FBI Tracking Device Teardown - <AUTHOR> http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Tracking-Device-Teardown/5250/1 <comment><USER2> What I found interesting by component:

-Battery pack \--The device is powered by four lithium-thionyl chloride (Li-SOCl2) D cell batteries \--Each cell is good for 13,000 mAh and are suited for extremely low-draw applications where longevity is needed, making them ideal for powering an always-on transmitter/receiver \--Minimal service life is 10 years.

-GPS antenna \--A quick peek at the antenna board indicates it was manufactured by SIgem, a company that partnered with Tyco in the early 2000s to make GPS components. \--The FBI really did not want anyone tampering with the innards of their tracking devices. The screws were coated with so much threadlocker that we had to break out the power drill and eliminate the screw heads. \--The module providing the GPS signal processing on this device is a µ-blox GPS-MS1 that's sort of ancient in the realm of modern electronics. \--This module was 1st released June 29, 1999 and it features 0.125 MB of SRAM and 1 MB of flash memory.

-Transmitter/receiver ICs \--XEMICS XE1201 Ultra low power single chip transceiver \---The XE1201 allows for data transmission and data reception in half duplex mode. \--RFM RF1172 SAW (surface-acoustic-wave) filter \---The RF1172 provides front-end selectivity (the capability to separate signals in one frequency from all other frequencies) in 433.92 MHz receivers.

[Edit: Please note, much of the text above is c/p'd from the ifixit post.]

<comment><USER3> If the FBI didn't want anyone tampering with the unit, they would have potted it in heavy epoxy or welded the case shut. Maybe even put a light-sensitive thermal charge inside.

More likely they were worried about the screws vibrating themselves off while stuck to the underside of a car - thus the threadlocker glue everywhere.

<comment><USER2> The fact that they didn't pot it is interesting. I hadn't thought about that. Potting seems to be on the decline over the last 10 years from what I've seen.

<comment><USER3> Potting is still used heavily in industrial electronics and a lot of appliance work (think of washing machine control boards). I would think the military uses it a lot as well.

<comment><USER4> FIPS 140-2 Level 4 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_140-2>

Level 2-4 are used in commercial and military grade hardware security Modules.

<comment><USER3> I remember finding a teardown of an IBM 4765 module somewhere. That was badass.

<comment><USER5> Is that the PCIe crypto module shown in Google searches for IBM 4765? Please share the link if you have it, as I couldn't find a teardown in my brief search. I'd like to see how one would dismantle a potted circuit.

<comment><USER3> Yeah it's the crypto module. I think the teardown involved shaving the part down layer by layer and examining all the parts like the fine wire meshes that would instantly blow the chip if disrupted and etc. Wish I could remember where I saw it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did the teardown, and I'm a regular hacker news reader. I'll answer any questions for the next hour or so.

<comment><USER7> Is there a legal way to block them? Either the GPS signal, or the transmitter? (I'm assuming tampering with the device directly is illegal).

<comment><USER6> Sure, just transmit stronger white noise on 433.92 MHz. I haven't looked up who owns that frequency and whether there are restrictions.

Or get a GPS blocker. Which I think are illegal to operate.

<comment><USER8> AFAIK 433MHz can be used for any short-range application, similar to 27/49MHz for R/C cars. There are plenty off-the-shelf 433MHz transceivers for hobbyists, and I think car remote-unlockers use that band as well. And this doesn't appear to have a particularly powerful transmitter, so you'd have to bring the transmitter relatively close to the receiver (like <100ft, usually) in order to download...whatever.

If they're able to put this thing on your car in the first place, I guess it's not infeasible for them to drive by to download updates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Those batteries are impressive. I did some Googling and found:

[http://www.batterymart.com/p-ls33600-ba-d-size-lithium- cell....](http://www.batterymart.com/p-ls33600-ba-d-size-lithium-cell.html)

61 Watt-hours. That little battery could power a 60W light bulb for an hour!

(I'm currently working on a bluetooth -> IR bridge. I was worred about battery life from a coin cell, but now I'm not anymore. I will get one of these in half-AA size and keep the thing powered for the next decade :)

<comment><USER7> >That little battery could power a 60W light bulb for an hour

It's a useful 'analogy', but it's not actually true. They are 3.6V, max continuous current 250mA, so max continuous power is 0.9W

<comment><USER9> True.

I bet it would release its energy a bit more quickly if you dropped it into a nearby fire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, can we study the frequency and if the out signal uses any encryption?

Maybe we can use a homemade receiver to find the people the FBI is tracking...

<comment><USER11> Frequency and transceiver information are already posted. My guess is that the transmissions aren't encrypted, or are encrypted trivially or encoded (to obfuscate).

Since you said "we should", you should get started on it and post your findings here or better yet on a blog. The iFixit article provides a lot of bases to research from.

<comment><USER12> The board is running at 4MHz, so I'm not sure if too much can be done with such hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If the trackee removed this from his own car and attached it to some other car, would he be violating some law?

<comment><USER14> It might be more effective, and more legal, to just sell your car as soon as you become aware that you've been tagged. Bonus points if you sell it to someone who is either taking a cross-country drive, or shipping it overseas.

<comment><USER15> Surely it's much, much easier to just put it on your neighbour's car. They'd probably believe they were getting real data or your partner was using the car. And could probably never accuse you of tampering as they couldn't be sure it wasn't just a mistake by the planting agent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow, the components on the GPS board look like they are hand soldered, which to me means very low volume/specialized production.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that was the first thing I noticed. Some of the solder joints look rather suspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Checking under my car with a mirror after work.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't want to trivialize how scary it is that the FBI does this, but what I found interesting about this story was the insane capacity of the batteries. Why aren't more consumer electronics(especially iStuff where they aren't user serviceable) using this technology?

<comment><USER19> Lithium thionyl chloride batteries are not rechargeable. You get 2-3x the capacity of a rechargeable battery, once. Makes sense for this application but not consumer devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder where they got the device? In Wired's account, the FBI demanded back from a fellow who found one on his car:

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking- device...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/)

<comment><USER6> This story gives background on Karen Thomas, the environmental activist who was tracked by the device. <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/gps/>

The FBI demanded the device back and she said no. Amazingly, that was the end of the story—until the Afifi story came out, and she decided to give Wired the tracker.

The interesting legal question (in addition to whether you need a warrant to do this sort of thing) is who owns something attached to your car?

<comment><USER21> I'll be very interesting in hearing what the Supreme Court has to say about all this. Consider the following worst-case scenario:

1\. Supreme Court rules that use of GPS tracking devices by law enforcement do not violate 4th Amendment.

2\. Future court rulings find that tampering with GPS devices amounts to interfering with a police investigation.

3\. Law enforcement starts planting GPS devices directly on persons, such as in a purse, or when miniaturized further, in wallets or attached to clothing. Maybe these devices only capture data "when in public areas" and are eventually declared legal.

4\. Since they cannot be tampered with, police begin attaching wristbands to citizens stopped at routine traffic stops who they suspect of crimes.

Sounds far-fetched, but not when you consider the amount of surveillance that goes on already via cell phones and credit cards.

<comment><USER22> What do you mean "sounds far-fetched"?

There are people walking around with government installed GPS bracelets right now: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankle_monitor>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd love to see how much those devices cost. And the TCO.

</comment><comment><USER24> I want a kit! Would be good fun to play with.</comment>


Mechanics of Building a Carpooling Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.sysadmincasts.com/episodes/51-mechanics-of-building-a-carpooling-service-introduction <comment><USER2> I look forward to this series, I can feel my horizons broadening already !. Thanks again for your previous ansible series.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looking forward for the series.

</comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for Episodes ! Looking forward for new episode on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER5> OMG you're back. yes!

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha. Yes, sir!</comment></comment>


How ReadMe Went from SaaS to On-Premises in Less Than One Week - <AUTHOR> http://stackshare.io/readme-io/how-readme-went-from-saas-to-on-premises-in-less-than-one-week <comment><USER2> Recently just built and deployed an enterprise (on-prem) offering for my startup [https://commando.io](https://commando.io).

The single biggest problem by far was ripping/replacing 3rd party SaaS services that we use/pay for with native code. While building a SaaS it is wonderful to use 3rd parties to save time and complexity. Examples include Stripe (payments), Rollbar (error tracking), Intercom (support/engagement), Iron.io (queue and async tasks), Gauthify (two factor auth)... Howerver, when you go to on-prem often times the servers don't have a public interface, so your entire application has to work offline.

2nd tip. While it may seem like a good idea to create a separate branch in your repo for on-prem (i.e. enterprise branch), this is bad idea. It ends up being much better to just if/else in the master branch all over the place:

       if(enterprise) {
           // do something
       }

If/else in the master branch is what GitHub Enterprise does as well (at least was told so).

<comment><USER3> This is great advice. Sometimes services can be removed from the on-prem version (billing), but some (queues, auth) need to find an on-prem compatible replacement. Most of the time, there are reasonable alternatives. But there are a lot of "on-prem" environments that run in AWS, so don't be afraid to start with an AWS-only "on-prem" version.

I completely agree with your advice about using "if (enterprise)" statements instead of a separate branch or repo for the enterprise version. Once you make that enterprise branch, it's tempting to let it sit too long and merging the upstream changes is one of the least-fun, most-dreaded tasks. By using the "if (enterprise)" approach, your enterprise version stays up to date. but it doesn't mean you need to constantly deploy the latest version to all of your customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recently made an on-premises version of [https://reviewable.io](https://reviewable.io). I'd like to second most everything said in the article: use a flag, remove SaaS dependencies where possible, otherwise convert to use standardized services (SMTP) or apps that they can deploy internally as well (Sentry). It took me rather longer than a week but the ROI was still excellent.

One difference is that I decided to stick with a raw Docker container rather than going with Replicated (who are really nice people, don't get me wrong). In my case, everything runs on a single horizontally-scaled server so it's pretty easy to get running "manually". Also, all the potential customers I asked said that they were comfortable managing their own Docker environment, and some would actually prefer to get Docker images since they'd be easier for them to manage than "virtual appliance" VMs.

Another difference was that I use Firebase for the app's datastore and Google doesn't (and likely never will) offer an on-premises version. This was a show- stopper for nearly all customers, but it turned out that offering at-rest encryption of sensitive data with a key that never leaves their premises was sufficient to get through many of the security reviews. This obviously won't be acceptable to everyone but it can be useful to know that even if you have a fundamental dependency on an external third-party service there may be a way to keep using it in your "on-premises" product.

<comment><USER5> > single horizontally-scaled server

Quick edit: That's vertical scaling if you have a single server that you make bigger.

<comment><USER4> No, I actually meant "a single kind of server process that you just run more instances of to scale" but couldn't find a concise yet accurate way of expressing it. This differs from the setup described in the article since they have four different kinds of servers that need to be coordinated, interconnected, etc. -- a more complex setup that likely benefits from Replicated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here at Coveralls.io we can't recommend Replicated enough. We were able to migrate our internally-developed, Github Enterprise style packaged VM delivery approach over to their system in a couple weeks.

But I'd say the real value is in not needing to support an additional deployment platform -- their Docker based approach is like Heroku for on-prem, it abstracts the infrastructure details and just works.

<comment><USER7> Container folks currently advise to _not_ put the database into a container unless you really really _really_ know the internals of both. Even Kelsey Hightower stressed this in a talk - "if you want to keep your job, keep databases out of containers". ReadMe had no prior Docker experience, and they started by putting Mongo (which is complex to manage as is) into a container. This would make me uneasy.

Does Replicated assist with this database/persistence layer? Perhaps by helping you to spin up the DB as a separate VM on the clients' side?

<comment><USER3> Replicated founder here. Great question. The main concern most people have when considering putting a database in a container is around data loss or corruption. (i.e. What happens if the instance disappears and the data was stored on an ephemeral disk?) We have a couple of features to help with this:

Replicated allows for the end customer to choose if they want to run the containerized version of the database, or provide their own instance of it (not in a container) and simply provide a connection string so the application can use that instance. Generally this is exposed as a checkbox on the settings page, and doesn't require a lot of configuration.

If the end customer decides to install with the containerized version of the database, they can choose to run the database container on a specific instance (or instances) and control the host path of the volume mount(s). The idea here is that they will store the data on an EBS volume, network attached storage etc.

We also have a feature that allows for snapshots and restores to help in the scenario where the database was store on the local instance and there was a hardware failure or corruption.

These features work out of the box, without a lot of effort from the software vendor to configure.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, Marc.

After reading your docs and install scripts, I think another option for us is to run the database directly on the client's host. That is, as part of our installation guide, we'd say Step1:Install Replicated, Step2:Install DB, Step3:Run setup. This might be easier in a trusted environment where containers can be started on the host network. This approach has potential issues with replication, encryption, upgradeability, etc, but those are normal infrastructure challenges and have nothing to do with Replicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's nice to see some momentum building behind the idea that multi-tenant SaaS doesn't have to be your only deployment. And congrats to the Replicated folks on the recent raise. It's great to see people validating these ideas/offerings. Based on mainstream tech press, you sometimes feel crazy working on something perceived as "anti-cloud".

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice post from Readme.io, and I also want to shout out to Ben @ Replicated. He reached out to me when we launched our cloud HR SaaS offering, and talked about the possibilities of offering an enterprise on premise version using Replicated.

I haven't moved forward with that yet, but if I do, Replicated will be the team we work with. Ben spent a lot of time on a web hookup teaching me about Docker containers, and even suggesting how we might improve our development environments and processes ( _without_ using Replicated anywhere in the solution).

</comment><comment><USER10> Founder of [https://jidoteki.com](https://jidoteki.com) here - we provide the ability to go from SaaS to On-Premises in less than one week[1] as well, without the need to jump into Docker.

I think ReadMe's approach is pretty good, and I applaud them for making the move.

Our aim is a bit different from others, as we focus exclusively on "actual" on-premises (local virtual machines), as opposed to "on someone else's premises" (AWS).

[1] [http://blog.unscramble.co.jp/post/128610241043/production- re...](http://blog.unscramble.co.jp/post/128610241043/production-ready-in-one- week)

</comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for writing about your experiences. Its a weak spot for most of us, and it was a refreshing kick in the butt, to get ourselves in gear about this topic which has been on our mind for a long time.

Its great to see more startup support in this weak area. I really hope replicated/gravitational succeed, and perhaps more articles can be written to help the rest of us reduce the procrastination or fear of taking the steps toward supporting enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER12> Another shootout to replicated, the service mentioned to go from SaaS to on- premise. We are using it for our own offering at Enthought, and can't recommend it enough either. Good support, reactive to customer feedback. I wish more companies were like that

<comment><USER12> In case it helps other people using replicated and python together, we put together a small python client to replicated [https://github.com/enthought/python- replicated](https://github.com/enthought/python-replicated). We are using it internally to test each PRs against a programmatically created replicated release

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Are there any plans yet on how to use Replicated on existing on-premise cluster installations, like DC/OS or Kubernetes?

After having a look at the installation shell script, Replicated itself seems to run in containers and therefore should be deployable on DC/OS or the likes if I understand correctly...

<comment><USER3> Hi toblig. Absolutely. We do have support for installing Replicated on an existing Kubernetes cluster. For these installs, we provide a couple of k8s yaml files to create the deployment, service, etc on the cluster. It's still a beta feature, but we like the idea of supporting other schedulers.

<comment><USER13> Hi marcc, thanks for your feedback! Is there any documentation on what are the building blocks to be able to run Replicated on platforms like DC/OS and Kubernetes?

I'm especially interested in DC/OS, because my company is building a SaaS in it, and ideally we'd want a general solution on how to ship and maintain an on-premise deployment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if this a a submarine[1] promotion of Replicated. Not that there's anything wrong with that, HN is quite accepting of promoting your startup.

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)</comment>


Example.zip is a valid domain - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/edent/status/567820810371735553

<comment><USER2> As @leighblue mentions in a reply tweet, what's the difference between example.zip and example.com? Both valid file names.extensions and urls.

<comment><AUTHOR> .com is rarely used now. My main complaint is that it's quite common for someone to type "Extract the file from filename.zip and then..." in a forum.

Now every website is likely to autolink that. Not only annoying, but a potential security issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> .zip is a relatively safe extension. Consider the implications of a TLD matching extension for an executable file format. The horrors!

<comment><USER4> .com?</comment></comment>


Neural Networks in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://blog.webkid.io/neural-networks-in-javascript/ <comment><USER2> From the article:

> Within the last years, multiple Javascript frameworks were developed that > can help you to create, train and use Neural Networks for different > purposes.

Due to the popular discourse on how 'unsuitable' JS is for anything but front- end development°, does anybody have any insight on how the efficiency of JS neural net libraries compares to that of the classic Python et al. tools? I've been trying to get started in neural nets for a while now, but am curious as to if learning it via JS will be a limiting factor that I will ultimately have to switch to a more efficient/suited platform.

° Something that I do not agree with myself, as a Node.js and back-end JS developer

<comment><USER3> For any non trivial deep network, any CPU based training is horrendously slow, even if multithreaded. So, Javascript is doomed at it. Python is not, as it can interact with native binaries which may talk with the GPU.

> Something that I do not agree with myself, as a Node.js and back-end JS > developer

NodeJS mostly works when CPU time is not the limiting factor, that is, powering the Web. Neural network is the polar opposite.

<comment><USER4> > Python is not, as it can interact with native binaries

It sounds like what you actually mean here is that Python is equally as unsuitable and must instead use native binaries. Which one could just as easily do with JS...

A reasonable argument could be that such native binaries are available in the Python community and already in use as stable existing solutions, but that's more about ecosystem than language suitability.

Additionally, while I'm not too sure what convnet, node-mind, brain.js, etc. referenced in the article are using internally, there are gpu-oriented solutions being written in JS like [https://www.npmjs.com/package/weblas](https://www.npmjs.com/package/weblas)

<comment><USER5> Python is dog slow. This is why it is used as a glue language for C modules. This is the canonical way to do things. Javascript OTOH is decently fast on its own, but you can't really interact with libraries written in C or FORTRAN, as far as I know.

<comment><USER6> [https://github.com/node-ffi/node-ffi](https://github.com/node-ffi/node-ffi)

<comment><USER5> Cool, good to know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I heard there are people who doubt the existence of anything, hardware or software, that was not written in JS.</comment>


Ask HN: Solo founder, shortlisted for incubator which needs 2 per team. Advice? - throw-stressed

1- I live in the middle east.
2- Very slow startup scene here. Only a few incubators.
3- Working on a startup, however I worry that customers from the west will be vary of dealing with a startup in the middle east.
4- However if I've been in an incubator here, that might give me some legitimacy. Plus connections, mentorship, etc.
5- Shortly, a major incubator will be holding an event, where startups will come and pitch ideas to judges.
6- I have been shortlisted from about 1000 candidates, to a pool of 100 startups. These will be further cut down to 10-20 finalists.
7- My interviewer thought my idea was really good. But, they warned that unless I get a 2nd person with me, either an employee or a cofounder, I will get rejected because they have a rule of at least 2 people per team.
8- I really don't want to take on a 2nd person. My project needs deep technical knowledge which is frankly lacking in most people here. If I take on a 2nd developer, I would spend a lot of time babysitting them rather than building my product.
9- I -could- take on a designer, but I don't know any who are interested.
10- This has left me with a dilemma. I really want to get into this incubator, but I also really don't want to take on any other people right now (esp. just for getting into the incubator)
11- My options are:
a) Go in solo. Build a prototype before pitch, and hope they are wowed enough that they choose me.
b) Pick an inferior programmer, tell them that while they will get paid (the incubator pays a stipend but doesn't take equity - government run), they won't work on the project, only I will.
Option b just doesn't sit right with me.
Please, give me some advice on what you would do in my shoes? You guys are practically the only ones in the world who understand my situation. <comment><AUTHOR> Why do you assume you must take on an inferior person just because you need someone (11b really sounds crazy to me)? I don't live in the middle east but I am sure there are plenty of intelligent and capable people either as marketers, developers, designers etc. I just don't buy the fact that your problem is so unique or tough that you couldn't find someone smart to work on it with you in some capacity. I will agree though that finding the right person can be tough and may take longer then you have. As for how to find people, networking is the best way still.

So a few options.

1\. Say this isn't for you and forge off on your own, chances of success are directly related to your ability and determination.

2\. Find an employee, if only temporary to help meet the minimum requirement to get you through the process. Educate and have this employee be your marketer, designer, product research and all around take care of things guy.

3\. Still go forward while searching for a 2nd person, if you find one great, if not make sure you have superior product demo and focus your efforts on convincing them why you are worth backing. Have proof you are working to find another person, and have an answer for the question that seems reasonable. Rules are made to be broken, at least that is a saying here in the US, and fairly well lived/proven, but that doesn't mean everyone that wants to, gets the opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER2> You could take a programmer with different and perhaps lesser skills and have them work on tasks that require different and perhaps lesser skills. Working with and managing people with different and perhaps lesser skills is going to be necessary if your startup is to grow, and gaining experience doing so will be of value to you throughout your career.

Treating people with different and perhaps lesser skills with respect is a valuable character trait in and of itself and worth developing in and of its own right.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love your question. If I can extrapolate a little bit, there are two conflicting forces at play here:

A) The general advice that you should get a co-founder to succeed[1]. That advice is mostly incorrect. Don't fit into someone else's arbitrary criteria, build your own startup your own way.

B) You seem to believe that no one else is good enough to join you. That's amazingly bad. Are you really the next Elon Musk in waiting? Even he knew to surround himself with a great team.

Because of these two points, I want to say: ignore the requirement from the incubator, but try to open your mind and find people to work with anyway. Not for the sake of getting into this incubator, but for the sake of your startup.

[1] [http://foundrs.com/find-a-cofounder](http://foundrs.com/find-a-cofounder)

</comment><comment><USER4> Build something awesome. Arbitrary rules vanish when people believe they can make more money with you (than from those that followed the rules).

<comment><USER5> Did you miss the government agency part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would choose to go solo, but don't hitch everything on this single incubator. Build your prototype and cast your net wider. A lot of the top US accelerators are accepting plenty of foreign entrepreneurs into their programs.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a designer. I can help you out but It would have to be remote. Not sure if that works for you.

email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you trying to explore building a business, or are you trying to get into an incubator? If the former, taking on a co-founder is likely to be counterproductive because you don't believe there's a real need, at least yet.

While I won't suggest that incubator programs are incapable of delivering value, if your target is Western customers and one of your biggest challenges is reaching them and establishing credibility, that's a very specific challenge. You might want to consider that there are ways you can try to address that directly because there's no guarantee an incubator in the Middle East will be positioned to help you much on this front.</comment>


GitLab 8.11 with Issue Boards and Merge Conflict Resolution - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2016/08/22/gitlab-8-11-released/? <comment><AUTHOR> We're very proud of this release. Let us know if you have any questions or comments.</comment>


Kobe Bryant and Jeff Stibel Unveil $100M Venture Capital Fund - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/kobe-bryant-and-jeff-stibel-unveil-100-million-venture-capital-fund-1471838403 <comment><USER2> I am legitimately afraid for founders who show up to meetings/ pitches unprepared.

Kobe Bryant was an idol of mine growing up, and the stories of his obsessive preparation and competitiveness are simply incredible. He is an extremely smart, driven person. I can envision him being ruthless.

Link to a random Olympics all night training session story: [http://www.businessinsider.com/kobe-bryant-woke-up- at-4-am-t...](http://www.businessinsider.com/kobe-bryant-woke-up-at-4-am-to- practice-before-olympics-2013-3)

<comment><USER3> Or working out after losing a game against Miami Heat[1], Kobe's work ethic is way beyond usual norms.

[1] [http://www.nba.com/2011/news/03/11/kobe-bryant- practice.ap/](http://www.nba.com/2011/news/03/11/kobe-bryant-practice.ap/)

<comment><USER2> _" You've got to work at it," Bryant said. "This is what you're supposed to do. I mean, if you're not comfortable with something and you feel like you can tweak some things, you've got to work on them. It doesn't matter when you work on them. You've just got to get it done. You've got to work it out."_

<comment><USER4> This translates exceptionally well to fields other than basketball, as well. I wish this "magically gifted engineer just needing to work 3hrs a day making e'thing look so easy" profile goes away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always find that in retrospect that these are the kind of announcements you see right when something has jumped the shark.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't seem much different than Ashton Kutcher's VC fund

<comment><USER7> or Carmelo Anthony's fund.

[https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/24/game-recognizes-game-as- ca...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/24/game-recognizes-game-as-carmelo- makes-his-first-vc-plays/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a big Kobe fan, I'm excited to see what his career will be like post career. I hope he takes a hands-on approach with this venture rather than just have his money managed. There's a lot he can bring from playing competitive basketball to the startup world.

<comment><USER9> I'd certainly give him a better chance at success than most athletes have post career. He might be the next Magic Johnson. But as Michael Jordan has shown, tenacity and work ethic on the court don't necessarily translate to business success.

<comment><USER10> Michael Jordan is the only billionaire athlete in the world, I'm pretty sure he is the anti-example of what you are trying to convey. Use Latrell Sprewell or Allen Iverson instead.

<comment><USER11> Michael Jordan is a billionaire _because_ of Nike. Magic has diversified quite nicely beyond his original sponsorships.

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

[http://fortune.com/2014/12/09/magic-johnson-the- businessman-...](http://fortune.com/2014/12/09/magic-johnson-the-businessman- behind-the-basketball-legend/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> $100M for a seed fund, right? Can't imagine $100M being a serious play for anything other than a seed fund. I think he'd make a good board member, not so much as an early stage investor.

</comment><comment><USER13> Insane work ethic and one the greatest. I really like this move. Founders beware, you must be prepared and confident.

</comment><comment><USER14> bryant|stibel has actually been investing for a couple years out of a smaller fund in LA but they've been fairly low key about it. this seems to be the big coming out party, with a much larger fund to play with now that kobe is "retired". =)</comment>


Canada once again deemed root of all IP evil - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/canada-again-tops-special-us-piracy-watchlist.ars

<comment><USER2> <http://www.pirateparty.ca/> ?</comment>


Show HN: Butternotes – site for exploring music theory - <AUTHOR> https://www.butternotes.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi;

This is a site I've been working on over the past 2 weeks or so. I have a lot of work to do on it still, but wanted to get some feedback on what I have so far. I plan to add about every scale I can find, along with chords, progressions, etc.

Information about the stack, further plans, and how this is done is found on the about page.

This isn't tested on all browsers. I'm definitely interested in learning how that is working out.</comment>