the kind of curation we're talking about, no. We're talking about whether it's allowed (or at least publicly visible) on their website at all, not what is shown on the front page to each user.

<comment><USER18> Eh, there is some _functional_ equivalence. Less than 5% of videos on YouTube have more than 10,000 views [0]. That means the vast majority of videos are functionally not published. YouTube won't promote any of those videos. They won't show up in on the Home page, let alone the Trending page. They're very unlikely to show up in recommended videos. Unless you're looking for that specific person or a very narrow topic, you're not going to find these channels, let alone these videos.

[0]: [https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/19/1-percent- youtub...](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/19/1-percent-youtube- videos-94-percent-views/)

<comment><USER19> I don't really get what you're trying to prove here, I mean yes we can see the algorithm as a form of curation but the point here's different, newspapers have a set amount of pages and articles whereas YouTube has 400 hours of content uploaded every minute. Hence it's not fair to compare the two of them, in my opinion.

<comment><USER20> All I'm getting out of your argument if YouTube is using these arguments they are trying to say that they do so much business they should be allowed to skip rules, and that they are potentially violating orders of magnitude more copyright than other industries.

Should we allow companies to skip out on laws just because they scaled their business up?

<comment><USER21> A newspaper isn't the right metaphor. Google runs a print shopt.

<comment><USER20> It's not a metaphor. They both engage in referencing copyrighted material, but YouTube gets to skip out on the laws that appky to other industries.

This board is usually in agreement that patents that are effectively of the pattern of "were doing something that's been done before, but it's on the internet so it's different now" are complete bullshit.

Why are we giving a pass to internet based companies when it comes to copyright, just because they are making a lot of money?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The legislators in the EU are an example of what happens when the clueless, make law. Their GDPR has apparently only benefitted Google, with Facebook taking the smallest hit of the rest.

Many want these behemoths to get less power but these EU guys give them more.

Now this.

One answer it to ghettoise Europe and block them from receiving your content. For one thing that would get rid of those stupid "we use cookies things".

<comment><USER23> I so hate the cookies thing. It's led me to have to actually read popups rather than immediately close them, and sometimes I end up accepting something that I thought was a cookie popup but was something else.

Absolutely infuriating. Most every site uses cookies, I know that, I don't need to be told that, and your average user doesn't even care.

<comment><USER24> I just want my browser to know how to manage my cookies.

And to some extent, my browser already does that: I refuse third-party cookies. Only now I get popups telling me to accept third-party cookies because otherwise they won't be able to remember my choice to reject their cookies.

It's a mess. I want smarter browsers that give me more control over this stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I regularly see a number of videos of clearly copyrighted content that have been up for years, with several million views, for fairly mainstream search terms and that would be relatively easy to filter algorythmically (real example - via the characteristic sound & image of the HBO intro in a pirated tv episode). Hard to look at that and believe that Google is doing everything it can to bring them down. That they reject copyright violation reports that come from anyone other than the actual rightsholders (sure, they'd have to make sure someone is not reporting by mistake - it is not a perfect, but still a valuable signal, and if they really wanted to they could encourage it) is further evidence. Further, where these specific videos are not monetized via ads, they bring traffic to YT which is then monetized in other videos, therefore this pirated content is being used commercially, even if indirectly. Like many here I'm no fan of copyright law, but that is no excuse for a multi- billion listed company to make a fortune deliberately flaunting it and then play coy.

<comment><USER26> I'm not following. By your example, HBO content is being shared and Content ID can trivially determine it's HBO content. Do you have evidence that HBO wants those videos gone, but isn't capable of filing the request? Isn't it just more likely they are getting royalties instead?

<comment><USER25> No, I don't have evidence. But I find it unlikely that HBO wants grainy versions of full TV episodes (eg filmed from a VHS recording playing on a TV) on the page of some random YT uploader (not an HBO page or influencer or etc) even if somehow in exchange for tiny CPM royalties. That is only one of several examples I have seen. Perhaps in the case of HBO they could be doing a better job given their size & resources, but for smaller creators it would be a challenge and why should the burden be on them anyway?

<comment><USER27> Can you link to one of these videos filmed from a VHS recording playing on a TV which has several million views?

<comment><USER28> Individually they don't get million views as beyond a certain view count youtube will flag and remove.

However I have seen plenty of shows get constantly reuploaded with new accounts. They usually crop or put some padding animation etc to get through content ID. With HBO' content you can search for example John Oliver's non free segments which are not available on the official channel

<comment><USER27> Right, but that's not what alanlamm was talking about. The claim was that there were videos with millions of views that were trivially detectable, and that Google simply didn't care.

<comment><USER29> [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpmOEfgOG-6uC7Y45UI1V...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpmOEfgOG-6uC7Y45UI1VU9s1pTJ5YBbp)

First result for "HBO movie".

<comment><USER27> So a bunch of twenty year old movies (not actually by HBO for the most part, but whatever) that probably didn't sell even at the time.

My guess is that those companies didn't even bother to submit them to Content- ID, considering that Google had no problem detecting a bunch of copyright songs in those movies, for which they're paying royalties.

If submitting stuff to Content-ID is the "challenge" that alanlamm was talking about, then fine, color me unconcerned.

<comment><USER29> It's trivial to find obviously pirated content, and Google does not care (since it generates views). Being legally forced to react to complaints, and HBO not caring, are each separate from that. Which, admittedly, isn't what the original claim was, that HBO probably cares but that Google doesn't react. But Google doesn't care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> YouTube's objection seems to be primarily a business model problem - <USER2> assume consent and then provide original content creators with a share of YouTube's profit from that work. It's no surprise that they wouldn't want to have to get permission first.

What stops YouTube from doing cursory scans and then relying on a user agreement to protect themselves from liabilities, like "you agree to pay to us sums sufficient to cover all legal costs including any copyright charges, fines, etc., arising as a result of uploading this work"??

However, the Wikipedia page on the Directive [1] mentions that Art.13 :

>"extends any licenses granted to content hosts to their users, as long as those users are not acting "on a commercial basis".

That would be massive as videos uploaded to YouTube would then be able to be downloaded, and even shared, as works for [personal] non-commercial use. This would be a huge change in favour of the people and against copyright rights holders -- perhaps Wikipedia editors misinterpreted?

The article mentions the "Fair Use Act", what's that a reference too? The para it's in is about EU, and the USA Fair Use Act never survived. We don't have a Fair Use in Europe.

It would really help to know which companies are trying to push this and what specifically they're trying to protect from??

\---

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market)

</comment><comment><USER31> Europe just can't stop making dumb regulations to punish American Tech giants. They created the stupid cookie law and now half the sites have an annoying cookie notice ... and nothing got better. GDPR is shaping up as a boondgle that is either going to be (is) ignored or result in blacklisting Europeans. And now this poorly thought out regulations will continue this 'winning' streak.

<comment><USER32> What I love most about the EU and Europeans on this site is that they think that all these regulations will mostly hurt companies like Google and Facebook, and sure they'll be hurt. But the US is the largest market for most US companies, so they're unable to really hurt them like they want to. Instead, the people most affected are European companies that become successful enough for those onerous regulations to apply.

There was a Hacker News thread about a new research paper that showed that GDPR is hurting European investment, and there were plenty of Europeans in that thread saying "Good, stop using my data." Like really? Wouldn't it be better to stop data usage without hurting investment? It's such a self own.

<comment><USER24> > What I love most about the EU and Europeans on this site is that they think > that all these regulations will mostly hurt companies like Google and > Facebook

On which site? HN? Many Europeans here are well aware this will mostly hurt smaller sites and independent content creators. Many MEPs seem to hope that European newspapers will get some of Google's money, but I honestly don't see how that's going to happen.

GDPR is a different issue. It's less unreasonable and better intentioned, but the implementation is incredibly annoying. I'd rather see browsers handle this for me in a way I can easily control.

EU data protection laws are excellent. Far better than those of the US, which do pretty much the complete opposite.

<comment><USER31> >Many MEPs seem to hope that European newspapers will get some of Google's money,

I'm surprised Google News doesn't stick ads on news results and do some sort of 70/30 profit sharing like YouTube. That's the best way for newspapers to profit from a Google Listing. Instead Google News sidesteps copyright issues by not monetizing news results at all.

>EU data protection laws are excellent. Far better than those of the US, which do pretty much the complete opposite

Forget laws. Are things better __in practice __? Because people tend to get enamoured with regulations because they sound great (I mean, who doesn 't want low emission, high efficiency cars in 5 years) that are disconnected with reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Ironically, in the US pressure is mounting for content platforms to police "fake news" which is a moralistic mission, rather than enforce something fairly obvious like massive content piracy and systemic copyright violation as a service.

Even in 2018 it seems that Youtube is being funded by the "Napster model" of allowing de facto circumvention of copyright law.

Or, put another way, Youtube is profitable mainly because of vastly imperfect enforcement of laws.

<comment><USER34> I feel like this criticism of YouTube is about 5 years out of date. At this point most of their traffic is original content by content creators. It's not the Napster model so much as hoodwinking young creatives into shouldering all the risks of producing a service for YouTube's users and using their monopoly power to freeze them out of being able to make anything resembling a decent cut of the revenues for their efforts.

Call it the "Uber" model.

<comment><USER35> >At this point most of their traffic is original content by content creators.

That's not my experience. Name me a non-obscure movie, show, or song and I'll bet I find it on YouTube. Except of course YouTube's paid content...good luck finding a pirate version of say YouTube original series Kobra Kai, They seemed to have figured out a way to police their own content without issue.

<comment><USER27> _Name me a non-obscure movie, show, or song and I'll bet I find it on YouTube._

Sure: Kill Bill (vol 1).

<comment><USER20> [https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9D10D8B604D6B7EC](https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9D10D8B604D6B7EC)

Not quite the full movie, but a substantial portion and its certainly not being used under fair use doctrine like using these clips as examples to discuss film techniques or a parody. This took all of 5 seconds to find copyrighted content on youtube

<comment><USER27> Uh, those were uploaded by Fandango, a company that sells movie tickets, and which is itself owned by NBC and Warner. It's authorized content.

All you've proven is that detecting copyright infringement is actually hard and not obvious as people here are claiming.

<comment><USER20> ah, well there you go

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Funny how they threat cutting Europeans and at the same time want to comply with Chinese laws so they are able to enter the market. Is it really impossible Google?

<comment><USER37> They just don't want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> 'No company could take on such a financial risk'

Even worse, no individual can take on the risk of self hosting their own videos.

</comment><comment><USER39> If youtube doesn't have the resources to handle these regulations, then imagine a start-up trying to. Ironically these draconian laws help youtube have a monopoly. They have billions to absorb any mistakes/law suites, etc...draconian laws always help the entrenched large corporations and destroy start-ups.

</comment><comment><USER40> A little tangent nugget from the original text:

> _Kurzgesagt — In a Nutshell recently became the number one channel in > Germany by creating videos that help others fall in love with science._

If the number one channel in Germany is in English, then maybe YouTube still has some more fundamental challenges to overcome in Europe.

<comment><USER41> There are a lot more Germans that know English than there are Americans that know German. In fact I have never even talked to a German who did not know English. ;)

<comment><USER42> Can confirm.

As an American who lived in Germany decades ago, this was actually a substantial barrier to me improving my German. It was usually easier for them to converse in English than for me to converse in German, they jumped at the chance to practice their English with a native speaker and it made it difficult for me to find opportunities to practice my German.

<comment><USER43> God it is easy and convenient being American/english speaker. Cue old joke:

"bilingual" is someone who speaks two languages, "trilingual" is someone who speaks three languages. What do you call someone who can only speak one language? An American.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, but that's usually presented as an _ugly American_ characterization. I actually _wanted_ to be multilingual. I failed in part because I'm American.

I know a little German and a little French. I know a smattering of Spanish and Russian. I wanted to be fluent in all of those. I fell far short of fluency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Youtube could continue to exist just fine without "youtubers". I miss the good old days when thumbnails weren't curated, and it was random users with a day job uploading videos instead of today's career spammers.

</comment><comment><USER45> That would free up a few hours of my time each day I spend watching stuff like [https://youtu.be/FFBhoojrU_M](https://youtu.be/FFBhoojrU_M) :-)

</comment><comment><USER46> So, Youtube, who _still_ make a large amount of money from infringing other people's copyright, are not keen on being held liable for what they allow on their website?

<comment><USER47> > So, Youtube, who _still_ make a large amount of money from infringing other > people's copyright

Do they though? Other people are saying that also, but the evidence I've seen isn't very good.

<comment><USER46> [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+its+made](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+its+made)

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mythbusters+ful...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mythbusters+full+episodes)

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=simpsons+full+e...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=simpsons+full+episode)

With the exception of the last one, which has paid options, all of those do not have permission.

<comment><USER47> Wait, how do you know that they don't have permission? I would assume that the owners of those copyrights are just as capable of using the contentID system as any of the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> With current state of things YouTube will be toast virtually with any copyright regulation. Huge amount of popular content on YouTube is stolen and retrofitted for your viewing pleasure. This is a raving cottage industry on YouTube and unthinkable just couple of decades ago when studios were going crazy over copyright infringement. You can find several old TV series, movies etc posted by others and comfortably ripping of ad revenue.

</comment><comment><USER49> The same problem again - disconnected from reality humanities majors and liberal arts academics trying to regulate ecosystems they do not comprehend or understand.

They are guided by abstract nonsense instead of careful judgements based on the scientific method (measure, make and test your hypothesis).

</comment><comment><USER50> Hilariously the Verge website doesn't like me blocking all their trackers.

It was supposed to be a choice, not just "I accept". I rather type out this comment than take the 10 seconds to open this article in an unmodified browser.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm sure they'll figure it out

</comment><comment><USER52> I wonder if it'd make financial sense for YouTube to provide ContentID as a service for other video platforms.

</comment><comment><USER53> or maybe this levels the playing field so smaller companies can compete

<comment><USER54> If YouTube can't make the margins I don't see how it could level the playing field for smaller companies to compete.

<comment><USER55> With a better product? Imagine if you got rid of the whole user generated poor quality content and toxic comments section and simply uploaded a few hundred human reviewed best of the best videos per day. I don't see why we need 400 hours of video uploaded every minute when the vast majority of revenue and views is comings from a handful of videos.

<comment><USER27> _I don 't see why we need 400 hours of video uploaded every minute when the vast majority of revenue and views is comings from a handful of videos._

What a depressing statement. So there's no value in having a diversity of choice, points of view, taste, etc? Or in allowing anyone to share what they've made, without gatekeepers? Do you only listen to the top handful of musicians, or read the top handful of books? Hell, HN is not in the top handful of sites with the vast majority of revenue and views, does that mean it has no value?

I'd say it's actually the _only_ value it has; it's what distinguishes it from TV, which is otherwise a better system in other ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> _that puts the responsibility on the platform instead of the user_

What did they think would happen when they started making editorial decisions about what content to show and what to ban or at least bury?

They made their bed, let them lie in it.

<comment><USER57> Although you are obviously right and YTs censorship is well known, these are two unrelated things and an argument like that to justify bad law (which will not only affect YT, but other platforms as well) is inappropriate.

<comment><USER58> I don't see how you can consider them unrelated. If you are going to exercise editorial control over your platform you become responsible for (and potentially liable for) what makes it through to the public.

<comment><USER56> It seems so obvious to everyone who isn't a Silly Valley bro. Total monoculture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> YouTube only really exists because the structure of DMCA safe harbors essentially legislated centralization of user-posted content.

Live by the pen, die by the pen.

Hopefully this legislation will lead to re-decentralization of media distribution, or at least a move away from surveillance-capitalism business models like YouTube's.

</comment><comment><USER16> They kind of brought this on themselves. At one time they said that they were a neutral platform, and were fairly neutral. Now they very actively curate content, so naturally people are starting to want to make them liable for everything on their platform. Of course this will significantly reduce their profitability etc., but you reap what you sow.

<comment><USER60> Since someone else went to the trouble to explain to you why that argument is neither the law, nor logic[0], I'll spare us the repetition and just assume you are arguing in bad faith.

0: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18319358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18319358)

<comment><USER16> With all due respect, I'm currently working with a bi-partisan group that is looking into this issue. While you may not agree with my interpretation, there are many who are more well versed with the intent (IE: know the people who wrote the original bills) and the law who agree with my interpretation. A concentration of power among a few tech companies is very worrying, but that along with the moralizing of these large pseudo monopolies is a major problem. IE: When your platform has 80+ percent market share, and is actively censoring people for espousing views expressed by the elected president of the United States. Now this does not explain the European situation, but their position does not surprise me. With all of the EU's flaws they do have better anti- trust provisions, and in this case it doesn't hurt that it is a foreign company...

<comment><USER61> > _censoring people for espousing views expressed by the elected president of > the United States_

To the extent that's true, that says a lot more about how far the office of President has fallen than anything else.

In a sane world, there would be bipartisan consensus that many of the views Trump expresses should rightfully be condemned:

[https://www.weeklystandard.com/stephen-f-hayes/donald- trump-...](https://www.weeklystandard.com/stephen-f-hayes/donald-trump-is- crazy-and-so-is-the-gop-for-embracing-him?_amp=true)

> _The degree of this normalization is stunning. The Republican nominee for > president made comments Friday that one might expect from a patient in a > mental institution, the kind of stuff you might read on blog with really > small print and pictures of UFOs. And yet his remarks barely register as > news. There are no condemnations from fellow Republicans. His supporters > shrug them off as Trump being Trump._

<comment><USER16> My understanding is that this view is shared by a majority of YouTube employees who censor the content. IE: We hate Trump, Trump is evil and his supporters are deplorables, therefore it is the right thing to do to suppress this horrible speech. If YouTube is treated like a publisher, and is liable for all content that is fine. But irregardless of your feelings about those views and people, when views that are held by a large percentage of the American population are actively being banned/suppressed you are no longer a neutral platform nor are you following the standard of just being a good Samaritan. To be very clear I would also have an issue with this is the target was people who are considered far left because at the end of the day I do not want to have an un-elected, for profit, monopolistic corporation (which was in fact given that power through safe harbor) forcing it's moralistic views on me or anybody else. If anything the tech companies have shown that they are great at technology and really bad at public policy, so lets let the democratic governments sort out the public policy side and the tech get back to being neutral platforms.

<comment><USER61> I do not think that is an accurate description of how most YouTube employees feel. It is certainly not an accurate description of mine. You have cause-and- effect completely backwards: it is not because I "hate Trump" that I condemn hate speech and conspiratorial content, but rather it is because I oppose hate speech and conspiracy theories that I think Trump deserves to be condemned.

As for the role of content platforms, others have already explained the difference between a journalistic publisher and a mere content filter better than I can, so I won't bother to repeat it here.

Perhaps I am too optimistic, but I do not believe most of the large minority of Americans that voted for Trump did so because he espouses hate and bigotry, but rather despite it. I think many conservatives who voted for Trump overlooked his rhetoric due to partisan fervor or because they were convinced Clinton was worse, rightly or wrongly. I do not believe the alt-right and unabashed racists are a "large percentage of the American population" or that public platforms need accept their hateful views.

I do believe conservative voices deserve to be heard, whether I agree with them or not. But it would be doing principled conservatives a disservice to conflate them with Trumpists and the so-called alt-right. I understand there may be concern about where to draw the line, but I think any government regulation your "bi-partisan group" produces is more likely to do harm than good in the current political context.

<comment><USER16> You just helped to prove my point. A large swatch of Trump supporters agree with many of his views, just look at the rally's. Many also feel that certain positions of the left, such as the the support of abortion is morally repugnant.

The term "hate speech" is extremely subjective, as are the terms "hate" and "bigotry" as they are used today. If you take a person on the religious right, they will use the terms such as "heathen", "sinner", "obscene" and "degenerate" to describe many alternative lifestyles, also subjective terms. I've heard some on the right say they want to think that many on the left do not really feel these lifestyles are OK etc..

The reality is that that the person on the far right, and the person on the far left, no matter how tolerant they may feel they are, will ultimately be biased towards their own morals when dealing with subjective matters. They may feel they are doing the right moral thing, yet the person from the other side may fervently disagree. The reality is that there is an equal amount of sin on both sides which is why I want neither of them being the sole arbiter of the content I see.

This is why the checks and balances are so important. But when you have a pseudo monopoly, for profit corporation such as YouTube, with a predominately left leaning set of values running the show we no longer have that. More importantly there is an argument to be made that the content filtering as is being done today is not what was intended in the current legislation and clarification via legal precedent and/or revised legislation is overdue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Where was the Google CEO when all of this was being voted on? Where were the Google home-pages telling people to get active?

</comment><comment><USER63>
         There are more than 400 hours of video uploaded every
         minute to the platform, and putting the onus of
         responsibility on platforms like YouTube to catch every
         video isn't fair, according to Wojcicki.

Sounds like they could solve this really easily by just hiring a lot of people, which is also very easy to do when you stashed over $100,000,000,000 and revenue is still growing and taxes are still diminishing and employees are still called contractors.

<comment> j-pb That sounds like something out of an black mirror episode...

Where an unprivileged worker class has to go through hours and hours of video material of the upper societal levels in order to make sure that they satisfy the grotesque utopian "always happy no conflict" image of an all seeing censor, including the denial of their own existence.

<comment><USER64> Amazon has people do this for Alexa inputs, to label whether responses were good or bad.

<comment><USER65> genuinely curious, do you have a source for that?

<comment><USER66> It's built into the app. It asks you to grade each response positively or negatively.

<comment><USER67> Cool. We can just ask the uploader if it is copyrighted or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Copyright infringement is just one of the ways platforms profit off illegal activity as a standard practice of business. Scams and malware are prevalent in paid advertising, fake news is propagated and shared on a mass scale impersonating legitimate sources and individuals, etc. all because platforms can hide behind blanket immunity for what's posted on their platforms.

I'm well into the opinion that if platforms can't operate within the law that they take some responsibility for what the environment they build and the problems they cause, they should be shut down. I think the world would be a better place without YouTube.

In the US, I think removing Section 230 is an absolute imperative. These platforms currently have no legal responsibility to police content, and many of our problems today stem from the fact that they aren't going to do what's necessary until they're legally responsible to do so.

If they're turning a profit on a user submission, and they aren't legally required to remove it, they have no incentive to do so. Platforms _must_ be held responsible for their content, and if that changes the landscape of the Internet, so be it.</comment>


Ex-Google, current Coda Architect shares personal remote stories - <AUTHOR> https://content.remote.tools/ex-google-current-coda-architect-shares-personal-remote-stories/ <comment><USER2> The nuances Al has brought out around remote working are things I had never heard before.

Unlike folks who are just remote-work fanboys, he has brought a perspective where remote work is more an attractive option for companies and workers alike due to obvious reasons.

Alongside, he has also spoken about where remote does not work well - on an individual level where someone such as him needs that in-person "weekly cadence" with the team.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Al shares his experiences of transitioning from Google to a remote working role. A "data-lover", he stumbled into remote work but has since also fallen in love with working remotely. He surely would like to catch more casual coffees with his co-workers, though. Do read his story - it is fun, real, and, importantly, very helpful!

</comment><comment><USER3> Nothing new here to read

Tim ferries got mentioned which is never a good sign</comment>


What I Wish Someone Had Told Me (about starting a company) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bluyah.net/2009/11/5-things-i-wish-someone-had-told-me/

<comment><USER3>
        > You will be forced to choose between work and family - <USER2>
        > there's only one right answer.

This guy rocks for having the courage to say this in light of all the advice out there that says you may have to put your family/personal life on hold to start a business.

<comment><USER4> As someone with a mildly neglected (but understanding) wife and and an on-hold personal life, I couldn't disagree with your comment more -- but it's also not what the article said. The article said:

 _[Your] business is rarely so fragile that it can not suffer some minor neglect _now and again_._

Emphasis on _now and again_. You _will_ have to put your personal and family life on hold, but you'll also need to figure out how to maintain your relationships while you do it.

Starting a company requires a tremendous amount of work, and I've regularly had to choose between what I want (a relaxing dinner out with my wife) and what I need to get done to maximize our chances of scaling to the next stable plateau (a contract, the next product feature, etc).

If you're not ready to put everything on hold and work your ass off, then starting a company is probably not the right choice for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Never implement a feature for a "potential" customer_

That's a gem. It's common to hear the mantra "avoid feature creep," but this is a much clearer way of saying it.

I was at the Seattle Tech Startups meeting that the author mentions, and his dislike of public speaking wasn't apparent at all. Kudos to him.

<comment><USER6> Man, this is a killer! I wish I had known that. Wish, wish, wish. Over the years I've poured hundreds of thousands of dollars down the toilet only to find that the customer had other objections (price/our size/whatever) rather than just pure feature objections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most people choose the wrong time periods for thinking about work/life balance. The usual discussion is about achieving a balance every day or every week. That just dilutes and compromises both your work and the remainder of your life. A startup is a chance to balance out your work and life over many decades. If you can work, say, five times as effectively as other people (which is hard), and if you can get paid for that, you have the possibility to compress your working life into 9 years instead of 45 years--that will give you an extra 36 years with no work commitments at all, free to travel and choose your own interests. Balance in this form can make up for a lot of all- nighters during the startup.

<comment><USER8> You're assuming that the 9 years of work are somehow equal to the 36 years of enjoyment.

Nobody with a child would ever say this. You won't have 36 years of pleasure if you are "absent" for the first 9.

<comment><USER9> The trick is to not have the damn kid until after you're done with your working years. If it's too late for that then you do have problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can I give you something to add to your list?

6\. Every publicly visible action you take intersects with marketing.

There's no easily visible link on your blog that directs to your actual product. Being a "technically savvy" user, I changed _blog.bluyah.net_ to _www.bluyah.net_ , and got a "Welcome to Rails" page.

After digging around your blog, I realised that I'm actually supposed to go to bluyah.COM. Please don't make it so hard for someone who stumbles onto your blog to learn about your product.

And while I was trying to figure out where to get information about your product, the subtitle of your blog, "Report Blogging for the Rest of Us", really confused me. What does that even mean?

Hope that helps, and thanks for the article.

<comment><USER11> As someone said, no knowledge is often better than some knowledge. If you weren't so savvy, you'd simply check the "About Us" page and then follow the link to their site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the best link I've ever seen on Hacker News.

It's honest, it's filled with good advice, it has warnings that people should be at least aware of (e.g., "mentors" who provide an hour of advice and expect an equity stake in return), and it's very, very well written and is a pleasure to read. I knew the author had some serious writing experience when I read the post, and sure enough, he has background as the founder of an online literary publication.

Thanks hariis, and thanks Paul.

</comment><comment><USER13> I really like the first one : _No one will ever be as excited about your [product, service, business] as you are_. That should really be the first thing to say to a new entrepreneur : "noone cares so you better be prepared to fight".

<comment><USER9> Maybe after I start a business I'll understand, but this seems kind of backwards.

"In reality, it's been more like being a shepherd trying to herd a flock of ambivalent geese through an obstacle course."

Maybe that should be a cue to make your product or service more valuable and exciting, with fewer obstacles. If your customers don't love you yet, you need to do more for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> yep, find passionate users, if not, redesign your product/service and try again.

<comment><USER14> Even if you find some passionate users, they will be a tiny minority against the sea of ambivalent geese. Getting the passionate ones on your side is a good move, but if you have to choose between the passionate ones and getting more of the flock through the pay gate, the latter is frequently a good choice. It depends, of course; you can't ignore your passionate ones either or they will passionately turn against you, but some balance is called for. And in fact the article warns you, though not in these exact terms, against letting that one passionate customer turn you into their personal consulting service while the rest of your customers get left in the lurch. It's not _necessarily_ wrong, but it is dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "No one will ever be as excited about your [product, service, business] as you are."

This is so true. It is sometimes very hard for you to transfer the excitement of your idea or product onto others. That's why it's important to find co- founders that 'share' your vision, or you might risk loosing interest in own project yourself.

<comment><USER16> I like #1 as well. But the hard part about that is the uncertainty.

Am I a visionary or just delirious? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> All good advice. This alone doesn't warrant praise though, since good advice often finds it's way to the homepage.

No, what makes this worth reading are three things, a very rare combination: the advice is succinct, honest, and non-obvious.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you have a new product though, it can be tough if there isn't a market yet. Its tough coming up with something truly new, but that's when I've been most excited. After that, listening is very important. Everything we have done with our new iterations has been customer driven.

I still envy Apple, even though this is mostly good advice. They are very feature forward, but their nitch asks for it, so maybe that can be seen as the "customer asking for it".

<comment><USER19> Ever since the beginning, Apple has had to ram their features down the throats of society.

Today, they have developed sophisticated ways to do this like their slick marketing videos where soft-spoken people walk you through the scary world of new features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "But at the end of the day, understand that you will always pay more (in many ways) than what you had hoped or planned to pay."

This could have been a point in itself.

</comment><comment><USER21> you can be an entrepreneur and have a social life if you find an understanding girlfriend and not some paris hilton wannabe. I tend to find asian women more understanding about work life.

<comment><USER22> that depends on what kind of 'asian' they are.

I had a Taiwanese friend joking about this last week: He said a americanized asian girl will complain why you are not spending enough time and money with her. A fob-i chinese girl, even is she in maternity giving child birth will tell you: Oh... Don't woorry about the baby, just go to work and make sure you make the money/get promotion.... etc.

Sorry, don't downvote this, I know it is a crass overgeneralization but this is just a view of my chinese/taiwanese friend.

It seems that cultural upbringing has a huge role on how women see what the role of the man should be. And in some cultures, women demand less attention, which might make them a better fit for busy type of person.

<comment><USER12> I downvoted it. It is a crass overgeneralization, clearly based on stereotypes that have been reinforced by the narrow opinions of a couple of your friends.

I lived in Asia for more than six years. Speak Mandarin. Married locally. The idea that Asian women tend to "demand less attention," or what you refer to a "Fresh Off the Boat" Chinese girl giving birth will urge her mate to "don't wory about the baby" and "make sure you get the money" is absolute, utter B.S.</comment></comment></comment>


Swift Performance: Too Slow for Production - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sudeium.com/2014/12/10/swift-performance-too-slow-for-production/ <comment><USER2> I hacked together a quick reproduction of this since the author didn't provide any working code. I don't really know Swift and my Objective-C skills are pretty rusty at the moment, but it compiles and show similar performance characteristics: [https://github.com/mnem/swift-json- speedtests](https://github.com/mnem/swift-json-speedtests)

The initial Swift version the author created uses a third party library for wrapping the JSON decoding and that library appears to create a metric shit ton (technical term) of short lived objects whilst performing its magic. I cobbled together a less memory insane version (likely similar to the one described as Obj-C in Swift - although I disagree with that description) which is an order of magnitude faster. Finally there is an Objective-C version which is an order of magnitude faster again. All tests were running on an iPhone 5s in release mode.

Decoding JSON is an annoying task for most languages. That Swift decodes half a megabyte of JSON in a tenth of a second is a reasonable trade off, for me, when comparing it to the verbosity and occasional fiddlyness of working with Obj-C. It was quite nice to see how simple it was to mix Swift and Obj-C as I was creating this, so that suggests little downside to using Swift for the mundane tasks and coding specific bits in Obj-C when that's necessary for speed reasons - although Obj-C is not uniformly faster than Swift as noted in other articles.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find posts like this nearly entirely lacking in interest. There was so much _attitude_ and not near enough actual analysis. A much stronger post would have actually disassembled the resulting code in each of the different configurations, and looked to see _why_ the various permutations had the performance that they did. We would then have a much stronger understanding of where Swift's performance is at, instead of looking at a series of not exactly equivalent benchmarks that leave us wondering if we're not just seeing an artifact of the differences in the benchmark code as opposed to differences in real-world performance.

I for one would not be changing my approach based on this post. I _might_ start doing some disassembly if I was writing performance sensitive production code in Swift, but that would be about it.

</comment><comment><USER4> _Cough_ When it comes to describing languages, there's a set of words you should just consider vacuous throat-clearing until _proved_ otherwise. This includes "fast", "powerful", "robust", "easy to [pretty much anything]", "featureful", and a few others. Why is this? It isn't because it's impossible for any of these things to be true; all of them have been true of some language somewhere, even on initial release. It's because _every_ language always claims it.

Also, "fast as C" is a slippery little thing; anything can be fast as C on some benchmark with an optimization for that benchmark, being _reliably_ as fast as C and being able to engineer in the confidence that something is as "fast as C" all the time is quite another. Witness the number of people who will vigorously claim that Javascript implementations are "as fast as C", despite in reality not being anywhere near that except in the aforementioned carefully-engineered benchmarks. _Especially_ beware of "adding integers in an array". That's easy to optimize and nowadays says little since everyone optimizes for that case, knowing it's going to be benchmarked.

In other news, the latest web framework is "easy to use" and "powerful" and probably "MVC". This is just throat clearing, not a description anymore, because nearly everything is "easy to use" and "powerful" and "MVC". Also, half the libraries posted to /r/$LANGUAGE are "A simple, powerful library for X", which probably translates to "A library I spent about 4 hours on" rather than any sort of increased probability of it being either simple or powerful.

</comment><comment><USER5> Even as Python programmer I find the boast "2.6x faster than Objective-C and 8.4x faster than Python 2.7" pretty bizarre. So Objective-C is a statically typed, compiled, C superset and still only 3.5x faster than Python? That is not really something to be proud of.

<comment><USER6> Not an Objective-C programmer, but while includes static typing, it's also very dynamic. It uses a message-sending paradigm and you can construct messages at run-time from strings.

I believe Smalltalk is as about as much of an influence as C.

Lots of Objective-C programmers actively dislike Swift because it's so static.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a different comparison for what it's worth

[http://www.jessesquires.com/apples-to-apples-part- two/](http://www.jessesquires.com/apples-to-apples-part-two/)

<comment><USER8> The point is that author of original post was unable to get it compile with optimization turned on because of internal compiler errors. So yep, Swift can be faster but so far you must be lucky enough to get it compiled.

So... Main conclusion is that Swift is not production ready yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too Slow for Production _for now_.

Swift hasn't even been out for a year. Look at the progress it made since summer, it sped up a lot in certain parts.

Just file a radar on what's slow and they'll fix it.

Apple intentionally is shipping Swift as is to get devs ready and start planning for the next five years.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm currently deciding whether to start a project in Swift or Objective-C, I know very little about either, for learning purposes Objective C has the edge but I don't want to invest time learning something that's on its way out.

<comment><USER11> I doubt Objective C is on its way out...

<comment><USER9> Why not? This is Apple we're talking about, they're famous for getting rid of older stuff.

A lot of experienced Apple developers do not expect Apple to support two languages for a long time. With all the noise Apple made about Swift, it will be getting more TLC than Obj-C and eventually, Obj-C will not be supported anymore.

We're not talking about a few years, we're talking maybe Carbon>Cocoa style, 5 years before Apple starts warning devs that Obj-C would be phased out in several years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I haven't tried Swift yet, so I'm posting this just to know what other experiences people have.

<comment><USER12> I also encounter binary size issue like 10 times bigger than the same program in ObjC!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why not profile and see where the time is actually going? Slow JSON parsing? Slow I/O?

<comment><USER14> Blog author here. I actually did: the vast majority of time is spent in the Swift Runtime. The JSON parsing is via NSJSONSerialization, which is an Apple library written in Objective-C, and it's fast. I'm not measuring IO, I'm only measuring the time spent turning the NSDictionary objects that come back from NSJSONSerialization into my model objects.

I didn't spend a huge amount of time profiling this though, since it's very early days in my project and it'd take me less time to just rewrite what I'd done so far in a language that I know works.</comment></comment>


Keep your sites fast: a web performance tool and resource list - <AUTHOR> http://samsaffron.com/archive/2012/03/23/sam-s-ultimate-web-performance-tools-and-resources

<comment><AUTHOR> I created this page as a supplement to a talk I am doing next week, would very much appreciate any suggestions of missing tools in the giant list of links</comment>


ASK HN: Edit Audio Files using PHP - <AUTHOR>

Are there some good libraries/functions available in PHP to edit mp3 format files, say split a 5 min song into 5 separate 1 min parts.<p>Update: Any Open Source Lib/Tool that can be called on a *nix server <comment><USER2> It's easy enough to execute any command line program from PHP:

<http://php.net/exec>

Surely there's some command line tools to edit audio files. Maybe ffmpeg or mplayer?

<comment><USER3> I use FFMPEG

<? exec("ffmpeg [check the ffmpeg man pages for proper use]") ?>

ffmpeg isn't limited to mp3s, it can encode/decode pretty much anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look at mp3splt

> sudo apt-get install mp3wrap mp3splt

> man mp3splt

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably want to pass that sort of request to a helper app on the command line.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that would be nice.</comment></comment>


I have just open-sourced the code behind assignees.io - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/TailorDev/assignees <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion, will do!

<comment><AUTHOR> Edit: it is here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13994062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13994062)</comment></comment></comment>


Finala: A cloud scanner that analyzes wasteful and unused resources - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/similarweb/finala <comment><USER2> Neat. Can you fix the numbers in the readme? It's difficult to trust a project that has glaringly obvious math errors on the front page (0.068 * 720 = 48.96, not 600.96).

<comment><USER3> Fixed. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> IMO stuff like this should be built in. Google Cloud has a few recommenders ([https://cloud.google.com/recommender/docs/recommenders](https://cloud.google.com/recommender/docs/recommenders)), but it'd probably make sense to expand those to nearly all resources.

<comment><USER5> But can you expect the merchant to tell you to buy less?

<comment><USER4> At a minimum I expect the seller to not try to deliberately confuse me as to what I'm paying for, which is something AWS does to its customers. Google instead aggregates all your resource usage into a coherent UI and presents billing information in a form you don't need third party tools to understand.

<comment><USER6> You should expect the seller to maximize their profit however they can. Also, sellers that show no sign of ethics shouldn't be trusted period. Amazon is definitely one. Putting your stuff in the Amazon cloud worrying about deceptive practices or overcharging is asking the fox to guard the hen house.

Pick a different provider(s) with a better track record. Alternatively, choose Amazon saying its benefits outweigh its deceptive practices. Whichever.

<comment><USER4> My point exactly. I run my stuff on GCP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just a quick update Finala have now Dashboard out of the box! Check out the release [https://github.com/similarweb/finala#example-unused-rds- repo...](https://github.com/similarweb/finala#example-unused-rds-report)

</comment><comment><USER7> We used cloud custodian, it does a really good job.

[https://github.com/cloud-custodian/cloud-custodian](https://github.com/cloud- custodian/cloud-custodian)

<comment><USER8> custodian supports doing a lot of things, wrt to cost it performs similar activities, ie a yaml file to query metrics to find underutilized resources and then either notify the creator/owner via email/slack, online resize, or shut them down across many (hundreds of resources). additionally for cost can be used for off hours on instances/rds in dev envs, tag enforcement, etc. also supports multiple clouds and can be deployed as a serverless function.

<comment><USER7> Did you deploy it in Lambda? We have a big cloud deployment and cloud custodian sometimes take more than 15 mins to run.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey guys, I have created examples for different use cases: [https://github.com/similarweb/finala#use- cases](https://github.com/similarweb/finala#use-cases)

</comment><comment><USER9> what's considered wasteful in this case?

<comment><USER3> Hey, You have a configuration file that you can console the threshold.

I have created the project with a default threshold (wasteful in my opinion, rds that have 0 connection in the last week)

You can change the threshold very easy if you want to

<comment><USER9> cool thanks it might be useful to have it in documentation i had no idea where to start looking</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Movies: Won't kill piracy, but may help reduce it - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/facebook-movies-wont-kill-piracy-but-may-help-reduce-it/8714

<comment><USER2> Wow. If Facebook can manage to get HD content up for that low of a price, this may be a huge coup for them. At three dollars for a two-day rental, this service would already be half the price of what Microsoft charges for similar rental content on the Xbox 360 (at only 720p, no less).

I do have a point of contention with the article though as the author seems to think that most college students aren't crafty enough to connect their laptops to their televisions to watch the streaming HD content there. Preposterous!</comment>


Fukushima Nuclear Waste Mess is by No Means Solved - <AUTHOR> https://nuclear-news.net/2019/05/06/fukushima-nuclear-waste-mess-is-by-no-means-solved/ <comment><USER2> NUCLEAR PHYSICIST Hiroaki Koide has pointed out that although eight years have passed, there is still more than one million tons of irradiated water which still hasn't been treated. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)'s "handling" method for this situation was to build a thousand sewage tanks to store the sewage. But as space was limited and the number of sewage tanks was also limited. As such, Koide asserts, "TEPCO will be compelled to release these waters into the sea in the near future." [1] Moreover, with regards to the core meltdown of the reactor, the melted fuel rods remain unaccounted for.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the reality that nuclear power proponents seem to be content in ignoring. Can we build safe nuclear power plants? Yes. Does money, greed, pride, and stupidity triumph in the end? Yes.

<comment><USER4> Nuclear power proponents don't let emotion and fear get in the way of the facts. Nuclear power kills far far (far far far) less people than other forms of power generation. When it goes wrong it's super scary looking, terrifying really, but when you dig into the statistics of these accidents they wind up being less scary than is usually made out. It helps to learn about how nuclear power plants work, and visit one if you ever get the chance, once you get your head around it it becomes a lot less scary. For example take a look at the fatalities table here: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities)

PS: A good starting point to start questioning the anti-nuclear narrative is a documentary called Pandora's Promise, which is on Prime for free. Or perhaps this TED talk: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ciStnd9Y2ak](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ciStnd9Y2ak)

<comment><USER3> I don't see anybody rushing to move back to Chernobyl. There's more damage than immediate death. That environment is lost. It contaminates ground water, soil, the wildlife, the air. You're willfully ignoring the reality and taking the hopeful ideals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At the top of that page:

> nuclear-news: The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima > Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Yeah... seems legit.

</comment><comment><USER6> According to HN this is complete and utter FUD.

We need more nuclear energy, and we need it now.

<comment><AUTHOR> HN is very one-sided on a number of topics and in no way represents the sum total of the world's knowledge.</comment></comment>


Extraordinary Organizations: $170M company with no titles except "plant" manager - <AUTHOR> http://venturehacks.com/articles/extraordinary-organizations <comment><USER2> What is it called when a blog reposts 80% of the content from another site?

Anyway, this is the original article: [http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2008/01/no-titles- exc...](http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2008/01/no-titles-excep.html)

<comment><USER3> DaringFireball?

<comment><USER4> Er, no. John Gruber posts a lot of links, but what he doesn't generally do is to copy-and-paste someone else's stuff and try to make it look like he wrote it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Officers and directors: Ferdinand E. Megerlin Ph.D. > Chairman of the Board

Allen J. Carlson > President, Chief Executive Officer, Director

Tricia L. Fulton > Chief Financial Officer

Jeffrey Cooper > Officer

Peter G. Robson > General Manager of Sun Hydraulics Limited

<http://finance.google.com/finance?q=sun+hydraulics>

I guess they don't have _many_ titles.

<comment><USER6> Their employment page also lists jobs titles that they are hiring for:

CNC Machinist / Senior Product Design / Outside Sales Engineer

Clearly they have titles. Perhaps the vagueness of the article is actually indicative of it not being very accurate or telling the whole story.

<comment><USER7> My first instinct was also to verify the "no titles," thing at the employment page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This seems to be patterned after the Brazillian organization, Semco.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2003/apr/27/theobserver.o...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2003/apr/27/theobserver.observerbusiness7)

<comment><USER8> Yes, I wonder why Ricardo Semler <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler> and Semco is not mentioned more frequently.

I enjoyed his book "Maverick" a lot: <http://tinyurl.com/7l6mfp> , the newer 'Seven day weekend" is not bad either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of Nucor. It is twisted and surprising that companies that think about their employees' happiness first are not the norm, what we do have is megacorps with CEOs that make billions and let everyone else suffer, especially customers.

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982075....](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982075.htm)

</comment><comment><USER10> "The company recently held a party to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the last time [Semler] made any decision at all. "

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2003/apr/27/theobserver.o...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2003/apr/27/theobserver.observerbusiness7)

</comment><comment><USER11> sounds a bit like the company that makes GoreTex...

[http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/WL-Gore- amp...](http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/WL-Gore- amp;-Associates-Inc-Company-History.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> It makes some sense. It seems to be to be a sort of "fine grained capitalism". Not too different from the Silicon Valley, if you think of that as one big company. What I wonder is what prevents more companies from going this route?

</comment><comment><USER10> industrial democracy is awesome <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_democracy></comment>


LGBTQ game history is fleeting – that's why curation is necessary - sahin-boydas https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/19/lgbtq-game-history-is-fleeting-thats-why-curation-is-necessary/ <comment><AUTHOR> This has been such an authentic and relevant art movement. I think it's among the most intriguing art movements of our age because it's comprehensive to _us_ but it's far from inevitable from context. Nobody could have predicted how succinct and expressive it would have been. The medium doesn't favor it, history didn't suggest it, the market didn't reward it, but society somehow demanded it.

American art institutions will pretend to celebrate it _eventually_ , but they will never acknowledge it for what it truly means.

For the record, I never had anything to do with this movement. I'm strait and don't game. I just admire tremendously the humanity that abounds from this movement.

</comment><comment><USER2> I doubt there's a huge demand among game players for activist-themed entertainment.</comment>


Soros: General Theory of Reflexivity (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KF8USa1z <comment><USER2> You can find the rest of the lectures here: <http://www.ft.com/intl/indepth/soros-lectures>

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately it seems the lectures have been taken down.

<comment><USER4> The transcripts are still there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 2: [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dbc0e0c6-bfe9-11de- aed2-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dbc0e0c6-bfe9-11de- aed2-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KKjKwq14)

3: [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/5714b216-bfea-11de- aed2-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/5714b216-bfea-11de- aed2-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KKjKwq14)

4: [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/d55926e8-bfea-11de- aed2-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/d55926e8-bfea-11de- aed2-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KKjKwq14)

Can't find a transcript for 5.

<comment><USER6> 5: [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2ee0b622-bfeb-11de- aed2-00144feab4...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2ee0b622-bfeb-11de- aed2-00144feab49a.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting he left out capitalism in his list of ideology -isms in spite of its imposition, maintenance, and exploitation by force and violence that is simply more covert and pernicious. Once we are on the way to understanding that violence is not only the clobbering someone over the head, but also the institution and system in place that advantages one over another, then we will be getting somewhere.

<comment><USER8> Proper capitalism doesn't involve violence-- all market actors are participating out of free will. The government should be a referee to keep the playing field level, but usually the government is busy transferring resources from the general public to insider friends and groups.

<comment><USER9> How is the government going to referee without at least the threat of violence?

<comment><USER10> Obviously the government always carries with it the potential for violence - to properly only be used in response to a crime.

Otherwise the parent is correct. Capitalism requires the removal of violence (as in it's illegal and punished by a judicial system) from the marketplace, and requires that the government act as the final arbiter of disputes (etc) with a monopoly on force when it comes to the enforcement of laws.

In Capitalism if transactions aren't voluntary (ie without compulsion by force), then what you have is not Capitalism. Some people take to adding terms, like free market Capitalism, or Crony Capitalism, but that's ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In video form <http://youtu.be/oCaCrWzFPYY>

</comment><comment><USER12> What's the actionable investment advice here? I couldn't seem to figure it out.

<comment><USER13> You're asking for actionable specifics from an abstract discussion of philosophy. To take it back into our domain, it's a bit like reading an article on design patterns and saying, "Yes but can I have teh codez?"

(Or, to be flippant, the advice might be 'persuade George Soros to take you as a client.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think Soros is kind of glossing over his wartime history a bit there.

<comment><USER15> Can you elaborate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> October 26, 2009

<comment><USER17> Under the principle of fallibility, OP is posting this because some of us might not have read it already. I had not.

<comment><USER6> You, me and many more - it's currently ranked #3 on the 'most popular now' articles on ft.com!</comment></comment></comment>


German parliament passes Internet censorship bill - <AUTHOR> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1356941/german-parliament-passes-internet-censorship <comment><AUTHOR> >> _Users will still be able to access the flagged websites, but they will be advised that viewing child pornography is illegal._

That is not true. It won't be possible to access the website.

Edit: ... by just clicking the warning away.

<comment><USER2> You can access the servers by their IP adresses. The filtering will be DNS- based

<comment> bjelkeman-again Do you have a link for that information?

<comment><USER3> I do, but it's German:

(2) Für die Sperrung dürfen vollqualifizierte Domainnamen, Internetprotokoll- Adressen und Zieladressen von Telemedienangeboten verwendet werden. Die Sperrung erfolgt mindestens auf der Ebene der vollqualifizierten Domainnamen, deren Auflösung in die zugehörigen Internetprotokoll-Adressen unterbleibt. Source: <http://www.zugerschwg.com/>

The important part is "Die Sperrung erfolgt mindestens auf der Ebene der vollqualifizierten Domainnamen, deren Auflösung in die zugehörigen Internetprotokoll-Adressen unterbleibt." what means "The blocking is done at least at the level of the fully qualified domain names, whose resolution to ip adresses is omitted.".

Still searching for a native English source.

<comment><USER4> Without (yet) looking at the remaining text, "mindestens" causes me hesitation. "At least" or "at a minimum" does not seem to proscribe additional filtering, e.g. of IP addresses as opposed to DNS lookups.

Perhaps the use here has a colloquial or legal definition I'm not understanding. But to me, this language sounds like the proverbial slippery slope.

So, will providers work to restrict adherence to the minimum, or will they of themselves or in response to additional pressure go further? Or will the law go further by expanding the scope of this clause?

I have no sympathy for the original crimes involved. I also have little trust in legislated censorship and in the control and mission of the same remaining undistorted. I also am uncertain whether it is an effective or appropriate means of addressing the situation.

If only an approved government agency can research the situation, will the public be adequately informed? Democracy rests upon (relatively) equal access to information. What does legislation like this do to that basis?

<comment><USER3> > If only an approved government agency can research the > situation, will the > public be adequately informed?

No, they will try to keep the lists a secret.

Of course they will fail, as did all the other countries with their filter and censorship lists, but the government will try to not tell its people and destroy democracy, one step at a time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> First Australia and now Germany. I don't freak out when China puts the blinders on but I get real unhappy when the First World democracies start acting all backward.

Have you seen how wide Australia's blacklist is? [https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Australian_government_admi...](https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Australian_government_admits_less_than_32%25_of_secret_censorship_list_is_related_to_underage_images)

<comment><USER6> FYI the Australian plan to implement DNS level filter never got implemented mainly due to public backlash. The current blacklist is only for people electing to use the (govt. paid) client-side filtering software.

<comment><USER5> Oh good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> um isn't viewing child pornography illegal in Germany? Seems kinda redundant

<comment><USER3> Of course it is. As it is in 99% of all countries. But there are elections this September, so they did all kind of silly bills to get publicity for their party.

And with many people this works: "Oh, child porn on the internet? You have to DO something against it so nobody can access it. Hiding it is the right way to go."

That deleting it and prosecuting the people responsible for it would be the much better way, and required by the law, is forgotten if you can impress some voters. And it's cheaper and easier for them.

And now that we have this censorship instrument, let's block xyz (replace with something they don't like) too. No matter that our constitution says "censorship doesn't take place".

<comment><USER8> there should be a law that prohibits passing of any major policy bills (except emergency ones) in say 3 months preceding the election.

<comment><USER9> Then they'll do it 4 months prior. Your intent is sound, though.

<comment><USER8> yeah true. but public memory is short, I'm guessing that the influence/impact of those bills would be lesser if done 4 months before the election, than 1 month before.

<comment><USER9> So the politicians pass the pandering laws 4 months prior, but talk them up around the election.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Obvious solution nobody mentions in the comments: use Tor.

<http://torproject.org>

<comment> onreact-com Sadly most TOR servers have already been shut down in Germany. Some of the server providers have been accused of spreading child pornography and other illegal activities themselves. The pressure is immense.

<comment><USER10> I was talking about using Tor as a client. In this moment I'm considering Germany a country whose censorship you want to avoid, just like China.

<comment> onreact-com Yeah, but you can't use Tor effectively as a client if there are not enough nearby servers IMHO.

<comment><USER10> Wrong. Your Tor client won't necessarily choose them. Tor doesn't work like most P2P applications choosing other peers depending on the speed. It chooses an aleatory sequence of 3 Tor nodes that changes every 10 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a sad day for Internet.

People like me, who were old enough in the late 90s to discover this new medium and explore our fantasies, whether porn, or so many free games, and so many other free stuff, like filling those forms that get you no where, talking to some person miles away, reading ancient books, dude it was fun.

We knew this day would come however, when our subconscious dream of having an outlet with no rules, an anarchistic environment where one has complete freedom to say whatever they wish, free from the knowledge that anyone is looking over their shoulder, that anyone knows who they are, that anyone cares about what they say or see. This is the place where rich and poor are alike, treated alike, a place in which one can travel from phsycis to china, from cars to conversing about business.

Child pornography is abhorrent and despicable, but so is bestiality, some think porn in general is too, some think films with violence should be banned, games with violence, etcetera.

When my children will grow to my age perhaps they will never have known of a different internet, yet I will be glad to tell them the tale of a place where no one ruled and everyone was free, free from the knowledge that anyone is watching them, that anyone knows them, that there were any consequences to their actions. I will tell them that in that period, the stale and static internet that they now have, was blossoming, dynamic and advancing at incomprehensible speed. I will tell them that this place was the land of freedom, where man and women where able to escape the propaganda of their countries and find out the truth, where men from tyrannical states were able to get out the news of what is happening inside.

I will tell them that this was the land of freedom and like every other freedom land it fell to those who distrust us, to those who believe that we are incompetent, weak, unable to look after ourselves, unable to know what to think, what is right and wrong.

When a democratic country opts in to censor this place, it is a sad day for freedom itself. Has Germany forgotten where only 60 years ago their censorship and propaganda took them? Think of the children! - they cry. And I am, I want my children to have an outlet which is governed by no one, I want my children to have a place where no one knows who they are so that they may feel entirely free to say whatever they wish with no exception whatever, because words are what makes us think and no one has been harmed in the past 20 years from people being able to say whatever they wish.

It is abhorrent that a democratic country opts in for censorship and I think that if the time has not come to say enough, the kettle is boiling to the near limit.

<comment><USER12> If all the people who care about freedom on the net fight back, we'll win. I don't know where you live, but if it's Germany there's the Piratenpartei Deutschland at <http://piratenpartei.de/>

You can find your national Pirate Party at <http://www.pp-international.net/>

</comment></comment><comment> onreact-com Try and support the free and anonymous Internet project: <http://freenetproject.org/></comment>


A math problem stumped experts for 50 years. This grad student solved it in days - <AUTHOR> https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/08/20/magazine/math-problem-stumped-experts-50-years-this-grad-student-maine-solved-it-days/?event=event25 <comment><USER2> [https://archive.is/BCKoY](https://archive.is/BCKoY)

</comment><comment><USER3> TL;DR: Conway's Knot[0] is not a "slice knot" (a kind of mathematical knot)

Here's a better news article: [https://www.quantamagazine.org/graduate- student-solves-decad...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/graduate-student- solves-decades-old-conway-knot-problem-20200519/)

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

</comment><comment><USER4> Ugh. Clickbait</comment>


Ask YC: Thinking of Launching Coworking in Silicon Valley, with a twist  - <AUTHOR>

Myself (Publictivity) + Roommate (uStream) are thinking of starting a coworking space using extra space in our house (it's a three story townhouse) in Palo Alto.  We're thinking of turning the living area + garage into a coworking space for hackers, entrepreneurs,etc. in the next month. Thoughts?
a) it's our place, so different than most coworking. b) we've never done this before. what are the downfalls. c) most coworking spaces are open. were thinking of at least making sure we meet people online or in person before they drop by? d) what would make it interesting to you?
ps- if interested in more email me: jason [at] publictivity [dot] com <comment><USER2> Awesome idea!

1) I think it'd be most interesting if you let random people drop by whenever they want. Before letting them in, ask them what their deal is and determine whether or not they pass your coolness test.

2) Have extra desks, chairs, power cords ready for us to ravage.

3) Stock up on food/booze and/or require your guests to contribute.

Good luck!

<comment><USER3> > Before letting them in, ask them what their deal is and determine whether or > not they pass your coolness test.

I think I would have trouble saying to someone's face that they're not welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That sounds like an awesome idea and I definitely think a kind of tech entrepreneur living room would kick ass. Definitely agree with Jessica, there's nothing less annoying than a lack of power outlets.

I invite you to check out what's been going down at Boston's awesome coworking space Betahouse. Check out how they structure their areas (look on Flickr, etc. for pictures.)

Also, a shameless plug: Poolify might be a worthy addition to this. It's wifi based social networking. <http://poolify.com> (DanGrover and I hacked this together in a weekend, so it's rough and was only to mess around with the technology - definitely working on expanding it.)

</comment><comment><USER5> You might want to start incrementally. Have weekend hacker sessions instead of dedicating it full time. It would be cool if you could make a SHDH clone that was available continuously.

</comment><comment><USER6> Check on your insurance situation first!</comment>


'Silicon Valley,' S6E2 – a billion dollars to violate your principles - <AUTHOR> https://padailypost.com/2019/11/04/silicon-valley-season-6-episode-2-a-billion-dollars-to-violate-your-principles/ <comment><USER2> I haven't watched the episode, but I've been in a situation where I had to make the choice between taking the high road or getting money. For better or worse I've always made the choice to take the high road, and I've never regretted it.

Money only goes so far, and beyond a certain point it just doesn't matter if you make a little more. I'd rather keep my dignity and contribute positively to the world.

<comment><USER3> As much as I agree with you, the harsh reality is that the people who do choose the money end up having disproportionate influence over how the world operates. Money buys power.

It's sort of like finding honesty in politics. The reason politicians are dishonest is because it works.

It's just a bug in society, I guess.

<comment><USER4> Counterpoint: I've taken the high road when I had the chance to compromise my principles and (maybe!) make a lot of money. And I ended up with a decent amount of money as a result. People with values look for and value other people with values, so it did open doors.

Now I'm not rolling in cash as a result, but I'm quite comfortable. And I ended up much better than some of the cut throat people involved in that enterprise who lost the game of thrones and ended up with nothing.

<comment><USER5> I've always gone with my gut, which is nothing more than just common sense, and I've also been luckier more often than not.

"Good enough" has been a highly rewarding concept for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As the article notes, it's weird Silicon Valley went with a Chilean VC instead of a more direct Saudi VC/Softbank analogue. Would that have been too on the nose?

<comment><USER7> Perhaps they didn't have the right casting for such a character, and they would have to finesse the writing to avoid lazy tropes:

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

That said, this show once again unintentionally predicted current event relevance with its creative choices:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/world/americas/chile- prot...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/world/americas/chile- protests.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> • Items surrounding Gilfoyle's workstation include "Shadowrun" and "Magic the Gathering: Ravnica" from the Dungeons & Dragons world.

Actually, Shadowrun is an RPG set in a cyberpunk world completely unrelated to D&D and Magic is a card game set in a fantasy universe also completely unrelated to D&D (though Magic and D&D have the same publisher).

Sorry, I just had to say that.

<comment><USER9> Shadowrun is fantasy cyberpunk, not steam punk.

<comment><USER8> Oops, sorry. My bad - correcting. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone know why the show is ending? It's one of the few that I genuinely enjoy each season and am very disappointed to see this year to be the finale.

<comment><USER11> It started getting pretty formulaic, and some of the characters changed in ways that made no sense, Richard being the main one. Early on, he wasn't OK with paid users padding the usage metrics for Pied Piper and completely ruined Bachman's fundraising, but then like 2 seasons later he's totally OK installing software on everyone's phones at a tech conference? Totally inconsistent character development.

TJ Miller leaving was another huge setback for them, he really was the perfect foil for all of the characters around him.

<comment><USER12> I personally believe that having TJ Miller on the cast after all of the disciplinary stuff he got himself into (calling the bomb hoax on the AMTRAK train / the person whose friend is called "Cunty" revealing that he was a prick to everyone on the set) would have drawn a lot of smack towards the production team. Miller just made things horrible for himself.

<comment><USER13> Agreed but I also have to agree with GP; Bachman was a really entertaining part of the show and I've personally had a hard time feeling as invested in it with him gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> More interesting to me was the Gilfoyle subplot of trying to get him to catch up on his work and sticking him with a team. That was just sheer brilliance, and having seen similar things come out in real job life, only made it more hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER15> I thought this was a homage to Yahoo offering Zuckerberg 1 billion for Facebook early on. To which he replied something along the lines of "I may never have an idea this good ever again"

</comment><comment><USER16> I once pitched at an investor meeting, and the only bite I had, offered me all the money I wanted, at great terms.

He had a "warehouse of Chinese developers" and would simply throw 10 developers at it working on the exact same thing, and use the best code of the 10. That was his pitch.

Needless to say, I said no.

</comment><comment><USER17> HBO clip from the episode: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xabrjq14pnw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xabrjq14pnw)

</comment><comment><USER18> I 'll flag this SPOILERS SPOILERS people!

<comment><USER6> The day after is a generally-accepted threshold for free discussion of TV shows.

<comment><USER18> I will binge on the season only after it's finished.</comment></comment></comment>


OpenLTE: An open source 3GPP LTE implementation - <AUTHOR> https://sourceforge.net/projects/openlte/ <comment><USER2> Fascinating that someone is clueful enough to write an open source 3GPP LTE implementation ... yet clueless enough to host it on sourceforge.

<comment><USER3> Just FYI: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4n3e1s/the_state_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4n3e1s/the_state_of_sourceforge_since_its_acquisition_in/)

<comment><USER4> Huh. Didn't know this. Thanks!

<comment><USER5> I did read that and I think it was posted here too, but a lot of the comments were on the line of "that's commendable, but the name is already tarnished."

Shame really.

<comment><USER6> They did a pretty good job on Slashdot so far, and I think the community response has been rather positive. Hopefully they can turn SF around, as well. GitHub is great, but it's good to have competition to avoid monocultures.

<comment><USER5> Oh wait, they bought Slashdot too? I thought that was still owned by Dice.

<comment><USER6> They bought the whole enchilada.

[https://meta.slashdot.org/story/16/01/29/0247219/slashdot- an...](https://meta.slashdot.org/story/16/01/29/0247219/slashdot-and- sourceforge-sold-now-under-new-management)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone working on any "ad hoc GSM/LTE" startups, or developed any business models around them? This technology is very interesting but I'm puzzled about what I would use it for.

<comment><USER8> Interestingly enough, there are places without any cell phone coverage where being able to enable a small cell site would provide communications. There are also many disaster scenarios where it would be helpful to have such a capability.

<comment><USER9> In how many places would this be legal though?

<comment><USER10> It's possible to get permits for temporary operation. People have done this at hacker conferences and at Burning Man for example.

<comment><USER11> The Burning Man GSM base station writeup was a fun read: [http://openbts.sourceforge.net/FieldTest/](http://openbts.sourceforge.net/FieldTest/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anybody know some nice software radio materials? In form of lectures or lab exercises? I was always wondering about background of people which make feats like this. I have a degree in EE, oriented toward telecommunications but would not be able to produce something similar.

<comment><USER13> Please have a look at our "Journey to GSM" series of articles. Our goal here is to introduce and demystify GSM and Software Defined Radio (SDR) technologies. There are only only two parts available so far, but more will come shortly. I'm the author and would be very much appreciate your feedback.

Here's the link to the first part: [http://umtrx.org/journey-to-gsm- part-1-introduction/](http://umtrx.org/journey-to-gsm-part-1-introduction/)

<comment><USER12> Excelent tutorials please continue the good work. I like the fact that there is schematics freely available for UmTRX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe a dumb question but I don't see any mention of frequencies/power they use to test in the wiki.

I'm a little fuzzy on cell bands but I thought they were all restricted(lots of ham gear has cell bands explicitly locked out).

<comment><USER15> LTE in the unlicensed 5 GHz spectrum is coming soon (since the cell companies somehow only just realized that even if it's not pristine spectrum they also don't need to pay billions of dollars to access it) so there will actually be a legal way to use this in the future.

<comment><USER16> Any details on handset availability (even rumors)? I'd love to get my hands on a phone with an LTE transceiver that can operate in this spectrum range having an unlocked bootloader on the application processor.

Setting up a base station at elk camp and being able to use a regular cell phone instead of a dedicated amatuer or FRS/GMRS transceiver would be very cool.

<comment><USER15> Sorry, I don't know when this stuff is coming. In the mean time you could just use a wifi network with a SIP server for voice calls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If anyone's interested in UE side, I recommend srsUE as a more functional open source implementation of LTE stack. There's also Open Air Interface, which has both Ue and eNB, but is less stable.

</comment><comment><USER18> Are there any legal uses for this (in developed countries) - at least for someone who isn't a major telco?

<comment><USER19> In a controlled environment (shielded enclosures), sure. But no broadcasting!

<comment><USER20> What's the easiest way to setup a shielded enclosure for hacking on something like this with an SDR?

<comment><USER21> It sounds like a bad response, but if you don't know, you shouldn't be trying. The risks and penalties for screwing up can be enormous and it's not something to take lightly.

<comment><USER22> I think your answer does not only sound bad.

Climbing and diving are easily lethal if you don't command your equipment appropriately. Would you recommend someone interested in practicing them to not even try?

Nonetheless, the point you make is important. Having said that, giving advise on how to avoid the dangers is what I think to be optimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Nooooooo why on SourceForge :-(

<comment><USER24> Fortunately it's a .tar.gz rather than an executable, so the amount of harm SourceForge can do is limited.

<comment><USER25> Sourceforge's new owners claim[0] they stopped doing that stuff. I haven't checked to see if it's true but I know it's been discussed on HN before.

[0][https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and- fut...](https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-future- plans/)</comment></comment></comment>