Amazon Moves to Extend Cloud-Computing Dominance - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/business/amazon-moves-to-extend-cloud-computing-dominance.html

<comment><USER3> Some parts of this article feel like the author doesn't have much experience in the field of cloud services. For example:

"What makes Amazon unique in the fight to own the computing cloud is what it's not — a traditional tech company with a long history of providing products and services to business customers. Finding a way to deliver services over the Internet that behave like databases and other traditional software products will be critical to keeping its lead because older tech companies like Microsoft are already capable of doing it. "

I understand what the author was trying to get at - IBM/Microsoft/Oracle have 20+ years of providing Business Services, (Well, IBM is closer to 100) - <USER2> Amazon has only been providing cloud services for about 10 years - but what an incredible 10 years! Most people would suggest that Amazon is the market leader in providing these types of services to business, and that IBM/Microsoft are playing catch up.

A good counterexample is Salesforce - they've only been around for 15 years, but nobody would suggest they aren't a dominant player in their industry.

The reality is - when it comes to new and disruptive technologies, the innovator quite often becomes the dominant and trusted player _much_ faster than in traditional (non disruptive) industries.

<comment><USER4> AWS's service offerings have an uncanny evolution pace. They have repeatedly delivered new features that I felt like were obviously missing within weeks of me noticing then.

It will be hard for Google and Microsoft to keep up given AWS head start. But the competition will make up for a healthier ecosystem which is very welcome.

<comment><USER3> "It will be hard for Google and Microsoft to keep up given AWS head start."

I too, am impressed with Amazon's velocity - but, I'm curious - once Amazon lays out the product roadmap - storage, message queues, DNS, archiving, etc... what's to prevent Google/IBM/Microsoft from just cloning those services?

<comment><USER5> > what's to prevent Google/IBM/Microsoft from just cloning those services?

Nothing. That's the best part about commodities. Their price gets driven down by competition (note what S3 and EC2 pricing started at, and what it is now).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Amazon, has returned less in profits in its 17-year life as a public company > than cloud competitors ... earn in a single quarter. If Wall Street grows > tired of Amazon's continued losses, it could also pinch A.W.S.

The share price two years ago was 250. Today 320. Ok the peak was 408 but that is still pretty good.

Over the 17 years it has gone from 1 to 320.

I'm still calling Hold / Buy

<comment><USER3> "> Amazon, has returned less in profits in its 17-year life as a public company than cloud competitors ... earn in a single quarter."

Another way of writing this is, "Amazon has focussed on continual growth over the last 17 years, and had demonstrated that is willing to put all of it's assets, revenue, and cash to chasing that growth. It's public cloud competitors, hamstrung by the expectations of wall-street, are unable to provide that same level of focus, and must instead return profits to shareholders in the form of share buybacks, and dividends - restrictions that Amazon has so far been able to avoid."

Amazon is a ruthless, relentless company. They certainly aren't taking those profits and sending them to their employees/executives in the form of perks and boondoggles. Everything they do is to pursue growth, at any costs.

<comment><USER6> Or, as Peter Drucker noted : "the only valid purpose of a firm is to create a customer"</comment></comment></comment>


On Cash - <AUTHOR> https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2018/10/11/On-Cash <comment><USER2> dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18206868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18206868)

</comment><comment><USER3> Some stores have stopped accepting cash and made receipts opt-in. What's the meaning of legal tender if you can't use it?

On the plus side, stores that refuse cash provide a useful social signal about management. One more reason to support local independents.

<comment><USER4> Widening the digital divide and discriminating against people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm told that the strippers in Vegas now have Bitcoin QR tattoos. What a time to be alive

<comment><USER6> MORE Coin (MORE) [https://twitter.com/getmorecoin](https://twitter.com/getmorecoin) (previously Legends Room (LGD)) is pushing the dancing industry in that direction. Seeing how bottle service in clubs is marked up 1,000% and dances are, well, expensive by nature, I can see a place for flagrant crypto spending in that space.

A lot of dance clubs label themselves as "restaurants" (Gold Club SF) or funnel money through their Cayman Islands Holding Corporation (Spearmint Rhino in Vegas). Moving impossible to track purchases through crypto may sound enticing to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I haven't used Canadian dollars in years. I keep $100 at home and $20 in change in my car for an emergency, but yeah, I just never find myself needing cash. It's nice getting an email within minutes of every single expenditure. For me that's the killer feature.

<comment><USER8> For years, the only things I've withdrawn cash for have been farmer's markets and impersonal yet practical wedding gifts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> We could process transactions for so much cheaper than the credit cards and banks currently do. There is so much regulatory capture to protect the banks though. In the US businesses that process peer to peer payments are categorized as money service businesses (MSBs). MSBs have increased scrutiny applied to their accounts. It is very, very difficult to find a bank that services MSB accounts. It makes sense though, why would a bank want a high risk account that competes with it? The situation sucks though, I almost just want to start a bank to rebuild the payment system.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm with you 100%. Makes me feel more connected to local businesses. Also, I know they get more when I pay cash.

I've carried thousands of dollars around and no one was none the wiser. So while the security argument is true. It's overblown. At most someone will probably steal $100 from me. And that's never happened, thankfully. (I live in a dodgy part of SF)

Note: Copied from dupe.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't take any discussion of cash/payment-networks seriously unless there is also a discussion of fraud, it's prevalence, and impact.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's all fiat money anyway.

</comment><comment><USER13> Duplicate.</comment>


Need a trusted cert quickly? A convenient script to obtain Let's Encrypt certs - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/tobiasfeistmantl/5394292c560bdd17267bd38c35ae21ac <comment><USER2> How is this easier to use than e.g. acme.sh?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't ever said that there aren't other easy-to-use tools also. I needed a small, convenient tool to obtain certificates which removes the effort of DNS check, ... And I want to share this with you.</comment></comment>


Journalist on NSA leak case: More to be revealed - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/journalist-nsa-more-information-511/

<comment><USER2> These three journalists are sitting on a gold mine of information that is without doubt damning to the greatest military superpower the world has ever seen.

In the movies, people like this tend to have 'accidents' or are 'leveraged'.

<comment><USER3> In real life they remind the NSA that there is so much more that they could say but aren't saying..and have someone ready to blow that open if by some accident they do not manage to regularly check in.</comment></comment>


Apple's Siri vs. Microsoft's Tellme: This isn't even close - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/11/25/apples-siri-vs-microsofts-tellme-this-isnt-even-close/?awesm=tnw.to_1C01h&utm_campaign=social%20media&utm_medium=Spreadus&utm_source=Facebook&utm_content=Apples%20Siri%20vs.%20Microsofts%20Tellme:%20This%20isnt%20even%20close

<comment><USER2> I was quite surprised by Tellme thinking that 10 am was 'teen anal'

</comment><comment><USER3> Siri is patched for an Australian accent and Tellme is not. I'm sure Siri still works better though.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a perfect example of why Steve Jobs was constantly talking about how Microsoft has no taste and churns out bad products. What Microsoft has is what has been around for a long time.. a bad voice recognition implementation. While Apple's is FAR from perfect, it is significantly more accurate and more versatile in handling different ways of saying the same thing.

Apple has made a habit of taking already created ideas (what MS was saying about how they've had this technology for over a year) and enhancing them.

Not to sound like an Apple fan boy, but Tellme is hardly the same thing as Siri.</comment>


The Ruby Refresher - <AUTHOR> http://0xfe.muthanna.com/rubyrefresher/ <comment><USER2> This is quite cool. I'd love to see other languages. For example, I haven't written Python in a while - it'd be great to have a refresher for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is wrong:

primes = [2, 3, 5, 7]

puts primes[0..3] # => [2, 3, 5]

It actually outputs [2, 3, 5, 7]. I believe the author meant to write:

puts primes[0...3] # => [2, 3, 5]

Had trouble finding an email on his blog page. Hopefully the author is reading here.

<comment><USER4> It's on Github, so you can send a pull request here: <https://github.com/0xfe/rubyrefresher>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice. But it would be helpful to see the output too, perhaps on the right side of the screen.

</comment><comment><USER6> A good companion to, and maybe a replacement for, the Ruby QuickRef (<http://www.zenspider.com/Languages/Ruby/QuickRef.html>).

</comment><comment><USER7> Awesome! This will help in my learning ruby from Python, thanks!

<comment><USER8> For syntax comparisons to help you go from Python -> Ruby, you can check out <http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice... please add this to exceptions:

def hello rescue end

</comment><comment><USER10> Also useful: a comparison of languages, cookbook style: <http://pleac.sourceforge.net/></comment>


The New Raspberry Pi Shield - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/chipstore-pi-shield-a-multi-purpose-gpio-exp-board/x/11783702#/ <comment><USER2> Pi shield has ICs embedded on it. They regulate the logic voltage between sensors and gpio pins.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can somebody explain to me how this shield regulates voltage? I don't understand how it works.</comment>


iMac at 20: The reaction after the 1998 iMac introduction - <AUTHOR> https://www.macworld.com/article/3271100/macs/imac-at-20-the-reaction-after-the-1998-imac-introduction.html <comment><USER2> Excerpt from the last letter: _" I believe that Steve has seen the future"_ \- that says it all. Whether Steve could actually see the future or not few people would argue that he didn't have a _vision_ and it's that vision and passion we miss from today's Apple. Today Cook & Crew are so focused on not being John Sculley that I wonder if by some ironic twist of fate that's what they're doomed to be?</comment>


Ask HN: How would you stay updated with all the engineering blogs? - <AUTHOR> I follow engineering blogs of various products and organization. But it is difficult to track all the engineering blogs at one place. How do you guys manage to stay updated with the engineering blogs? <comment><USER2> Assuming RSS or atom support: [https://newsblur.com/](https://newsblur.com/)

<comment><USER3> Or Feedly [https://feedly.com](https://feedly.com)

<comment><USER4> Or Feedrdr [https://feedrdr.co/](https://feedrdr.co/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would recommend this [1]. That is a curated list of engineering blogs. You can find the .opml file there, so you can import it to your RSS feed.

Side note: you can also contribute to this list.

[1]: [https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering- blogs](https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering-blogs)

</comment><comment><USER6> Personally I pick a couple and then complement with HN, feels like a good trade of between time invested and coverage I get.

</comment><comment><USER7> I like weekly newsletters that summarize all the news in a particular topic. This saves me tons of time.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can't you just use an RSS feed reader?

</comment><comment><USER10> use a usenet client and the gwene rss to nntp gateway.</comment>


The GitHub Arctic Code Vault - <AUTHOR> https://github.blog/2020-07-16-github-archive-program-the-journey-of-the-worlds-open-source-code-to-the-arctic/ <comment><USER2> As David Rosenthal (formerly of Sun, NVIDIA, and Stanford) explains, the actual Arctic Code Vault is a PR stunt, and has almost no chance of helping anyone in any kind of realistic disaster scenario: [https://blog.dshr.org/2019/11/seeds-or- code.html](https://blog.dshr.org/2019/11/seeds-or-code.html)

That said, the _rest_ of the project, which focuses on preserving several independent copies of repositories hosted on GitHub with a handful of partner organizations, is quite useful. From the same post: "They are using a range of technologies, making feeds available over the Internet, and partnering with the Internet Archive, the Software Heritage Foundation and the Bodleian Library. These are mostly things which will get used in the foreseeable future, and should be applauded for that reason."

<comment><USER3> Archive Program director here - it's really not a PR stunt, we genuinely believe it will be of significant historical value and quite a good chance it will be of practical value.

Much of that is "if we forget technology which we realize somewhere down the road we actually might want to use again." History provides plenty of examples of this, and it's particularly important with a technology which mostly lives on ephemeral media that only lasts a few decades.

Even if you do expand your speculation to post-disaster scenarios, though, while it's true the archive wouldn't be an instant reset button, it would help greatly accelerate the recovery of technology. It's worth noting that it will come with a slew of (human-readable, not encoded) technical works regarding subjects ranging from modern software engineering to microprocessor design to photolithography to power systems, which we call the Tech Tree, along with a guide and index to all the stored repos. Wherever its inheritors / discoverers may be in terms of technological advancement, and especially if they have modern-ish hardware (which can last much, much longer than most storage media), recovering the archive's contents will be a lot faster than rediscovering them from scratch.

(Also worth noting we'll be storing "greatest hits" copies of the ~15,000 most-starred / most-relied-on repos, along with a sampling of several thousand repos with few/no stars, in a selection of places like Oxford's Bodleian Library; our hypothetical future tech seekers won't have to go all the way to Svalbard for those.)

I don't want to stress the doomsday scenarios too much, though, despite our ongoing pandemic. I think the most likely outcome by far is that progress will continue; the archive may be useful to recover a couple of otherwise forgotten technologies that suddenly become important / interesting; and it will ultimately be chiefly of interest to historians. That historical value is a key reason why it casts such a broad net. I too have a couple of fairly unsophisticated pet projects in there that the future won't be interested in individually - but collectively is another matter. One of the most interesting things our advisory committee told us is that history is replete with lists composed by wealthy people of the books they thought most important, carefully preserved for posterity, whereas what modern historians _really_ want is ordinary people's shopping lists, of which almost none survived. That's one reason there are millions of repos in the Arctic now, instead of eg just the most-starred 100K: some of those may be the modern technological equivalent of Renaissance shopping lists, for the historians who may take a particular interest in this (possibly) especially wacky and volatile era.

I know it's an inherently cinematic and dramatic project and so it's tempting to call it a PR stunt ... but I assure you, it's not, and, speaking personally, I would never have gotten involved with it if I thought it was.

<comment><USER4> Did people with repositories know this was going to happen and did you give them a choice to opt out?

<comment><USER5> Rather more eloquently asked than by the other person I saw querying this[0]! I suspect it's covered under Github's TOS - specifically[1], only public repositories were included and these are all effectively just backups. Especially in the case of the vault in Svalbard. But you can opt out of the 'warm storage'[0].

[0] [https://github.com/github/archive- program/issues/36](https://github.com/github/archive-program/issues/36) [1] [https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github- terms-o...](https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-of- service#4-license-grant-to-us)

<comment><USER4> I recognize they wouldn't have done it unless they felt confident of having the legal right, but it's just bad manners not to ask first.

If that's the case, this not-a-PR stunt degraded my impression of them.

I'm quite certain this isn't what their customers contemplated when reading "backup" in their ToS.

EDIT: Interestingly it says " _This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content or otherwise distribute or use it outside of our provision of the Service._

It also says " _You still have control over your content_ ".

Is a subarctic vauly really within the ordinary course of providing the service? Did content owners have an opportunity to exert any control?

Most probably think it's neat, but GitHub would be naive to imagine everyone would consent.

Also what happens if it turns out one of those repos had personal information in it and the subject makes a GDPR right-to-forget demand? Are they going to drag it out and purge that bit of tape?

<comment><USER5> >Also what happens if it turns out one of those repos had personal information in it and the subject makes a GDPR right-to-forget demand? Are they going to drag it out and purge that bit of tape?

I believe GDPR has exemptions for archives ([0] section 28) so that's less of a concern for them I imagine. I recognise what you're saying, but I think anyone _very_ opposed would have a difficult time in court arguing GitHub should remove their work/name/etc. My (very loose) understanding of the law is that they would have to demonstrate some kind of loss. That being said, GitHub could just have sent a notification email with very little effort. Maybe 'no harm, no foul' applies here?

[0] [https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/schedule/2/part...](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/schedule/2/part/6/enacted)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, for however much this project either (a) is a genuine archeological move for the preservation of information or (b) to get good press, all I genuinely thought when this happened is "aw shucks - wish i fixed those bugs before they zapped it onto film and flew it to santa clause".

<comment><USER7> I am a web archivist with an archival project on Svalbard that predates this GitHub initiative.

Additionally, large-scale github-specific projects like [https://gharchive.org](https://gharchive.org) (formerly GitHub Archive) have existed for some time.

In my experience, code is more likely than not to be preserved in a stale revision, if at all.

The most common forms of preservation are (a) simple tarballing and (b) git bundles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Beautiful.

Honestly, nothing scares me more than losing all the code and all the technology we've developed in the past 70 or so years. There's been so much advancement, but it's also transferred in such a way (institutional knowledge, propietary software, proprietary hardware, etc.) that it's super easy to lose. If we preserve open hardware and software, then we could rebuild in the case of civilizational decline and the accompanying knowledge loss, something which we would neither be the first nor the last to experience.

<comment><USER9> > If we preserve open hardware and software, then we could rebuild in the case > of civilizational decline and the accompanying knowledge loss

...can we?

I'm sometimes a little concerned about how complicated chip fabs are. They feel like something that could take generations to rebuild, even if we had all the knowledge on what to do.

<comment><USER10> Home photo-lithography and chemical etching setups aren't common, but have been done by several people. We wouldn't be able to jump straight to 14NM, but we would probably be able to get to the 500-300nm size relatively quickly (a year or two, maybe, if starting from scratch) and shrink down from there.

Devices would be much bigger and less efficient, but we would be able to run code and pump out 8086 processors within 6 months.

<comment><USER11> That's just one layer of the stack though. Future archaeologists will also need to create mock npm registries and maven repositories, and set up docker and k8s so they can deploy a complex set of microservices to look up our birthdays.

<comment><USER9> ...all the code to which should be right in the Github Vault, right?

Idk, the hardware part seems much more difficult to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > The Internet Archive is a well-known, widely beloved non-profit digital > library which provides free public access to collections of digitized > materials. In partnership with the GitHub Archive Program, the Internet > Archive (IA) commenced its ongoing archive of GitHub public repositories on > April 13 of this year. At present, IA is using a two-pronged approach. > First, their well-known Wayback Machine is accessing and archiving raw > GitHub data as WARCs, or Web ARChive files. As of this writing they have > archived some 55TB of data. Second, they have the goal of making entire > archived GitHub repositories available via "git clone," while also keeping > repo comments, issues, and other metadata easily accessible on the web. This > second initiative is well underway and initial archiving is expected to > commence this month.

Tremendous news.

</comment><comment><USER13> This means that after the apocalypse people will be able to reclaim the Linux source code but not Windows. I find it poetic that open source may one day be the norm.

<comment><USER14> I'm thinking that someone at Microsoft may have snuck the code for Windows into the archive after it was pulled from Github. Between Windows and OS X, a ton (most?) of the end user software would be unusable to a future generation in its original form since they didn't have the desktop OS it was used on.

Ironically, 500 years from now, they may think that the year of the Linux desktop was 2008 :-D

<comment><USER15> [https://github.com/reactos/reactos](https://github.com/reactos/reactos) would probably make this less of an issue as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is so awesome, but the most surprising to me is that all the public source code on GitHub only totals 21 TB.

I forget that they do fundamentally host text, and not video etc.

I somehow thought it would be petabytes. The private repos might be more than that but those are historically paid.

<comment><USER17> On the topic of size, I wonder how small it would be if you were able to deduplicate all repositories against each other. I sometimes suspect there is a tremendous amount of copy/paste code out there masquerading as someone else's.

Even a naive deduplication might yield some very interesting results

Reminds me of a time I caught someone using someone else's code in an interview and passing it off as their own. (Using was fine, it was the claim that it was theirs that bugged me)

<comment><USER18> I work at Software Heritage, where we archive all source code we can find, including all GitHub repositories, and deduplicate them internally.

The size of all file contents (including older versions of files) is a few hundreds TBs, and everything else (directory structures, revision history, etc.) is under 10TB.

So for GitHub alone it would be a little under that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Am I the only one thinking this is a waste of money and time?! How any of this makes sense, maybe as a weird PR stunt but ... Just strange

<comment><USER20> I agree. I can't believe they are spending so much money and effort to preserve code I don't give a damn now and once I pushed to GitHub. And like me, 99% of the devs I know personally.

<comment><USER21> it's probably less effort to just archive the whole damn thing and let the future figure it out than to decide important things to archive and leaving everything else to disappear someday

<comment><USER3> Archive Program director here. One of the most interesting things our advisory committee told us is that it's really hard to determine what's important in advance: history is replete with lists composed by wealthy people of the books they thought most important, carefully preserved for posterity, whereas what modern historians _really_ want is ordinary people's shopping lists, of which almost none survived. That's one reason we cast a wide net and archived millions of repos instead of eg just the most-starred 100K..Even seemingly trivial repos might collectively be the modern technological equivalent of Renaissance shopping lists, for the historians who may take a particular interest in this (possibly) especially wacky and volatile era.

<comment><USER21> thank you so much for doing this work btw, archival is one of my loves :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Where can we find the list of the 6000 repos ? On my profile it just shows 3 "and more", would like to get the full list. TYIA ;)

<comment><USER23> Same. Or how they were picked. I kept scratching my head all evening cause I haven't made any updates or contributions to mine in quite a while.

<comment><USER24> My best guess is it's some function of the popularity. The three that my profile shows are

\- capnproto/capnproto

\- sandstorm-io/sandstorm

\- erlang/otp

(I don't remember the order).

I actively contribute heavily to sandstorm. I've sent patches here and there to capnproto, and it's vaguely a sister project to sandstorm. Those are probably some of the most popular projects I have multiple contributions to, though there are others.

otp feels a bit odd though, if there's and "and more" \-- I sent them a one line patch to fix a build error when building against musl. I haven't really been involved since, nor was I before. But it's a high profile project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What I really want from github is to allow people who own open source projects who don't want to own them anymore to just hand them off for escrow so that at a later date a reputable group like apache can maintain them if needed.

<comment><USER26> Couldn't Apache just make a fork and announce it? Or is this just about the convenience and marketing?

<comment><USER25> If it's done this way then all of the web links stay live, and a new owner doesn't need to be found immediately. Think of it as a special permission holding pool. There are many cases of "done" libraries that need changes later. This would help with them. However when they're not done this way you can spend a few weeks / months trying to get ahold of the author and for them to decide "oh yeah I don't really care about x anymore"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm curious, do they perform some sort of test reads on the reels to make sure that the data was actually copied over correctly?

</comment><comment><USER28> What stops this stored data degrading? Do they have to periodically check / renewal the reels?

</comment><comment><USER29> I was hoping for more of a description on how they plan to keep this vault safer than the Global Seed Vault, which was once flooded due to soaring arctic temperatures: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/19/arctic-s...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/19/arctic- stronghold-of-worlds-seeds-flooded-after-permafrost-melts)

<comment><USER30> That was sensationalism, per usual. Bit of water in the access tunnel, no seed damage.

<comment><USER31> The story says right up front in the subhed that the flooding didn't reach the seeds. But the quotes make it pretty clear that what did happen was out of spec.

For something that's meant to survive any catastrophe that might happen over centuries to come, it's not a good sign to see that happen so early. It's extra bad to see it driven by a trend, namely global warming, that we're continuing to push farther and farther and have shown few signs of stopping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It looks like the code is actually stored in plain text, and that this is basically microfilm?

<comment> rob-olmos I don't think so. Project Silica talks about storing the data in droplet- looking voxels rather than etching language symbols. Cool video of the process: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CzHsibqpIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CzHsibqpIs)

<comment><USER32> But, from the article, it doesn't look like they used Project Silica here, they used piqlFilm.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, Project Silica is another project within the GitHub Archive Program. You can see the microfilm in this video

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzI9FNjXQ0o&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzI9FNjXQ0o&feature=youtu.be&t=72)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Strong A Fire Upon the Deep vibes thinking of future archeologists studying that.

</comment><comment><USER35> > The next morning, it traveled to the decommissioned coal mine set in the > mountain, and then to a chamber deep inside hundreds of meters of > permafrost, where the code now resides fulfilling their mission of > preserving the world's open source code for over 1,000 years.

What is the probability that we still have the required tech to read that code in 1,000 years?

<comment><USER36> Depends on whether the Great Filter is before or behind us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> They __are not__ using QR code for storage as has been misreported by a few media outlets.

See [https://earth.esa.int/documents/1656065/3222865/170922-Piql-...](https://earth.esa.int/documents/1656065/3222865/170922-Piql- ESA_Slides-Final) for piql's storage method.

</comment><comment><USER38> Ice. Not to be confused with ICE.

<comment><USER39> GitHub is working with both? Very chilling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Only disappointed that the new badge does not show the 2 open source projects I contributed to in the last 10 years of my work for open source :( They are not super big, but also not super small.

Seems organisation work is ignored and only individual username fork/PRs respected (is this a bug?). Software is teamwork ;)

I mean awesome-react, tldr-pages or homebrew-cask are probably not unimportant but that's not where I contributed most to.

<comment><USER41> I am not a huge GitHub user and have only contributed some code to a single repo that was merged. I was surprised to see I had the badge in my profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5D_optical_data_storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5D_optical_data_storage)

</comment><comment><USER43> 1000 years from now, I can only imagine the hidden Y3K bugs...

</comment><comment><USER44> If things come to that I doubt the practicality of it all. But it makes easy headlines. It also makes open source an immortality project for a lot of people.

</comment><comment><USER45> Ha, that README grammar fix years ago finally pays off!

</comment><comment><USER46> In a 1000 years people will surely benefit from the millions of copy-pasted dotfiles :^)

</comment><comment><USER47> This is a waste of money.

</comment><comment><USER48> So, if I'm in the EU can I GDPR my repo out of their vault?

<comment><USER49> I'm guessing you're being facetious, but it has come up and it's covered in the FAQ: [https://archiveprogram.github.com/faq/](https://archiveprogram.github.com/faq/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is pointless - a complete waste of time, effort, and energy. Isn't there something more beneficial they could have done instead? Why pollute the Arctic with plastic and film canisters?</comment>


Show HN: Cockatoo – Trust your mind - <AUTHOR> https://cctoo.org/article.html

<comment><USER2> > <div style="width:1100px">

Why in the world would you do that?!

> _several people with Asperger syndrome have already claimed that the method > is useless for them_

Does anyone have a comment on why that would be?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Why in the world would you do that?!

Please, tell me - what should I put there? I just don't want to detect browser / check screen capabilities, though need to be certain about the whole layout there. max-width may be?

<comment><USER2> Unless I am misunderstanding, you wouldn't put anything there. Browsers have been reflowing text since their inception. Some new website designs call for setting a min width in order to have uniform boxes that reflow around each other, but a fixed width greater than an iPad 2 in landscape mode (to say nothing of what it's going to do on a phone) is a very strange decision indeed.

I have Dell 24" UHD monitors in portrait at work, but that doesn't mean I have my browser maximized across the whole window. It was so annoying to have a horizontal scrollbar that I opened the developer tools just to find whatever CSS trickery you used and put a stop to it. I would be surprised if others had a dissimilar experience.

edit: you may find this interesting: [https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile- friendly/?url...](https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile- friendly/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcctoo.org%2Farticle.html) especially since Google now punishes sites that are not mobile ready.

<comment><AUTHOR> Useful link, thank you. By the way, with max-width now I can read it quite comfortably on my old android smartphone. What do you think about the method itself?

<comment><USER2> Heh, seems HN is turning into the HTML and CSS tutorial site.

        <p>

You don't want to do that kind of stuff. That's exactly what [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text- indent](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text-indent) is designed to accomplish.

But otherwise, yes, that's tons better; thanks for your cooperation in making it friendlier to read.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed. Thank you once again. I'm quite a newbie in HTML/CSS as you may guess.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fitbit, why can't I have my data? - <AUTHOR> http://simplystatistics.org/2013/01/02/fitbit-why-cant-i-have-my-data/ <comment><USER2> I'm a huge fan of the entire Fitbit product; the hardware is a joy to use, it has great apps for desktop and Android, sync is a breeze, the web app works very well; the whole process has been excellent.

However, having spent close to €300 with the company (for the scale + ultra, and recently upgraded to the Fitbit One), i was very disappointed when I found out about their data policy. Having to pay a premium 50/pa to get access to my own data (it's one of the big 'upsells' of premium) leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.,And now learning that even this doesn't give you access to your raw data is even worse.

I hope Fitbit changes their approach; if anything I think they have it backwards: give me my data for free when I purchase your hardware for life, and upsell me the web app (i'd be happy to pay for it; maybe include the first year free with your hardware purchase); rather this than than give you a pretty complete web app for life for free to record everything i want, but and then charge me to read back my own data!

<comment><USER3> Agreed, also a fitbit owner and this seems like a no-brainer - they should open up this data and allow for more to be built on the platform ala runkeeper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I run <http://openyou.org>, a site dedicated to reversing as many medical devices as we (or, well, at the moment, mostly I) can get our (my) hands on.

So far, we've put out Emokit (emotiv epoc headset), libfitbit, libomron, and have started libfuelband and libsensewear. The main problem is just time and lack of people resources. We need more people aware that USB/Bluetooth reversing, while somewhat complex, is not all that inherently difficult. 2 or 3 people working together can easily open up a device and protocol format with a minimal amount of [insert language that supports libusb or hidapi] code. However, not many people are interested in learning that, as they just wanna get the data and run. Understandable, but that means you're waiting on one or two people to finish something that they may lose interest in.

I've been contemplating trying to teach a usb/bt reversing workshop for years now, I should really get around to trying that soon.

<comment><USER5> There's not a lot of help out there for people who are willing to put the time and effort into protocol reversing but don't know where to start!

EA put out a fitness video game with a wireless heart rate monitor that showed up as a normal HID device via its USB dongle. On sale it was like $40, making it a very inexpensive way to log heart rate wirelessly. But no-one had reversed the protocol, and I couldn't find any online resources to teach me how to do it myself.

I'm pretty sure I threw it out, and the product is discontinued now, but I would encourage you to at least put training materials together, if not a full workshop.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I will admit that information does end up being the main problem. I've been doing this long enough that it's pretty much second nature these days, and I just find myself going "but what is there to teach?".

I've taught workshops on other subjects before, and usually once I get going to writing cirriculum that question answers itself in spades, though. Just need the motivation.

I'm finishing up another personal project right now, then I may start on this. I suppose I don't really have much room to complain when I've already set out a solution that just needs to be done. :)

<comment><USER5> I ran fifteen design workshops in 2010, so feel free to ping me off HN if you have questions or need support. The HID protocol used by the USB version of the Neurosky Mindwave EEG headset is also undocumented AFAIK, and I could test drive your training using that.

You might also consider trying out Zed Shaw's "Learn X the Hard Way" format as a framework, which he recently formally published: [https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way/learn-x-the- hard-...](https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way/learn-x-the-hard- way/blobs/master/README)

<comment><USER4> Huh. I used to maintain bindings for the old bluetooth neurosky mindset for PureData/MaxMSP, never thought about the issues with their new headset with proprietary radio not having drivers. They were usually pretty good about open sourcing stuff too.

Last workshop I taught was [http://artandcode.com/3d/workshops/2b-teledildonics-with- the...](http://artandcode.com/3d/workshops/2b-teledildonics-with-the-kinect- and-arduino), which I had to compress into 3 hours so it was more an overview sort of thing. I think this workshop will require a nice device to start reversing from scratch, which is something else I'm going to have to figure out. Fitbit would suck since you'd have to learn USB, then ANT. Would like to get one HID device, one non-HID, just to cover most of the bases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> " _I guess it is true, if you aren't paying for it, you are the product._ "

But according to the author, even the $50 option doesn't let you download the data so it has nothing to do with you being the _product_.

<comment><USER7> More than that, you have to pay for the device in the first place, so on that front you're absolutely the customer.

<comment><USER8> Indeed. Everyone likes to think missing features are some scam that the company that owns the project is perpetrating upon their users, but in reality they probably want to lock you in for the sake of locking you in. They don't know why, but making the data open would be extra work, would help their competitors, and might hurt their chances of being bought. They can always be more open later, but they can't ever un-open. So they're closed.

Don't buy their products. That's what I did.

<comment><USER9> I agree, there are other reasons for not providing the raw data. For the vast majority of people raw-data just isn't something that is even remotely usable. Even if one is an expert with data analysis, IMHO, it will require a lot of work to process and interpret it correctly. It may even require a deep knowledge about the device and all its quirks-- we're talking about data derived from a cheap accelerometer here. In the end, it is hard to see how opening up the raw data so a few hackers can take a crack at it is advantageous to fitbit or even consumers in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Bodymedia FIT, in addition to being a superior device overall(1), has an API which let's you access caloric burn and other data up to single minute detail levels. If you Google around, there are some blog posts describing how to dump data from it using standard USB serial port drivers.

API webpage: <https://developer.bodymedia.com/docs/read/Home>

1- The Bodymedia gives you steps taken as well as accurate sleep and caloric burn readings.

<comment><USER2> Could you explain a bit more when Bodymedia FIT is superior? The FitBit One and Ultra tracks steps taken, floors climbed, and sleep efficiency, and tells you calories burned and distance travelled (the latter two i assume just simply calculated from the raw data collected; you can input your weight and stride length on the site).

<comment><USER11> I believe the Fitbit is nothing more than a step counter type of device. I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like.

The Bodymedia FIT has actual sensors, it's an armband you have to wear. It monitors temperature among other things. It has been tested against, a $40,000 "portable oxygen analyzer", the gold standard for measuring calories. (source: <http://www.bodymedia.com/the_science.html>)

Regarding the Bodymedia FIT developer program. It looks you still need a subscription though and one still needs to upload the data from the armband to the website to get at it. Seems kind of pointless. I would want to get the data directly from the USB armband without a subscription.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recently wrapped up a 6 month project that entailed extensive Fitbit integration. My client is a fortune 500 company and even with their resources it took them months to become a Fitbit partner. Fitbit also charged a ridiculous amount of money for accessing the 100K devices we were provisioning as compared to the competitors.

If accessing the collector data is important I would consider looking at some of the fitbit competitors, as they have much more open APIs. Fitlinxx (<http://www.fitlinxx.net/pebble-activity-monitor.htm>) and Fitbug both come to mind.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you live in the EU you can send them a data access request, which means they have to provide you with all your personally identifiable information that they keep, in this case that means pretty much everything.

I hate it when companies think that they can get away with making you pay for your data.

<comment><USER14> I have always been curious about this, from a healthcare perspective. For example, we encrypt PID information one way (the patient has their own unique data access key, which is then encrypted with their password + salt and some 'other stuff'), so we couldn't hand over any information if a data access request was made, even if we wanted to as we don't have access to that information ourselves!

<comment><USER15> You could hand over the encrypted data, the usefulness of such data being low however.

<comment><USER14> The issue is that the PID is all encrypted, I wouldn't know if we have a John Doe on our system, we can't see anything to verify that user exists or that they're the appropriate owner of said data. We do have an email (which is also encrypted at a system level, which in theory we could access), but verifying an access request based on an email address? I don't know. The way we solve the problem is by making all the data available to the user once they have authenticated, as long as you can login to our website, all your data is available to you, but if you made a direct data access request to us, like a FOI to our office by letter (the typical way it's done), not much I think we could do.

<comment><USER16> Your IG team will know.

From my understanding, from the yearly IG briefings I used to have, you would be able to provide that requester with information on how to obtain their personal access, and point out to them where they can find the information they have requested.

Information needs to be made accessible, you don't necessarily need to actually provide printouts. For example, FOI requests from news agencies often cover the same topics. This information can and often is posted publicly on the organisation's website and the FOI responses refer the requester to those links.

<comment><USER17> FOI requests are often made because people don't trust that the "all your information is displayed here on the website" is actually all of the information that is being held on them.

What if the FOI request was supplemented with the users password (changed by them to a temporary one)?

Other possibilities would be encrypting a second copy of the patients data (each time it is stored by the user) using a public key with the corresponding private key held in escrow somewhere on a machine with no network connection. It would then be someone's job, upon receiving an FOI request, to take the patients master-encrypted record(s), put them on the non-connected computer that contains the private key, decrypt, and print out in order to reply to the FOI and then clean up.

<comment><USER16> If this ability to decrypt data exists, you have yet another layer for the FOI request.

You must track each and every time a patient's data was decrypted and by whom, and that information must be available as well.

Information that you'll probably also need to encrypt, but still be able to search by patient, date, and decrypter. (requests come through to find all records a particular employee has seen within a certain date range as well)

I can see the start of a rabbit hole, which is why organisations dealing in PID have IG teams or consultants who know the laws and know how much needs to be done.

If a patient thinks an organisation is holding out on them, that patient has a way to complain, and the complaints aren't taken lightly from what I've seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Shameless plug.

I've started a project to track any data that I want and stop relying on all of these free sites because of this loss of data issue.

The source code is here: <https://github.com/mcormier/tallyman>

and you can see it in action here: <http://stats.preenandprune.com>

I haven't tackled generated graphs from the SQL data yet but plan to eventually. The one graph on the page was generated with Apple's Numbers. Since it's annual data I don't plan on updating it more than once a year.

<comment><USER19> I've also been working on something very similar (general data tracking with an awesome API) for a couple of months now. It's not quiet ready yet, but I would love to have your input on it once it's online!

(P.S. My project is also heavily inspired by the features and shortcomings of Daytum (namely the lack of an API), which is frankly the best self tracking tool available at the moment.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's libfitbit - <https://github.com/openyou/libfitbit>

<comment><USER21> The new fitbit can sync using the iphone's bluetooth 4 connection. This makes syncing a passive rather than an active thing which was the reason I bought the fitbit one even though I had the original one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I feel the same with regards to my Nike FuelBand. I even asked Nike if they would provide an API[0] (they won't).

Fortunately their web app keeps your NikeFuel—Nike's activity metric—for every day (in 15-minute increments) as a global JavaScript variable. I wrote a scraper[1] to get me my data.

I wonder if you can do the same with Fitbit.

[0] <https://twitter.com/NikeFuel/status/205424488836370433> [1] <https://github.com/beaumartinez/fuel>

<comment><USER23> They recently announced that Fuel data will be available by API after all:

<http://developer.nike.com/resources>

<comment><USER22> Thank you, you have made my day!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a rather annoying trend with devices in this class. I own a half dozen otherwise excellent devices like this, each of which require a SaaS subscription to make full use of, any most of which deny me access to the raw data. I have to think that the market for people wanting the raw data is fairly small in comparison to the people who just want a simple, single-device web service, but I think this is disappointing.

The real value in the data is the relationships between various data sources. I really don't care how many steps I take in a particular day, but I do care if there is a relationship between that and my weight, how well I sleep, my heart rate etc. No device, or brand, does everything, nor should they. I want to be able to get my data out so I can use it in interesting ways.

I have thought a lot about not buying any devices in the future that don't allow me access to the data I produce. I think it is probably a good policy, but I would be left with very little in the way of options then. Finding hacks to get data out of devices can be useful, but should we really have to crack each new gadget just to use the data? I think its a pretty sad state of affairs.

</comment><comment><USER25> Just wait until a large health insurance company buys Fitbit (or Withings, or Garmin) - _they_ will have your data.

<comment><USER17> I have various Garmins (Forerunner 405 for running and Edge 705 for cycling). None of my data goes to Garmin as I just use Garmin Training Centre and don't upload anything to Garmin Connect.

<comment><USER26> Much as I dislike Garmin's lack of support for Linux, I have to second this. My Forerunner 405, eTrex Vista and Vista HCx all download to my computer, with the _option_ ( _not forced_ ) of uploading. I have full access to .GPX files that I can use with any number of pieces of software (including Google Earth and Maps). Also, I've been pretty happy with the Zephyr HxM hooked up to my N900, and the wife has a Zephyr as well that works well with a Samsung Galaxy III and Google tracks.

<comment><USER27> It case you haven't come across it I have found that garmintools and pytrainer work very well with my forerunner 305. I have never used anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Slightly OT, I used to obsess about the accuracy and actual data that these devices provide (had a BodyMedia FIT and now a FitBit), until I realized that the data itself isn't what I'm most interested in.

IMHO the main draw for these devices is their ability to motivate me to be more active, sleep better, etc. Historical data is interesting, but not crucial to that function (although I'd like to see FitBit make the data available). Far more important are real-time feedback mechanisms, such as notices that I achieved a goal, motivating messages ("you're almost there"), etc.

</comment><comment><USER29> So this may be a counter argument to the "Hacker" culture, but here goes. Hopefully this can spark an interesting discussion.

I own a fitbit, and have loved it. I don't regret paying the $99 for it. I log into the web site, and see my daily totals, and the little graph showing when my activity spikes were. At the end of a grueling day walking around New York City, I can tell my wife that we took 20,000 steps and that's a bit interesting. It's useful and interesting - only to a point.

So after reading this post, my main question is "Why?"

Why do you need minute-by-minute access to pedometer data? What use is it, really? The OP says, basically, "out of curiosity". OK, so hack the thing. There's a number of links for intercepting that data during the sync process. But can you fault fitbit for not providing data that noone (not even the company itself) needs?

What data can the fitbit give you on a minute-by-minute basis that is remotely useful or interesting?

It's just a pedometer. At the end of the day, it tells you you took 10,000 steps or whatever. It's also interesting that you walked 50 miles this month, or have walked up steps to the level of a helicopter flies. Or how many miles you've walked this year.

But minute-by-minute?

<comment><USER30> Spectral analysis. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_density_estimation>

Without frequent sampling, you can't get access to high frequency information. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_frequency>

An example (not for regular sampling, but I hope it gets the point across): if a pedometer records the time of every footfall through the day, you can discern whether your pace is faster on Tuesdays than Sundays, even if you take the same number of steps. If those data are aggregated into steps/hour, you'll never see it.

The lack of open access to the data acquired by a FitBit (I'd been considering buying one) is a certain dealbreaker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This project hasn't been updated in a while but might be a good starting point for a roll-your-own solution:

<https://github.com/loghound/Fitbit-for-Google-App-Script>

</comment><comment><USER32> Fitbit's data policy seems to be in stark constrast to that of Zeo. I bought a Zeo Sleep Manager after reading Gwern's excellent, extremely detailed writeups about his sleep experiments:

<http://www.gwern.net/Zeo>

These wouldn't be possible without data exports:

[http://mysleep.myzeo.com/export/Export%20Data%20Help%20Sheet...](http://mysleep.myzeo.com/export/Export%20Data%20Help%20Sheet.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER33> My pet peeve:

I wanted to know what fitbit is, but the site redirects me to fitbit.com/de and I closed that site.

How can they be open about data, if they have obviously no clue about open standards, like http accept headers? Worse, there's no way to visit the (official?) fitbit.com site even after that idiotic redirect. I can't access an english version, period. Stupid.

<comment><USER34> There's a logical flaw in your reasoning "doesn't http accept headers" doesn't imply anything about their understanding of open standards.

While it's perfectly understandable that you might be upset that their site for Germany doesn't offer english language as an option, that's clearly a completely separate issue from how they handle user data.

<comment><USER33> You're correct. I let my anger about ignoring my explicit preferences, which I expressed in a standard way, lead me to believe that the company doesn't care.

Obviously that's annoyance speaking and speculating based on me being tired with the constant 'Hey, I know better what you want' attitude (Looking at you, Google/Blogger) - I don't even know a single thing about their product (which is why I went to the site in the first place).

Sorry about that. I stand by my point about this sort of redirection being a telltale sign of a flawed web site and lack of respect for user preferences. What else they can or cannot do, I have no clue about and cannot judge.

<comment><USER34> Given that you're in Germany and they don't have an english version of their Germany website available their two options would be either to send you to the German language website for Germany (which they do) or alternatively send you to the US or UK website which are in english.

I'm not sure it's obvious that sending someone in Germany to the UK/US website (where presumably they'll be unable to buy the product) just because their browser is set to English is the better solution.

While for sites like Blogger language is obviously more important than country, for companies which are country-localized (i.e they treat different countries differently for shipping, taxes, legal, operations, etc.) I would guess that it makes more sense to send you to local country version.

Imagine you were using say a dating site or a takeaway site, you would find it equally frustrating if you were routed away from a local language site to a US specific site just because that's what your language preferences were set to.

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure why you're conflating

a) content and localization

b) the region I'd like the product to ship to, if at all

Why is the site different for different countries, ignoring 'translation'? I haven't thought it through, maybe, but I cannot come up with any decent reason for a 'German' site that isn't just the 'US' site in a different language.

In that case, please (dear website) listen to what I'm asking for. If I go to fitbit.com I expect to get the very same thing someone in the US receives. I'd like to talk about the very same site. I don't want someone to redirect me to a localized thing. And certainly not without giving me the opportunity to say 'Yeah, no. That was stupid. I really wanted the original version, silly'.

Same thing: If I go to www.google.com, I want to end up at www.google.com, not www.google.de. If I visit a random post on Blogger, chances are everything content is in English. Except for the 'helpful' Blogger toolbar and whatnot, that are coming up in German, because hey that's where we figured out you're coming from.

Lived in Israel for a year, got a Hebrew toolbar, google.il (and I'd like to know what fitbits would've done there). German vs. English is one thing: I can read both, I just explicitly (url, domain, accept headers) ask for the latter. English vs. Hebrew is another: I cannot read the latter, even if I happen to be - yay for geolocation - in the one state that represents the Hebrew language.

      Imagine you were using say a dating site or a takeaway site, you would find it
      equally frustrating if you were routed away from a local language site to a
      US specific site

Right. Don't send me anywhere if I navigate to example.com, even if I ask for de_DE. Offer a translated version, if you can. Otherwise drop a small (German?) link on your .com, saying 'We noticed you explicitly ask for German content. We got a country specific site right here -> example.de'

A dating site would allow me to register and state my country of origin or interest (which might be Germany, even if I live in Tel Aviv at that time). A takeaway site is really a weird example. www.pizza.de is available in German only for all I can tell and won't redirect me to a random US site because I ask the server to please return en_US or en localized content, _if possible_.

So, for me this whole 'automagic-we-know-it-best' translation/redirection thing is broken by design. It was a constant hassle in the past and just seems to catch on. Which is why I'm pointing it out when I can. I'm sorry for the thread-jacking. Thanks for the exchange so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Good post. Are are any of the similar devices more open, in terms of both data accessibility and format?

<comment><USER8> If a FitBit is just a pedometer, I have an Omron HJ-720IT that syncs with my Linux box (uploading a week's worth of hourly step counts). It's $30 on Amazon.

<comment><USER16> The cheaper one is a pedometer, the expensive one tries to do things like track your sleeping patterns and hooks into their own make of scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> _I also asked around and Fitbit seemed like the most "open" platform for collecting one's own data._

Either the OP didn't ask around very well, or they were lied to. There are plenty of other much more open solutions out there.

Edit: A downvote? Really? In what way is the above not true?

<comment><USER10> Give us names, add links.

<comment><USER26> Okay, names and links:

I speak here only from personal experience; having used the following mostly at the gym, biking to and from work and while hiking in the Sierras:

\- Garmin Forerunner 405 ([https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=11039&ra=true](https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=11039&ra=true)): All around general good "exercise" watch, but battery life requires a backup plan. Doesn't have Linux software, but can easily export to GPX for use in things like Google Earth and Maps. You can also combine other sensors: bicycle speed/cadence sensor (<https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=1266>) and a foot pod (<https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=15516>) for gym workouts, or just longer battery life.

\- Zephyr HXM (<http://www.zephyr-technology.com/products/fitness>) combined with a smartphone (such as N900): Another good solution for basic logging; a variety of software to choose from, with different levels of openness.

Just to curb some replies: I know that FitBit does other stuff, lasts longer on a charge, has less friction getting data off, etc, but the thing I'm countering is the openness claim. If you have to pay for your data, and you still don't get a copy, it's a) not your data and b) not an open platform. Some basic research would have revealed this, hence why I didn't (and won't) get a FitBit, and I recommend others avoid it too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was looking at FitBit but am really not interested in uploading any data. Is it possible to use the FitBit desktop app without permitting it to upload? Would it cache everything locally and function normally or does it require access to be usable at all?

<comment><USER36> Ah, found the answer in the product manual:

"The Tracker will upload your data every 15 minutes provided you are within range of any plugged in base station (about 15 feet for direct line of sight), the computer is on and not in sleep or hibernate mode, the software is installed and running, and _you have an active internet connection_."

This implies to me that the data isn't cached locally outside of the Tracker itself, if an internet connection is not available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I actually ran into the same problem recently, when trying to get my minute by minute data. I even emailed their support team, but no luck.

I wonder if there's an easy way to scrape their flash charts on the dashboard...

<comment><USER6> Without using the website, I suspect you can use something like Fiddler to see what HTTP requests are being made. Chances are the charts are making an XML or JSON request to their servers.

If you're lucky, the URL requests will be in an easy to reverse engineer format so you could easily dump all the data you need by adjusting the URL.

<comment><USER38> Why not try to intercept the data as it comes through the USB port instead?

<comment><USER39> Or try liftbit as noted above: <https://github.com/openyou/libfitbit>

<comment><USER40> libfitbit unfortunately doesn't currently work with the fitbit one, for the older devices it's apparently fine but the one changes how it gets talked to entirely. I've attempted a bit of work with getting something talking to it but it's not an easy thing to do. Their bluetooth dongle presents itself as an HID device and I think hides a lot of the details away from you if you wanted to talk to it over actual bluetooth. I'd love to get it to sync with both their site and to be able to capture the information myself to store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I like the device. But without access to my data I will not buy it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Related: I also wrote a little script that uses the API to save data as YAML files: [http://blog.marc-seeger.de/2012/09/16/backing-up-fitbit- data...](http://blog.marc-seeger.de/2012/09/16/backing-up-fitbit-data-using- their-api/)

It isn't as detailed (e.g. distribution over time) as the website, but it still gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to have at least part of the data in machine-readable files :)

</comment><comment><USER42> I purchased a FitBit based on it's reputation without realizing that I would have to pay to access the data that I'm collecting... deal breaker! As others have said, I understand charging for an ongoing service like analyzing the data and using their site, but not for just accessing the raw data from the device.

For me, this is the first time that not owning my own data has really put me off. I'll be returning my FitBit.

</comment><comment><USER43> I like fitbit, it is inspiring me daily to go for my workout.

Minute by minute data can be very useful for custom visualization.

I have found a few bugs in fitbit, like I change my daily targets, but weekly targets dont change.

Also, fitbit free app is not available in Indian App Store. I dont want to create a US apple account to just use this app.

If open data access is available, I would be inclined to but a Aria and couple of fitbit zip for my family members as well.

<comment><USER2> > like I change my daily targets, but weekly targets dont change.

fwiw I think that is by design; the two things are independent. e.g. you may wish to set a minimum 10k steps a day, but a weekly goal of 100k (or whatever). It's a bit confusing because it sets you up defaults for both day and week where week=7xDay, but it doesn't have to be that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I was planning on getting a FitBit this week, the main purchasing decision against a Nike Fuelband being open access to data. Does anyone have any alternatives they can recommend? I'm especially interested in the sleep tracking side of things.

<comment><USER45> If you just want to track sleep, use Sleep Cycle (iPhone/Android phone app).

I personally love the FitBit ecosystem (I use the app and scale religiously, and its UX is fantastic) and stopped using Sleep Cycle in favor of the tracking via FitBit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Why do we need an actual hardware device to get to this data? Don't iPhones and Androids and others have all the internals needed to get the same data, and more, such as altitude, so you can check the incline you are against etc.

<comment><USER2> I think for lots of people, they don't want carry their expensive smart-phones with them when they exercise. I'm also always forgetting it, don't charge it, etc. These new devices are so small you can basically wear it all day and forget about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I was just looking into something similar for Jawbone Up. There is an unofficial API <http://eric-blue.com/2011/11/28/jawbone-up-api-discovery/>

</comment><comment><USER48> Just got a Jawbone UP, and I can login to my account with them and download a CSV with my data. It's just a daily summary though (i.e. not the full hour by hour or whatever interval it's recording at).

</comment><comment><USER49> [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/fitbit- api/Intrad...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/fitbit- api/Intraday/fitbit-api/kV0XOcuARtU/PdL19QPxPtEJ)

</comment><comment><USER50> keep emailing and asking on the message boards. Fitbit is a bit slow to get back to people but normally pretty good about it. I built ruby apis to access fitbit before they had an API and a android app prior to them releasing their own. I was in email contact with them the whole time and they were willing to help me out and give me beta access to the api before it was public.

I love fitbit, and hope they allow users to at least download the detailed personal reports.

</comment><comment><USER35> Useful roundup from TC: <http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/02/best-health-apps/>

</comment><comment><USER51> FWIW, I asked for (and got) access to Fitbit's "intraday" API without much trouble (or extra cost).

</comment><comment><USER52> Because then you would be able to see how inaccurate the sensors really are?

</comment><comment><USER53> try FitFrnd: We'll soon add a button to allow you to download ALL your data in csv/excel format.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fitfrnd-best-weight-loss- soc...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fitfrnd-best-weight-loss- social/id522850347?mt=8)</comment>


Great Essays and Essayists - <AUTHOR> http://www.adamponting.com/great-essays-essayists/ <comment><USER3> While he doesn't write essays that necessarily create or explain fundamental ideas in the academic sense, I'd definitely pitch for David Foster Wallace as an essayist. I picked up a short collection of his essays, "Both Flesh and Not", and the manner in which his writing flows through and around the topics of his choice is extremely satisfying to read.

His opinions, insights and deconstruction of other writers and literary works are also pretty eye opening, even though I come from a hard sciences background, if only to understand what someone so ridiculously well read has to say about those things. His general musings on life, modernity and culture are also pretty great.

The best place to start (in my opinion) is with This is Water, his commencement address to the incoming class at Kenyon College back in 2005:

[https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is- water/](https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/)

It's a great read, but it's even more enjoyable listening to him deliver it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL- ydFMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI)

<comment><USER4> I agree with you that he is amazing writer. But I am worried I may not get his works like: Infinite Jest and other essay because of not having the American (USA) cultural context.

<comment><USER5> In my opinion, this won't stop you from from enjoying Infinite Jest. There are a few arcs that might require some insight into American culture (Professional Football, the US drug rehabilitation system). But the big picture themes are either very universal or so particular you aren't really expected to be keyed into them (you don't need to be a competitive tennis player or a Quebecois separatist to enjoy it).

Pale King might be a bit of a different beast. The focus on the IRS is somewhat particular, and you may miss big beats because of ignorance about the IRS. But at the same time, some of the accounting minutiae are such that I don't think you're expected to understand them.

Anyway! I wouldn't let this steer you away. To me, the joy of DFWs writing is the individual sentences. The mannerisms and humanity of the characters. If you miss some details because they're US focused, I don't think it'll be anything important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd like to toss The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate into the mix. It's a terrific collection that spans the millennia--from ancients like Seneca and Plutarch to Gore Vidal and H.L. Mencken, and everything in between. As far as being exposed to different styles and modes of thought go, that anthology can't be beat.

<comment><USER7> I'm a great fan of Mencken, as well as Ambrose Bierce and I.F. Stone. I love the idea of essays, but have struggled my whole adult life to find voices who can write from my own experiences. So, I stay passionate about keeping the art alive on my own:

[https://nilskidoo.blackblogs.org/archive/](https://nilskidoo.blackblogs.org/archive/)

I've written about homelessness in the Bible Belt- a supremely taboo topic; and I've observed commonalities between the ideals of Pope Francis' detractors within Roman-Catholicism and that of Positive Christianity- the denomination literally begat by the Nazis. I draw more parallels than conclusions, but having gone to a school without a debate program I feel obligated to define as many left-field arguments as I can, for posterity or for poops and giggles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an impressionable 13-year-old, I found Arthur C. Clarke's book of popular science essays, 'Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible', to be a real mind-expand-er.

What's your favorite book of science essays?

<comment><AUTHOR> Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli.

Ultimate Questions by Bryan Magee (more philosophy of knowledge than science per se).

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan.

The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski are not essays, but it is one of the finest writings on science I've read.

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard W. Hamming

Letters to a Young Scientist by Edward O. Wilson

I can't not help mention The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, which is fiction, but hear me out - it melds natural philosophy, alchemy, maths, history, Newton, Leibniz, The Sun King, British parliament, colonialism, slavery, Egypt, India, war, finance, commerce, revenge, satire and so much more. I've learnt more about the origins of the Royal Society and the early days of modern science from these three books than anywhere else.

<comment><USER9> I loved Rovelli's lessons of physics! I didn't know he was known and read outside of Italy too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> No female essayists or essayists of color?

Virginia Woolf, as an example, was a superb essayist.

<comment><USER11> This is one persons opinion, not some affirmative action quota that needs to be met to be accepted. Write your own list and submit it.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps rather fittingly, Virginia Woolf's essay "A room of one's own" is an absolutely brilliant read on _why_ precisely women are and were so often neglected and left out of the cultural conversation and literary landscape.

One of the cruxes being that opinions matter and the reinforcements culture (such as the compilations of widely shared lists like these) provides sustains their exclusion.

I'd give it a look, it's not preachy and it's thoroughly entertaining.

[http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/PikliNatalia/Virginia_Wo...](http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/PikliNatalia/Virginia_Woolf_- _A_Room_of_Ones_Own.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Guy Davenport is another fascinating essayist - a true polymath - he ties together narratives that are at first glance unrelated into a beautiful whole. I've only read The Geography of the Imagination which is 40 essays, but he has other compilations as well. One of his essays is on Youtube narrated by a former student apparently. [https://youtu.be/sFe7cqXuzZU](https://youtu.be/sFe7cqXuzZU)

</comment><comment><USER13> The greatest essays I've read have been by Seneca.

Here is my favorite, _On The Shortness of Life_ :

[https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of- life.pd...](https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> Shameless self promotional plug, if you would like to listen to any of these essays on the go, some of them seem long for me to read in on one sitting. You can do so using a new App I built that uses some beautiful sounding Machine Learning AI models to convert any of these articles to Audio.

[https://articulu.com](https://articulu.com)

I basically built it exactly for these sorts of reasons I found that I had all this dead time. On my commutes and in between running errands, or biking, and I wanted to maximize my learning and staying informed.

<comment><USER15>
      > uses some beautiful sounding Machine Learning AI models to convert articles to Audio

This sounds great. I'm a big fan of audiobooks and podcasts, and would love an app like Pocket but that narrates the articles for me. However, downloading & trying a new app is a big friction point. Your landing page would be a lot more persuasive if it provided an example of the unique value proposition - e.g. several example of audios as generated by the app, or ability to take a URL and provide a narrated version of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> George Orwell is best known for 1984 but he was a prolific essayist. The collection of his narrative essays "Facing Unpleasant Facts" was one of my more interesting reads last year.

</comment><comment><USER17> My favorite essayists ->

1) Bertrand Russell. Read "The Conquest of Happiness" and you shall never know unhappiness.

2) Henry David Thoreau. Read "Walden"

These two chaps have a tranquillizing effect on me.

</comment><comment><USER18> I would have included more of the English greats in essay writing: Charles Lamb (Whose 'Essays of Elia' might perhaps be be the finest collection of essays in the English language, Macaulay( whose essay on Warren Hastings is a masterpiece of English prose), William Hazlitt, even Dr Johnson (His 'Lives of the poets' is essentially a large collection of brilliant essays) and Joseph Addison.

<comment><USER19> I did mention Hazlitt several times on the page. He's in my pantheon (Emerson, Chesterton, Stevenson, Hazlitt). I do have a page dedicated to Johnson [http://www.adamponting.com/sayings-of- johnson/](http://www.adamponting.com/sayings-of-johnson/) , he's a favourite of mine who I frequently return to. I had a period of enthusiasm for the _Rambler_ etc, but his Latinate essay style is, let's face it, awful compared with the Johnson of Boswell's _Life_ , Mrs Thrale's book about him etc. I don't know most of his writing about poets or Shakespeare so well, I should have another look. Lamb and Addison I tried long ago, they seemed too..literary, too fictional, or style-focused. I prefer those (who tend to be on the philosophy/essays boundary) who have something to say, and just incidentally say it well.

Could you mention some particular essays that would be at the top of your list? Thanks.

<comment><USER18> Of Lamb; "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple" and "The Praise of Chimney- Sweepers".Lamb tries to express his awe and wonder and curiousity to the reader very effectively.

Johnson of the Lives, is much, different, much more lively than the Johnson of the Rambler, esp his sense of humor is on full display. I greatly recommend the "Life of Savage" and "Life of Addison" from the lives.

I think Macaulay is exceptional, his essays like "Warren Hastings", "Samuel Johnson" (Which he wrote for Encyclopedia Britannica), "Ranke's History of the Pope's", etc are such stunning works, the reader shall find it very difficult to put them down once they start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Of the list I read Paul Graham's "How to do Philosophy".

Btw I don't think Goodjoke's comment deserved to get killed off, but I will dare to say to Goodjoke that maybe "a little more carrot and less stick" is in order: what's the best essay of the group of authors you mentioned?

<comment><USER21> GoodJokes's "stick" was a mild call for more diversity. I don't see how naming a favourite would counteract that or add "carrot". Maybe one or more links would have done the trick?

The fact that the original list is (almost?) all white men is the kind of thing (like all male panels) which will attract negative attention these days. There are people on HN who think conceptualizing diversity on the basis of gender or ethnicity is a dangerous distraction from what they claim is the really important form of diversity, which is intellectual diversity. It's that kind of Thielian position that GoodJokes is challenging, quite rightly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how many modern bloggers where inspired by pg (me included)? E.g: SSCodex

<comment><USER22> Meditations on Moloch undoubtedly deserves to make the list: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on- moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As much as the author has expressed displeasure with it, I really liked CGP Grey's older essay (from when he actually wrote essays) "I Have Died Many Times"

</comment><comment><USER24> Are no women great essayists?

<comment><USER25> Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Marilyn Robinson. Somebody upthread mentioned Camille Paglia. If you include journalism, politics, criticism, and humor in a recognizable voice that reveals the author's personal take on life, there are many more: Oriana Fallaci, Katha Pollitt, even Nora Ephron and Pauline Kael ...

<comment><USER24> Wonder why none of them made the list.

<comment><USER26> If there are fewer female essayists the chance of any given one making into any given list is reduced. I'm not saying there are fewer female essayists, but if there is that's a reasonable alternative explanation to the (implied?) default one of "sexism".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> No Borges? Or E. B. White?

</comment><comment><USER19> "Author" here. Well, this was a nice surprise! I'd love to see suggestions for the list, peoples' favourite essays that I might love too. Sometimes it's hard to choose one - so maybe then please mention one or a few essays that would be a good introduction to that writer's work. Thanks!

I put a huge collection of my favourite quotes/bits from my readings online here[0]. (with reliable sources, I hope, please let me know if any are fake/wrongly attributed)

This list (especially the top 3/4) are essays that I've read many times and loved and lived with. Some writers (e.g. Emerson, Hazlitt, Chesterton, Stevenson, James, Mencken, Russell) have _so many_ essays I love and have read many times that it's hard to single out just one. It's been more like living with them than 'reading' them. With them (and most of all, Emerson), even trying to single out one or a few essays would be strange, like trying to pick a favourite Miles Davis album - there are dozens; it's the air I breathe, it's who I am.

Yes, I toyed with removing the "Great" from the headings (also I have pages on great musicians, great writers etc). But what the hell, that's what the word means I suppose, "things _I_ think are great". I do believe that "instead of there being no disputing about tastes, they are the one thing worth disputing about".

I was surprised that so many comments are like "Why aren't there women/non- white/etc' people on the list. I don't know. They're also concentrated in a certain time period (see timeline diagram on this page[1] ), no-one complained about that. I seem to feel more at home with 19th C writers! (also 16-17th C e.g. La Bruyere, and ancient stuff e.g. Plutarch) I'm white and male, I don't know if those writers resonated more with me for that reason; I guess that had something to do with it. Most of what I came across wasn't by female or non- Anglo writers, I think.

I don't care what someone's sex, colour, country, sexuality etc is, in art, music, writing or anything. To expect or insist on proportional representation of each sub-section of humanity in someone's list of their favourites - <USER2> even a list of the greatest, the classics - seems to utterly miss the point. Why focus on the creator, not their creation? If some superior works aren't read for whatever reason, ok great, bringing them to attention is a very worthy task. But to insist they be read _because_ they're female, black or whatever, which people sometimes seem to be doing, seems misguided to me. It would be strange, for example, if someone suggest I should listen to more white or female musicians.[2] They just say "Listen to this!" if they'd heard something they love, and if I love it too, I'll keep listening, and seek out more of their work.

I was reading about "the essay canon" recently. There was a paper that analysed the school essay readers and found that only one writer was added to the essay canon in the 1990s - Deborah Tannen: chapters from _You Just Don 't Understand_. It so happens that I've been a huge fan of that book for decades, recommend it to everyone, have lent the book to many people, rarely go a week in life without understanding something in life better with some insight I learnt from it (or her previous book _That 's Not What I Meant!_). I just don't think of it as an essay.

Same with SARK, probably the female writer dearest to me, who was a close companion and friend, particularly when I was in my 20s. I've read and re-read her first 1/2 dozen books countless times. I lived with, by and from them. Plus they're colourful, hand-written and hand-drawn, and in that way superior to any other books I know of.

re Virginia Woolf: I read a lot of her essays decades ago, and while I really liked them, I haven't returned since.

Some feminist street cred: Harriet Martineau's wiki page says "Martineau wrote many books". Before I changed that a couple of years ago, it said, bizarrely, that she wrote only one book. On Emerson's wiki page, first in the list of influences in the sidebar is his aunt (and, effectively, father) Mary Moody Emerson. She wasn't even on there until I added her recently. I only recently learned about what an overwhelmingly huge influence she was on him - he's in many ways her project, her creation - his voice is recognizably hers, speaking through him.

[0] [http://www.adamponting.com/quotes/](http://www.adamponting.com/quotes/)

[1] [http://www.adamponting.com/great- writers/](http://www.adamponting.com/great-writers/)

[2] My "great musicians" list [http://www.adamponting.com/great- musicians/](http://www.adamponting.com/great-musicians/) is overwhelmingly black, and my "youtube favourites" [http://www.adamponting.com/youtube- favourites/](http://www.adamponting.com/youtube-favourites/) are overwhelmingly black _and_ female. I'm not sure why!

</comment><comment><USER28> I take some issue with David Stove's essay on idealism being in the list; while it might be a "good essay" it is philosophically weak[0]. I'm disappointed that some big names like Adorno, Marcuse and even Marx didn't make the cut.

[0] [http://jgalis-menendez.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-stoves- cri...](http://jgalis-menendez.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-stoves-critique-of- idealism.html)

</comment><comment><USER29> We can do better. We must do better. Here are some of my favorite essayists that don't identify as white and male:

James Baldwin Amy Henkel Mary Ruefle Maggie Nelson (more prose) Audre Lorde Susan Sontag Roxanne Gay</comment>


Do you want to know more about Startups? - <AUTHOR> https://coursmos.com/course/generating-revenue-using-linkedin?utm_source=seedcnv&utm_medium=social&utm_content=10&utm_campaign=sd

<comment><AUTHOR> GENERATING REVENUE USING LINKEDIN</comment>


Apple Again Cites Inaccurate Evidence in Samsung Patent Case - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/238488/apple_again_cites_inaccurate_evidence_in_samsung_patent_case.html

<comment><USER2> I sincerely hope courts take this travesty seriously. Intentionally submitting doctored and misleading evidence should be ground for immediate dismissal of the case.

<comment><USER3> They're just trying to show the design similarities. Aspect ratio was not altered.

<comment><USER4> If the designs are so similar - and I am one of the few who really thinks they are - then Apple would have no need to scale the Samsung device in order to highlight the similarities. There's no excusing this. Once was terrible, twice is just incomprehensible. Incredibly unprofessional no matter how this came to be.

<comment><USER3> The filing has lots of pictures and information, among them the dimensions of the different devices. There needs to be a graphic that illustrates that the proportions and relative button placement is copied; this is that graphic.

<comment><USER5> I believe even a commercial advertisement making this kind of comparison is required to have a disclaimer immediately above or below it describing any changes made to an image. I would imagine a legal document would have more stringent requirements.

You remember "not actual size", right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If the charge is that Samsung hardware is so close to Apple's that it would fool a normal reasonable person, isn't doctoring images sort of a tacit admission that it's not? I mean, if you really believed it to be true, why would you bother altering the images?

I'm kind of confused about why this affects the patent lawsuit, though. I understand the German trademark dispute, but is the visual look of the iPhone included in the patent?

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting point from the article:

      A legal expert on intellectual property cases, who
      declined to be named, asserted that when pictures are
      filed both in the complaint and in separate
      productions, those in the complaint would be
      considered more important. **Visual evidence presented
      there typically indicates that the plaintiff wants to
      emphasize its significance, he said.**

Presumably Apple are pretty experienced in the intricacies of patent law so I don't think you can blame the intern who can't use Photoshop...

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd love to see the image in context. How is Apple using the image? If this is so egregious, then show it all.

If Apple's point is "Samsung copies our design slavishly" and the defense is "wait, ours may look identical, but it's 6% larger", then good luck with that.

All I see so far is Samsung building devices that are identical to Apple modulo the screens they're able to source. This may be exactly Apple's point.

<comment><USER9> First, they're messing up the aspect ratio of the devices with the manipulation. Second, there is no real need to do this, if the sizes are just 6% different, why change the image at all?. Third, this is showing up to be a pattern, thus not just 'sloppy lawyering' like Gruber would want us to believe.

>All I see so far is Samsung building devices that are identical to Apple modulo the screens they're able to source. This may be exactly Apple's point.

And there is no better way to project that point except by making the screens look exactly the same size without a note saying 'scaled size to show similarities'? All this in a court filing.

Lets be honest here, if this was MS in place of Apple, everyone would be screaming bloody murder.

<comment><USER10> > First, they're messing up the aspect ratio of the devices with the > manipulation

From the article: "The aspect ratio has not been measurably altered".

> And there is no better way to project that point except by making the > screens look exactly the same size without a note saying 'scaled size to > show similarities'?

Apple noted in the text of the filing that the sizes are actually different.

<comment><USER9> The OP was referring to Samsung devices in general and can apply to the earlier tampering as well, the Galaxy tab did get its aspect ratio changed from 16:9 to a 4:3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Summary: Some of the side-by-side images of Apple iPhone & Samsung Galaxy S show the phones apparing visually similar, but the Samsung image has been scaled down 6%.

It's the newspaper that claims that the evidence in inaccurate. What would be very interesting is if the court involved also found it inaccurate, but I can't find any decision one way or the other on this...

<comment><USER12> >Summary: Some of the side-by-side images of Apple iPhone & Samsung Galaxy S show the phones apparing visually similar, but the Samsung image has been scaled down 6%.

Would you say the same thing if it was Samsung's court filing and Samsung made the iPhone 6% wider make them look dissimilar?

>It's the newspaper that claims that the evidence in inaccurate.

They're using the dictionary meaning of inaccurate. And it is plainly visible to the eye that the images were doctored, unless you don't want to see it, no real need to wait for a court to decide it for you.

<comment><USER11> The opinion of the court is very newsworthy, especially if the punish Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When your phone is a plain black square with rounded corners, don't they all look the same? [http://mobile.engadget.com/2008/11/04/htcs-touch-hd-gets- ove...](http://mobile.engadget.com/2008/11/04/htcs-touch-hd-gets-overseas- hands-on-treatment/)

[http://www.theandroider.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o- matic/ca...](http://www.theandroider.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o- matic/cache/abfd4_17064_motimage_touchzine_hd_face-578x1024.jpg)

Are we really expecting the courts to compare aspect ratios, and corner radii to decide that one is to similar to another?

Where will we draw the line? Sorry, Apple, 4" screen with 11mm thickness was already done by htc, your phone is only 2mm thinner, that's too close to the other devices.

</comment><comment><USER14> Apple has to get this under control. They're burning good will like crazy here. Tech devices have been cloned since the dawn of the industry. They're not meaningfully going to stop this, and this kind of game just makes them look petty and insecure.

</comment><comment><USER15> That's just pathetic.</comment>


Connected Lab Is Hiring (Toronto) - <AUTHOR> https://connectedlab.workable.com/jobs/49013 <comment><AUTHOR> Please reference this Hacker News post when applying.</comment>


Running BBS Door Games on Windows 10 with GameSrv and DOSBox - <AUTHOR> https://www.hanselman.com/blog/RunningBBSDoorGamesOnWindows10WithGameSrvDOSBoxPlusTelnetFunWithWSL.aspx <comment><USER2> Relatedly, [http://telehack.com/](http://telehack.com/) is, to quote itself: _a full multi-user simulation, including 25,000 hosts and BBS 's from the early net, thousands of files from the era, a collection of adventure and IF games, a working BASIC interpreter with a library of programs to run, simulated historical users, and more._

Pretty fun to play around with for a bit.

<comment><USER3> Can you give me a script of things to try?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This brings back some nice memories. I was into the Toronto BBS scene pretty heavily back before public internet access became affordable and readily available.

As much as I love modern games, I have to admit I sort of miss some of the classics like TradeWars 2002 and L.O.R.D.

<comment><USER4> It sure does! Does anyone remember MUDs? Some of those boggled the mind with how creative some folks can be with text and symbols. Good times, great memories from back before being a nerd was en vogue.

<comment><USER5> MajorMUD! Also, for anyone interested in MUME (Multi-Users in Middle Earth), a Tolkein-based MUD running since 1992, albeit via telnet and not as a BBS door game... It is still running, all these years later [0].

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

<comment><USER6> MajorMUD was a huge part of my youth and an introduction to programming via scripting it.

<comment><USER7> I'm working on websocket MUD based on MajorMUD in Elixir. There are quite a few people actively building new mud engines in modern languages in 2018. There's even a community with a slack org / newsletter etc at [https://mudcoders.com/](https://mudcoders.com/)

<comment><USER4> > There are quite a few people actively building new mud engines in modern > languages in 2018.

Sometimes the Internet is a wonderful place! Not always, but there's still a lot of good stuff around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Don't forget that there are many active BBS's still around - and even new software being developed for nostalgic fun. Many include hook ups to BBSLink, DoorParty!, and a few other game servers that serve up tons of doors with large player bases.

See [http://telnetbbsguide.com/](http://telnetbbsguide.com/) (seems to be being funky right now) or _self plug!_ [https://xibalba.l33t.codes/](https://xibalba.l33t.codes/)

<comment><USER9> And it is possible to connect old hardware:

The Wonderful WiFi232: BBSing Has Never Been Easier | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14481296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14481296) (June 2017)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well this is serendipity! I've been crafting a BBS as a newly re-discovered hobby. The owner of CNet Amiga BBS software is preparing a new release, and I've been running my Amiga BBS in WinUAE on my Windows 10 computer.

Just the day before yesterday, I discovered that CNet could send a user out on a Telnet, which opened up the world of DOS Doors through Gamesvr.

<comment><USER11> I ran CNet BBS for C64 for many years as a kid. It's biggest draw was they supplied the source code, so we could modify it however we liked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cool idea, too bad it seems to be abandoned (no git commits since May 2016 and the latest binaries on the website are from Aug 2014). Anyone interested in picking this up and maintaining it, or at least releasing a new "stable" build (other than just downloading the zip in the bin folder on github and hoping for the best)?

</comment><comment><USER13> I remember "Doorway" which would hook up any old ANSI text game to a board. I wonder if that would still work.

<comment><USER8> I'm currently using DoorWay in DOSEMU under Linux native, so I'm sure it would work in this case

<comment><USER13> cool!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article brings back some great memories from the glory days of dial-up BBSs in the 80s and early 90s. It also brings back some not-so-great memories of insanely high phone bills when you got massively surcharged for dialing outside of your immediate area, let alone your county or state.

</comment><comment><USER15> And getting my board back online just became tomorrows project, yay fidonet</comment>


Real Life Japanese Mech Robot Fires BBs With A Smile - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/real-life-japanese-mech-robot-fires-bbs-with-a-smile/

<comment><USER2> Here's a better video of a girl getting into the Robot operator seat.</comment>