Buybacks by Companies Like Apple May Signal Danger, Not Growth - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/your-money/buybacks-by-companies-like-apple-may-signal-danger-not-growth.html?ref=technology&_r=0 <comment><USER3> It's kinda ironic that on one hand the financial press decries public companies for not offering dividends anymore, and on the other hand the financial press decries them for offering buybacks.

A buyback is a tax-advantaged dividend. Period. Instead of distributing profits to shareholders as dividends, which are taxed as ordinary income at 33+%, the additional money flows out as capital gains, which are taxed at 20%. The shareholders who sell into the buyback receive cash directly for their shares, taxed at long-term capital gains rates. The shareholders who don't sell receive capital appreciation, as the intrinsic value of the corporation is divided among fewer shares.

Now, if you are an ordinary not-stock-holding laborer, you may have a legit complaint that buybacks fleece the U.S. government of money that rich people would otherwise pay in taxes. But if you're a rich person and not an idiot, you should be glad to see public companies offer buybacks.

<comment><USER4> _But if you 're a rich person and not an idiot, you should be glad to see public companies offer buybacks._

No, because there is a principle-agent problem. As a non-professional, long- term investor, I want the interests of the executive team to be aligned with my own interests. If a company puts all its profits into buybacks, it is very easy for the company to never return a penny to investors. The executives can continually dilute shareholders by issuing stock options, and then use buybacks to counter-act the dilution and prop up the share price so that they can cash out on the options. The buyback program enables short-term thinking by the executives, which is contrary to my own interests as a long-term shareholder.

<comment><USER3> The principal agent problem works in the opposite direction from how you describe. Companies are incentivized to offer buybacks _when they, with their inside information, believe the stock price is undervalued_. They get more of a pop in EPS for a given amount of cash returned to stockholders, which - <USER2> someone who is usually compensated in stock - will make them personally wealthier.

A buyback _is_ a return of cash to the shareholders. The mechanics of it is that the company buys its own shares on the open market, and in exchange for that, pays out cash from the company treasury to the shareholders.

<comment><USER4> _The principal agent problem works in the opposite direction from how you describe. Companies are incentivized to offer buybacks when they, with their inside information, believe the stock price is undervalued._

This is how buybacks are rationalized, but I don't think it makes any sense. The company, ie, the CEO, are not experts in knowing if their own stock is undervalued, nor should they be. CEO's are, and ought to be, irrationally optimistic. They also are the chief salesmen for their company, they are always pitching how the next product line is going to be a home-run. And to pitch effectively, you have to really believe it, even if rationally you should know that most product lines fail.

There was a quote from Andy Grove about this, via Ben Horowitz [http://a16z.com/2015/11/13/high-output- management/](http://a16z.com/2015/11/13/high-output-management/):

 _"In order to build anything great, you have to be an optimist, because by definition you are trying to do something that most people would consider impossible. Optimists most certainly do not listen to leading indicators of bad news."_

 _But this insight won't be in any book. When I suggested he write something on the topic, his response was: "Why would I do that? It would be a waste of time to write about how to not follow human nature. It would be like trying to stop the Peter Principle_. CEOs must be optimists and all in all that's a good thing."*

 _A buyback is a return of cash to the shareholders._

I agree that in theory, a buyback should be identical to a dividend. But, when taking account the difficulties of aligning interests between shareholders and execs, buybacks make it a lot easier for executives to profit short-term, even when their company does not do so well in the long-term.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hiring a Rails 'gangsta' .. Is this what its coming to? - <AUTHOR> http://www.authenticjobs.com/jobs/12864/rails-gangsta

<comment><USER2> OK. please people, stop judging every fucking word people write. if you are going to submit a post just for using a word gangsta, please stop. we might as well start use the tag line "we judge you for every word you say" as tag line for hn now. should i say factorialboy is fucking offensive as a nick. is that what handles are coming to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Jesus, calm down. You don't want to mess with me, I am a JavaScript 'ninja' after all. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd go to the interview wearing this:

[http://www.clutchtees.com/I-m-Pretty-Gangster-Myself- Shirt.h...](http://www.clutchtees.com/I-m-Pretty-Gangster-Myself-Shirt.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> So the Mafia are hiring Rails devs, cool I guess? How about people just move on and care about something more important... like beer.

<comment><USER5> The mafia would hire "gangster" devs. I think they are going for the rockstar's newest competitor, using the music metaphor, the "gangsta" developer. If the mafia were to want to hire developers and wanted to use a musical metaphor maybe they would want a "crooner" dev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its a meaningless phrase, with meaningless implications.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just stop naming companies after 37signals already

</comment><comment><USER8> Posted on "authentic jobs" no less.

I see straight-outta-compton interns get more respectful job postings than that.

Yet another reason I don't feel bad about being on the Python side of the fence.

<comment><USER9> _Yet another reason I don't feel bad about being on the Python side of the fence._

What reason? A company using a silly word in a job title has nothing to do with Python or Rails themselves from my POV.

If it does, perhaps Rails developers can enjoy being on the "Rails side of the fence" after reading this job ad for a "Python rockstar": [http://www.linkedin.com/jobs/jobs-Senior-Python- Developer-29...](http://www.linkedin.com/jobs/jobs-Senior-Python- Developer-2919081)

<comment><USER10> In the Python community we mock that sort of job req.

And I know Rails guys mock stupid job reqs too.

Rather then nitpick each other, let's team up against patronizing recruiters.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Open Data to create transparency in Development Aid - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-data-for-transparency-in-development-aid

<comment><AUTHOR> This campaign is mostly technical (computer / data) hence the post on HN.

It was put online yesterday to create open data on development projects that have till today received more than $24 Billion tax funding with dozens of $Billions planned to follow in the next years.

Once the data is opened up with this campaign, it will also create a rare occasion that hackers working on their computers with the data, can actually contribute to save thousands of lives and get a lit on corruption. There will be many data challenges coming from finding patterns, identifying errors, graph / networks problems to name a few.

You might have followed the stories this month on Obama's executive order to open government data (e.g. [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/05/open_data_executive_order_is_the_best_thing_obama_s_done_this_month.html) ) - to make government spending more transparent and to save billions of dollars providing these services. Similar approaches are now being implemented with development aid, with the U.S. and the UK leading the way (e.g. in the UK you already have access on all government aid payments > £500, updated monthly).

The organisation (GFATM) that has received those $24 Billion is not a government agency, so these changes don't apply to them. They have, while lots of data has been published since its creation in 2002 (published !== open), seemingly taken the approach to hide important data in thousands of documents and obscuring it with special jargon.

This campaign is also an unique opportunity to have a complete dataset since the creation of such an organisation.

It would be appalling if it's possible to raise $200k to pay someone for a private video of an overweight Canadian smoking drugs, but there would be only little support for a project like this most likely saving thousands of lives (and putting scrutiny on $Billions of tax spending)</comment>


Jackpot-fixing investigation expands to more state lotteries - <AUTHOR> http://www.aurorasentinel.com/news/jackpot-fixing-investigation-expands-to-more-state-lotteries/ <comment><USER2> The firm involved, "Multi-State Lottery Association" ([http://www.musl.com/](http://www.musl.com/)), is a _non-profit_ which lists 37 US lotteries as members ([http://www.musl.com/musl_members.html](http://www.musl.com/musl_members.html)).

California is not listed, but MUSL also apparently originated "Powerball", which is available in California.

Sounds like they might offer some great jobs for hackers and security professionals! Alas, their 'Careers' page ([http://www.musl.com/musl_careers.html](http://www.musl.com/musl_careers.html)) reports:

"There are currently no positions available."

<comment><USER3> MUSL is a weird org. They have compliance requirements for security that are only disclosed to the Counsel of the lottery organization, who signs an NDA.

Their actual requirements as far as I could tell are similar to IRS 1075. Lotteries are as secure as any state revenue or health department. (I.e. In most cases decent perimeter and shitty internal controls)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How could anyone have the ability to install a rootkit undetected on the lottery computer? Computing systems that aren't properly secured are like bank vaults left unsecured, but in many cases they also are remotely accessible.

People shouldn't be any more shocked at these exploits than the 'exploit' of an employee stealing cash from an insecure bank vault. We should expect it. It would be a honeypot if we took security seriously.

For some reason people don't take the security of digital assets as seriously as security of physical assets; we don't invest the significant resources required to secure them.. How secure are voting machines, as an example? Given the enormous stakes of elections, we know what to expect.

<comment><USER5> Poor internal controls.

Getting internal security threats like this dealt with requires strong controls and frequent audit. That means 5x or more staff.

In the old days, the lotto used ping pong balls to pick numbers and all operations were observed by a third party auditor. IMO, you need physicial processes that can be observed and understood by a layman to have a high level of assurance.

<comment><USER6> Cheaper to just go back to physical processes that can be easily audited. Simple = better.

<comment><USER7> Is it easy to audit ping pong balls? Seems you can weight them just as easily as you can do a root kit.

<comment><USER5> You can write down a procedure to weigh them, measure them, document chain of custody, etc.

With a computerized process, how do you assure that the code isn't tampered with? Or that the OS is tampered with? You _can_ do it, but the average auditor from KPMG or Deloitte can't, and the people who can are hard to find.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Real random numbers, [https://github.com/jackfoxy/RandomBitsSolution](https://github.com/jackfoxy/RandomBitsSolution) The wrapping code can be short and sweet and run in a repl on an audited machine... or go back to Ping-Pong balls as suggested by others.

The point being just about any software supplied be a vendor is going to be non-trivial and in some way exploitable.</comment>


No joke: Al Franken rings alarm over Facebook, Google - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57407347-93/no-joke-al-franken-rings-alarm-over-facebook-google/

<comment><USER2> "If you want a free e-mail service that doesn't use your words to target ads to you, you'll have to figure out how to port years and years of Gmail messages somewhere else, which is about as easy as developing your own free e-mail service."

Senator Franken: I've developed my own free e-mail service (AOL). Exporting from Google is WAY easier.

</comment><comment><USER3> Franken's stance on SOPA was idiotic, but what he's saying here doesn't seem unreasonable.

My concern here is that I don't trust the guy when it comes to issues technical, which I don't think he understands at all (from prior experience). I guess "ringing the bell" is one thing, but I'm pretty concerned as to whatever legislation might come from this.

</comment><comment><USER4> You can opt out of google targeted ads:

<http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/#toc-optout>

As I understand it, you can install their opt-out plugin even if you do not have a google account. It seems to me that this makes his entire argument about Google moot.

<comment><USER5> They still collect the data, ready for consumption by the next regime.

<comment><USER6> "After you opt out, Google will not collect interest category information..."

This is really doubleclick out-out anyway, which it didn't seem like Franken was talking about (and google isn't allowed to combine with your google profile information anyway, per the doubleclick acquisition agreement (which I assume is binding forever, even to the next regime, though I don't know for certain)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "If you don't want your search results shared with other Google sites -- if you don't want some kind of superprofile being created for you based on everything you search, every site you surf, and every video you watch on YouTube -- you will have to find a search engine that's comparable to Google. Not easy."

Any alternative to google or youtube could also do this.

I imagine an ideal scenario for him would include limiting google's querying share, youtube's video genres/types, and then legally forcing space for other competitors.

If we allow the law to slap down Internet giants for fear of monopolization, (which has been shown to be often temporary in this industry) then we've given an inch. They'll use it as a precedent to take the whole field.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's amazing that a SOPA supporter can be so sane when it comes to privacy. Barring some details (which, to _anyone_ except geeks like us are details), he's perfectly right, and it's good that politicians are starting to realise that privacy matters.

<comment><USER9> I was going to make my own meta comment: I can no longer read anything from Franken without wondering whether he is whoring for Big Entertainment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great, he's talking sense about Google & Facebook, and nonsense about SOPA.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why would anyone be surprised that Franken would espouse a completely mainstream and widespread liberal position?

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow, I voted for Franken. I guess I was being naive, but I was not expecting him to spurt nonsense that he has obviously not looked in to.

I'm going to write an angry letter. Too bad it won't do anything :(

Guess I should have seen this coming with his nonsense about SOPA, and his spectacularly weird line of questioning in Google & Yelp's appearance at the Senate hearing last year.

<comment><USER8> Aren't you pulling the completely standard "omg someone said something bad about us silicon valley guys" reflex?

It's in Google's and Facebook's direct financial interest to make privacy difficult for you to attain, and your senator is pointing that out. How is that a bad thing?

Tech companies aren't "the good guys" by definition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> tl:dr; "It would be a real shame if someone were to 'regulate' your industry, how about I give you some protection from these regulators."

Personally, I'd love it if Mr. Franken passed a bill that forbid the US government, its agents and assigns from using the data that these companies collect. While we're at it we should probably stop those companies that monitor the torrent sites from collecting that kind of information about people too.

</comment><comment><USER14> He got thoroughly debunked by Danny Sullivan:

[http://marketingland.com/debunking-senator-al-franken-on- goo...](http://marketingland.com/debunking-senator-al-franken-on-google-the- internet-privacy-9121)

Grandstanding and pandering is what politicians do best. Franken is no exception.

</comment><comment><USER15> And?

is this supposed to be written by a professional journalist? Two vague quotes and no suggestion of the main point?</comment>


On Finding Root Causes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/production-ready/on-finding-root-causes-c0ce524bf98b#.b2cnhzw4w <comment><USER2> As any Six Sigma green belt will tell you, use The Five Whys [1]

        The vehicle will not start. (the problem)

        Why? - The battery is dead. (first why)

        Why? - The alternator is not functioning. (second why)

        Why? - The alternator belt has broken. (third why)

        Why? - The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced. (fourth why)

        Why? - The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule. (fifth why, a root cause)

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


Countries Where Windows Phone Outsells The iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/01/21/here-are-24-countries-where-windows-phone-outsells-the-iphone-and-why-it-does/ <comment><USER2> How long are Microsoft, and those who write about it, going to continue with the delusion that Windows Phone's competition is Apple and iOS, instead of Google and Android?

I had spoken to Horace Dediu of Asymco in December for a story on what options Microsoft and Nokia had before them, and here are some of the relevant parts he told me (the article itself doesn't seem to have been put online at Forbes India, who I used to write for but no longer do):

>> Coming to the present, the biggest problem that Microsoft and Nokia will face is that of timing. Specifically, at what stage are we when it comes to global penetration of smartphones?

>> Today now that the market is over 1 billion users and going to very rapidly saturate, the challenge for Microsoft is their assumption of wanting to keep on trying hoping to succeed one day. It's hard to believe that after so many tries and so much saturation, they can succeed. Worse, their strategies are symmetric, meaning they compete against an Apple or an Android by claiming their Lumia devices are better.

>> If Microsoft and Nokia can pivot and become a low-end competitor then there may be an opportunity still available in emerging markets. But instead they're pouring tremendous resources into the US and Europe saying Lumia is better. That will fail. _The door for Windows Phone is closing not because of Apple and iOS but because of Google and Android._ Nokia, the bulk of whose phome portfolio was in the mid-market, was defeated by Android. I could argue, with difficulty, that they can still get into the late stage market but I haven't seen a message from them indicating that. They simply aren't humble enough to see that market as their core, but still see their platform as superior to all others.

<comment><USER3> This is likely to be contentious, but doesn't this effectively say that these phones are basically substitutable products?

Are there not dimensions beyond price and volume still left to tap into the smartphone market?

<comment><USER4> If you've had an iPhone for 3 generations like me, there's no way you would switch to another vendor, simply because of all of the apps that you've paid for. If there were some way to get the Android version of an app if you bought the iPhone version, that might make it a lot easier to switch, but without that, I can't be bothered with spending money trying to recreate the same environment I currently have.

<comment><USER5> I'm not convinced. While most people might have spent enough money on their iOS apps to feel this way, I doubt that buying the same apps (if their free alternatives don't exist) on Android would rack up more than a few tens of dollars.

There are things that iPhone and Apple products still do better than their Android counterparts. For example, you still can't do screen mirroring from your android device to a Chromecast. Meanwhile, AppleTV works like a charm.

But, when it comes to SmartPhones independently, I'm of the opinion that marketing is the only thing keeping iPhone alive. The list of things you get for free with Android that you can't get with the iPhone even if you paid for them are growing longer and longer... Off the top of my head, here are things I've heard from friends who recently switched:

Woa, how did I ever go without Widgets!

Swyping is supported by default, _and_ I can change the default keyboard?!

I can charge my phone with any USB cable, _and_ upgrade my battery?!

You don't _have_ to use iTunes for everything?! ...

<comment><USER6> People use iTunes? Genuine question - what for? I live in an all Apple world, work, home, friends (mostly) and family (mostly). I'm not sure any of them use iTunes. With the exception of having to dump video into it to find it on the AppleTV, I never use it. It is awful.

<comment><USER5> Don't you have to use the "iTunes store" to install apps on iDevices remotely?

Also, as an example use case, how else do you put music on your iDevices? I'm under the impression that you have to use iTunes.

<comment><USER6> Music is via Spotify, or, rarely, via the music app which has content in the cloud. Spotify stores my music locally. The App Store doesn't have iTunes in its name on iOS devices (as far as I can see). If I wanted music on my device via the music app, I'd buy it from the store. However if I owned a CD (not sure how this would happen, binned them all ages ago) I would have to stick it in a Mac (not mine, it hasn't got a drive), rip it, put them on a memory stick, get it to my Mac, dump them in iTunes (argh), then wait for cloud sync.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Look. I don't hate Windows Phone, my girlfriend has the HTC 8X and adores it. With the latest set of big apps ported (like Instagram and Snapchat), it's quite nice. The interface is good, and fast on modest hardware. The browser is pretty meh. PIM functionality is good, as you'd expect from Windows Mobiles pedigree.

But comparing an entire ecosystem of phones (with one of the biggest sellers being the $100 Nokia 520) with iPhones limited range, is silly. Try again when Apple release a true current gen budget smartphone perhaps. I've never understood why we as consumers care about this stuff -- they're businesses for christs sake, and they make billions of dollars of us. Why do we care if one big business does better than their competitors? Why do we defend them? :/

<comment><USER8> Because as developers, you don't develop for a specific piece of mobile hardware, you develop for an OS.

If Windows Phone is gaining ground in markets you care about, you'd best care about it, regardless of the specific hardware being talked about. We're comparing ecosystems here, not hardware. We can compare "Windows Phone Phones vs iOS phones" if that makes you feel more comfortable.

<comment><USER7> Hey, yeah I agree with you that as developers it matters. Sorry, my post was influenced by another discussion recently about this topic; I was looking at it from a consumer perspective.

Now there are some arguments to be made as to why consumers would care as well, but in my experience those arguments might hold true for people like us on HN but not for your average commenter on The Verge (for example).

<comment><USER8> Well, it matters for consumers too - ecosystem familiarity and lock-in is a big deal. If I buy a bunch of apps in one ecosystem, I have a sunk cost that's going to keep me in that ecosystem. Another ecosystem gaining dominance might mean any number of things as to how I use the device.

Consider, for example, if Chile becomes dominated by the Windows Phone. All your good useful local apps - your local versions of Yelps, Zagats, OpenTables, etc - are going to go Windows Phone first. The services that matter most in the community you're in are going to go where the marketshare is - and as an iPhone user, you might be left waiting to catch up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >> Italy and Finland aside, Windows Phone is primarily growing is poorer nations where the iPhone is prohibitively expensive

The markets that Windows outsell iPhone are the markets where iPhone has less than 10% market share and where people need cheaper phones. These are not the markets that are attractive to developers (Revenue/user is much lower than developed countries) and hence Windows will not see developer mindshare in near future.

Notice other than Nokia Home base (Finland), Windows does not outsell Android anywhere else.

<comment><USER10> WinPhone mindshare already has grown drastically. There are certainly app gaps, but it closing fast. And before I'd ask companies if they had a win phone app coming they'd say, "what?". Now it is almost always part of the roadmap.

<comment><USER11> Citation needed

<comment><USER12> It's clearly intended as anecdotal evidence. Citation request: WONTFIX

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Trivia really. Apple and WP both sell smartphones but they don't really compete against each other. Sure Nokia trots out a high end phone every 6 months or what have you but the sales on those models aren't moving the dial on market share. The people who are in Apple's market ($400+ smartphones) either buy an iPhone or a high end Android phone. The people buying 95% of these WP's (510 is $150 unlocked, 520 is $200) are choosing between WP and low end Android phones.

The author tries to anticipate this with:

"As such, it is possible for cynics to argue Windows Phone is gaining in markets where the iPhone doesn't compete and making little headway where it does. Except this isn't true either.

Windows Phone Is Fast Becoming A Hit In Europe"

But this is also bollocks. There are people everywhere that buy $200 phones, it might be only 20% in the US and 30% in Europe (where many countries don't use subsidies) instead of the 80%+ you might see in Mexico or Thailand but that doesn't mean these people are choosing WP's over iPhones.

<comment><USER14> Sure it does. They're just choosing the WPs based on price.

<comment><USER13> Seems dodgy. Sure you could say that most people who buy Kia Optimas are choosing them over a Mercedes on price but it honestly doesn't occur to most of those people that a Benz is an option for them because it isn't. And anyone saying Mercedes is losing market share to Kia would be laughed out of the room.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm working on a project for a large company that recently made Windows Phone 8 its corporate standard.

I have to say that I've been impressed with the phone since I started using one for development. The display, camera and interfaces feel smooth and fun to use.

It's easy to bash Microsoft and dismiss its products altogether, but it's important to give them a shot, if only to avoid the mistake of limiting ourselves to the Apple / Google technology that is most prevalent.

<comment><USER16> Why? We've pretty much limited ourselves to Apple and Microsoft on the desktop for almost 2 decades. In fact, it has been pretty much limited to Microsoft. They still have about 90% desktop market share, and almost 100% of the corporate desktop.

Microsoft illegally killed off most desktop competition when they forced hardware vendors to pay for DOS on every PC they shipped, regardless of which OS they shipped.

Personally, I think we're better off with Google taking the place of Microsoft in the mobile space.

<comment><USER15> If you were a professional filmmaker, would you only watch movies made by Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay? If you were a chef, would you refuse to eat anything but lobster and filet mignon?

Apple and Google are the lobsters and the Steven Spielbergs of the technology world, so to speak: they're highly respected, rich and popular. In a way, there's nothing wrong with that: I use a Macbook, Gmail, etc., because I think they're very well made.

My argument isn't that the software industry should jump into bed with Microsoft; I'm saying that trying technologies like the Windows Phone is vital to our professional development as software engineers.

If you consider yourself a creator in any given field, you can't keep up without at least dabbling with different and sometimes lesser appreciated products. New ideas often emerge when we deviate from standard tools and practices.

<comment><USER16> Yes, I agree and I completely understand. It would have been great if BeOS and OS/2 survived, for example. Unfortunately, Microsoft killed off all competition. Now we're stuck in a world where 90% of the world runs Microsoft's operating system, and there's very little innovation. I'm all for looking at Microsoft's ideas. I just feel safer with Google on 80% of the world's phones. It'll add balance have another major player.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Most of the reason behind this grab-bag list of places Windows Phone has some market share is that Nokia previously dominated sales in most of these places. Nokia used to be "tier zero" of the handset business, in a class by itself, and with a distribution network that reached where nobody else went.

It is a too-easy prediction that these numbers won't hold up as both upper- tier Android OEMs and deep-discount Chinese OEMs invade every remaining corner of the global handset market.

<comment><USER18> This is the real reason behind these numbers, Nokia's brand and distribution network.

Interestingly, Microsoft hasn't bought the Nokia brand for smart phones so once the sale goes through all new phones will no longer be branded Nokia. And after as short period of time Nokia will be able to licence the name to some unpronouncable-to-westerners company from China and Nokia Androids will be on the market to compete with Microsoft Lumias.

I'd love to know if Microsoft bought the distribution network. I don't know if it's technically part of Nokia or just a network of partner companies.

<comment><USER17> Microsoft owns all of Nokia's handset assets now, and has the brand license for a remarkably short time, as you point out. Nokia will continue to use their brand for their infrastructure business as well as maps and other online services.

Microsoft does own Nokia's distribution network, and even the factories that make Series 30 handsets, and all the other odd stuff. Another headache for the next Microsoft CEO.

My bet is that Nokia will get back in to the handset business, and possibly other consumer electronics, once their non-competition agreement expires. Nokia owns some of Jolla, and most of Jolla's employees are formerly Nokia people. I think Jolla already uses Nokia's maps and media ecosystems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Semi-related: As an Apple fan for the past few years, I have to say, I'm really starting to like where Microsoft is heading. At least in terms of UI and UX.

<comment><USER20> After three iPhones (3G, 4 and 4s), my Lumia 928 is the best phone I've ever had.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for sharing. I'm getting tired of my iPhone's problems, so I'll probably be in the market when my contract expires. I'll look into that one.

<comment><USER21> ios7 was the last straw for me

<comment><USER19> I actually really liked iOS 7 compared to iOS 6. But it's still not enough to salvage the OS for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Didn't Apple take a more gentrified approach to their sales?

I was under the impression that Apple didn't bother to market to any of the markets listed in that article because they aren't THE LARGEST AND RICHEST MARKETS IN THE WORLD.

It took them over 3 years to release ANY version of an iphone in finland (one of the listed nations in the article): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#European_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#European_release)

U.S.A. Release: June 28, 2007

Finland Release: September 30, 2010

It took them over a year to get to Greece, etc...

People buy what's available and then stick to what they know, generally.

I am not surprised by the findings of this article.

<comment><USER23> _It took them over 3 years to release ANY version of an iphone in finland (one of the listed nations in the article):[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#European_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#European_..). _

You're reading the Wikipedia article wrong. The iPhone was released in Finland in 2008 when the 3G model came out, and that's stated in the article as well.

The primary reason for not releasing the original iPhone in European markets was the lack of 3G. A 2G-only smartphone would have been a hard sell in European markets back in 2007-08 when 3G was already widely deployed and used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Such a fucking paid nonsense. I an in India right now. It is Samsung and iPhone country. It was Nokia _Symbian_ country before Samsung and Android era, and you would never see a Lumina phone outside a shop window. Low level Nokia Asha phones are selling well, but they are S40.

<comment><USER25> I am also in India and I have to say that while Lumias are not everywhere, they definitely have a decent market share. and iPhone country? I don't think so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I was in Vietnam last year and it was like being in this bizarro world where Microsoft dominated mobile.

<comment><USER27> I live in Vietnam. Windows phone is certainly popular here, but I believe (relying on my own biased observations) that iPhone is vastly more popular. While iPhones are sold by official vendors, it's far more popular to buy "hand carry" phones that are imported by individuals. Of the ~10 people I know with iPhones, all are hand carried. They are cheaper than the official vendors (and not recognized in the IDC report).

<comment><USER28> Gray market imports are probably distorting numbers in the other countries as well.

<comment><USER29> Which makes me wonder where all those sold windows phones are. Android and iPhone is what I see around here in Bangkok.

<comment><USER28> Nokia has better low end distribution channels. I would assume all those Windows Phones are in the rest of Thailand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is this an opportunity for app devs where the app store isn't as crowded so a quality app can really shine?

<comment><USER31> It's not 'as crowded', but it's actually grown quite a lot recently with decent app alternatives, so there's not as much available as there used to be, but it's still better in terms of app vs phone quantity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Re: Poland, it seems to me Windows Phone's relative success is thanks to the Nokia brand, and also to iPhone being considered overpriced upmarket gadget and/or hipster symbol.

Nokia has long enjoyed very good opinion and popularity in Poland -- as _the_ go-to vendor, thanks to decently-priced, user-friendly and rugged phones. The second-hand market is huge, spare parts and accessories abound and experienced repair shops common.

Having said that, a few of my friends have gotten Windows Phone and all of them were disappointed, most of them returned them back in exchange for anything Android. Common complain was OS being disappointing for daily use, and app selection was lacking.

tl;dr

In Poland Windows Phone may outsell iPhones, but it still remains niche -- and you should also subtract frequent returns to get actual user base.

</comment><comment><USER33> Australia is interesting, where Android actually fell 5.5%, and both iPhone and Windows gained. Even BB gained in Australia. Every other country has Android gaining. With so much competition in Android space, there are some great offers available.

<comment><USER34> What numbers are you referring to? Curious, I live in AU too and all I am observing is the rise of android against a stagnant MS and dwindling iPhone and BB market shares..

<comment><USER35> It's in the data in the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is good news for HTML5 webapps developers. Are there any on HN?

<comment><USER37> IE browser on the wp8 is good, but wp8 as a platform sucks. So many features are not supported or has issues when rendering HTML5 app on wp8 platform.

My HN mobile client works fine on WP8/IE, but so many hacks required to work as an HTML5 WP8 app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "Czech Republic Finland" is my favorite country.

</comment><comment><USER39> Here in Chile, I'm not sure where those phones are. You see iPhone and Android everywhere.

My best guess would be people upgrading from a feature phone to a smartphone for the first time. They might buy a really low end Windows phone because of Nokia (they dominated the market for ages) but I have never seen a high end one here in the wild.

</comment><comment><USER40> Finland can likely be explained exclusively by Nokia. Interesting to see what happens now they are to all intents and purposes a part of MS.

Shame really, back in the pre-smartphone days I always had a Nokia as they made the best hardware by far. Nokia phones with CyanogenMod would have been a perfect combination.

</comment><comment><USER41> "accounts for 93.2 percent of all Windows Phone handset sales highlighting little traction or interest from companies where Microsoft does not have control" \- more like companies incapable of building something better then current Nokia products.

</comment><comment><USER42> There was me expecting a map... If you want something doing right... [http://i.imgur.com/HqLIJ3q.png](http://i.imgur.com/HqLIJ3q.png)

</comment><comment><USER43> I find it hard to believe that Microsoft is outselling iPhone in Colombia. Even if that was the case iPhone is vastly more popular.</comment>


A tiny pharmacy is identifying problems with common drugs - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/a-tiny-pharmacy-is-identifying-big-problems-with-common-drugs-including-zantac/2019/11/08/6dd009ca-eb76-11e9-9c6d-436a0df4f31d_story.html <comment><USER2> I dug into this a bit and while they are doing some testing, I'm not sure they really know what they are doing.

When they originally flagged the NDMA issue in Zantac, they published their results. One of the tablets had 32,000 ppm of NDMA. That's an absurdly high level that should have made them question the result.

Turns out they used a different testing procedure for a different set of drugs. The procedure required heating the sample to 80c for like an hour. The FDA came back and said "yeah, that's not the right test". Many drugs will decompose with heat and produce a bunch of impurities. Impurities that aren't produced in the human body.

Testing for impurities is actually really hard as your testing procedure can have a big impact on the measurements.

Based on the latest FDA guidance, it sounds like Zantac does have higher than allowed NDMA levels, but nothing like what this lab suggests.

So I'd say they are offering a useful service, but they aren't sophisticated enough to make a judgement call on.

<comment><USER3> The same article says the level of NDMA is similar to that in barbecue meat. So much medicine recalled, and panic from major manufacturers (why didn't they test before panicking?), over a result that may not be even accurate in the first place.

<comment><USER2> It's probably two reasons: 1) it's a carcinogen and cancer risks make headlines and 2) it's a risk that wasn't there to begin with (unlike bbq meat which was known).

That said, you are correct. Stacked up against all the risk you might face in life this isn't that concerning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sounds a bit alarmist. So the chief medical officer of the company is also the editor-in-chief of the journal they publish in? And the paper is about the rapid release of tylenol, not about the cancerous effects of ranitidine?

Bear in mind this company makes money by testing regular medications and assuring their drug content and safety - they have a financial motivation to find problems in available medications. This is not to say that production standards may not be ideal for medications, but it does mean one should be skeptical of their claim.

Alarmism is popular in health. Look at the removal of vaping products, despite studies demonstrating their general safety. As if the risks of smoking aren't already known and fairly major.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://archive.is/KCfQu](http://archive.is/KCfQu)

Edit: try also [https://outline.com/ykCXfg](https://outline.com/ykCXfg)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20191108165301/https://www.washi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191108165301/https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/a-tiny- pharmacy-is-identifying-big-problems-with-common-drugs-including- zantac/2019/11/08/6dd009ca-eb76-11e9-9c6d-436a0df4f31d_story.html)

<comment><USER6> Is there an archive of this article that doesn't require Javascript?

<comment><USER7> Firefox + NoScript + No Previous Cookies (from anyone) --> no problem reading the original article.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't work for me in emacs-w3m, which does not understand Javascript. I just get redirected to the the washingtonpost.com front page.

Update: Actually, I just changed my user-agent from one that advertises my browser as emacs-w3m to one that advertises itself as a common Mozilla/Chrome/Safari browser and I no longer get redirected and can read the original article just fine.

<comment><USER7> FWIW I just played around with this. OpenBSD used to include lynx, but now doesn't. I found mailing list question on this and the answer was to use ftp!!!

I tried and this just worked for me:

       ftp -o wp.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/science ...

That fails and automatically switches to https and then fetches the article. The formatting isn't ideal but the article text is readable.

So many ways to skin a cat, so to speak!

<comment><USER8> >OpenBSD used to include lynx, but now doesn't.

Second time I have heard about this ... which is confusing because I use lynx on a regular basis on OpenBSD.

<comment><USER9> It's in ports/packages now, but it used to be in base.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This sounds kinda a like a bug bounty program for pharama. We should have more companies specially the big PBM's doing more of this.

<comment><USER11> PBMs are rent seeking middlemen. Their desire to seek the lowest drug price is arguably what contributes to things like quality standards at pharmaceutical manufactures slowly loosening and contaminants getting into the supply line.

Honestly, we should have an independent 3rd party with zero financial investment in either approving or rejecting a quality check of a batch sample. Something Federal, so manufacturers cant "shop states", that administers and regulates drugs and their distribution. Not sure what I would call it. I tend to go with cartoonish things, so Merlin after the bumbling wizard sounds fun, but the bureaucrat in me thinks the acronym "F.D.A." would suffice.

<comment><USER12> Nitpicking: The FDA doesn't test every single batch of each product. They review the results of the clinical trials and then they set the rules to approve the batches. When a batch is ready, someone in the drug production factory is responsible to check that all the test and quality meet the regulations and then sign a paper approving the release. S/he must have a degree in pharmacology or chemistry or something similar. If something gets wrong the person that signed the release approval is the first one that get questioned, so they should be very careful.

It's somewhat similar to the role of the NHTSA(?). They set the general rules and approve each vehicle model, but they don't go to the factory to test each single car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Alternate sources:

[https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/A-tiny-pharmacy- ra...](https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/A-tiny-pharmacy-raises-big- doubts-about-our-drugs-14820025.php)

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-we-know- abou...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-we-know-about-the- possible-carcinogen-found-in-zantac/)

</comment><comment><USER14> This was a really good interview with the CEO of this pharmacy where he describes they business model and research process: [https://peterattiamd.com/davidlight/](https://peterattiamd.com/davidlight/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if the exit strategy of this company is to be a big enough nuisance to Pharma that one of them buys the company in order to absorb and nullify it.

</comment><comment><USER16> nice ad

<comment><USER17> It does paint a compelling picture of the problem and a company that provides a solution.

Does you find it somehow misleading?

<comment><USER18> > Does you find it somehow misleading?

Apparently in 2019 it's not advertising unless it's misleading...

<comment><USER19> Insofar as "advertising" is used as a kind of slur against pieces of journalism, it implies a kind of _mens rea_ where the journalist was either paid off, or otherwise intended the piece to serve as PR for the company.

Sometimes, as a journalist, you set out to report interesting and important facts; an the facts are such that just a bare reporting of them leaves readers with a positive impression of a company, no matter how you editorialize. A company is just ...doing something good, and good in a novel way. And that's news! Just as much as if a company were doing something _bad_ in a novel way.

Presuming the piece was written genuinely, instead of being submarine PR, the journalist's goal isn't _usually_ to get people to interact with the company (just like their goal with reporting of negative novel behaviour isn't _usually_ to cause a boycott—that'd be the job of an editorial.) Instead, the goal of such pieces is to make readers say "well—this changes things." To make them think about how the world is going to be different for the presence of this new activity in it. Basically, to accomplish what speculative fiction sets out to accomplish, but with fewer tools in the toolbox.

I can understand calling that "advertising" in some literal technical sense. But if you are intending to _morally color_ the article by calling it advertising, while receding back to the claim that it is "literally, technically" advertising, then readers should be wary: that's a classic motte- and-bailey argument† (despite the motte and the bailey both being "it's advertising"—'advertising' is used in a different sense in each claim.)

† [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another- bri...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the- motte/)

<comment><USER18> It's a puff piece plain and simple, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's misleading.

<comment><USER17> I'm trying to become a more discerning / critical reader of news stories. Mind expanding on what makes this a "puff piece"?

<comment><USER18> As far as I can tell the only source for everything written about the company described is the company itself, and of course it's all flatteringly positive and endearing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How the Father of FinFETs Helped Save Moore's Law - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/how-the-father-of-finfets-helped-save-moores-law <comment><USER2> This guy is seriously impressive. As the article mentions the BSIM models developed by him at Berkeley are the corner stone of all transistor simulations today, modelling thousands of subtle effects - an impressive feat, not only to build the accurate picture of a transistor and its environment (the effects on the transistor function from being near others, etc) but also to do it in a way that allows modern EDA tools to simulation 100k+ at once in a reasonable amount of time.

It's also impressive he made impacts in so many different aspects, transistors, solar cells, optical, etc. Well deserved award.

<comment><USER3> If anyone is interested in what these transistor models are like, there's an excellent online course by Yannis Tsividis:

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/mosfet](https://www.coursera.org/learn/mosfet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fascinating part of this article is the path it took for FinFETs to go from a theoretical all the way to fruition. You have things like him hearing about a DARPA grant last-minute from a surfing buddy. He also was working in different areas throughout his career. Great quote:

> His career soon took a detour because semiconductors, he recalls, just > seemed too easy. He switched to researching optical circuits, did his Ph.D. > thesis on integrated optics...

<comment><USER3> > him hearing about a DARPA grant last-minute from a surfing buddy

I was very disappointed to go the article and find that Hu does not in fact surf:

> Hu had heard about the DARPA funding from a fellow Berkeley faculty member, > Jeffrey Bokor, who, in turn, had heard about it while windsurfing with a > DARPA program director

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unfortunately, it's not Moore's law that make the chips run faster, but Denard's scaling and that seems to no longer work. [0][1]

[0] [http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~agrawvd/COURSE/READING/LOWP/Boh07...](http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~agrawvd/COURSE/READING/LOWP/Boh07.pdf)

[1] [https://cartesianproduct.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/the-end- of...](https://cartesianproduct.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/the-end-of-dennard- scaling/)

</comment><comment><USER6> So he made the biggest achievement in his life at the age of 48, and waited another another 15 years for it to become reality. Never too late.

<comment><USER3> I imagine most academics never see the impact of their work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What an amazing career. I had a couple of questions. The articles states:

>"The main problem was power. As features grew smaller, current that leaked through when a transistor was in its "off" state became a bigger issue. This leakage is so great that it increased—or even dominated—a chip's power consumption."

How exactly does residual current start to dominate? Does this mean that current starts to leak into neighboring transistors and inadvertently turn them on?

>"Hu saw the fundamental problem as quite clear—making the channel very thin to prevent electrons from sneaking past the gate?"

I would have thought that making the channels thinner make current flow through them easier. Why does making them thinner prevent current leakage exactly?

<comment><USER8> The word leakage used in the context of the article refers to a single transistor, not neighboring devices.

See this Wiki article. What is commonly called "leakage" is more formally called "subthreshold conduction". The two n+ areas of the FET are the source and drain. In that particular picture a conducting channel between those two would be formed when Vg is positive. The problem is that, for a variety of reasons, when the devices are that small it is difficult to keep current from flowing between drain and source even if Vg is zero. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subthreshold_conduction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subthreshold_conduction)

In a "traditional" FET, as shown above, the channel is formed in the region below the gate.

If you look at the "FinFET's Features" illustration in the IEEE article the orange area is where the channel can be formed. It is no longer simply "below" the gate, but instead exists as a three dimensional structure. This gives the gate voltage more control of the current flowing between source and drain.

<comment><USER9> A reasonably good physical picture is to imagine the transistor as a hose. The gate is a valve, and basically works by smushing the channel closed. In standard planar designs, the hose is smushed from the too, and eventually, you cannot close off that flow. A finfet let's you smush that channel.closed from three sides. And a nanowire or sheet let's you close it from all sides.

You can reasonably ask: why not make it really small and make sure it closes. The reason is that you need current to drive the computation process.

So anyway, you balance these factors at each node, which is what BSIM lets you do.

<comment><USER7> >"And a nanowire or sheet let's you close it from all sides."

Interesting so is this why we see the research into carbon nano-tubes or is that something else?

>"So anyway, you balance these factors at each node, which is what BSIM lets you do."

What is BSIM here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've seen Professor Hu on campus a few times, and it was a really cool experience being able to talk to him in person. I only wish I could have taken a course with him, but he doesn't do as much teaching unfortunately these days.

</comment><comment><USER11> We're really good at scaling and getting more performance per watt but it seems like our performance per transistor is essentially stagnant. Is this an area where we could focus development as silicon shrinking dies?

<comment><USER3> Scaling _is_ improving single-transistor performance, specifically the switching time / transition frequency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had no idea he started work on FinFETs in the 90's. That's crazy because I worked on them at Intel during the first process (which was an absolute beast to bring up), and I just assumed they were a new tech. Funny that often the people on the cutting edge don't get a chance to appreciate the history.

<comment><USER7> >"That's crazy because I worked on them at Intel during the first process (which was an absolute beast to bring up)"

Could you elaborate on this? Do you mean bringing the the process node/fab online? More so of a beast than other other nodes? Cheers.

<comment><USER12> No, I can't elaborate because I wasn't on the process team, I just used their parameters. I watched the agony on faces of friends on-call 24/7 who owned the yields... that was close enough for me. :)

Yes, I meant bringing up the process node.

Yes, more so than other nodes, but for context I only go back to p854, so earlier might have been worse.

<comment><USER3> Were you in charge of the models? If so, any resources you could share? Conferences, books, whatever.

<comment><USER12> Oh hellz no! I was just a consumer. Lots and lots of people use the process files for all kinds of modeling (hundreds of models). And every time a new one comes out we all spend a month switching over to it... and another month explaining to our bosses why everything got worse!

The people in charge of the model need to be very smart, very diplomatic, and very thick-skinned because every release they have literally hundreds of managers and project leads screaming at them.

<comment><USER3> I know what you mean. Designers are more worried about simulation results not changing, than they are about matching reality better :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Riseup moves to encrypted email in response to legal requests - <AUTHOR> https://riseup.net/en/about-us/press/canary-statement <comment><USER2> Seven Spanish activists were jailed in 2015 for their "possession of certain books...and the fact that the defendants used emails with extreme security measures, such as the RISE UP server" [1]. Do we know what became of that case?

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/security-not-crime- unl...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/security-not-crime-unless-youre- anarchist)

</comment><comment><USER3> They encrypt using a Dovecot plugin named Trees that comes from Riseup Labs:

 _How it works:

1\. On IMAP log in, the user's cleartext password is passed to the plugin.

2\. The plugin creates an argon2 digest from the password.

3\. This password digest is used as a symmetric secret to decrypt a libsodium secretbox.

4\. Inside the secretbox is stored a Curve25519 private key.

5\. The Curve25519 private key is used to decrypt each individual message, using lidsodium sealed boxes.

6\. New mail is encrypted as it arrives using the Curve25519 public key._

[https://0xacab.org/riseuplabs/trees](https://0xacab.org/riseuplabs/trees)

If someone would briefly describe argon2 and libsodium to the non-crypto geeks, it would be appreciated.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I misunderstood the meaning of one or more of the steps above. However it seems that if law enforcement wants to look at the messages of a user they only need to make Riseup decrypt for them every message at step 5. The only protection is not logging in because they need the cleartext password to start with.

People check their email often, so maybe this is why they are writing

> this type of encryption is not end-to-end message encryption. With Riseup's > new system, you still put faith in the server while you are logged in

The message should be "if you think you're under investigation, abandon your email and don't login anymore."

Another attack is with the received messages: I assume they are all cleartext and can be intercepted before they are encrypted at step 6, with or without the cooperation of Riseup. Messages in a conversation often integrally quote all the previous messages so there might even be no need to force Riseup decrypt anything at step 5.

<comment><USER5> As of today, there is no case where the government has pressed the issue about modifying systems. They thought they had the perfect case with San Bernadino/Apple, in fact they are trying to pick the best case in terms of players in order to establish precedent, but they backed down because all of silicon valley rose up in protest. If Riseup became a test case for this it would be a big deal, this would be a legal fight that would bring armies of lawyers who have been dying to litigate this exact scenario, and sillicon valley would also get behind such a case (as they did with Apple). But the government isn't likely to pick Riseup as the target for such a case, they want someone big like Apple.

In particular, what you are talking about is a Title III Wiretap (in transit) order with an additional element of technical assistance that requires significant re-architecture that would expose massive take, or enforced lying (endorse a false cert). This would put a huge burden on Riseup, and significantly undermine their operation. A Title III Wiretap order can only be done in _very_ specific cases, it is much harder to obtain one of these than it is for a simple search warrant, or subponea. In fact its so difficult, that in 2015 Google received 15 wiretap orders in total and more thaan 8k search warrants. Not only that, but the government must show they can do data minimization and there is a notification requirement (unlike a search warrant) where they notify the target after 90 days. The tighter particularity requirements built into the statute make this a very good position for Riseup to be in.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. With respect, do you have expertise on this issue? It's just useful to know if we're hearing from an attorney who practices in this area or someone who happens to be well-read in it.

> there is no case where the government has pressed the issue about modifying > systems

Do we know that, or would it be more accurate to say 'there is no case that we know of'? And we do have some reason to believe that the U.S. government has pressured large telcos to modify equipment; look up Qwest's story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Background: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13007234](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13007234)

</comment><comment><USER7> What kind of people is Riseup supposed to help?

For anything serious it seem inadequate unless I'm missing something.

How is it even better that something like proton mal?

<comment><USER8> It is intended for activists, but I have never felt comfortable recommending it to my activist friends. I trust the people who run it not to give up data easily, but I don't trust their tech to be at all resistant to a state level actor, which is primarily who activists need to fear.

I'm not convinced this change alters that assessment, as the implementation seems questionable (the secret exchange seems to be on the wrong side of the connection). But maybe I just misunderstand it.

<comment><USER9> The secret exchange is certainly on the wrong side of the connection, but it's either that or change the way email clients work. We are living in an IMAP4 world and if you choose to "trust the server", as they state it, this seems like a reasonable solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would be very interested in seeing people experiment with more specific warrant canaries. Many of them currently are of the form, "This service has not received any of these kinds of orders at any time before YYYY-MM-DD." What if instead, to go to an extreme (though it could be somewhere in between), each user could check a page that had a long list of statements regarding their account, e.g. "We did not comply with a {TYPE} order between 02:00 and 03:00 GMT on 2017-02-17 that affected your account." Obviously that's poking the surveillance bear more than a really broad canary (ooh, big deal, now people know X provider with 100 million users received an order within T time of the last update to the canary), but I'm not sure that it's qualitatively different.

<comment><USER11> Or even better, have a distributed canary across multiple jurisdictions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Proof that a warrant canary is useless.

<comment><USER6> It seems to me that it did its job here. The only thing a warrant canary claims to be able to do is to make people aware that a warrant was served on a provider, even when a gag order prevents the provider explicitly saying so. The warrant canary at riseup disappeared, which did have the effect of making people aware of that fact.

Now it turned out that the warrant was just for some malware-extortion ring, not due to a crackdown on political dissidents, so arguably a "false positive" from the perspective of what most people using riseup for its stated purpose care about. But the warrant canary didn't claim to make those kinds of fine- grained distinctions in the first place. It claimed that it would let you know when there was an unannounced warrant, and it succeeded in doing so.

<comment><USER13> > Now it turned out that the warrant was just for some malware-extortion ring, > not due to a crackdown on political dissidents, so arguably a "false > positive" from the perspective of what most people using riseup for its > stated purpose care about

Except that now that it's gone there's nothing to say that people who were previously held at bay by the canary [side note: hah] moved in right after it disappeared.

Thus I agree; a WC should be seen as nothing more than a "probably not" to a "maybe/assume so".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd like to recommend [https://posteo.de/en](https://posteo.de/en) which also has strong encryption on various layers, including the user's data: [https://posteo.de/en/site/encryption](https://posteo.de/en/site/encryption)

</comment><comment><USER15> Question: Can a gag order in the US force a person to lie? If they say publicly there are no outstanding gag orders, FBI warrants, or other compromizing orders (and assuming I'd trust them apart from that), can I trust that they are telling the truth?

<comment><USER16> I think they respond to this in the Q&A below.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Off Topic: Does anybody have an invite left?

<comment><USER18> You are supposed to receive invites only from people you know. Riseup users who deliver invites to somebody creating trouble will have their account revoked.</comment></comment>


Understand seed round dynamics in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://thevalley.substack.com/p/understand-seed-rounds-dynamics-in <comment><USER2> Almost all these guides are written from the viewpoint of investors. Here's a brief one from the viewpoint of the person seeking funding.

You are selling a product to a single customer (or small group of them). That product is an investor story that can sell for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars if you tell it ably enough, so it's worth putting in the time in to tell it well.

If necessary, you can even write a little toy website, and entice people to sign up for it, in the service of that story. If you can get _yourself_ to believe in the story, you will be all the more persuasive in convincing that key customer.

But never forget that your primary focus is that customer—your investor. Learn their interests, learn to speak their language (perhaps by reading posts like the parent), learn how to flatter their sense of self until they feel like a genius visionary for finding you.

Startup investing is a luxury lifestyle product for the very rich. The art of selling that product well is pretending that the transaction is something different than what it is.

<comment><USER3> The author is both a former entrepreneur (Sysdig) and a current investor, but I agree with you that the viewpoint is more investor-centric.

Your suggestions are interesting, but I'd rather focus on the real customer, and have the numbers speak for themselves, rather than simply perfecting the art of raising money.

I've founded startups in the past, raised money, and also invested both as angel investor and as a founding member of a micro-VC fund (and currently operating partner at a large VC fund, but not too relevant here).

In my personal experience, building a strong company most often trumps a founder's ability to play smoke and mirrors in front of an investor.

<comment><USER2> Most funded startups don't end in a strong company, but all (by definition) are successful at persuading someone to write a check. The rational thing to do if you want the investment is to optimize for the storytelling, which is a factor of 10x or more more effective than the notional business.

<comment> barry-cotter This is only true of getting the investment is your terminal goal. If it's just a proximate goal on the way to actually building a successful company, getting stinking rich or many other things that's not true. If the investment is an end you're right. If it's a means to an end...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a good articulation of the modern view of SV captial, but it is somewhat problematic.

In a nutshell, 'Round A' is now a form of scaling money. Early, but essentially: you need to build a product that the market really loves, before you get any substantial money.

It would seem that VC is really de-risked themselves, obviously to their advantage. This is somewhat the natural equilibrium in a world where it's easy to start _some_ kind of companies with little effort.

However, there are always going to be a lot of initiatives that require some capital to make it work. This is of course, very dangerous territory for VC to play in (i.e. before Product-Market-Fit) but then, they do have 'Venture' in their titles.

It's to the point wherein we could start to consider Round B and later firms merely a slightly different form of Private Equity.

Is anything really that important going to be 'productised' for $500K-1M i.e. on seed money?

And really, it's interesting in that, if a company does actually have good product market fit ... traditional VC terms might seem a little expensive.

<comment><USER5> That doesnt jive with the string of spectacular silicon valley blowups recently. Hype seems to be just as good a substitute as product market fit. And it seems that derisking unit economics to show you can be profitable doesnt matter at this point if you've got a bunch of "growth"

<comment><USER4> For example?

Having massive customer traction and 'blow up growth' is a valid form of customer interest, what matters is the post-blow up economices.

Uber, WeWork etc. will all make money for investors in the long run.

The concern is that there is zero real R&D or product development spending.

<comment><USER6> I work in early stage product startups.

What R&D do you need? CRUD is solved, hosting is solved, UX is solved, scaling is solved, marketing is solved ...

Everything to do with web and mobile is very solved at this point. Most problems come from tripping over ourselves and cobbling things together to fit new domains.

All real hard R&D happens inside faang these days. At least for web/mobile consumer stuff.

<comment><USER7> >What R&D do you need? CRUD is solved, hosting is solved, UX is solved, scaling is solved, marketing is solved ...

If you don't need R&D, doesn't that mean your competitor also doesn't need R&D? Where's the moat?

<comment><USER4> There are many moats to businesses, often they are not dervied from tech. Most monopolies are operationally incumbent. Amazon (just the retail part) doesn't have any truly special tech, but reams of know how and operational competence with scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Ten years ago, the Seed round was a single event, and companies ended up raising a few hundred thousand dollars from angel investors"

Well.. 10 years ago there was no "seed" rounds. Airbnb raised a $600k series A right before demo day in '09. That round got rebranded as a seed round later.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nobody involved in venture capital has incentive to tell the truth.

In a clear majority of cases, a startup closing its doors after two years is not considered a failure by the VC fund. The startup successfully _spent the money_ the VC firm was contractually obligated to invest, may have employed the VC's choices of officers for a significant period (providing them income and experience), maybe purchased a great deal of tech from suppliers the VC officers are themselves invested in, and may have left valuable assets that could be snapped up at auction.

The biggest problem a VC firm has is the five billion dollars of others' money they have to "place" in only 30/60/90 days. What happens _after_ placement is much less their problem. They know most of their placements will be duds, but they and the actual investors knew that up front. Once the money is "placed", though, much of it can be siphoned off for the benefit of the VCs' cronies or one or other non-dud. Maybe, after collapse, a non-dud or non-startup can buy up assets of a dud for pennies on the dollar, and extract something usable, like patents or equipment. Sure, the investor lost that money, but _somebody_ got it, and _somebody_ ended up with what the money bought. Just not, often, the founders.

None of this is good for most people who do a startup, unless they happen to be chosen as a non-dud. The chosen duds are valuable for money laundering, which few startup principals really meant to sign up to be. Although some did.

</comment><comment><USER10> The thing that confuses me is, how can you have great metrics (needed for Seed rounds) without already having product market fit? If you have great metrics, then are you not already a scaleup just waiting for some money to do the scaling? Then you don't need to experiment anymore because you already know what makes your metrics work?

</comment><comment><USER11> The dynamic is very simple. It's called plutocracy, and it's as old as the Roman Empire. If you're my friend or I know you, you get funding, your business model or your metrics are not relevant. That's the excuse to exclude the other 99% and in this case you and your project.

</comment><comment><USER12> I stopped reading at the first use of emojis. It may be harsh, but I am not a 3-year-old. I don't need a picture book, so I am clearly not the target audience.

<comment><USER13> Why do you feel that characters that together compose words are adult, while characters that form an image conveying human emotion are not?

Is a laughing emoji not the most efficient way to convey that you're joking or think something is funny?

<comment><USER14> Agreed. There are in fact many languages (e.g. Mandarin and Japanese) that use symbols, in their written form, to represent concepts instead of letters, and some of those symbols were originally pictures, just like emojis.

The cool thing about emojis is that not only they can represent whole concepts in one character, but a lot of them are almost universal across languages and cultures. Pretty much anyone in the world understands an emoji of a laughing face.</comment></comment></comment>


Blind Men, Treasure, Buses, and Cops - <AUTHOR> http://blog.spanishcurls.com/blind-men-treasure-buses-and-cops

<comment><USER2> You tell a good story, and tell it well. I hope you continue to turn your experiences into stories, and that you continue to survive them.

Advice: Buy a spare phone battery. Keep it charged. Fold a crisp $20 into the battery compartment so you'll always have _some_ cash.

When boarding a strange bus, ask: "You stop at Meridian and Chestnut?" so the driver has a chance to tell you that that stop is closed, or the map is out of date, or his destination banner is showing the previous route.

Attend to en-route announcements from the driver. They're mostly nice people, and will usually be helpful if asked effectively. Set your phone alarm before dozing.

Source: I once rode the right bus number in the wrong direction. To the end of the line. In Guadalajara. It's a _big_ city. Luckily, it was not the last bus, and I did have the price of a return fare.

<comment><USER3> That $20 trick is something I have been doing personally for a long time (can't anymore with the Nexus 4).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thoughts on the writing This was during the Microsoft/Techstars accelerator in Seattle.

</comment><comment><USER4> If I know I have that 20, I'll find something to spend it on pretty quickly.</comment>


Some Senators Want to Know If Smart TVs Are Spying on Us - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/some-senators-want-to-know-if-smart-tvs-are-spying-on-u-1827593298 <comment><USER2> Some senators need to learn to read good and so other things good too.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get freelance clients without Elance, oDesk, and the like? - <AUTHOR> I'm going to have my summer vacation from school very soon, and I'm hoping to make some money freelancing.
I've used Elance in the past and it has worked, but I don't want to have to filter through postings determining the legitimacy of various jobs.
I know the best way is through one's personal connections and network, but I'm looking for an online platform with quality jobs.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> The conventional wisdom is that you shouldn't.

The single largest barrier to entry for lucrative freelance contracts is ability to sell, and the second largest barrier is development of a reputation. Sites like oDesk remove both barriers, by standardizing and transactionalizing projects and by relying on a superficial reputation system.

The result is a race-to-the-bottom competition that will slash your rates and pit you against gamesmanship from suppliers that can't even deliver competently, but against which you'll have a hard time differentiating.

If you're considering freelancing over your summer vacation, you have more flexibility than almost all other freelancers. You should exploit that by developing your sales ability and your reputation, which will pay off _handsomely_ when you leave school and it comes time to collect and negotiate offers.

One (of many) ways to do this:

1\. Start writing articles (for your blog, but don't call it a blog). Start with your preferred technology stack and gradually branch out. Write case- study style about solving actual problems with Node or Angular or Rails or PHP or whatever it is you work best in. Work in specific languages with specific example, but make the focus of your articles _solving actual problems_ and _how you set about the process of generating those solutions_.

2\. Circulate articles on HN and Twitter; participate in related discussions.

3\. Make it clear, constantly and regularly, that you're available for projects that are similar to what you've written about.

4\. Optionally, build a "Github Resume" of the code that forms the basis of those articles, and link to it.

5\. Start asking friends and acquaintances if they know people who have problems that could be solved well with software development; be forward once you find prospective clients, and, after establishing bona fides (for instance, suggest a 15 minute conversation about their problems and _actually provide free advice_ ), follow up by _asking for the sale_ ; you have nothing to lose --- "no" is a perfectly fine answer.

You'll do better long term executing this plan than you will on oDesk.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice! One question I still have- I'm sure that the tips you've shared will work in the long-term and pay off far more than making a quick buck, but any ideas how I could find good projects/jobs from people outside of my personal network?

<comment><USER2> My advice would be to drastically grow your personal network by getting yourself out there and engaging with the broader community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was in a similar situation thinking how to obtain freelance contracts. I now have plenty of work, and it boils down to my reputation and portfolio.

If you haven't got a portfolio, I'd build one. Even a simple application in your target domain. Ideally, make the application for someone else so that you can obtain a reference. I did this by severely cutting my rates and offering a cannot-be-refused scenario to HN, I'd build your iOS app for $200 [1]. Some people may say this isn't correct to start out by gimping yourself, but it worked for me. I got around 15 offers from that post, and took up two clients. The first I completed in a week or so, the next took me a bit longer, but the client then went on to become a staple and was paying standard rates (I charged £20 an hour).

From these applications, it became much easier to sell myself to clients and demand a higher fee. Now I practically have clients when I actively want them (the freelancer HN post is a good resource here). My rate is still £20/hr, which is fairly low by some people's standards, but I'm comfortable with it as it allowed me to live a comfortable life whilst finishing my University degree.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6382405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6382405)

</comment><comment><USER4> "but I'm looking for an online platform with quality jobs.".

You should probably change this view because the good ol' world just does not operate like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Upon examining the options, looks like you're right. Although I did manage to find [http://betatype.io](http://betatype.io), which seems interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that "Offer HN" is a great way to get clients. It's how I found my first Dev (who is on this page!) to help me create an app that was better than anything I could have imagined - and I mean that literally because I imagined and designed X and he re-imagined and created X to the 10th power.

FWIW I have looked at eLance and oDesk and the like on more than one occasion and I find the process very tedious. I would much rather go to my Community first (HN, Reddit etc.) because it is, to me, more genuine.

</comment><comment><USER6> The only "online platform with quality jobs" that I know of is StackOverflow Careers. :)

Sadly, anonymous online marketplaces are not the way to get decent-paying, non-crazy people to hire you for software gigs. I know some people have success with Elance or Craigslist, but I recommend looking at your personal network again.

The trick is not to ask people, "Need any software?" No one will ever say yes to this: no one needs "software." They have enough "software" and they hate the software they have. What they need is solutions to problems they may not even know they have.

What works better is watching people work, or asking them about their work. You can use the pretense of wanting to learn how they use software, or whatever. Just watch them work, and look for pain points, bottlenecks, manual- but-automatable steps, etc. Dig a little deeper to understand the problem as they do. Explore ways to address it with software. Offer to build a mockup/do a demo/write up a proposal (1 page description of what you could do and how it would help) and walk through it with your friend's boss.

To borrow a patio11-ism, this is the "Find an Excel workbook that someone edits and emails to someone else; then replace it with software" approach to finding freelance opportunities. And it's an approach I've stumbled into as well.

My personal testimonial to this approach is that my first freelance opportunity accidentally grew out of helping my mother with some work. I wrote a Java app that did some web searches for her and parsed/saved some numbers. Very crude app, yet it saved her hours a day. Then her boss heard about it. 10 years later, that app has grown into a suite of applications that launched my consulting business, earned me probably $50-80k over the years, and has easily made my mother's company millions of dollars.

</comment><comment><USER7> +1 for the "Offer HN" idea.

What types of projects are you looking for? Having a clear idea of what types of projects you're willing / able to handle will help determine which jobs or contracts you're able to complete.</comment>


Elon Musk's Subway System Baffles Virginia Transit Officials - <AUTHOR> https://www.gq.com/story/elon-musk-yelp-reviews <comment><USER2> I think they were so incredulous because this is being suggested as a superior alternative to existing public transit options and public resources are being invested in it in places like Chicago. So why is the public investing money in building a system that will be useful to a far fewer amount of people and will cost significantly more and will be marginally faster. If Musk was just doing this with his private money and not seeking to replace existing public transit then i doubt anyone would be as skeptical. See [https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met- oh...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-ohare-high- speed-transit-elon-musk-boring-company-20180613-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The killer app for The Boring Company is to extend existing underground pedestrian systems in cities with bad winters.

Oh what I would not pay to have a network of pedestrian side-tunnels to get me the 0.5 miles to the subway on a -20 day with winds of 40mph.

If Boring Co. successfully pitched city officials to spend my tax dollars on underground walkways to get me to the subway without freezing my face off in January, I'd carry them through the streets on my shoulders (in summer) and build a shrine to Elon at city hall.

</comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like they could have done some research on Boring to know what their current capabilities are, in which case they would not have been surprised when they got there.</comment>


Why the bankruptcy of shipping giant Hanjin has so many companies worried - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2016/09/12/that-sinking-feeling-why-the-bankruptcy-of-shipping-giant-hanjin-has-so-many-companies-worried/ <comment><USER2> This is the Cobweb Model / Pork Cycle in effect. [1][2]

Farmer goes to market, sees Pigs are selling well. So he goes back to his farm and breeds pigs. He looks forward to his profit once his pigs have all grown up.

Problem is, so did everyone else at the market.

So in a year's time when everybody takes their grown pigs to sell, there are too many.

The container shippers thought that payday was around forever, so they invested in more ships and super ships with 15k+ TEUs.

The real surprise is why they all thought they would be the last shipping line standing.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_cycle)</comment>


Centuries-old paintings help researchers track food evolution - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-paintings-can-teach-us-about-evolution-food-180975381/ <comment><USER2> I was pleasantly surprised that the article didn't trot out the now-debunked watermelon painting which so often headlines the more pop-sci articles on this subject.

<comment><USER3> The watermelon is less debunked than you might think, due to black seeds in the painting. [https://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9050469/watermelon-breeding- pa...](https://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9050469/watermelon-breeding-paintings)

<comment><USER2> Considering that Brueghel proved "modern" watermelons, which are much sweeter, existed at the time, I think it's more likely Stanchi just decided it looked better with black seeds instead of white.

<comment><USER3> Possibly, but debunked suggest a degree of certainty that's clearly missing. He may have also chosen the variety simply due to visual appeal over taste etc.

<comment><USER2> Still, "Giovanni Stanchi's painting from the 17th century shows how much watermelon has changed" is a fundamentally incorrect statement even if he was accurately depicting a variety of watermelon. It would be a now-uncommon or extinct cultivar, not the precursor to modern watermelons since they already existed. It's like showing a painting of a Salish Wool Dog and remarking on how it shows dogs have changed.

<comment><USER3> Except different breeds of apples etc are still called apples. If a type of watermelon went from common to extreme rarity that's a change in what's being planted and consumed. Presumably because of some issues with the earlier version of what we are now consuming.

<comment><USER2> It gives the lay reader a false impression that today's watermelons are direct descendants of Stanchi's type in the same way today's corn is a direct descendant of teosinte.

<comment><USER3> That's really only speaking to the ignorance of readers as progressive refinement in agriculture generally involves close relatives rather than direct descendants. Disease resistance for example is frequently the issue causing such jumps. Availability is what's important to consumers not genetic history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very neat. It sounds like they're curating a dataset ripe for machine learning.

<comment><USER5> > ripe for machine learning.

Yes, that might be the fruit of their labour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Initially, the scientist theorized that Snyders, who specialized in still- > life paintings featuring fruit, vegetables and animals, lacked talent.

Ha. Harsh first hypothesis.</comment>


Fake certificate attack targets Facebook users in Syria - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/06/syria_fake_certificate_facebook_attack/

<comment><USER2> This kind of possibility has been in discussion for a long time. It's finally coming to light with this attack in Syria.</comment>