Why startups shouldn't just be for the young - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/04/06/why-startups-shouldnt-just-be-for-the-young/ <comment><USER2> One valuable asset for a startup is domain expertise. There are two kinds of domain expertise: academic knowledge, and experience in the field. You can get academic knowledge when you are young, but experience takes time.

I've only been to one tech conference, but it made me feel better about just getting into the startup world in my late 30's. One demographic I saw at the conference was a whole bunch of young, really smart developers who had no idea what to focus their skills on.

People with strong experience in a particular field can have a valuable perspective on what kinds of problems are worth solving in their field. They also know what solutions have been attempted in the past, and why those solutions were not ideal. This kind of knowledge can help a startup avoid the mistakes people have made in the past, and create a more effective product or service.

<comment><USER3> Good in theory but in practice perseverance seems to win over anything else from what I've seen.

<comment><USER4> YES! Tenacity is THE biggest contributor to success, along with the ability to learn the lessons failure teaches.

Domain expertise and a strong academic foundation can give you a massive edge, but alone they are not enough.

<comment><USER5> Hm. Young people are not known for tenacity. In fact, no one is. Its rare. And I'd hazard, uncorrelated with age.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Meh... it isn't about how "startups _shouldn't_ just be for the young," because they're not. No actual intelligent, reasonable person with any life experience at all actually believes bullshit like:

 _Startups are for the young and hungry. You're thirty? You're too old. If you haven't made your first million by 25, you've missed your chance. If you're not working 130 hours a week, you'll never create the next Google._

Seriously, it's a fun stereotype and it leads to cool movies like _The Social Network_ but - back here in the real world - there are plenty of startups founded by 30+ folks. And, in the real world, it's results that matter in the end, so if you can compete, you can compete. It doesn't matter if you're 19, 29, 39, 49, or whatever.

Then again, I'm a 38 year old startup founder, so what do I know?

</comment><comment><USER7> As an old (37) guy with experience in a couple of start-ups, there's another benefit to having older, more experienced people on the team -- if you get the right people, they will have seen the problems and done the work before, and will save you a lot of big mistakes up front.

The start-up I currently work for was founded by a bunch of very smart, very young engineers over four years ago, and we're still dealing with all the bad engineering decisions they made -- decisions that look obvious to an experienced engineer but aren't obvious to someone without the requisite cuts and bruises. Having even one seasoned engineer on the team then would have saved the company a lot of pain over the subsequent years and would have put us in a much better position now.

<comment><USER8> Those bad engineering decisions the founding engineers made may have been what allowed them to move fast enough to build a startup that's still in business 4+ years later.

If you know exactly what your customers want, you should take the time to build it correctly the first time. But if you're innovating and creating a new product, you'll need to perform a lot of experiments before you figure out what your customers really want.

Experiments shouldn't be engineered perfectly. It's better to have a creaky product that customers want than a bullet-proof system that nobody wants.

<comment><USER9> It's absolutely true that, sometimes, you need a quick and dirty solution to move quickly. For instance, on a project that I worked on when I was younger, I was running data through an O(n^6) algorithm when there was an O(n) algorithm available. However, getting something up and running at O(n^6) was far more valuable than waiting two weeks to work all the bugs out of the more complicated O(n).

On the other hand, that same project also had an object responsible for both displaying bitmaps on the screen and also for calculating statistical uncertainties. This unholy mash-up of two completely unrelated concepts was a constant impediment to development. If I'd had an experienced developer on the project, she'd have caught it in half a second. Splitting the class would have been trivial and wouldn't have delayed the project longer than a bathroom break. However, since the other developers were just as green as I was, the class stayed in and grew into a nightmare that _prevented_ us from doing further experiments toward customer satisfaction. I think this is the kind of advantage that svdad was talking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a 40 year old with two kids living in San Francisco, and I actually know a lot of people in my position who work for startups. It's not as big a career risk as people thing, especially in high tech, where career stability is more valuable than job stability. The people who work for startups tend to have a lot of connections and very sharp skills - qualities that make it easy for them to find a new job quickly.

There are a few downsides. The startups they tend to work for aren't the "rundown apartment eating ramen" kind of deals. They pay decent salaries, though they do offer more upside in exchange for lack of job stability (though like I said, job stability isn't such a big deal if you have a reserve fund and have very sharp skills). Even so, working for this sort of startup is more like having a job, more casual than a typical bigco but nowhere near as liberating as the PG-style ycombinator startup. Quasi "stable" startups aren't necessarily any better than a job in bigco, and the more they resemble a bigco in terms of pay and benefits, the more likely they are to behave like a bigco toward employees. Both types of organizations do display a wide range of workstyles.

Also, I don't know how it will be as these folks get older. I've found "age discrimination" per se to be overstated so far in my life, but that doesn't mean age won't make for a poor cultural fit. Plus, I am "only" 40... so who knows, I may feel it more later. When you have two kids at home, certain types of startups (the kind that might use the term "brogramming", for instance) generally aren't going to be a good fit for a 40+ year old with kids and a mortgage. I know a programmer in his 50s with teenage kids - the sort of dude who is super sharp in terms of intelligence and technical prowess, physically trim, and a little edgy. He works with these sorts of companies, but he says he sometimes looks toward more of a consulting arrangement.

Lastly, these folks could be at risk in a true meltdown. The last time I saw this was when during the dot-com bust, when genuinely talented programmers just couldn't get a gig. The big companies did shed some people, so I can't say bigco is necessarily safer, but there was little doubt that if you needed a stable income, a large organization was better shelter from the storm. This sort of true bust is rare, but it does happen. That said, if I did lose my job, I'd rather have the kind of network and technical skillset more common among a startup type than a bigco type who had gotten too comfortable over the last decade...

My lesson learned so far is that everything does carry some risk, and that in some ways a bigco career _can_ carry greater risks than a series of startups... there isn't a single hard and fast rule for this.

</comment><comment><USER11> _But the vast majority of us simply don't work as well if we drive ourselves too hard._

And the vast majority of startups fail.

I agree with the premise that you can never be too old. Even if you have a family and a mortgage, you're really just dealing with numbers.

If you're doing a startup and you're 20 years old and you need $1000/mo to live, then some amount of time every week is going to be devoted to making $250. Find a job that pays you $10/hr and work 25 hours a week, and work on your startup 40 hours a week. A 65 hour week in pursuit of your passion is a good place to be in life.

Similarly, a 30 year old doing consulting that has a family and a mortgage (or 2) may need $6000/mo to survive. Well, it's the same calculation - you need $1500/wk. So get your skills to the point that you can charge $100/hr. Consult for 15 hrs a week and work on your startup for 50. 65 hours a week in pursuit of your passion - and still another 60 or so waking hours to spend with your family.

Like everything in life, it's just positioning yourself to get the math to work for you.

</comment><comment><USER12> As a relatively "old" guy (Its hard to write that as I don't feel old at 35) doing his first startup, I appreciate reading these articles. Although, the OP is on his 3rd startup and appears to have had some successes (especially if he had stock options from working at Apple).

I'd be curious to hear from people who left corporate world and went into the startup world later in life and how the adjustment was.

I touched on this from my perspective in a recent blog post: <http://dannydo.es/a-startup-despite-these-7-reasons/>

</comment><comment><USER13> As you get older, You find there's virtue in having 60% of the success with only 40% of the labor.

<comment><USER14> Which is something those rare young startup entrepreneurs realize too, isn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm 26 but couldn't agree more with a lot of what's said. I'm married younger than most in my industry and feel an intense pressure to work all hours of the week, essentially be on call 24/7. And most kids entering my field do, they make their job their whole life. I'm just not willing to do that and think it's very important to draw those work/life boundaries. It doesn't make you less of an asset at your job because most of the work I see is work for work's sake, to seem like they are putting in the effort. Working smarter, not harder is absolutely right. And there are also other tactics that are important. Working from home if need be, adjusting your hours so you can make time for your family/kids and still get things done, etc. Burn out is a big risk and my guess is that even though most kids in startups are young, there are many who are unsuccessful because they think they need to work 100+ hour weeks and just can't maintain the pace. They get burnt out, fail at what they're doing, and end up squandering a lot of talent. If they'd just rationed their energy, who knows what could have happened.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wasn't the "startups are for/mostly created by young people" myth already debunked?

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't know if startups are for the young.

In the 30's you can take the shortcut secret: Learn from the success of others instead of having to splash everywhere furiously in your 20's to figure it out on your own.

The lean startup methedology specifically comes to mind on how to get stuff really done, and out of being a 'startup'. Being a startup should only be a temporary thing.

If the goal of startups is to learn the business skills to "start" a business model to become a lasting business, startups are a different kind of time use for me in my 20's than in my 30's.

Most of my 20's were spent learning business. My late 20's into 30's have been about buckling down and getting results from what I've learnt. Rubber to the road, no more confusing startup 'activity' with results. Schools over, time to deliver and launch, launch, launch.

Having other demands on me make me better. Who doesn't work better with the pressure of a deadline? Imagine what a family or children can help do. I'm not afraid of it.

Maybe VC's want my whole living energy don't know themselves that I get more done in 8 hours than burning myself for 16 hours a day 7 days a week. I did that for 6 years, zero vacations, I know it better than anyone who expects it indirectly. I can still do it, but I'm being smarter about it. The opportunity has to be right. Until then, my 8-10 hours a day are focused on being productive, no distractions, and no longer confuse activity with results.

If running businesses are for the middle aged, the young seem to be often forced out of startups once they get going. To prepare for this, I spent my 20's getting 20 years of business experience so I was the equivalent of a 40 year old in experience by the time I hit my 30's.

I'm not sure if it was the best or ideal course but I sure am more comfortable and prepared for the ups and down and continue to build my focus daily.

</comment><comment><USER18> There is nothing like the energy and vitality you feel when you are building something that you feel passionate about. While I have a sucessful professional career, the small strides that you make with a startup are much more gratifying than even the best day at work. You appreciate this more as you get older.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm 33 and launching our idea next month. My biggest fear is that while I'm working on it part-time along with spending time with family and friends, somewhere a 21 yr old is eating Ramen and working away 20 hr days to annihilate my project.

<comment><USER20> I always thought that too. But, you have a vision for your startup. Not everyone has that same vision.

If they start copying you, it's fine because you will always be one step ahead.

I have found that the vast majority of people have lots of ideas but never want to put the effort into actually completing them.

The ones that do usually have their own ideas and most likely won't be copying you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This post had nothing to with the title. It was an anecdote of work-life- balance...

</comment><comment><USER22> 28\. No idea if this makes me old or young. Don't care.

I'm pretty sure I'm not fundable because I just don't see the value in being a billionaire. Ever. I'd get off around $10 million if money were the only motivation. Solving interesting problems, helping people, teaching people so the knowledge I have doesn't die when my body does, those are interesting to me. Scoring huge "exits" to make rich people richer? Meh. Not averse to it, but I don't care. Why would I? That rich people don't have enough money isn't even on the top 100 of the world's most serious problems.

And if any VC ever shot a term sheet my way that had participating preferred or multiple liquidation preferences on it, I'd feel like I was punched in the face and never deal with him, or his firm, or anyone connected with him, again.

The TL;DR of this sense: You know what's _not_ cool? A billion dollars. Unless you're Louis CK, because he'd have fun with that shit: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_XiA4U_XsE>

I'm reaching the age where "just a programmer" positions (without, at the least, informal technical leadership) aren't acceptable, and I definitely like the blank-sheet creativity that's possible with startups, but I don't see myself as being VC-istan "founder material". I won't have the necessary connections to get funding till at least 35, and I stopped seeing any value in being a billionaire around 24, when a short-term but scary health problem convinced me of the utter-fucking-uselessness of material ambition.

It's not that I wouldn't be awesome as a founder. I have as good or better odds than anyone else. I just have to recognize that by the time I'll be fundable, having acquired the connections, I'll probably care even less about billion-dollar exits.

<comment><USER23> I'm also 28 and have left my work to form a startup. Money is not a motivation for me but I've been doing this for 8 months now and it is a big factor. If someone offered $5 million dollars to me right now and buy my company I would definitely say yes.

The reason is that it would give me the freedom to do whatever I want for a long time. I wouldn't start buying expensive things because I was able to do that when I was working as a senior software engineer anyway. There are so many projects I'd love to be able to do for the sake of learning something new which I am not able to do right now. I have to focus on earning money as my funds will eventually run out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm a 20 year old with no obligations what so ever. I would say your wrong startup isn't for the old it isn't for the in experience. I have run my own consulting company since I was 15. I have been through the ups and downs of hiring and firing, management, dealing with unruly customers, as well as unruly employees. I would that the benefit of experience working as a programmer on big project is that you know when it's time to stop. You have found those ways to get through 60 hours werk. Mines being working out. You know a good employee from a bad, and you know the difference between a unmotivated employee, and one that needs to go. As a turned from a consulting to a startup just recently I do see something young people the few like me do have. We have time. I don't have any obligations, School will always be there if I need it, even with my experience I am enough of stupid dreamer to follow a good idea.

<comment><USER11> The presentation skills that you can learn in a few college-level communications classes are invaluable for getting noticed and being taken seriously. Your comment highlights this.

<comment><USER25> I agree.

Although all of us on HN like to think we can look past the grammar and poor sentence structure and judge someone by their github account or code quality - In reality humans are not built to evaluate others that way during first encounter, and most people you interact with in a startup (like customers) do not care about the code.

Thread OP sounded like a 20 year old.

<comment><USER26> >and most people you interact with in a startup (like customers) do not care about the code.

Exactly. Technical debt is your problem; not the customers.

Right now, to the average person you're probably a wizard. (And to some of your colleagues if your skills are of sufficient quality.) Nobody questions a wizards magic as long as it _works_. (Except in the edge case where it is indeed your colleagues observing.)

The best magic requires sleight of hand and people skills to perform.

EDIT: And since were all listing our ages here, 16.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Entire concerts algorithmically "reconstructed" from YouTube videos - <AUTHOR> http://switchcam.com/ <comment><USER2> Wow. Many thoughts arose:

\- Is this more, less, or equivalently legal (copyright-wise) to just posting the youtube videos on youtube in the first place? It seems like the act of compositing them in this way would be significant, but maybe not?

\- The normalisation of audio could use some work. SwitchCam seems to do something (the youtube volume on each clip was different for me), but it didn't quite work.

\- I'd be really interested to know how automated this is, and how much human curation is required to get it right.

\- Presumably, the next step is stitching the multiple videos together to make 3d models, allowing you to pan to places between the various camera operators. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

\- I'm no lawyer, but the advice we've received is that we're good on the legal side.

\- You're on the money re: audio. It's miles better than it was 1 month ago, but we're still not 100% yet.

\- There is a human curation step (~5% of the process), but that is mostly for removing really crappy videos. Searching/Synching/Sequencing is automatic.

\- I dunno about _next_ step(!), but i agree the idea is super interesting :)

<comment><USER3> I wonder how possible it would be both technically and legally to use the audio from the various angles as inputs into an audio processing step where you distill just the true music audio and clean it up. Ideally you'd have one 'cleaned' version of the audio playing and switching views just switches video.

This may be more legally grey than just piping through audio since you are actually producing a derivative work (even if it is mechanically produced), but the net effect would be awesome. You'd end up with better audio than any one person could record, and the more angles you get the higher quality you can make the audio.

Definitely a great idea and very well done for the first cut. You just need some Wilco on there.

<comment><USER4> It would probably be technically "possible" but I doubt that you'd end up with anything that sounds listenable.

The only bootleg audio that usually sounds decent are soundboard recordings, and when you find audience tapes spliced in with them the difference is immediately noticable.

<comment><USER5> I think theoretically you can make it quite good, but it's not going to be a simple task and you probably can't rely on purely the fans' recording. I think the best way would be to modulate them together based on a weighting depending on position or distance away from where the music is coming from, also discarding distorted recordings etc. That said, you probably only want this lightly mixed in along with a good recording from the desk, all adjusted for the viewing angle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really cool stuff!

A little suggestion.

The first video I picked had only one camera angle for the first two tracks of the concert. So it was an effort for me to understand how it works. I would suggest you have a prominent link to a 'model video' that has multiple camera angles so new visitors can easily see it in action.

Very good job lads!

Of course, I presume the bigger play is for switchcam to be the default app that people use to record at concerts and other events. Smart!

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool idea, but I was sad that it wasn't finally an implementation of an idea I've had for a long time. My idea is to actually use video and audio information from distinct sources to create a single video/audio stream that is of better quality and/or completeness than any of the constituent parts. Essentially, my idea would do to video what Photosynth does for photos.

<http://photosynth.net/>

<comment><USER8> That is just so much harder; though I haven't looked at the website yet, seems to be overwhelmed right now. Besides, I would want one consistent audio signal instead of one that varies in noise, volume, whatever. Video from different sources is alright though, since we are used to switching scenes and cameras all the time.

<comment><USER7> The idea I'm talking about should provide a single consistent audio signal. I know nothing about audio processing, but it seems like it should be possible to take multiple bad audio signals and combine them into one signal that's better than any constituent audio source. Perhaps one audio source captured low frequencies well, while another captured higher frequencies better.

<comment><USER9> _> take multiple bad audio signals and combine them into one signal that's better _

The problem eventually comes down to the fact that "better" is subjective. We're in the murky realm of art here. Should your algorithm keep that fret noise or the squeaking of a vocalist's intake of breath? Are they "noise," or are they part of the performance?

 _> I know nothing about audio processing_

Not wishing to be rude, but this much is very evident. Recording engineers position their microphones with millimetre precision in order to combat phase issues, and that is in an ideal studio scenario. Doing what you suggest is basically impossible.

Maybe I'm overstating it, you could probably do _something_ and it'd be a nice bit of research, but you wouldn't get useful results in the way that you're imagining.

<comment><USER10> Presumably one would get rid of per-device degradation and compression artifacts.

<comment><USER11> This is the main thing (also tricky)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of "Awesome, I Fuckin' Shot that", a Beastie Boys concert filmed by 50 audience volunteers and edited together:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awesome;_I_Fuckin_Shot_That>!

<comment><USER13> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awesome;_I_Fuckin%27_Shot_That>! <\- working URL

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very cool, just a slight niggle about the 'lightroom' colour scheme (dark area surrounding the video) which I see being poorly implemented time and time again: it doesn't really work when you have elements of bright white on the page, because they just end up looking even brighter next to the dark parts. The glaring white strips are distracting while watching the video, moreso than even an all white background.

TL;DR: lose the strips of white from the video viewing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I agree actually. We've been talking about changing the color scheme to either be all dark or all white but haven't pulled the trigger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had been thinking about something like this, but in the context of recreating riot crime scenes. After the last riot in Toronto the police received over 1M stills and thousands of hours of relatively low quality cell phone video. The main task for them is to connect different shots of individual offenders over time to build a) a coherent story demonstrating premeditation, b) an unbeatable description and connect it to some identifying info that might not necessarily be present at the exact time of the offense.

</comment><comment><USER16> Site seems to be struggling under load.

I am excited about the concept - was thinking about this very idea while watching Coachella streaming live this year and then seeing all the cams people were uploading.

<comment><USER17> Google cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://switchcam.com/&hl=en&safe=off&sa=G&strip=1)

<comment><USER18> Even using that, all I get are Internal Service Errors...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sweet execution. Finally a use for all those dickheads who hold up their phones in the middle of a _live_ performance.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, now that you can't see anything but camera phones while you're actually at the concert, you can watch it from youtube when you get home.

Thankfully this isn't too much of a problem at heavy metal gigs. No-one wants to take their smartphone to the moshpit :D

<comment><USER21> The solution must be to institute moshing at all live shows, then. Lilith Fair, here I come.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Honestly one of the coolest things i've seen in a while. If they can get around the legality of it, im sure they'll be snatched up quickly.

</comment><comment><USER23> Pretty cool. Looks like they are a 500 startups project, formerly Veokami. Guess they used some of their funding to buy a better name! [http://www.startupsmart.com.au/growth/veokami- among-500-star...](http://www.startupsmart.com.au/growth/veokami- among-500-startups-latest-intake/201110174213.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that's us. I miss Veokami sometimes, but my cofounder and I were two of about 4 people who could actually pronounce the name :p

Incidentally, Switchcam.com was only a little more than $1k, which was definitely worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sorry guys, probably should have sured up servers for HN load - my bad =\ On Caltrain, brb...

</comment><comment><USER25> This is awesome. My only suggestion is to allow the user to switch angles without changing the audio track. Since these are concerts, the audio track is going to be one of the most important things. Often times one video will have significantly better audio than the other ones. It'd be nice to be able to choose that one to stay constant. Alternately, it'd be awesome if there were a way for the bands themselves to upload the recorded concert audio.

I realize that often times getting the recorded audio for a concert can be a finicky matter, but maybe you could partner with one of the many music festivals that are cropping up to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER26> This. Is. So. Cool. Wow. I tried several concerts, several angles, and everything works pretty smoothly. Any critiques I might have are quite minor.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is really cool.

I went to add a concert with time/date but landed up getting lot of videos that didn't meet the criteria. The concert was part of Osheaga (a festival in Montreal) but the listing shows up as Parc Jean-Drapeau, where the festival is held. I think including the ability to indicate what event it was part of might narrow down your search a bit.

Since most of the 300 videos found were unrelated, I decided to go through manually and select only those which were relevant. By default, all 300 videos are checked with no easy way of unchecking them. Your average user isn't going to be able to just use a jQuery one-liner like I did, so this is something else you should consider!

Overall, great job and I look forward to seeing how you guys progress with this idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Ian, for the feedback and also for adding an event. I just saw those come through on the back end. We've put the processing on hold for the moment until the load becomes manageable - hope that's cool. We'll email you when they're up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I love it. Any chance you would expand to more general "news" applications? The audio wouldn't be as good for syncing against, but I've always wanted an interface like this for watching protest videos.

<comment><USER29> Take a look at this: [http://blog.switchcam.com/uc-davis-pepper-spray- incident-fro...](http://blog.switchcam.com/uc-davis-pepper-spray-incident- from-all-angle)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Very impressive. Very cool. I assume this will eventually extend beyond concerts to all kinds of other live events (sports, plays, etc). This is going to be big.

What's also interesting is how much the effect of SOPA will have on such an awesome service like this. So disappointing to think about how the copyright holders would rather shut you down then come up with a great way to enhance the service and share revenue with you.

Best of Luck. We'll all be rooting for you guys.

</comment><comment><USER31> Pretty cool. One thing... after switching camera angles from the first camera I can switch between all other camera except I can never get back to camera 1.

</comment><comment><USER32> This perfect circle gig is a good sample:

[http://switchcam.com/event/a-perfect-circle- lollapalooza-201...](http://switchcam.com/event/a-perfect-circle- lollapalooza-2011/)

Some of these concerts may have bootleg audio available, often recorded by audiophiles with decent equipment. It'd be amazing if supported syncing that up so you'd get great audio with multi-camera video

</comment><comment><USER33> Seems to work. That is incredibly cool/terrifying.

</comment><comment><USER34> Nice. However - the timeline should be default. I was pretty meh'd until I found it, works great.

Now it would be nice with an underlying concert-track or / per song mp3. I don't like the crappy cellphonesound. I guess the syncing will be hard though, with the videos lag not very constant (most often, seems to work good now but I have a nice broadband connection)

</comment><comment><USER33> So if you can do this with concerts, presumably you can do it with any collection of video shot in the same place, if there's enough audio in common.

That makes me think that all kinds of crowd video (protests, speeches, etc) should be stitchable, which seems like it would open larger (and potentially morally ambiguous) markets.

</comment><comment><USER35> Pretty cool indeed. A question though: how much of a need is there for a service like this? Beyond the more mainstream artists and festivals, most of the artists whose shows I've seen have typically had more respectful audience members who didnt put recording with their cellphones ahead of enjoying the show.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is really awesome. I hope you don't have any issues with copyright though. Best of luck with the project!

</comment><comment><USER37> Absolutely amazing, great job. I just got chills from watching the National and feeling like I was back there.

</comment><comment><USER38> First thing I thought of was the Nine Inch Nails fan project "This One Is On Us". It works. Very cool and I wish you all the best.

<http://www.thisoneisonus.org>

<http://www.ninwiki.com/This_One_Is_On_Us>

</comment><comment><USER39> Does anyone believe that this is done algorithmically? All the examples I checked seemed to be really poorly sync-ed, & as a DSP engineer I don't believe this task to be incredibly difficult...

would also be cooler to have a seating chart to click around to make sense of perspectives

<comment><USER24> It's all algorithmic but the flash player only seeks to the nearest key frame (every 2s) so that's why it isn't flawless. This can be overcome ... but I'd prefer to work on the seating chart thing - thanks!

<comment><USER39> Ah, didn't realize the flash / keyframe limitation. Best of luck! very cool idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is one of the coolest things I have seen. While there are some little bits of feedback, I can admit that I spent the last 30 minutes watchings concerts, amazed at how great this felt.

MPAA: More of this, less of SOPA. If you give us great ways to get content, we will pay for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to hear your feedback, Mitchell... And thanks for the kind words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Absolutely one of the better ideas I've seen lately! An original idea with a lot of wiggle room for future growth.

I think it could be pretty cool if users had the ability to reference a higher quality audio source (when available - something on Archive.org or uploaded mp3s).

</comment><comment><USER42> Great concept and like how you can change views! Been following them since they were veokami.

</comment><comment><USER43> Maybe it's just me, but the site rick-rolled me on each concert I tried to check out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. It only happens when the JS borks out completely (which is rare), when JS is turned off, or when you're using a really old browser (which i assume you're not).

If you're inclined (I completely understand if not) can you tell us the error that the console in Chrome or Firebug gives you?

<comment><USER43> The error I'm receiving on Firefox Aurora 10.0a2 (2011-11-27) is:

VKLog is not defined [http://switchcam.com/assets/js/utils/facebook.js?ver=2011112...](http://switchcam.com/assets/js/utils/facebook.js?ver=20111129-223208) Line 81

VKLog.dlog("checkSessionStatus()");

It does seem to work with Adblock disabled, so I'd guess a subscription is blocking something essential.

<comment><USER24> Interesting, thanks for poking around! I don't think we use anything dodgy (except maybe Facebook libraries) but I'll see if I can set up that configuration and debug it. Really appreciate you taking the time to write this up. Cheers, Chris

<comment><USER44> I'm having the same problem. I think it's a bad idea to use Facebook libraries for critical functionality. A lot of people (myself included) block Facebook resources from loading on external sites to decrease their ability to track user activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Cool concept, fairly good execution.

I think I would advise not to just focus on concerts, but potentially other mass events, e.g. sporting events.

I guess you're using the audio stream to do some form of sync / time stamp though, so that may limit potential uses.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is music a requirement? I'm trying to add Henry Rollins' spoken word at Coachella from April 18 2009, but your YouTube search always seems to fail. I can see the videos on YouTube just fine if I search for myself.

</comment><comment><USER47> I had the idea to do this (albeit, manually) a while ago, syncing the audio from Justice's "A Cross The Universe" with Youtube video of the concert it came from. Really cool to see it done, though!

</comment><comment><USER15> Watching Ocean's 11 last night it occurred to me that other contexts in which intelligent multi-camera stitching might be profitable are casino security and retail loss prevention.

</comment><comment><USER48> this is awesome. seriously. maybe you could package the technology in a way that lets other platforms use this without youtube. i am reminded of the original Color app.

</comment><comment><USER49> Maybe a next step could be a video app which had some kind of time code embedded in the resulting video - for much easier syncing.

</comment><comment><USER50> Great work, hope you can handle the traffic that is coming your way. I would be surprised if you didn't get bought by Google.

</comment><comment><USER51> Mind blowing. I don't know that I'd ever really use it, but this is super cool and really well done!

</comment><comment><USER52> Looks a lot like Hadza <http://hadza.com/> (ex Wesync)

</comment><comment><USER53> I want. Love the idea. Site is down so I can't tell if it works. But plus 1 for the idea alone.

</comment><comment><USER54> My out loud comment when I tried it was "Holy shit this is genius if it works".

</comment><comment><USER55> Great stuff. This is like Photosynth for videos! Remember Photosynth?

</comment><comment><USER56> Ummm... am I missing something? Every video I click on is a rickroll.

</comment><comment><USER57> Cool idea but when I tried "Arcade Fire - Austin City Limits" 2011 [http://switchcam.com/event/arcade-fire-austin-city- limits-20...](http://switchcam.com/event/arcade-fire-austin-city-limits-2011/) it was far from correct.

</comment><comment><USER58> to me, it looks amazing

some techie questions, how does it work? how do you get to know which videos are actually part of a specific event? how do you match the video with the actual song?

</comment><comment><USER59> Too bad some artists apparently take down concert videos.

</comment><comment><USER60> Excellent work!

It says a lot that the music industry didn't invent this.

<comment><USER61> That's because they're too busy suing people to innovate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Very cool. What about other applications? News reports?

</comment><comment><USER63> great idea. do you have any solution to all of the shaky and unsteady video?

</comment><comment><USER64> Amazing, thanks!!

</comment><comment><USER65> wow. super cool

</comment><comment><USER66> very cool. worked swell.

</comment><comment><USER67> This is awesome for two reasons: 1) it's just plain cool and 2) it finally gives a reason to tolerate annoying people who hold up their cell phone cameras during concerts.

<comment><USER68> It's funny because watching a concert I thought how cool it was that when someone had a camera or phone in my line of sight I could simply switch to another unobstructed view. Then I realized the chances were good that my new view was coming from the very camera I switched views to avoid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> This is freakin awesome! Keep it up! How big is your company?</comment>


Ask YC: Google Vs. Yahoo for traffic - <AUTHOR>

I've got about 3 web sites going which I actively advertise for and am noticing a consistent trend.
1. For organic traffic - while most of the raw traffic of my site comes from Google, Yahoo has a noticeably lower bounce rate and higher daily conversion rate.
2. For advertising traffic, Yahoo's advertising engine delivers noticeably higher quality leads then Ad words (although, again, less of them).
So I'm extending the question out to the community - who treats you better in terms of both organic and advertising ROI? Yahoo or Google? In terms of both quality and volume? <comment><USER2> Same experience here- Yahoo generates higher quality users in both paid and organic search, but Google's volume is significantly higher. The volume gap seems even greater (in Google's favor) in organic search.</comment>


'Education Facts' Labels – A Modest Proposal to Fix the Student Debt Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://bpodgursky.com/2019/08/23/a-modest-proposal-to-fix-the-student-debt-crisis-mandate-education-facts-labeling/ <comment><USER2> [https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/](https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/) would be another perfect place for this. The site already provides a few of these stats, but not nearly all of them – and crucially, not broken down by degree program like you propose.

Here's the entry for University of Washington (school-wide): [https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?236948-University- of...](https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?236948-University-of- Washington-Seattle-Campus)</comment>


Show HN: Historical tick-by-tick cryptocurrency raw market data replay API - <AUTHOR> https://tardis.dev/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm a founder of [https://tardis.dev/](https://tardis.dev/) which I've built to scratch my own itch as couldn't find anything on the web that would give me historical high resolution data for crypto markets (futures, swaps, options included) with affordable pricing for individuals hence created my own - hope some of you will find it as useful as I do.

There is a RunKit playground on the homepage so you can play around with the API and client libs that are available on GitHub ([https://github.com/tardis- dev](https://github.com/tardis-dev)). You can access historical market data for first day of each month without API key.

It's raw non aggregated historical data API including full order book snapshots & delta updates, useful for algo backtesting, designing quantitative models, market microstructure, order book dynamics research etc. Currently supported are BitMEX, Binance, Deribit, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Coinbase Pro, Kraken, Crypto Facilities and OKEx.

I'd really appreciate any feedback you have.

Thanks! Thadeus</comment>


What $8-a-gallon gas would do.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/eight-reasons-youll-rejoice-we/story.aspx?guid=%7B82FCE1B0%2D1889%2D43B0%2DA465%2DE29BFEE95576%7D

<comment><USER2> conceivably, more people would turn to mass transit, but is mass transit ready for them? im in chicago, and with our ongoing cta crisis, i can only imagine seeing 20 minute waits to get into a delayed overcrowded train running on poor quality tracks turn into 120 minute waits.</comment>


Why Programmers suck at Picking Colors - <AUTHOR> http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/108/

<comment><USER2> I have a simpler reason why, colour literacy. Most people at the age of 4-6 have similiar drawing and colour mixing skills. You just have to look at kindergarten pictures to see that. There is some variation but they are pretty similiar in ability.

Then most people stop drawing and playing with colour. Their _colour literacy_ stays that of a four year old and worse as they will not experiment it probably degrades from there. So what is the quickest way to re-learn colour and colour combinations? Go outside and observe natural colour combinations. Combine these observations with a bit of theory and experimentation and you can be on your way creating your own colour combinations. For example: <http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/541666109/>

One other thing. Hackers, programmers and probably writers will have to work hard and re-wire their brain to some extent. Working with text, code or words require different parts of the brain compared to visual tasks like combining colour.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes. Everyone making interfaces or informational diagrams should understand that value contrast is the most important to human ability to distinguish colors, and should use a color model like Munsell or Lab to pick colors.

PS: this text box doesn't let me put (more than 1) literal *s in it; there seems to be no way to escape them so they don't end up emphasizing my text. Lesson: just use markdown.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, but why didn't the author, given his new color choosing ability, not upgrade his grayscale blog?

<comment><USER5> What do you mean, why didn't he not upgrade it? He _did_ not upgrade his grayscale blog.

<comment><USER4> Ah yes, thanks for that (too tired to properly negate)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know I suck at picking colors. Being color blind doesn't help either!

I put together a small service that tells you what colors a url uses. So, if I see a website that has a nice color palette, I use my service to get the hex codes. It's way faster and easier than using the eye dropper! Here's the link:

Try putting in <http://news.ycombinator.com>

<http://www.todotoh.com/rgb/rgbanalysis.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps because they are hackers not painters? :-)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm no artist but I know what I like, and this site seems to generate very nice color groupings algorithmically:

<http://www.colorjack.com/sphere/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Glad to know I'm not the only one who is chromatically retarded.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm wearing black, red, blue, yellow and gray at the moment...

<comment><USER11> Fade to white.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just what we need. Another "expert" comes to a hackers' forum and declares that programmers suck at something else. Yawn.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you referring to me? I didn't write this, and in fact I pretty much suck at colour, largely for the reasons suggested in the post, so I found it very interesting. Also, I don't think the author was declaring that all programmers suck at color, just that many do, and he then provides some good ways to understand more for those that don't (colour hacks, if you like). Not terribly controversial.

<comment><USER10> I think that what he meant is that hackers sucking at colours is a little bit... irrelevant.

<comment><USER11> Right. In fact, hackers sucking at anything other that hacking is a little bit... irrelevant.

Am I the only one who's getting a little tired of hearing about all the unimportant things that I suck at?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


FuckAdBlock: How publishers are defeating ad blockers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bugreplay.com/2016/11/fkadblock-how-publishers-are-defeating.html <comment><USER2> It's such a waste of time. Most people don't even use ad blockers anyway. The ad-block-blockers can easily be defeated simply by disabling javascript.</comment>


Color Reborn:Fused with Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/22/color-reborn-fused-with-facebook-the-41m-social-photo-app-is-back/

<comment><AUTHOR> I read this article and was really impressed. With all of the negativity surrounding their funding and first product, its great to see the team rebound with something fresh. The concept of a "Visit" and being able to stream video to your friends (and friends of friends) in an easy way is great. Facebook integration is a good move.</comment>


From Mr Average to Superman: Craig Davidson's account of using steroids (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/may/18/healthandwellbeing.features1 <comment><USER2> Over on reddit[1] a number of steroid users have pointed out that:

1\. He actually took unusually high doses for a first-time user.

2\. He took none of the additional drugs recommended to prevent or ameliorate the side-effects.

3\. That he got _every_ side-effect, even some rare ones, with unusually high severity, seems suspiciously like dramatic license.

Remember: this is a guy who has a novel to sell. He is not acting as a journalist. He is not a scientist. He is under no legal or ethical requirement to be honest. _He is a salesman for his own work_.

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1lodxn/til_ca...](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1lodxn/til_canadian_journalist_craig_davidson_injected/)

<comment><USER3> There's more dramatic license than just that - if you inject yourself into your behind, there's _no_ way a "pressurised stream of blood spurted halfway across the room". Not going to happen.

I have the "fortune" of having to do injections in that place every week for several years running now, and I'm far from handy with a needle. The worst that ever happened was a thin rivulet. And that was _dramatic_ \- usual is nothing, or maybe a drop or two of blood.

Based on that part alone, he's dramatically exaggerating. Combine that with having every side effect in the book, and my money is on this being made up in large parts.

<comment><USER4> I have been a Type I diabetic for the past 15 years, and have had the "pressurized stream of blood" that shot across the room a handful of times when injecting my stomach. Granted, being an insulin dependent diabetic, I have given myself an estimated 32,000 injections, which I seriously doubt a steroid user would ever get anywhere close to.

<comment><USER3> You've got larger arteries/veins to deal with in the stomach area. The buttocks are fairly light on them, and unless you move _close_ to the center, there's nothing with high enough pressure to spurt.

Or at least that's what my doc told me :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I never seen the point of growing additional muscle tissue. First you have to grow it which is tiring, then you have to feed it and lug it around. It's like getting fat on purpose.

What's more, if your lifestyle and diet doesn't match your newly grown muscle tissue the body will adjust and all your effort to grow it will be gone in few weeks/months.

Instead of downvoting, please enlighten me about the benefits of growing few pounds of muscle tissue in places you don't really use in your daily life.

<comment><USER2> Lifting weights _is_ part of my daily life. I feel silly that I'm even bothering to justify myself to an internet stranger. It's like when I had to justify playing roleplaying games or using the internet back in the mid-1990s.

However:

> _It 's like getting fat on purpose._

The downstream health effects of developing muscle tissue (and increased bone density) are largely positive; of fat, largely negative.

Weight training improves insulin sensitivity, improves various cardiovascular markers, strengthens the heart and improves bone density. People who train with weights live longer, with fewer health problems, with shorter senescence, than people who don't.

These health effects are distinct from the health effects of non-resistance training such as running, cycling or swimming.

<comment><USER5> > The downstream health effects of developing muscle tissue (and increased > bone density) are largely positive;

But surely up to a point? I find it hard to believe that guys growing so much meat on themselves that they can't clap their hands over their head get only largely positive health effects.

How's having hand, that when shaken by somebody feels like kaiser roll for them, improves health?

> I feel silly that I'm even bothering to justify myself to an internet > stranger.

Sorry. No offence meant. I can respect bodybuilding as a hobby (part of life that has self contained meaning and brings pleasure by itself). I just see people doing it as if it was a mean to something and that's what eludes me (apart from, growing muscles to attract some girls, I get that).

<comment><USER6> _I find it hard to believe that guys growing so much meat on themselves that they can 't clap their hands over their head_

First off: even some really big guys can be amazingly flexible: [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mO3twKxKpqc/UfaQxvShokI/AAAAAAAAV0...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mO3twKxKpqc/UfaQxvShokI/AAAAAAAAV0o/-uN4jkRL7cA/s1600/Bodybuilder+doing+the+Splits.jpg)

It's really got more to do with tendon and ligament mobility than anything else.

The other: you're simply not going to get that big without drugs. A _really_ good natural bodybuilder will look more like this:

[http://mybodyhealth.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/tumblr_md...](http://mybodyhealth.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/tumblr_md62wi0kZP1rx75rt.jpg)

That's defined, but not huge. And he's doing better than most.

You can get the positive results of strength training at or below these levels.

<comment><USER7> To add to your point about flexibility: I am vastly _more_ flexible now than before I started lifting, for the simple reason that there's just no way I'd be able to execute even "simple" lift like the standard powerlifting lifts (that's bench, squats and deadlifts for the non-lifters) without hurting myself without being reasonably flexible.

To extent you get improved flexibility from lifting with proper form, but if you don't get flexible enough, you've got no choice than to work on it in other ways: Staying inflexible while lifting is a surefire way of getting hurt badly.

Body builders can "get away" with less flexibility, but as your pic shows they certainly don't _have to_ be less flexible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In 4 months, he could've easily sculpted a nice body without steroids.

Steroids are used by old people (and it really helps them), impatient idiots or bodybuilders who have reached those relatively quick 80% that normal training gives you and want to push it faster all the way to 100%.

Also, like others said, the side effects are suspiciously bad, there's no way one person can have most of the worst, unless you're significantly overdosing.

<comment><USER9> Exactly judging by the photos anyone skinny could've reached the same results with 3 to 4 months of regular training. Anyone not skinny would've had to just lose weight in 6-12 months and then put in the 3-4 months of training.

<comment><USER10> I'm sorry if I come up strong but that's completely false. It would require at least 2 to 3 years of vigorous training and perfect nutrition for someone to go from skinny to looking like the second picture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good heavens, that's alarming. I wonder if part of the problem was that he did all this in 4 months, and whether he could have taken lower doses with less intensive training over a year or two...but then I think of the few times I've looked at magazines like _Men 's Fitness_ or suchlike, and it was all about maxing things out, downing vast quantities of supplements, and generally overdoing it. I don't know whether this means that most of their readers are juicing or that having a big physique is simply a full-time commitment, but this article makes me happy to stay skinny.

<comment><USER12> Men's Health and the like have to come up with new content to fill a magazine every month. Fitness isn't complicated; sound fundamental principles have been known for decades. There's a lot of money in making people think it's complicated though, so we have exercise fads and fancy/expensive weight machines. Look up the Starting Strength program to learn the basic building blocks of lifting.

<comment><USER13> This is very, very true. I started doing the Stronglifts routine about 5 months ago, which is very similar to Starting Strength, and I'm amazed the progress I've made. The routine _only_ contains simple, full-body exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses and pull-ups.

Eating healthy and making sure you get a decent amount of protein along with full-body exercises with heavy weights beats that new fad from Men's Health every time.

Don't believe the hype.

<comment><USER14> >Eating healthy and making sure you get a decent amount of protein along with full-body exercises with heavy weights

And getting 7+ hrs of sleep 5+ nights a week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bodybuilding with steroids, if we had some drug to make us super smart I imagine the cost would be the same, and I would be tempted by it.

Edit: after thinking, I would be afraid of the worst side effect of quitting, just like a steroid user would fear weakness, I would be afraid of my own stupidity

<comment><USER16> You might like this movie:

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

The people in it fight to the death for their smartness drugs.

<comment><USER17> _Eddie stabs Gennady, and drinks his blood to absorb the intravenous NZT._

OK, I reached my absurdity limit.

<comment><USER18> Good, because that's the climax of, and the craziest thing that happens in the film. It's certainly the limit and it's well-placed in the context of the story. I like this movie, despite it's short-comings, more than I thought I would. I recommend it, even though it runs right up to my absurdity detector.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you find this interesting you might like [http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/Drug- Test.html](http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/Drug-Test.html), which documents a journalist's use of EPO, Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and testosterone while training for the amateur Paris-Brest-Paris bike race.

<comment><USER20> And if you're still bored on a Wednesday morning, you can read about how this Olympic sprinter took testosterone, HGH, and EPO yet cleared all his drug tests. After reading this, you might realise Olympic drug testing isn't as effective as it's said to be.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/athletics/7403158.s...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/athletics/7403158.stm)

<comment><USER19> Olympic drug testing could be a lot better, mostly because it is too infrequent.

The biological passport (used in pro cycling) is about as good as it gets at the moment. There are plenty of ways around that (eg, bloodbags & microdosing EPO) but it has been moderately successful in cleaning up the worst abuses in cycling.

The real story is the lack of drug testing in Soccer & Tennis.

<comment><USER2> In Olympic sports the story is that out-of-competition testing is handled by national agencies, not WADA.

And some national agencies are more ... vigorous ... than others.

<comment><USER19> WADA doesn't handle testing for any sport - it's all done by the national agencies.

But it gets complicated by the fact that any sport's governing body sets the rules for testing for approval by WADA, which are then administered by the national federations. But WADA has no real power, except to protest to CAS (the Court of Arbitration in Sport) if they don't like how a sport operates (eg [1]).

And yes, some national bodies are more vigorous than others. Famously, Lance Armstrong moved from Nice (in France) to Spain, where the testing was much more predictable and easy to avoid. Also, there were no criminal sanction for the use of performance enhancing drugs in Spain, whereas there were in France.

[1] [http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/747725/fifa-&-wada- agree...](http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/747725/fifa-&-wada-agree-terms)

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I misunderstood WADA's exact behaviour at international contests.

Complicating the issue still further is that some tests will be carried out by sporting bodies directly, some by national sporting bodies and others by international sporting bodies. And then there are multi-sport bodies like the IOC who will also carry out tests.

In any case, the point is that some countries are more aggressive about testing out-of-competition than others. Depending on the sport, that can make an enormous difference in performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Bodybuilding with steroids is like launching a startup with VC money.

<comment><USER22> The difference being, when the VC money runs out and your startup fails, you can go get a job.

<comment><USER23> Well, unless the bodybuilding competition has been branded "natural" (and even then, sometimes) everybody took steroids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just finished reading, and that was a seriously terrifying article. I have no idea how anyone could go through all of that work just to have a more muscular body that barely works. Thank you to the author, writing that is a public service.

<comment><USER2> I personally suspect that he made up some or all of it. I compete in a WADA- regulated sport and I take my promise to not use PEDs seriously. But I train some of the time alongside people in untested sports who use steroids. They are in pretty good nick.

If this article had been about the time the author smoked weed and woke up in bed with dead kittens, would it be considered a credible PSA?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> everybody want to be a bodybuilder but nobody want to lift no heavy ass weight!

Okay, so roid users are willing to lift heavy ass weights, what they aren't willing to do is put in the time, research, and diet to get fit naturally. It takes years, not 16 weeks, but the reward is actual health, health that will last into your old age.

<comment><USER26> There are plenty of steroid users who do put in the time, research, and diet. Many of them grace the IFBB stages. I would argue many of them have much more knowledge about health and fitness then the natural counterparts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Body shape has changed. Stupidity has remained constant.

</comment><comment><USER28> Fun fact:

When anabolic steroids were banned by congress in the U.S., the DEA, AMA, NIDA, and FDA were all against the ban saying they were harmless [1], and they mostly are, especially if taken with doctor supervision.

Now they have been pushed underground (unless you have the money to doctor shop) and you get all sorts of bro science around them which can be a real problem.

Thank science the U.S. government is saving us from ourselves.

[1][http://www.steroid.com/The-Steroid-Control- Act.php](http://www.steroid.com/The-Steroid-Control-Act.php)

<comment><USER29> Can we get a citation on this that looks more like a neutral third party?

<comment><USER30> "During deliberations, the American Medical Association (AMA), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) all opposed listing anabolic steroids as controlled substances, citing the fact that use of these hormones does not lead to the physical or psychological dependence required for such scheduling under the Controlled Substance Act. Nevertheless, anabolic steroids were added to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act in the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990."

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

<comment><USER31> Chasing down the references in that paragraph reveals nothing about the FDA, AMA, DEA or NIDA's opinion on the Anabolic Steroid Control Act (1990). The only citation leads to the THOMAS page for the act[0] which only contains the text of the act, and not any of the discussion surrounding it.

Remember that Wikipedia isn't a primary (or even secondary) source and shouldn't be used as one!

[0] [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/z?d101:H.R.4658](http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/z?d101:H.R.4658):

<comment><USER2> You'd need to look at the Congressional Record, not the Acts. So far as I can make out, the online Record only goes back to the 104th Congress. The _Anabolic Steroid Control Act (1990)_ was passed by the 101st Congress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Call me paranoid but I'm scared as well to mess with hormones and other stuff I do not see. The body is a machine perfected over the millions (or billions) of years so no way in hell am I going to add all of the sudden, and on my own, 6 times the amount of testosterone.

<comment><USER33> "The body is a machine perfected"

While I agree with your overall point, calling the human body "perfect" is ridiculous. Human bodies, if they were engineered, would never even be released to the beta testers out of fear of the engineers for being labeled as a bunch of quacks. There is much, much to improved on the human body, and we will over the next decades; but I agree that ordering a bunch of syringes from halfway across the world through an anonymous email account and injecting that into your muscles is probably not the way to go.

<comment><USER32> _There is much, much to improved on the human body, and we will over the next decades; but I agree that ordering a bunch of syringes from halfway across the world through an anonymous email account and injecting that into your muscles is probably not the way to go._

so we agree. Also let's not forget that the body is engineered to survive in much different conditions than today, never know what will happen tomorrow. So if 50 years from now, after all these tech advances, one says "we don't need the fingers, let's 'cut them out'" I wouldn't rush to do it.

<comment><USER2> GK Chesterton observed that one should find out why a fence is there _before_ taking it down.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


IiNet: ISP Not Liable For BitTorrent Piracy, High Court Rules - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/iinet-isp-not-liable-for-bittorrent-piracy-high-court-rules-120420/

<comment><USER3> This is a big deal. iiNet was picked because (at the time) they were a smaller ISP and wouldn't have the resources to properly contest - as leaked in a Au/US cable. Fortunately they did choose to contest and are (largely unrelated - <USER2> series of strategic acquisitions) now the second largest ISP in Australia.

Unfortunately, AFACT's strategy now appears to be lobbying for changes to copyright law so that they can sue successfully.</comment>


Reverse engineering the automotive CAN bus - <AUTHOR> http://bobodyne.com/web-docs/robots/MINI/CAN/Presentation/index.html

<comment><USER2> My favourite experiment with the CAN bus - these guys:

<http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf>

"Even at speeds of up to 40 MPH on the runway, the attack packets had their intended effect, whether it was honking the horn, killing the engine, preventing the car from restarting, or blasting the heat. ... In particular, we were able to release the brakes and actually prevent our driver from braking; no amount of pressure on the brake pedal was able to activate the brakes. Even though we expected this effect, reversed it quickly, and had a safety mechanism in place, it was still a frightening experience for our driver."</comment>


Ouibounce – Increase your landing page conversion rates - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/carlsednaoui/ouibounce <comment><USER2> Oof. I _hate_ these pop-ups. To the point where I write a user-style to stop them on sites that use them. I'm not representative of the regular user, but honestly, I wouldn't suggest these if your target market is tech-savvy, and be careful: those conversion numbers might not show what goodwill you're losing in the quest to gain that couple of percent. That's my $0.02 anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> Author of the plugin here.

There's a few points I'd like to address/ clarify since I'm likely to have a different perspective than most HN users on this.

1) Pop-ups are terribly annoying and provide a bad user experience. I agree, they're not the best. The question then remains "If they're so bad, then why do websites have them". Short answer: "Because it works. They drive sales. They drive engagement." I would pick a pop-up that fires when I'm about to leave the site v.s. one that shows on pageload or after X seconds any day of the week.

2) Your marketing message is spammy and nobody likes spam. Very true too. It's extremely easy to abuse something like Ouibouce. I tried covering this in the readme: [https://github.com/carlsednaoui/ouibounce#the-philosophy- beh...](https://github.com/carlsednaoui/ouibounce#the-philosophy-behind-this- project).

> Please use Ouibounce to provide value to your visitors. With tools like > these it's very easy to create something spammy-looking. Not sure what I > mean by provide value? Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices > flowing: Free ebook, Upcoming webinar invite, Exclusive access to XYZ, A > full educational course, Valuable content.

3) This may increase revenue in the short term but will likely decrease goodwill in the long run. This one is so tricky and hard to measure. There's definitely a fine line that can be (very) easily crossed. My belief is that, so long as you add value to your visitors, you should be fine.

If you want to continue the convo off HN, feel free to reach out @carlsednaoui

<comment><USER4> Thanks for creating this! I just this morning started a test for a client using Ouibounce (another paid solution didn't have an effective Javascript API so we couldn't integrate it into the test).

I agree about the effectiveness of these (exit intent popups). I can see how they're perceived as annoying but having run many tests with these types of popups the numbers seem to support it. It is possible use them in a way that has value and isn't spammy.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the support axs89, I totally agree with you!

Glad to know that Ouibounce was helpful for your client work :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is getting ridiculous, whenever I see popups like this (e.g when scrolling down the article and a giant popup appears ) I immediately close the website. If your website has an interesting content and if there is a newsletter subscription box somewhere on the website, I will subscribe - without any of this bullshit. It's like shouting to the guest face "You've been on the website for a whole minute, it's time to subscribe to the newsletter!!!1"

<comment><USER6> That's exactly what this is trying to avoid. The point of this is to _not_ show popups to the visitor who's already engaged with the site (eg, scrolling ), and instead only show it to the visitor who's about to leave anyway.

I get just as annoyed with those timed popups, but that's exactly why I hope more people will use an option like this instead.

<comment><USER5> There should be no popups at all - if I'm leaving your page without subscribing it's either a) your site is not interesting enough or b) your subscription box is in a wrong place. Unwanted popups are annoying, simple as that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Over time as more sites attempt to make use of these anti-bounce pop-ups the benefit of using one will plunge, and the user annoyance factor will skyrocket. User rage is all these things accomplish: imagine when every site you visit daily throws you a pop-up every time you try to navigate away.

It's a self-destructing concept that only works so long as relatively few sites make use of it. You'd be better served to invest time into adding improvements to your site that people will actually appreciate rather than annoying them with pop-ups.

If Google isn't penalizing sites that make use of these, on the basis of abusive site tactics, they should be. It's one notch removed from the plague of javascript pop-ups that were so common a few years ago that would attempt to literally stop you from leaving.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hate these kinds of popups. But what I find interesting is that whenever I get one of these annoying elements, that display on exit-intent, I always feel the need to close them before closing the browser tab. It makes no sense because I was going to close the tab anyway. Am I alone in this?

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, the name is accurate. Oui, I will bounce very quickly once that popup comes.

<comment><USER6> The point of this is to target someone who is _already_ about to bounce. So if you see it and bounce, either the popup wasn't triggered properly or nothing was lost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How about this: The modal shows up when you move the mouse out of the viewport (e.g. via the top edge), but then the modal closes immediately once the mouse cursor enters the viewport again. So, as long as (and only when) the mouse is above/outside the viewport, the modal is displayed.

Also, the modal doesn't have any buttons or fields. It's just displayed for informative purposes, e.g. to inform the user about a site update, or to point out a site feature.

I think that could work.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not a fan either but I must admit I've taken advantage of offers presented to me in this fashion before. Some shopping sites will do this. If you've added items to the cart then go to close the page they'll offer an x% discount for you to complete the purchase.

However, I much prefer the sites that send me an email days later with an offer to purchase what is still in my cart but to do that you already have to be a user of those sites.

</comment><comment><USER12> The readme cites an increase of 7 to 15 percent in landing page conversions, but couldn't that be attributed simply due to the added content?

I assume these statistics are based on comparing conversion rates on site A with conversion rates on site A + some free offer when the user tries to leave. Wouldn't conversion increase with around the same amount if the free offer would be already visible on page load?

<comment><USER13> you're assuming the average user reads everything on the page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I see a lot of hate here. But don't discard this tool just because of that. It works since most of the people are not like you, and they pay attention to this stuff.

Now, you can do evil things with it, and totally legitimate. It is up to you and that's where you get or loose karma points.

</comment><comment><USER15> Do not do this.</comment>


Another former Tesla security manager says the company spied on employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/former-tesla-employee-files-whistleblowing-tip-with-sec-2019-3 <comment><USER2> As an aside, if you're using company-provided computers and phones your default behavior should be to assume they are spying on you to the degree that they are recording every action you take in those devices. It's a spectrum—many companies don't do this at all—but you would be doing well by yourself by assuming they record and track everything. You should also assume all of your traffic while at the office (if your comapny is old school and you only have a desktop) is being recorded.

<comment><USER3> > You should also assume all of your traffic while at the office

I fell out with my manager at FANG and she got back at me with the lowest rating possible for the year-end review. I chose to get my concerns across to HR about how this was unfair and challenged them to validate her critical feedback with peer engs. Didn't happen.

Instead what followed was, I was investigated for violation of company rules such as putting company laptop to personal use, violating social media policy, holding on to company documents for more time than company's policy permits... among a lot of such trivial other things (I was astonished at the intelligence they had built up, I guess, by using responses to internal surveys, predicting probability to have done something via browsing patterns, keeping tabs on laptop disk usage etc).

Once they had built "a case" they would go on to engage legal and terminate my employment with what I presume now qualifies as "just cause" and avoid having to pay any severance.

Has worked wonders for them, this tactic. I have since heared that a few other employees have been handled in a similar manner and that I was not the only one.

<comment><USER4> Remember the following:

HR is not your friend. HRs duty is to the company. If what you need and what the company needs are on the same page, sure, HR is on your side, but if not, they will do whatever it is that benefits and protects the company.

<comment><USER5> This advice is about as useful as the also ever-present HN saying, "if you're not paying for it, you're the product"

In other words, entirely useless and just a derailment of the thread.

<comment><USER6> I disagree. This is a cautionary statement for other people in the same situation as the parent post - if your boss has it out for you, HR is unlikely to have your back. Polish your resume, get an offer somewhere else, be explicit in your exit interview and don't sign any NDAs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You might think that the way Tesla treats employees, like this incident and the general impression that they are being driven into burnout, has some consequences. And I think that's exactly what we're seeing with the generally tumultuous news that we see on Tesla lately. Heck, there's another HN front page entry just today, about Tesla's sudden reversal to close all stores.

It's probably not the only factor, but I would be surprised if it is not at least _a_ factor.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it was not for the strength of cult belief in Elon Musk within the company, they would probably be facing an open revolt at this point.

Don't miss "incentivizing employees to take out loans and spend PTO on new Teslas just before docking their pay": [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19361710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19361710)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's another article with a different take: [https://electrek.co/2019/03/11/tesla-former-security- manager...](https://electrek.co/2019/03/11/tesla-former-security-manager- corroborates-claim-large-theft-criminal-activity-gigafactory-1/)

<comment><USER9> Electrek writes the best articles. FUD free

<comment><USER8> Well I don't know if they are perfect, but they are miles better than the ton of anti-Tesla propaganda that has been flooding the media for the last year or two.

By the way, I am not saying there are not important criticisms of Musk and Tesla, it's that you need to balance it with all the things that are praiseworthy, and lately that just hasn't been happening. It seems like the more Tesla succeeds, the harder the media try to prove he is either a con man or a complete idiot.

<comment><USER10> As I see it, it's as an extension of the SpaceX smear campaign which, crazy as it sounds, seems like it's a real thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tesla is anti union. Tesla spies on employees. Why do I see a nexus here?

<comment><USER12> The thing is, unions were anti-Tesla first. And there are very good reasons for that

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany- electromobility-j...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany- electromobility-jobs/switch-to-electric-cars-threatens-75000-german-auto- industry-jobs-idUSKCN1J115L)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-ford-motor- union/as...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-ford-motor-union/as- ford-pushes-into-electric-vehicles-u-s-union-aims-to-save-jobs-idUSKBN1CA2EI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In the Elon Way of Thinking, unless you 100% agree on everything and drink the cool aid and roll with rapid reversal of logic giving you whiplash, you are against the mission, and thus the enemy. Since everyone can one day disagree, and thus is potentially the enemy, the conclusion is we must spy on all internal and external entities; and when they disagree with anything, for instance, wanting a better workplace, question their motives. Another example: The SEC simply wants CEOs of a public company, you know, not to lie on twitter about material stuff like having a deal to buy-out the company... but according to Elon, the SEC simply wants to destroy Tesla; is part of a sinister network of anti-Elon forces, and can't possibly be actually watching out for investors and pensions. This is the mentality of a paranoid dictator. Short-sellers, who are to Elon are like Hillary/Muller to Trump on Twitter, are seeing a company constantly missing self-imposed goals and milestones, must also have be evil people, as opposed to simply pointing out the blatant issues on hand.

<comment><USER14> totallynotacult

elon's hubris makes him and his actions with his companies pretty great entertainment but his treatment of employees and his followers treatment of those not drinking his kool aid is scary. his/teslas brand is interesting

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Url changed from [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/11/18259786/tesla-spying- emp...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/11/18259786/tesla-spying-employees- security-manager-whistleblower-gigafactory-nevada), which points to this.</comment>


Machine Learning and the Novel Coronavirus – Lessons from China - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/machine-learning-and-the-novel-coronavirus-lessons-from-china-4a4be9643a74 <comment><AUTHOR> I crosposted to LinkedIn in case you want to avoid the Medium paywall [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/machine-learning-novel- corona...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/machine-learning-novel-coronavirus- lessons-from-china-alexander- kainz/?trackingId=yMwRGDKLQWGf%2B6yS%2FkL%2FCA%3D%3D)</comment>


Li-ion battery inventor says new solid state batteries will arrive in 2-3 years - <AUTHOR> https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/04/19/016213/the-slashdot-interview-with-lithium-ion-battery-inventor-john-b-goodenough <comment><AUTHOR> Q: Assuming your new battery tech scales easily and economically for mass production and given the intensifying demand for such tech, when would you expect to see it supplant lithium-ion as the battery technology of choice for manufacturers?

JBG: It will take competent battery manufacturers about two to three years to develop a marketable product. Once the technology is demonstrated by one, others will fall into line very rapidly.

...

Q: How do you respond to critics of the new battery technology? When can we expect to see them hit the street?

JBG: We respond by demonstrating the concepts in individual coin cells. We do not do the development work. We believe that practical batteries can be marketed in about 3 years.</comment>


Randy Suess, Computer Bulletin Board Inventor, Dies at 74 - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/22/online-bulletin-board-inventor-randy-suess-dies-at-74/ <comment><AUTHOR> I ran a bbs system in High School and it set me on a path for web development because I understood computers and learned Linux commands using IRC that played well into using Apache, Perl and other Linux things from the 1996 web era. Personally I ran Renegade BBS software which had its origins in stolen Telegard BBS pascal source code.

[http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/AAA/AAA/CBBS/thoughts.txt](http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/AAA/AAA/CBBS/thoughts.txt)

[http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/AAA/AAA/CBBS/](http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/AAA/AAA/CBBS/)</comment>


Why do 60% of students find their lectures boring? - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/may/12/university-teaching

<comment><USER2> Boring is a state of mind. No subject is intrinsically 'boring'. I tell my Scouts "Look at all these other folks having fun! If you're bored, its because something inside your head needs to change" It works, sometimes.

I got it from my Dad, who said smart people were never bored. Not accurate, but motivating.

<comment><USER3> While I certainly agree that no subject is intrinsically boring, it is still possible to present any subject in a boring way. It is also worth remembering that different people learn in different ways and respond to different things, so a presentation that you find fascinating may bore me to tears and vice versa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bad expectations, low blood sugar, too tired, it's the slow point of the day, the lesson has nothing new - so many reasons why one lesson can be boring, but many people (some of my class) don't break the habit. The only reason I find more than one lesson boring is that I didn't have time to rest between.

</comment><comment><USER5> Some subjects are just boring, but you still need to learn them. I had power points in my algorithms class, yet I was never bored.</comment>


Slaying BEAST: Mitigating the latest SSL/TLS Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://www.phonefactor.com/blog/slaying-beast-mitigating-the-latest-ssltls-vulnerability.php

<comment><AUTHOR> Any other feedback from folks on the usage of RC4 in lieu of a CBC like AES?</comment>


HTML5 Is Breathing New Life Into the Web  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/business/27unboxed.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1301238129-7pNmVVABMgdZ9kNqn+BE2w <comment><USER2> Unfortunately the article largely ignores the two elephants in the room, both stated (1) by the same Tim Berners-Lee as quoted in the article: Facebook and LinkedIn and others, and their aversion to sharing data with anyone else. Net neutrality issues.

Sure HTML5 might help bringing content and development back to browsers rather than native iPhone and Android apps, but if those phones are being crippled by wireless operators, apps will appear alot smoother and win again.

1\. [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long- live-t...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web)

<comment><USER3> True - without an open web, arguably your internet-based HTML5 app could be metered by Comcast or the other service providers - hence it would have been better to create your own isolated app for the iPhone, etc.

But what about apps that rely in some part on a web service to exchange data with your server? I'm guessing that Comcast could easily meter that data stream as well, so even a specifically-built iPhone app might fall prey to their meddling if it relies on an outside, hosted data source.</comment></comment>


Fake Ad for Apparent Credit Card Scam on MIT Technology Review - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/517576/fake-ad-for-apparent-credit-card-scam-was-on-our-site/

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope not many people fell for this scam!</comment>


Is Internet Addiction Really An Addiction? - <AUTHOR> http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2008/12/is_internet_addiction_really_a.html

<comment><USER2> Fortunately, the cure has already been found:

[http://www.danwei.org/front_page_of_the_day/confucianism_sav...](http://www.danwei.org/front_page_of_the_day/confucianism_save_your_kids_fr.php)</comment>


Show HN: Track and improve your reading with reallyread.it. **iOS is live!!** - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reallyread-it/id1441825432 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey! reallyread.it helps you read better stuff, more deeply. We aim to be a social media platform that's actually _good_ for you.

Backstory: Two years ago we set out to fix commenting by prohibiting people from commenting on articles and stories they haven't actually read. To make it work, we invented a way to identify whether or not a person has read something entirely.

Real reading is fun! It feeds the brain and soul. Our product makes you feel happier and healthier.

Jeff (CTO) and I will be here all day so check it out and let us know what you think!</comment>


Analyse Asia 82: Seedstars World in Asia with Karen Mok - <AUTHOR> http://analyse.asia/2015/12/20/episode-82-seedstars-world-in-asia-with-karen-mok/ <comment><AUTHOR> Synopsis: With Karen Mok, we discussed the initiative & footprint of Seedstars World & her perspectives on startup ecosystems after traveling 15 cities in Asia. The conversation started with her background as a social entrepreneur and how she eventually joined SeedStars World. We continued her journey with Seedstars World, where she organised the business competition across different cities from developed to emerging to frontier markets in Asia. Last but not least, she shared her observations on the different startup ecosystems across Asia, and how they differ from cultural attitudes of founders, employees & investors, co-working spaces, infrastructural challenges and the technology from mobile to social that helped her team to navigate the diverse continent of Asia.</comment>


Simplest Ventilator Prototype? Controlled by 555 Timer - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=oqRgISFuE0k&feature=emb_logo <comment><AUTHOR> What's more interesting about this project is that AvE is meeting actual requirements for a medical ventilator (albeit in very crude prototype form). It shows that someone can probably build these in quantity for say, $1000/apiece for emergency use.</comment>


The Frisk Diet - <AUTHOR> http://mattgphelps.com/theFriskDiet.php <comment><USER2> I've been doing a similar diet for the last 3 months or so, and have lost around 20 pounds. I attribute it to low carbs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeh, keep the carbs super low and you'll lose weight. All the other stuff is just to make this one point easier</comment></comment>


My Web Development VSCode Settings, Theme, Extensions, Tips and Tricks - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/lampewebdev/my-web-development-vs-code-settings-theme-extensions-tips-and-tricks-1324 <comment><USER2> Nice article.

To go tangential: many seem to not worry about vscode extension security much. Imagine recommending an extension that turns out to be harmful. The amount of data that can be collected is staggering, any update could be malicious. It's a massive risk that many devs seem oblivious to.

If you think that the downloads number is either true or somehow protective either you only have to look at browser extensions to see that popular maintainers get large cash offers for backdoors all the time. They don't need to sweep up 100% of secrets and IP, just yours.

A vscode extension is far more dangerous than a browser extension and yet some devs seem to consume them like candy.</comment>


Are podcasts killing music or just wasting our time? - <AUTHOR> https://m.ctpost.com/entertainment/article/Are-podcasts-killing-music-or-just-wasting-our-13775490.php <comment><USER2> neither?</comment>


How ESPN Is Shooting the X Games with Drones, a New Profession - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/espn-winter-x-games-2015-aspen

<comment><USER2> The US aviation regulators appear to have reasonable constraints on the use of aerial drones for recording this sporting event. One can expect that the precedent will make it easier for future high-value uses.

Perhaps too, there will be an increasing demand for quiet aerial vehicles.</comment>


Best-Ever Algorithm Found for Huge Streams of Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/best-ever-algorithm-found-for-huge-streams-of-data-20171024/ <comment><AUTHOR> By the way the abstract of the paper ([https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01357](https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01357)) is close to unreadable.</comment>


Binvis.io – Visual Analysis of Binary Files - <AUTHOR> http://binvis.io/ <comment> david-given This is using a Hilbert curves to transform a single dimension into a two- dimensional space, isn't it?

(As demonstrated by: [https://xkcd.com/195/](https://xkcd.com/195/))

Hilbert curves preserve locality --- points that are close to each other on the curve are close to each other on the map. The human brain has lots of hardware acceleration for dealing with space and geography, so this is a really good way of visualising single-dimensional quantities in an intuitive way. I've always thought there were really cool things you could do with this technique.

<comment><USER2> On the downside, if you want more information than "these two things are spatially close to one another", the Hilbert curve makes it difficult. Unless you have a map of the curve in your head, could you tell where in the file something in (say) the upper-right quadrant is?

If folks are interested in Hilbert curve visualizations applied to live memory, this is something I implemented in PANDA a couple years ago and demoed at RECON:

[https://youtu.be/YGVnpWXtlF4?t=2919](https://youtu.be/YGVnpWXtlF4?t=2919)

My conclusion was that I had no idea how I'd actually use such a thing, but it sure is pretty to watch values in memory changing on the Hilbert curve!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wonder how they figure out the alignment size.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of my favourite piece of vaporware: cantor.dust

[https://sites.google.com/site/xxcantorxdustxx/](https://sites.google.com/site/xxcantorxdustxx/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8-- cXwuuFQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8--cXwuuFQ)

</comment><comment><USER5> You may want to use capitalization to make it clear if you intend it to read BinVis, or bInvis. At first glance, I wasn't sure why you would use "Invis" to label a visualization tool.

<comment><AUTHOR> I edited it to the original 'binvis.io' as intended by the author, but some moderator changed it back.

<comment><USER6> Couldn't find the reference but I have a fuzzy recollection of a discussion explaining that the first letter is always capitalized.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but they capitalize only on submission - when you edit, you can override it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


LaTeX for Secretaries - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3387

<comment><USER2> Article dated 2000.

I used LyX (<http://www.lyx.org/>) and LaTeX to write a technical manual (<http://www.whitemagicsoftware.com/books/indispensable/>).

LyX is a nice WYSIWYG-ish editor, but for a document of any complexity, LaTeX code must be learned and in-lined.

LaTeX is not a tool for secretaries. I would not recommend LaTeX to even moderately geeky friends. Microsoft Word and LibreOffice do just about everything the average and above-average computer user needs.

If you are thinking about using it, bookmark this invaluable site:

<http://tex.stackexchange.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I am (or was - much now forgotten) "expert" at Latex/Tex, but recently have taken to using restructured text instead (more exactly, as a precursor to - the RST is used to generate Latex and then PDF). I don't know how it would work for mathematical formulae, but when you're free to use your own layout (ie not writing for some journal) it's pretty sweet.

For anyone interested, here's the source - <http://code.google.com/p/pytyp/source/browse/pytyp.rst#23> \- for this paper - <http://www.acooke.org/pytyp.pdf> \- and here's some notes on how it was generated - <http://www.acooke.org/cute/HowToWrite1.html>

Even though Latex itself is usually not that intrusive, I find this significantly easier to read and write (particularly lists!) - it also feels more natural to edit the source (with Latex I switch more to the formatted result).

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm trying to envision a world where a boss forced his "secretary" to not only use LaTeX but compose it in emacs. It seems like cruel and unusual punishment. Even places I was at in the late 80's that were sun/vax/hp shops and everyone did composition in tex, the assistant pool etc. had dos pcs with wordperfect - that the engineers often wanted to borrow.

</comment><comment><USER5> Heh I was in '96-'97 a lab supervisor at uni, helping people with Microsoft Word and other applications.

I remember at one of our meetings someone, not even a computer science student, suggested making everyone use LaTeX as a solution to all the problems people were having with word.

Half of me kind of wishes they did.

</comment><comment><USER6> I find LaTex to be one of the easiest typesetting languages around. I got used to taking notes in it while sitting in class years ago, and prefer to use it for all my notes and paperwork for the most part.

My only gripe is working with someone that uses Scientific Word. Working with a SW tex file is like trying to look through an html file that was created by FrontPage in the late 90's.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used all three: LaTeX, Lout, and troff. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. I love them all. If I could not work for a living, I'd spend the rest of my life playing with typesetting :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Secretaries? Who has secretaries?

<comment><AUTHOR> Bosses who like latex?</comment></comment>


Timing Attacks Explained - <AUTHOR> http://emerose.com/timing-attacks-explained <comment><USER2> I'm not an encryption nerd but shouldn't it be possible to put some kind of staggered delay on all your encrypted packets to keep this from happening? Delay any encrypted packet that is leaving more quickly than average?

This could be inherently opaque whereas reworking the algorithm might result in something else whose timing one could exploit. In fact, asking that the algorithm both work correctly _and_ work at fixed rate seems like a separation of concerns violation.

<comment><USER3> I don't know why you're being downmodded for asking a reasonable question, but the straightforward answer is that it's _much_ more difficult to mask the timings of a naive comparison than it is to simply run a timing-independent comparison function. Every simple answer you come up with to conceal timing has a measurement counterattack.

It takes just a few lines of code to implement MAC comparison securely. Why waste time and several more cycles of security problems and fixes?

<comment><USER2> Just to play the devil's advocate. It takes a few lines of code if you are in a language or system where you're controlling everything. If you're in a high level language where you don't control how comparison is implemented, it could get harder. Even more, comparison is only the start of conceivable timing attacks. Suppose you could use decryption time or look-up time or whatever? What would seem nice about operating on the packet level is that you could stop potential future attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Aw, I thought timing attacks referred to StarCraft II rushes. I am so looking forward to that game...

</comment><comment><USER5> I was thinking 4-gate timing attack, 7/27 can't come soon enough...

<comment><USER6> Yeah... not to sound all nerdy, but that was totally what I was expecting as well. Oh the glorious strategies to be had with an all new game!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Noticing that vulnerability was massively clever, IMHO.

<comment><USER3> It's clever in a number of ways, from the original absurdly clever notion of "side channel attacks" Nate Lawson's old boss Paul Kocher pioneered in the '90s, on through the notion of looking for the same mistake in HMAC implementations (like the one Nate found in Google Keyczar), on through starting a project to go look for timing vulnerabilities in common crypto vulnerabilities.

Having said that: now that you know what an HMAC timing attack looks like, it is extremely easy to go find new ones. Go to any source code search site, search for "HMAC", and look how they compare signatures. Chances are, they use the language's standard compare function, and they're likely vulnerable --- as long as you can send candidate messages and get responses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Doesn't an Intrusion Detection System stop such attacks? Assuming there is one.</comment>