TV networks vowed to cut back on commercials but stuffed in more - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-08-02/tv-networks-vowed-to-cut-back-on-commercials-instead-they-stuffed-in-more <comment><USER2> As a non-American who hasn't really watched over-the-air television for a decade, what strikes me most is how commercials affect the content. Mainstream American TV often has a weirdly fragmented quality - the writers seem acutely aware of the fact that they'll lose the attention of their viewers every seven minutes and have to fight to regain it. A lot of programmes (especially comedies) seem like a series of short vignettes, with an absolute minimum of context being carried across the commercial break. Even without the commercials, there's a palpable difference in the pacing compared to a Netflix, HBO or BBC programme.

<comment><USER3> It's not just comedies. Every damn broadcast originated SF or drama has a cliff hanger every 5 minutes, including the strange and infuriating US innovation of right after the titles - now 5 minutes in! Then a scene break that's where the adverts would have been. Then the ones that affect all US output, including Netflix etc: The inevitable cliff hanger at the end of the episodes, and a big major cliff hanger at the end of the series - that has no guarantee of another yet. So when Netflix decide to kill yet another after the first series, there's no point watching it as there will be no closure.

Whatever happened to stuff like Star Trek where each episode could be stand- alone, or a series was complete with closure? Crappy series cliff hangers never got me to tune into the next series - liking the progression of the story, the acting etc did.

Ironically I gave up broadcast commercial TV about the same time ago as you - because it had got too much with the adverts, and American direction. That was long before product placement in the UK, and a couple of liberalisations of regulation. When I visit friends now I am struck how comically _often_ and _terrible_ ads are. My memory says they used to try a bit harder and managed to get them at least competently produced and directed.

<comment><USER4> The worst are the various documentary murder shows. There is not much to the story, so not only do they have cliff-hangers before commercial breaks, but they also recap the previous segment for like half the next segment. It's comical. It's like they heard the common talk-giving advice "tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them."

<comment><USER5> The Gift Shop Sketch [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc)

I used to love watching Myth Busters but it became so much like that it was ridiculous. There was a time you could download torrents of Myth Busters episodes with all the recaps removed.

<comment><USER3> I used to like those when they first appeared just as a new series catch up. Then it got utterly pointless and self-parody with weekly and break catch ups and coming soon teasers. Even news progs joined in. How to save 5+ minutes of programme making with real time repeats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Too many commercials probably isn't the main reason people cancel their cable-TV service, he said. "But it's definitely in the top five."_

It's not the top reason I switched to Netflix (and now a couple other streaming services), but it's the top reason that keeps me from going back.

When I travel and try to watch TV in a hotel, the commercials make it unbearable, I'll burn data from my cell phone before I'd try to watch anything on TV. I'm not sure if the commercials have really gotten worse or if I've just lost my tolerance for them.

When I moved and signed up for cable internet (sadly comcast was my only choice) they offered a year of free basic cable, I declined since I knew I wouldn't watch it.

<comment><USER7> I hate that part of what I'm paying for in hotels is the damn TV. TVs in hotel rooms have become completely pointless, just like telephones did 20 years ago. Like you, if I want TV I'll use my cell connection or the hotel's wifi to watch Netflix. Hotel rooms without TVs don't seem to exist in the US, but if they did, I'd make it a point to stay there.

<comment><USER8> I'd love a hotel TV if it has a Chromecast.

<comment><USER9> New TV deployments at Extended Stay America include Chromecast. I am deploying them now. :)

<comment><USER10> Extended stay hotels usually don't have locked down HDMI ports. We stayed in one for months when we were in between our lease being up and waiting for our house to be built.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Too many commercials is like over-prescribing anti-biotics. Pretty soon, they don't work anymore. In my watching habits (I don't have a DVR), when the show I'm watchings breaks, my finger is on the remote immediately to jump to the next channel. If that is in commercial, its on to the next. If everything is in commercial (a surprisingly common situation), I'm back on the original station with the auto muted and I'm browsing the net on my iPad or reading a page or two in the book or magazine I have next to me. Or I go take a pee. Or clean some dishes in the kitchen. Anything but watch the frickin' commercial.

<comment><USER12> Haven't had cable TV for at least 10 years now and I can't stand watching most shows at other people's houses who still sit through all the car/truck, pill and insurance commercials. I literally feel dumber having watched a few in a row. I really believe there is a science to be discovered there, like slight or temporary brain damage occurring because of commercials. They're so fake/plastic and I feel like I'm being manipulated through some kind of meme the advertiser is trying to push through repetition instead of on the product's merit.

Edit: What I mean is, nobody acts in real life like they do in commercials. I feel dumber watching people behave that way. I get it's supposed to be persuasive but something about modern commercials just irks me to no end.

<comment><USER13> For a long time I only rarely saw TV with commercials, usually at friends.

I actually enjoy seeing _new_ commercials, and so long as I only watched TV at friends a couple of times a year, I found it enjoyable.

<comment><USER14> That just proves his point that less is more. Which I believe to be true. It's about strategy and not saturation. But the problem I guess is that they cannot realistically follow each individual so saturating all networks / platforms is the only way they see viable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Turner's commercial load rose 2.4% last quarter to more than 12 minutes per hour, according to Nathanson. A spokesman for the broadcaster said the increase reflected higher ad loads at the kids channel Boomerang, while TruTV cut its ad minutes by 8% and other networks were little changed.

Great, more ads targeted at children... normalize ad viewership when they're young so the future customers won't demand fewer ads. Time for TNT et al to adapt to the new model or fade away.

<comment><USER16> > normalize ad viewership when they're young so the future customers won't > demand fewer ads

I don't think that works - I grew up in the age of cartoons with ads and they are definitely not something I'll put up with.

<comment><USER17> I grew up when the Saturday morning cartoons were ads (Transformers, He-Man, GI Joe), and it didn't me refrain from wanting fewer ads in the shows that I watch now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Barry Diller said something along the lines, that similarly to smoking, increasingly, only poor people watch commercials. The rest pays premium to get rid of them.

Considering how strongly Netflix fought against the analysts prediction that they will have to run ads, I'm quite curious where the advertisers will go once the cable is "gone".

<comment><USER19> Youtube is getting absurd these days with ads.

<comment><USER18> I think it will get much worse. There is around $80B worth of advertisement locked in in the cable TV just in US.

This all will come eventually to online and large portion to UGC platforms supporting video, so YouTube, FB, Twitter, ...

Maybe more people will start paying for premium version if available (like YouTube Red).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When I was young I remember pay TV being marketed in Australia as "TV with no ads". It's slowly shifted to a premium content with ads model that I find hard to justify when I have access to ad free online services.

As a parent this is doubly so. I know everything my children watch and I don't want them exposed to excessive advertising. I also don't let them watch content on YouTube that has excessive advertising in the show itself. I'll gladly pay money for ad free content that is designed to both entertain and educate.

<comment><USER21> When pay TV first came here, part of the deal was they weren't allowed to show ads for a certain amount of time. I remember 'ads' for other TV shows like the ABC does, but that was it.

I have no idea why someone in Australia would have Foxtel now if they don't watch sport

<comment><USER22> It's very uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Imagine a world in which a TV station agreed not to show any commercials, but in exchange would not pay the show's creators, and in fact would charge them for distribution.

The shows would then be able to run their own ads, at whatever interval they wanted, with whatever advertisers they wanted, or they could make all their money through "native advertising" (product placement). The networks could even facilitate the ad buys.

This feels like a better and more workable model. It's like how websites work, where they get to chose how many ad boxes and where those ad boxes go, and then use a network to facilitate the transaction.

And then a toy company could make a cartoon and show it ad free on Saturday morning as a marketing expense like back in the 80s!

<comment><USER24> You're describing infomercials...

Alex Jones on AM/FM radio works something like that. They give away the show for free but keep some of the ad time (some for the syndication network, some for Alex Jones)

<comment><USER25> Considering the lunacy Alex Jones is pushing, he'd be hard pressed to make a viable paid distribution model.

His current model of selling useless/dangerous crap is having trouble since Alex has consistently violated the morals clauses in Visa & Mastercard's payment processing terms. First Data let him violate said terms for nearly a decade before the payment networks caught on and cracked down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Okay, I am tipsy enough to post this. I had an absolutely brilliant idea a few years ago and I'm going to share it, knowing it will probably be disregarded and certain it will never be realised.

Commercials/ads should be patterned after a weather model. 9 months out of the year, consumers pay it no mind, and when it happens, it is a hard shock, meaning some people push through and others avoid it entirely.

In the 3 "bad" weather months, there is a rise (1), a sustain (2), and a decline to normalcy (3). Month 2 is wall to wall commercials. Everyone knows August, for the sake of example, is just commercials.Everyone knows July and September are lousy with commercials. Consumers and producers adjust accordingly.

In the 9 month normal, there are scattered showers of commercials, maybe the occasional thunderstorm (elections, sporting events, mass shootings, etc.). In the 3 month bad weather period, the paradigm is Superbowl.

By scheduling the big ad push, companies and producers will be motivated to create content worth watching. I abhor sportsball of any type, but I watch Superbowl commercials religiously. They (we) spend ludicrous amounts for the Superbowl because of the guaranteed eyeballs. This model leverages that concept. Imagine ad campaigns with real story arcs. Good acting, exquisite props and locations, viral explosions of excellent ads. Of course some people will just check out, but most people will flock to a 1-3 month period of atraditional media.

<comment><USER7> You just described the PBS model. No commercials all year except during pledge week, when it becomes unwatchable.

<comment><USER27> The word "pledge" has been ruined for me for good. Emotions of unpleasant kind are evoked when I hear it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> In Bulgaria, the several big TV networks average 20 or even 25 minutes of ads _an hour_ , and that has been going on for a decade at least.

It's an insanity. They don't even attempt to make their programs more appealing in order to ensure bigger advertisement exposure. They just stuff everything with ads and apparently the advertisers are desperate -- or stupid -- enough to eat the deal every time.

There is real value in some the ads. Useful household items or cleaning agents or personal hygiene products are changing periodically and it is good to be somewhat informed.

But they take it too far. Furthermore, most grocery store clerks will be very happy to recommend you good products because they don't make money through affiliation; the have fixed wages. So you can not watch TV like I do and still mostly never miss out on anything.

This became too long but I guess my overall point was that the TV networks seem to try and milk one last cow before dying as opposed to investing their current profits in better products outside TV. They are accelerating their own end, they know it but attempt to squeeze as much money as possible regardless. It's ugly.

</comment><comment><USER29> > AT&T, which bought Turner parent Time Warner Inc. last year, has said the > $85-billion deal will ultimately lead to fewer commercials. The company > expects to harvest valuable viewer data that leads to higher ad rates.

Uh, no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER30> The majority of people who still have cable like it because, 1) They are not capable or wanting to learn about streaming and the new tech, 2) Enjoy the passive background comfort of TV, which requires no additional effort to consume.

Both of these will allow increased commercials with no reduction in viewership. If you were going to cut the cord you would have done it already.

<comment><USER31> Take a look at AT&T subscriber losses last quarter if you think people have decided one way or the other and are done cutting the cord. The two points are a pretty odd choice and I would say increasing cost is at the top of the list.

<comment><USER32> Source?

<comment><USER31> "The company blamed it in part on some of the usual factors. Subscribers failed to reup after their promotional discounts expired; competition took its toll. DirecTV Now increased pricing, which undoubtedly led to some customers leaving."

The last article talks about a study including the type of people OP mentioned. They don't mind cable and commercials but end up being cord cutters anyway because of loss of control over the channels included.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2019/07/24/yikes...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2019/07/24/yikes- whats-behind-the-big-tumble-in-att-tv-subscribers/)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2019/06/29/portr...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2019/06/29/portrait- of-a-cord-cutter-whos-doing-it-and-why/#6809682a163f)

<comment><USER32> Thanks.

This is more TV / scheduled video than traditional PSTN / data services then. Though AT&T aren't doing great in either of those markets either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'd be okay if they created a cartel and governed max minutes per hour on ads. Say ten. Make up the difference with pricing.

Or just let them implode upon themselves.

<comment><USER34> The EU actually has a directive limiting ad air time, however it was weakened 3 years ago: [https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/it- medien/fernsehen...](https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/it- medien/fernsehen-eu-erlaubt-mehr-werbung-im- tv/13621232.html?ticket=ST-1903397-EMQ97f2OvepsdSoC3DVF-ap6)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Of course they did. I rarely watch live TV.

On some programs it is pretty much a 50/50 split.

No thanks. Got way better to do with my time.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have two approaches to deal with commercials on major network TV.

1\. If I'm watching live, I work on the New York Times crossword puzzle on my iPad during the commercials. The puzzle comes out at 10 PM New York Time for the following day (6 PM for the Sunday and Monday puzzles). I'm 3 hours behind, so I get them at 7 PM, which fits in nicely with evening TV watching.

2\. If I'm watching on DVR, I use one of two convenient features of the Comcast X1 DVR for skipping.

2a. If it is a top HD program on NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CW, Bravo, HGTV, Discovery, MTV or TLC, and it is more than something like a couple hours after the broadcast ended, there is a good chance "Smart Resume" is enabled for it. If that is indeed enabled, the timeline display shows commercials marked in yellow, and starting FF (or FFx2, FFx3, etc) while in the yellow area automatically switches back to normal play at the end of the commercial segment.

So, as soon as I see the break start, I hit the FF button a few times to get to the fastest FF speed, and it then takes just a few seconds to skip the commercials and resume the program.

If you have not heard of "Smart Resume", join the club. I too was surprised when it showed up suddenly. Apparently it has been available as an experimental feature in a few markets for a while, but you had to specifically enable it. Sometime in the last few months, they apparently promoted it to a standard feature and enabled it.

2b. If "Smart Resume" is not available for the recording, I hit the microphone enable button on the remote and say "skip 3 minutes" (or whatever my best guess at the length of the break is--it's pretty consistent for a given break position in a given show). If I still see commercial after that, I'll skip a little more. Most shows do the promos for other shows on their network at the end of commercial blocks, and those are usually shorter than outside commercials, so it is usually easy to tell if I should do another minute skip, or just 20 or 30 seconds.

The X1 voice interface is pretty good and responsive, so this works well. It does occasionally mess up and take "skip 3 minutes" or "fast forward 3 minutes" as a search term instead of a command, but not often enough to be annoying.

<comment><USER37> _If you have not heard of "Smart Resume", join the club._

It's interesting that ad skipping has finally made its way into the cable companies' own DVRs. It used to be that they got sued just for having a "skip 30s" button, while users of MythTV had automatic ad skipping without even having to use FF and watch them on high speed.

Vertical integration has killed so many interesting things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I am not watching TV nor do I have time/waste time for streaming services. But if something would convince me to watch it would be good content. The simple option would be fewer commercials and good content. They would not even have to produce it. Go to some archive and show stuff from 20-30years ago.

</comment><comment><USER39> I guess I'm the minority but commercials don't bother me. I use it as a time to do other stuff.

</comment><comment><USER40> [http://archive.is/80quF](http://archive.is/80quF)

</comment><comment><USER41> I wonder if this is exclusive to TV networks. I was served four 90 second ads, in a twelve minute episode of the Eric Andre show on Hulu.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm wondering if this is exclusive to TV. There were four 90 second ads in a 12 minute episode of Eric Andre on Hulu.

<comment><USER42> I watched a show on the NBC app and the first ad break played _eleven_ unskippable advertisements. Eleven. That is just ridiculous.

I didn't even finish the show.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which domain registrar do you recommend? - <AUTHOR> I've been using GoDaddy for a long time (as probably it was one of the first international registrar that would take my local credit card) but after recent news and pointing out different issues with them I'd like to move out.
Since I own some regional domains that I'd like to move not all registrars are possible as a destination (I know, for instance, that Namecheap won't work due to the lack of .SE support).
What are some reputable domain registrars where I could move my domains to? <comment><USER2> Very happy with Namecheap [1]. I have 3 domains registered with them, one of them going back a long time. Never had problems with anything from search to payment.

They have 2FA support that works with the open source TOTP apps too.

[1]: [https://www.namecheap.com](https://www.namecheap.com)

<comment><USER3> Namecheap is expensive when you go to renew. I switched all my domains to Porkbun - cheaper, and a cleaner/simpler UI.

<comment><USER4> Which TLD did they increase on renew?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Gandi[1] and Namecheap[2] are the only ones that I trust.

[1]: [https://www.gandi.net/](https://www.gandi.net/)

[2]: [https://www.namecheap.com/](https://www.namecheap.com/)

<comment><USER6> you should look at this for Gandi - [https://www.cbronline.com/cloud/gandi- outage-hardware-failur...](https://www.cbronline.com/cloud/gandi-outage- hardware-failure/)

<comment><USER7> Different service. They got most of the data back in the end. And you should always have backups somewhere else. I'm not sure why this is relevant.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, at the time they got a lot of bad press for their abysmal support responses. Things like saying that their backup solution was not a backup solution, blaming the customer, etc etc.

Saying that people should have geographically diversified backups is like saying you should always read the T&Cs of every website you interact with. Yes, you definitely should. But many people would rather just trust the brand, and a trust broken is not easily fixed.

And understandably, that broken trust has a knock-on effect for other services in the same brand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I regularly use three different providers depending on needs.

\- Gandi for general usage, free and hassle-free [https://www.gandi.net/](https://www.gandi.net/)

\- Njalla when my privacy is needed and don't want to risk the domain from being taken over/down because of moral/ethical issues (nothing illegal, but for "frowned upon" websites) [https://njal.la/](https://njal.la/)

\- dnsimple when needing absolute control over as much as possible, flexibility in using APIs for controlling the zone and for really important domains, costs 5 USD per month minimum though [https://dnsimple.com/](https://dnsimple.com/)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for this comment, I didn't know about Njalla before this.

If anyone is interested there is a previous thread on HN on Njalla[1] and according to a torrentfreak article from 2017 the site was founded by tpb founder [2]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177597](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177597)

[2] [https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-launches- anonymo...](https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-launches-anonymous- domain-registration-service-170419/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> NearlyFreeSpeech.NET is the registrar I use. They're a web hosting company, so domain registration is not their only service, but they have an excellent company philosophy and customer-friendly policy set.

I've been using them for about 10 years now, and they have been extremely reliable, zero-maintenance; and the web-interface is very easy to use and logically organised. (no javascript!)

Their prices aren't too bad either, since domain registration isn't their main priority.

Only downside is that they don't support all domain types, only the legacy GTLDs and a small list of new ones: [https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/domains](https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/domains)

<comment><USER12> I love NearlyFreeSpeech! I've been using them for hosting for many years. I used to use WebFaction as well back in their glory days, but since they were bought by GoDaddy (ugh!) I've been migrating the few sites I had there over to NFS. The only straggler is one WordPress site I maintain for a friend, and I will move that one over shortly.

I had no idea that NFS also handled domain registration. I use Gandi for all my domains, especially since they have so many TLDs available and like NFS have a clean and simple business model. The only exception is a .to domain that seems to be available only through tonic.to. Ah well.

But thanks for mentioning that NFS also offers domain registration - I will have to check this out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using Cloudflare Registrar[1] for a year now for all .com domains. No nonsense or extra fees. Gandhi[2] for exotic TLDs (best price). For EU domain TLDs I stick to Vimexx[3] (in Dutch).

[1] [https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/](https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/)

[2] [https://www.gandi.net/](https://www.gandi.net/)

[2] [https://vimexx.eu/](https://vimexx.eu/)

<comment><USER14> They don't support buying new domains right? You need to buy elsewhere and transfer to CloudFlare.

Plus, their TLD coverage isn't great.

<comment><USER15> They actually do now. Not great TLD coverage is true though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very happy with Porkbun ( [https://porkbun.com/](https://porkbun.com/) ). Newer registrar, but their console is clean, nice looking, and it's easy to update settings.

<comment><USER17> It's haram.

<comment><USER18> didnt expect to see the word 'haram' in HN forum with an international audience :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As it hasn't been mentioned yet, I use namesilo.com.

What originally drew me to their service was 2FA, no additional services bullshit (i.e. I'm never going to buy "web hosting" from a domain registrar, I don't want the current-customer-spam they all use to cross-sell) and decent prices.

They've recently started selling "web hosting" but so far it hasn't really been pushed, and their focus seems to be very much on domains still.

</comment><comment><USER20> A lot of the .se registrars are in Sweden, but if you're just using it as a name hack then your options may be more limited (eNom/Tucows, Name.com, and Dyn (which was acquired by Oracle and then subsequently by name.com)).

Maybe try Hover? Based out of Canada, provided by Tucows.

You might have to use more than one registrar to get coverage on all your regional domains, depending on how many you have.

</comment><comment><USER21> [https://domcomp.com](https://domcomp.com) [https://domainr.com](https://domainr.com) [https://tld-list.com](https://tld- list.com) [https://domains.google/](https://domains.google/) [https://instantdomainsearch.com/](https://instantdomainsearch.com/) [https://porkbun.com/products/domains](https://porkbun.com/products/domains) [https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/](https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/)

</comment><comment><USER22> In The Netherlands, I use openprovider ([https://openprovider.com/](https://openprovider.com/)). They are actually a reseller solution for agencies and such, but it works equally well for personal domain registration needs. Pricing is competitive, service is excellent, and they are small enough to pick up the phone if necessary.

I also like to think that a registrar with a support desk that operates in my local language (Dutch) reduces the attack vector for social engineering.

<comment><USER23> Been using them for 5+ years now. Both as reseller and private. I can attest to them being very good. Pricing is real good, but does depend on your volume. At some point it becomes interesting to get a subscription for which you get most domains at cost-price. Their service is indeed outstanding, often sameday reply on mail with actual solutions.

I wouldn't call them small though, they are in the top 50 domain registrars in the world, and I guess the biggest in NL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've migrated a few dozen domains from Godaddy to Namecheap, for various reasons, mostly because Godaddy absolutely sucks.

Namecheap tech support is great. Loving their dynamic DNS application too since I'm taking advantage of my 500mbit up/down running a server at home. I've had no problems with Namecheap since I started using them a few years ago and finally migrated everything over to them a few months ago.

Goodbye Godaddy!! Good riddance!

</comment><comment><USER25> A little tangent, but I have ~ 50 domains I've bought from... many different places over the years. I've been meaning to develop my ideas with them, but they've been ending up just.. idle. I recently created a small tool to manage my un-used domains better

[https://www.newsy.co](https://www.newsy.co)

Hopefully, those who are in a similar situtation can also find it useful.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been very happy with PorkBun.

[1]: [https://porkbun.com/](https://porkbun.com/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I always use the French company OVH ([https://www.ovh.com/fr/domaines/](https://www.ovh.com/fr/domaines/)). It's very reliable. They have a lot of extensions, including the ".SE" that you want, and they offer 10 Mo to host your own mini site and an e-mail account of 5 Go with every domain.

</comment><comment><USER28> Dynadot, because it allows domain tasting. If you impulsively buy a domain you later regret, they'll buy it back.

Reminds me of a blog post I wrote on why we buy bad domain names: [https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/why-i-buy-bad-domain- names-e...](https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/why-i-buy-bad-domain- names-e28a6172ac8f)

<comment><USER9> Correction: Why _you_ buy bad domain names. It's even in the URL and title on medium.com ;)

I got a ton of domains as well, but it's largely having a positive effect on me. Once I have the domain for a project I'm working on, I always end up at least shipping a MVP, as otherwise I feel like I'm spending money on something I'm not using. If I didn't get the domain, I'd probably end up releasing nothing, instead of something. Some projects survives longer than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Gandi has been working well for me. It just chugs along. Good UI. Doesn't try to upsell me anything or be my friend. All the mails I received in 5+ years were purely transactional: payments and notifications for expiring domains where I don't have auto-renewal enabled.

Surely that is true for other registrars as well, but I've had no reason to look further.

</comment><comment><USER30> I prefer Dynadot [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24507331](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24507331)

But I don't know if they support .SE though.

For .SE domains, Frobbit seems reliable, but I haven't tested them myself [https://frobbit.se/](https://frobbit.se/)

<comment><USER31> Dynadot are crooks - big warning to people, see my reply above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> InternetWorx - inwx.net

<comment><USER33> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I moved mine to google because it's pretty much zero stupid. I do sometimes feel captured by the borg.

</comment><comment><USER35> I am using Google domains. Haven't had any complaints, neither from friends nor from here at HN.

</comment><comment><USER36> Ranking the domain providers I've used: 1\. Google Domains (Simple and easy) 2\. Namecheap (Pretty decent) 3\. Gandi.net. Perfectly fine. 4\. Godaddy (cheap/ubiqutous, a bit of a hassle) 5\. Oneandone. Spammed me constantly.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've been using easydns. They have _very_ good support and have lots of nice features (including lots of experimental new DNS stuff.) The owners of the company have principles I agree with and the site is easy to use.

</comment><comment><USER38> I use iwantmyname both for myself and my company and they have always been excellent. Loads of domains (I've never had a problem with something not being supported), good support, system works really well for me too.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've used iwantmyname.com for years and am very happy with them. I've got around 50 domains in there but have managed as many as 150 through them before. Good support when I've needed it and simple but powerful interface.

</comment><comment><USER40> Honorable mention: [https://njal.la/](https://njal.la/)

It's great if you don't like giving away your personal data. They accept payments with cryptocurrencies as well.

</comment><comment><USER41> We have been using [https://www.domaininfo.com/](https://www.domaininfo.com/) for a long time and have been satisfied with them. They are based in Sweden.

</comment><comment><USER42> gandi.net has been ok for me.

<comment><USER43> I agree, I've experimented with maybe 15 over the last 20 years and Gandi is the best in my experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Most of the large cloud services companies have registrar arms: AWS, Google Cloud, etc. I currently use Gandi.net but am considering a transfer to my AWS account to simplify my security posture.

</comment><comment><USER45> I asked this exact question about a week ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24414921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24414921)

</comment><comment><USER46> Porkbun & Namesilo is what I ended up with over many years.

</comment><comment><USER47> Dynadot has been my preference for some time. I migrated everything from Godaddy a few years ago. It offers Who Is privacy as standard and don't spam me every day.

<comment><USER31> I have used Dynadot 3x over past few years. Right now I have dispute for a domain I transferred to them this week.

#1 Needed to edit the email on account. There form on account info is crippled preventing users from changing account email! Never thought there was problem with them until discovering them. And it turns out from searching online this problem has existed for years and part of a scam. I have an actual email reply from a Rep stating that the 'site was unstable' and that form was fixed. Well, it is isn't I have captured video demo and screens on it, logged in right now and nope. Lies.

They do this as part a scam long story short and you can search 'dynadot scam' and see same story dating back years. In 9/2020 I attempted their phone support -> no answer, voicemail. Website contact form > broken. Chat - rep ip banned me!. Again I took screenshot.

Attempted immediate transfer to Namecheap. Transfer would not go through. Finally got a direct email address, threatened them. Rep straight out lied and said their was the 60-day lock. Dynadot violates ICANN regulation where all domain providers must offer opt-in/opt-out or by default it's obviously opt out and they cannot simply implement the restriction to prevent transfer-out. Dynadot said it was locked and they cannot change it. After citing regulation and threat within hour it was released. Next since immediately cancelling and transferring out, requested refund - nightmare of lies, denying the transfer purchase from 4 days ago!

Gave them paypal transaction # and their own invoice and order #. Of course I have the invoice pdf and receipt. 3 agents lied. I retained email of total deceit and lies.

Again you can search online and fine a laundry of incidents. Also on my web account, which I am logged in right now, saw this, signed up on this site for a first post to warn people, they have zero records on the account of the purchase or any previous invoices! However there is a section clearly showing 3 former domains (a record legally required for ICANN) including the transfer out for a couple days ago. LIES. And of course there are paypal records.

Nightmare dispute - search for dynadot scam - it is shocking how long this is going on. Dynadot needs to lose the ICANN accreditation for several violation of the regulation and any consciousable developer need to boycott them and push this. This has gone for years. Even I never caught on due the fact I never needed to change the email on account, or perform a quick transfer in/out for a client.

Dynadot operates criminally, deceptively and in violation of ICANN rules, yet they are still accredited and nothing is changing. We need grassroots support to have ICANN discredit them.

\-----

The other domain name providers I still have on my list are Namecheap (who are not perfect, but do have rapid customer support - hit or miss with first-line support people, but there ARE adept supervisors over there). The other Name.com, which I have not used in a while.

But DYNADOT = SCAM ARTISTS. Crippled design, forms and tactics to force unopted locks, with worse scenario steal domain names and various internet and actual US law violations. Again, research the last decade of complaints for my exact issue, extortion attempts and domain name theft.

Boycott. Hope this saves people a nightmare. I have lost many hours over this, still dealing with it to-date - no refund, no account deletion. And I had to transfer to Namecheap and deal with an attempt by the on top of all the other issues to block my transfer out. Out of 20 years of dealing with domains regularly for personal and clients - Dynadot = crooks, officially worst registrar ever.

ALSO Dynadot does NOT offer the good privacy third-party like namecheap. They offer and route the email through their OWN!!

PROOF [https://www.whois.com/whois/superprivacyservice.com](https://www.whois.com/whois/superprivacyservice.com)

superprivacyservice - their own.. On my attempt to immediately cancel and transfer out, the domain was not being released because there own "superprivacyservice" shady criminal middleman did not route the contact email to namecheap.

Please someone with push at ICANN cancel them. any lawyers?? if you can contact me here, please do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Porkbun

1\. No questions asked 48 hour cancellation 2\. Free WHOIS 3\. Cheapest in most TLDs 4\. Most user friendly Dashboard and processes 5\. Plethora of payment options (crypto included)

</comment><comment><USER31> Namecheap.com And maybe still.. Name.com although not cheap.

Dynadot = crooks. Research. Search and see my extended reply/post below. Nightmare scenario.

</comment><comment><USER49> NameSilo is very good and been using it for years

</comment><comment><USER50> Well, you basically started with the worst one, so things are looking up for you!

<comment><AUTHOR> For my defense it was probably more than 20 years ago. Lazyness is always a good excuse.

<comment><USER50> It's hard to convey over text, but I definitely intended to be lighthearted about it!

I know I was once a GoDaddy customer, too. For the time, they were _fine_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> For personal projects I use Gandi, for work I use AWS Route53 Domains.

</comment><comment><USER52> I've always used Gandi and have no complains

</comment><comment><USER53> how about domain.google?

<comment><USER37> They've automatically deleted domains based on user generated content without any real support to contact. They might be the worst.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I use joker.com.

</comment><comment><USER55> iwantmyname

<comment><USER23> I have my domains somewhere else, but iwantmyname their domain buy page is definitely one of my favourites, all those TLDs!</comment></comment>


Using Slack as a Digital Notebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.tarun.info/prototype/2015/11/06/using-slack-as-a-digital-notebook/ <comment><USER2> This is interesting... Anyone else try this?</comment>


HP laptop leaks/transmits its built-in mic audio somewhere around 24Mhz - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/1le3if/so_i_discovered_that_my_hp_laptop_leakstransmits/

<comment><USER2> _> I work in a high security setting_

... and just found out my laptops are bugged.

Joking aside, this is a little scary. The NSA actually publishes documents for securing workstation hardware [1], where they suggest physically removing webcam, bluetooth, and mic hardware. How many webcams and mics are around you, right now? I have 3 cameras and 2 mics (phone and laptop). Are they off?

[1] [http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/factsheets/macosx_hardening_tip...](http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/factsheets/macosx_hardening_tips.pdf)</comment>


California Mulls Proposal to Legalize Consumption of Roadkill - <AUTHOR> https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB395 <comment><AUTHOR> SF Gate article: [https://m.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/roadkill-eating- illega...](https://m.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/roadkill-eating-illegal- carcass-california-code-13634674.php)</comment>


59 Percent of Managers Want Workers Skilled in Linux, Open Source - <AUTHOR> http://insights.dice.com/2016/05/05/demand-for-linux-talent-stays-strong-report/ <comment><USER2> Heh. I got off the phone yesterday with Comcast's CISO after a security vulnerability disclosure discussion and the subject of bug bounties came up. She ranted about how much she loved the idea of open source and community, but it was pretty clear that she knew nothing about what she was talking about. Also got the gem, "Well, an infrastructure problem isn't really a bug, so you're probably not going to get any sort of bounty from that." Heh.

Every other high level exec I've spoken to recently is like that, too. How do these people get jobs within technology without having the slightest clue about their own field?! I'm legit confused how that happens...

</comment><comment><USER3> "Managers"? Meaningless statistic without telling us the population the sample was drawn from, but the article doesn't say what it is apart from "the technology industry". However the linked paper reveals it was "nearly 5000 open source professionals".

NEWS FLASH: Open source professionals want workers skilled in open source!

</comment><comment><USER4> I have actually started to hate this tone. Managers wants workers to keep updating with the latest and greatest while they still keep applying the industrial age management skills.

why management does not have to evolve and yet reap the best of the benefits of any new wave?

This is not a rant. I am seriously trying to find this answer for better part of this year.

<comment><USER5> There is an old adage about excrement and elevation that applies here but I will instead answer your question in the form of an entry from the OSHA compiled list of workplace related deaths...

FY 2010,10/02/09,09/25/09,"Tyson Foods - River Valley Animal Foods, Scranton, AR 72863","Decedent was dumping a load of offal from a tractor trailer. He was in the process of dumping offal into a bin when the tailgate malfunctioned. Decedent was freeing the tailgate, it released, and the load swept the decedent into the offal bin. Decedent drowned in the bin."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a life-long windows users I am curious what they mean by 'skilled in Linux' \- I use the command line in windows when I am programming with core.utils and never saw the reason to switch to Linux.'

</comment><comment><USER7> Skilled in linux and open source? Does this mean being able to write bash scripts, install things on your path, and make/install/config open source projects??</comment>


My CAD software called home, and no-one answered, so it shut down - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/comments/5upft3/my_cad_software_called_home_and_noone_answered_so/ <comment><USER2> Several years ago, I wanted to get into autocad again but not pay for the latest and greatest. It was just for my own personal use of playing around and designing things so I had no worries of format compatibilities with other companies, etc. I had gotten a stack of autocad lt 2002 books for free from a professor at the college I worked at, so I set out on ebay to find a copy. Got one complete in box!

When it arrived, I fired up the installer, used the serial, and everything installed without a hitch. I ran the program and it asks to activate online. "No problem," I think, I used a legit serial from a legit copy, I should be fine. What I didn't consider was that the activation server was taken offline (I'm sure the official reason was "cost savings" but "force people to upgrade" fits in there pretty well in my opinion).

So now I had a perfectly good box of software and a stack of manuals for a product I couldn't use for no technical reason other than the company didn't want me to use it.

<comment><USER3> Damn, not even a decade of keeping their activation servers online by Autocad for their own software? That is ridiculous, it'd be like Microsoft shutting down their infrastructure for Windows 7 activations today.

I feel at a certain point, if you've sold software that calls home and you are unwilling to maintain the servers and there are still people using it, you should hand it off to the Internet Archive or a similar org so they can run it. Leaving users stranded with no hope of using software they're familiar with, have paid for, and have supported is just a bad move.

Moves like what Autocad did to you are why large companies are using libre software, if upstream dies for some reason, your business won't click off tomorrow.

<comment><USER4> > Moves like what Autocad did to you are why large companies are using libre > software

Ironically, this is also why some DON'T use libre software. They question what happens when the maintainers stop.

<comment><USER5> Someone should tell them, if you're worried about them stopping GIVE THEM MONEY.

<comment><USER6> And if nobody else does? Pay their whole salary? Even AutoCAD isn't that expensive.

<comment><USER7> There is software where a single yearly license costs more than someone's salary.

The problems with these servers though is typically isolated to hobby users who don't have the money to hire people to keep the ancient software working for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of that ballroom dancing software program's page:

      what happens when the Douglasses are no longer around?*

      ...

      Here is how the plan works. Immediately upon learning of our deaths the executors of Dick's estate (his two highly computer literate kids) will post two files on our www.compmngr.com web site and will send out a broadcast email advising our customers how to download the files. The first file is a small standalone computer program called RegisterEvent.exe, which allows you to create your own registration files. So you won't have to register with Douglass Associates and you won't have to pay a registration fee. You can read more about RegisterEvent and how to use it below. The second file is a ZIP file containing all the source code for COMPMNGR and its supporting programs. This file will only be of interest to those few users who want to continue COMPMNGR development and who either know C++ programming or or willing to hire a C++ programmer.*

[http://www.douglassassociates.com/compmngr_history.htm](http://www.douglassassociates.com/compmngr_history.htm)

<comment><USER9> Please don't indent quoted text. It shows up in a preformatted block with no line-wrapping, making it difficult to read.

<comment><USER10> Horizontal scrollbars are an immediate source of UI aggravation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reddit response:

You guys know, it just dawned on me that beyond the practicalities of the question, we're looking at something incredibly significant here. That is, if this story is in fact genuine and not just a fictious commentary on subscription models.

So first of all... a software activation model from the '80s? Twenty years before Microsoft "invented" it? Back when even ARPANet was only a curiosity? That's something incredibly awesome. Key disks, manual code entry, and serial or parallel hardware keys were a thing - remote activation, now that's something else entirely.

It's like finding an ancient Egyptian D&D-like rulebook and twenty sided dice dating from the age of pharaoh Ramses. Not "impossible" as such, just extremely remarkable and improbable.

Then, the other wonder here is not that the activation server stopped, it's that it stopped in twenty-effing-seventeen. I'd have expected that BBS to have been scrapped around '95 at the latest. Also, phone numbers - where I grew up, phone number formats and area codes have changed three times since the '80s, a BBS call coded in the '80s would have stopped working before '91.

Also, I cannot imagine the change-averseness of someone who keeps using a CAD suite from the '80s (probably on some ancient XT or DEC or something weird and irreplacable) well into the 2010s. I mean my dad is the image of conservativeness, and yet even he migrated all his CAD work from the old DOS tools over to Windows-based, modern stuff when Windows NT 4.0 came out...

I'm not saying "it's not true", just that if it is, this should probably be on some Youtube computing history show as the curiosity of the year.

<comment><USER12> Reddit response to that: the software started development in the 80s, but gradually acquired features including remote authentication.

<comment><USER13> "remote authentication" feature :))

<comment><USER14> remote "authentication" "feature"

<comment><USER15> "remote" "authentication" "feature"

<comment><USER16> Jesus Christ, what's happened to HN these last few days.

<comment><USER14> People grew a modicum of humor?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had a similar situation for a company that purchased it's accounting software way back in the first 90ies, which tied the software to an hw dongle.

In spite of the old system, the software works absolutely fine and there were no reasons to upgrade or change. In fact, the hardware it was running on was upgraded several times. Until one day, the dongle broke (a bump by the cleaning staff cracked it apparently). The company behind the software went bankrupt years ago, and there was no way to either obtain a new dongle or extract the data from the software (custom db as well).

The software was easy to crack by just nop'ing a couple of bytes, but the owner of the company was absolutely shocked by the experience as they reverted to paper archives for about a week with no easy way out.

I was quite young at the time and it served me as a life lesson. Since then I never used or considered anything with DRM, remote licensing or SaaS for exactly that reason. I never had trouble finding alternatives either.

<comment><USER18> > Until one day, the dongle broke (a bump by the cleaning staff cracked it > apparently). The company behind the software went bankrupt years ago, and > there was no way to either obtain a new dongle or extract the data from the > software (custom db as well).

I have seen similar things happen, some proprietary data analysis framework from the 90s relying on hw dongle (from a company busted years ago) used in research lab. Talk about reproducible results, when you wouldn't even be able to reproduce it yourself when it breaks, I wonder how these people think. I guess their cancer research isn't very important so...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am starting to use Kicad and FreeCAD in more and more projects for this very reason: I want to be able to open my projects 30 years from now.

Sure, the commercial tools are slightly more competent and have a nicer interface (although the FOSS tools are improving with every release). But there is no guarantee AutoCAD doesn't go bankrupt next week or changes business next year or is bought by Apple and becomes the next Logic.

<comment><USER20> I have also been moving towards Kicad. (Amusingly enough, I was also bitten by the Apple eMagic/Logic buyout).

Unfortunately, the way technology moves on, the only way to really ensure this is to commit to it as an active process. Much like backing up your data, it has to be an ongoing and active maintenance process. This takes time and effort and incurs risk and disruption (changing formats and software).

I understand how the person in the original post got themselves into this problem, and I don't blame them. But with the benefit of hindsight one can see the lesson. For data to be durable over time, it has to be in the most compatible formats or the most general formats which allow them to be economically (wrt time/effort/money) moved to other systems.

With OSS and open formats you have a fighting chance, but even then the ultimate cost can be having to maintain the software yourself which for most people who are using design software isn't likely their main goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> We once checked the activation of a peace of software which was very crappy because the server was down a lot. Turned out in case of a valid code it was returning a HTTP 200 OK.

The software never contacted it's home server again, but instead a hosts file redirected the request to a random server.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have a strong policy of not using tools that prioritize themselves over me. _Everyone's_ time is valuable, and I have better things to do than sit on the phone screwing with activation problems or being forced to discontinue my work because I lack an Internet connection.

First thing your app does is present a login screen instead of creating a usable window? Won't work without an Internet connection? Error messages that default to "accusing me" instead of "helping me"? Upgrades that mysteriously fail to support older file formats? If so then sorry, I am completely reworking my environment to never use your stuff again.

</comment><comment><USER23> When I was younger there was a similar problem with an online game that had the official servers shut down after a few years of operation. The community at the time resorted to using a Kali Net hack to play. Luckily the server software was written by Dan Kegel and was open source [http://kegel.com/anet/](http://kegel.com/anet/)

After a little coaxing to get it running on 64 bit I managed to get it running and the community could finally play for another few years..until that server died and this time it was me who didn't have the time/interest to fix it again. Then it sort of died for good.

I wonder if there is an opportunity to provide a service/servers for legacy games so that every time the nostalgia hits a gamer he can come play online.

<comment><USER24> >I wonder if there is an opportunity to provide a service/servers for legacy games so that every time the nostalgia hits a gamer he can come play online.

I think it is what GameRanger does. I played Age Of Empires games and Rise Of Nations with it, it works quite well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is the perfect response to the question of why being permissive about DRM is a bad thing, something which is being asked in this other thread about Google Chrome:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13684779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13684779)

</comment><comment><USER26> This reminds me of a text editor I've seen linked here a while ago; it was written by one guy, and he'd been selling it and maintaining it for something like 30 years (and he still got new customers!). I don't remember the name of the program or the website.

Also, Bob Staake, a New Yorker illustrator, has been doing all his work in Photoshop 3.0 until 2008, and he's probably still using it. He was running it in the Classic environment on a PPC mac in 2008, I remember reading that he switched to a VM recently but can't find any info on it.

[http://www.bobstaake.com/pixfix/index2.shtml](http://www.bobstaake.com/pixfix/index2.shtml)

<comment><USER27> > This reminds me of a text editor I've seen linked here a while ago; it was > written by one guy, and he'd been selling it and maintaining it for > something like 30 years (and he still got new customers!). I don't remember > the name of the program or the website.

Probably this: [http://www.lugaru.com/](http://www.lugaru.com/)

<comment><USER28> Ah Epsilon. A colleague used to swear by it and had used it for decades, never saw anyone else use or reference it once (until now!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> DRM is a cancer on this industry, and any other "intellectual property" industry.

</comment><comment><USER30> My father has a very similar problem. He's using a CAD software which cost a couple thousand bucks decades ago (I don't know how old exactly it is, but I think mid 80s). It's using a LPT-dongle. LPT ports are hard to find nowadays, but all of the USB to LPT adapters I tested didn't work with this dongle. For his PC I settled with a PCIe LPT extension card, but now he got himself a Laptop and I'm back to field one.

<comment><USER31> These old dongles are a joke. The Sentinel Rainbow parallel port dongle for example is merely a "secure" key store that is unlocked using a key with a whooping length of 16 bits and it uses the "ultra secure" XOR encryption algorithm. The advertised code encryption essentially boils down to having parts of the binary being XOR-ed with some key and to decrypt it, that part of the program would be sent to the dongle and the decrypted text sent back and the program image in memory modified. To make things more difficult the same memory region would be re-used for different texts (who needs re-entrancy anyway).

Long story short: This thing does XOR and all caveats of XOR apply. Like XOR- ing the ciphertext with the plaintext will yield the key. So cracking these things boils down to extracting the key and either emulating the dongle or decrypting the "protected" parts of the program and placing them in the binary in the clear.

I'd be surprised if your fathers program used something more sophisticated than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "Coming soon to a furnace, security system, lock, water heater, and car near you."

</comment><comment><USER33> I think this thread is a fascinating living example of how short term 'our' digital world can be viewed, a mistake in my belief, infrastructure projects can easily take 25 years from beginning to end, I don't imagine that organisation would be keen to switch platforms many times during that period. Are we really all working on digital artefacts confident that they will expire their usefulness in such a short time frame?

Perhaps that is worth considering, compare tidying a room every day instead of putting up some storage...

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm kind of inspired by this story. I love hearing about software with a really long lifespan. It makes you feel like it's worth building something decent.

Admittedly the DRM aspect is a bit naff, but it's hardly evil empire at that scale.

<comment><USER35> I work on CAE software that started in the 90's but some of our biggest competitors started in the 70's or even 60's. It's actually a bit depressing how little has changed in all that time. Things move very slowly, perhaps because the software is so enormously complicated and has thousands of important features that are all vital to somebody. It's hard to abstract that into something smoother for the user without breaking many well established use cases or wasting computer resources (It's CPU and memory hungry, and no amount of Moore's law has made a dent in that). Now there are startups doing cloud based versions, which is great, but it's still basically the same thing except in the cloud. It's still a steep learning curve. It's still trivially easy for users to get things wrong without even knowing they're wrong. You still pretty much need a university course as training on how to use the software safely.

But, you're right, it's satisfying knowing that it's like building a house. You can put a lot of effort into designing it solidly with a long future in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone have any idea how this might have "called home" in the early '80s?

I mean, that doesn't seem possible.

My best guess is that some later version of the software was updated to include phoning home.

<comment><USER37> The OP explains in a later comment that, he used a floppy-disk based licensing system in the early days of this software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I really would love to learn how to crack an old piece of software like this. Any ideas on where to start if you don't know much about the software side of things? I know JS and a little bit of C#, but I've never found a great path to learn stuff like this.

<comment><USER39> Look around for mirrors of the old Fravia content - that was the place for reversing and cracking back in the day.

For example:

[http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/](http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/)

<comment><USER40> Fravia is a name that brings back lots of good memories... him, +ORC, and the +HCU tried to popularise the idea of "cracking tutorials" that were more than "just change these bytes", and were actually quite detailed essays on the various protections around at the time.

<comment><USER39> As the content was largely user-submitted there was a lot of variation in quality and style. But there were some excellent essays and introductions out there:

[http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/academy.htm](http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/academy.htm)

I was definitely moved when I heard of his death, which is coming up for ten years:

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

(It was only years later I realized that +ORC was almost certainly +fravia in disguise. At the time I first read all the posts I was more trusting ..)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> "My CAD software" \- yea, this is your mistake, this software is not yours. You are just paying to be allowed to use it for a while.

</comment><comment><USER42> If you have this tight finance why not go with opencad or freecad?

I'm fairly certain importing correctly from a 35 years old format is not impossible, though there could be surprises for sure.

I understand the familiarity vs productivity issue and that learning something new is always painful, but if you want to avoid sw calling home, go for open source.

(I'm impressed by the way that something this old gets not just replies to questions but living servers to answer. I wonder if the answering machine is also from the 80.)

<comment><USER43>
      If you have this tight finance why not go with opencad or freecad?

because it is not about the finance.

      I am still using it some 35 years later, because, once you learn one CAD system and create 1000's of library parts, why switch?

<comment><USER44> I've worked with a lot of small business people and the HN group just doesn't culturally get what the guy is saying...

Say you're not going for billion dollar unicorn or broke, but for a life long small business. You always have non-main line of business systems that are technically obsolete but it doesn't matter to 99.9% of day to day operations because it works and when it doesn't work its only 0.1% of the time you spend anyway. To replace it when it completely breaks, its fully depreciated so to speak, you could pay $5K today or $5K next year, you certainly have $5K, but how exactly do you benefit by throwing down the cash today? I guess you get the tax deduction today rather than in 5 years but who cares? There's no way 0.1% of your day to day operation can have a significant bottom line effect no matter how much the new technology improves things in its little 0.1% corner of operations.

Even worse, when you forklift upgrade its going to be a hit to your productivity for "awhile" and you're busy today so you simply can't afford it. But sometime in the next five years there is certain to be a recession and then you already have the money and then you'll have the spare time to convert. Just not today. Its only 0.1% of your business and you don't want to turn away paying customers today to min/max that last 0.1% today. Play games with new toys when there's 10% unemployment and you have nothing to do for a week. In fact during that future recession you'll get newer technology than today plus it'll probably be cheaper if they're hurting for customers.

When its technology, 100% tech people are blinded by technophillia, but if it was an obscure metalworking tool that only gets used once a year for a few minutes, even tech people understand that when you're a busy one man shop, once that tool is completely depreciated and obsolete, waiting for it to break is the wisest possible choice.

<comment><USER45> Absolutely. FFS, I sell RS232 devices. RS-frickin-232. In 2017.

There are businesses out there that make a living supporting devices that were designed to run on 5.25" or 3.5" floppies. The machinery still works fine, but now the owner can't load files because replacement drives can't be found, or they can't buy floppies, or... So a business springs up to interface a thumb drive to a DOS HDD controller.

Note to all: there's money to be made _everywhere_

Note to self: so why am I not making any :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> If you're looking for an AutoCAD alternative try Draftsight from Dassault Systemes. There is a free personal version, but even the paid version isn't that expensive and it works pretty well.

<comment><USER47> No experience with Draftsight but going from SolidWorks -> Dassault's Catia -> Solidworks again was painful. Catia was (and I presume still is) an excellent product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> While patching software you own is illegal in most jurisdictions, making your own authentication server is legal. I am pretty sure that software is vulnerable to replay attack and could be emulated using fiddler's auto-replay feature.

<comment><USER49> How do you replay a response that no longer happens? The server is down.

<comment><USER50>
      DRM server
      the request goes unanswered
      one hand is clapping

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I guess its something to do with quality. even expensive software is cheap so support is short. I can still find after market parts for cars 20 years on. And the dealer will always do the service. Software isn't like this.

</comment><comment><USER52> The terrifying implication here is that your CAD files will need to reside on an Internet-connected computer. You don't get an air gap to protect your secrets.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm confused why they didn't even try to export any of the 1000s of parts to a neutral format to try anything else in the 35 years since...

</comment><comment><USER54> if your old product is good enough you will end up competing with yorself.

</comment><comment><USER55> have you looked for a cracked version of the app on abondonware site? (i'm not advocating abandonware for software with living owners)

</comment><comment><USER56> As much as I hate dealing with remote license servers. Not changing for 35 years just sounds ridiculous. I don't want to hear about all your old libraries, and part catalogs. The engineers at the company I work for do this all day, and we've upgraded probably seven major versions since I've started. Every company we purchase, and incorporate, they move their competing product libraries over to ours.

What kind of hardware could that guy possible be using to run that at this point? There is being stuck in your ways, and then there is being STUCK in your ways.</comment>


"Why I abandoned the free and open Android rebellion" -- a traitor's UX review - <AUTHOR> http://technologyviewer.com/post/3329004010/droid-to-iphone

<comment><USER2> _I installed third party roms such as Bugless beast, and Cyanogen, I over clocked the stock 550 mhz processor to 800mhz, but in doing so I took a chance that my hardware would never work again, as a well as suddenly relying on these third party developers to keep me up to date, and secure._

 _But close the camera app, and try to use it again later, and it was a 50/50 chance, at best, that the program would crash upon starting. Even if it did start and you took a pic, occasionally the photo wouldn't save properly. The droid camera is just buggy and slow, and I believe it was on the hardware level, not the software level because these problems occurred in every camera application I used, including the default one._

I think the first quote negates the certainty of the latter. I find it a hard stretch to blame the device when you have installed custom ROM's. Unless you have pulled dumps and logs off of the device and stepped through the code to find the issue and isolated it for certain, the first suspect should be your modification to the device, not the hardware and not Android as installed by the manufacturer.

<comment><USER3> Stock Droid owner here. I love my Droid, and I'm admittedly biased against Apple, but I agree with his complaints about the camera. I've never done any OS modification at all (even rooting), and I've noticed the Camera app is the crashiest thing I've got on my phone. Even when it starts up, it takes about 10 seconds before I can actually take a picture, and the quality is...lacking, overall. I'm no photographer, so it doesn't get to me too badly, but I can understand his frustration even from just using it occasionally.

<comment><USER4> I started having problems with the camera on my Droid 2 right away.

The color balance is random and difficult to reset. Sometimes there is a 5 second delay before the shutter fires (it is confused by motion - like rain or snow even). The pictures are often fuzzy. The Sport setting is the only one I use, since these problems are worse in the other modes.

It even crashes sometimes and takes down the entire phone (it reboots!). Sometimes the flash gets stuck on for 15 seconds first. Yes, the picture quality is often bad on the Droid 2 - sometimes it is perfectly good, though, which is even more frustrating. I can't rely on the camera at all.

The camera on my iPod touch is actually better, though it has 1/4 the resolution. It's reliable, has good white balance, snaps right way, and the photos almost always look good.

I'm definitely wary of Motorola products as a result of this and a few other issues with this phone. It has nothing to do with Android, though. I wish I bought a Samsung or HTC, not an iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _I have been called a whore and a traitor by my friends, but I did it anyway. Last week I turned off my Motorola Droid, and activated an Apple iPhone 4 on Verizon. This was considered by some of my Android loving friends as an act of war, by some just an excuse to banish me from their twitter circle._

Friends dumping you over your choice of mobile software aren't really your friends. Not even by the loosened-up social networking definition of 'friends'. Useless melodrama...

<comment><USER6> I doubt his friends are really "dumping" this guy over his choice of phone. What kind of sociopath would void a friendship over something like that? Most people don't even have access to _one_ person that nuts, let alone a plurality.

I would guess that they're probably just tired of him preaching the superiority of his new phone and have just phased him out a bit. I mean, he _is_ a blogger. They're not exactly known for holding back.

My suspicion is that this guy is probably just feeling the effects of Miguel de Icaza's "Well, actually..." syndrome (<http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html>).

<comment><USER5> "Well actually" has some interesting dynamics that I haven't quite mastered. For example, my inner voice goes "well actually" all the time, especially when I listen to some skilled socialite acquaintance going off on a funny tangent that keeps everyone entertained. Since puberty, I'm not giving in to "well actually" anymore, it stays firmly in the realm of inner monologue.

But once in a while, when I'm following an entertaining story being told in a social setting, another guy will pop up and say "well, actually..." and people will not stop admiring him or her, they will say repeatedly how smart and how unexpectedly brilliant this person is (even if they just pointed out a very obvious flaw).

So I'm calling bullshit on "well, actually", because it often works when a charismatic person with a huge ego does it. That means the problem is clearly not in the smart-assery of the content, the presentation itself is faulty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That is cool that he enjoys the device he purchased, that is really what matters, but I feel that he was hardly entrenched in this so called war. Not only that, he is comparing the experience of a 1.5th generation phone versus a 4th generation phone. The Droid is a good phone, but I wouldn't call it great. It has a slower processor, less ram, the hardware feel is what some call flimsy. In my opinion Motorola didn't make great phones at first, and their drivers had lots of issues. Don't get me started on their penchant to lock down the phones.

The iPhone 4 is a great phone, but I wouldn't trade my Nexus One in for one, not even if I was paid. There are a lot of reasons, more than I wish to extrapolate in a comment. I started out with a G1, I have been in the 'trenches' if you will since the start. I know what Android has achieved, and how great it really is, because I saw it when it wasn't so great.

He didn't abandon anything, he just got a new phone.

</comment><comment><USER8> His story reminded me a lot of the time I switched from Linux to OS X. There was a point where compiling my own kernels stopped being fun and I just wanted a computer that I could work with instead of work on.

<comment><USER9> Why did you have to leave Linux? You could have just stopped compiling your own kernels. Even the guys who tweak and compile the kernels we deploy to our servers just run stock kernels on their desktop machines. Sounds like you have the same hacker OCD that makes this guy overclock his processor and install third party ROMs and then have the balls to complain about stability. (He makes it sound like the modifications were necessary to make the phone work in the first place, but overclocking the processor falls into the "I just can't help myself" category and undermines his credibility a bit.)

<comment><USER10> "Compiling my own kernel" is often a metaphor for the effort involved in running a Linux system. I run a dual-boot Windows/Ubuntu system right next to my MacBook using SynergyKM to control both, so I have a good opportunity to compare both on a daily basis. The "compile my own kernel" factor with recent distributions of Ubuntu (9.10 and newer) is really, really insignificant.

So, it's a mixed bag. "Linux" means so many things that it's hard to say "Linux is easy to use" or "Linux is hard to use" and not be right in both cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "If you live on your GPS, then this would be enough of a reason alone to choose Android over Apple"

I dont live on it meaning I dont have to use it all the time, but when i'm going to a new restaurant for example I love being able to either search at home and send myself a map link or search on the phone and hit directions and have navigate open itself up with everything set and ready to get me to my destination.

I have used other stand alone GPS's and they all have their quirks about them but theres something about the full intigration of the navigation with Google that makes me love that feature the most on the Android OS.

</comment><comment><USER12> _activated an Apple iPhone 4 on Verizon. This was considered by some of my Android loving friends as an act of war, by some just an excuse to banish me from their twitter circle. I feel as though I wear a scarlet "i" on my chest everywhere I go_

Heh. "The Scarlet i" would make for a great parody play! I hope some talented teen picks this idea up and gets their 15 minutes of YouTube fame with this.

Seriously, folks, it's just a damn gadget!

 _Yes there is a strong Jailbreak community for the iPhone, having been a long time iPod touch user, It's a community that I have even participated in. But with every update of iOS, Apple makes it less and less necessary for the power user, and it's just not necessary at all for the average use._

I was a jailbreaker, and stuck with my 8GB 1st gen iPhone for a long time. Now, my factory unlocked non-jailbroken iPhone 4 does everything I want. I have no contract and I only pay $46 a month to T-Mobile. Sometime next week, I'm going to get an alternate account AT&T sim so I can test an app with MMS functionality.

</comment><comment><USER13> I personally find it strange when people compare an android phone made by X with the iPhone and describe that comparison as android vs apple. Unless it were a nexus phone maybe.

<comment><USER4> Right, the problems with the Droid cameras have nothing to do with Android itself. It is just Motorola being shoddy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't "switch" operating systems or devices, I supplement them! My setup with an Android phone and an iPod Touch works great as I am now familiar with both OSs.

Similarly, I have a MacBook Pro, a Toshiba with Win 7 and also run Linux on both of them.

I like Android, but I will be buying an iPhone 5 when they come out. I'll also be buying whatever the next Nexus is too, though. Isn't that how most serious device geeks operate?

</comment><comment><USER14> Ehmm... who cares? Your so called friends are not talking to you anymore 'cause you changed phone? They're not friends, that's all. Go on and live with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> a traitor? a whore? you need new friends. its a phone.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's ridiculous to say that you have abandoned something when it sounds like you didn't even take sides with it in the first place. To me those who choose the Android phones and tablets do so specifically because they want to customize their experience with it and even get the dev kit and make something of their own. After reading the article, I find that you're just another one of these "Oh, look at all the pretty pictures I can take, I'm so media-centric an creative now, I might even get paid for the photos I take with it". This in itself is absurd and, were you telling me this, I would have smacked the thought right out of your empty little head. This smells too much like paid advertising and I don't like it. If it is real, I'd dock you a point (-1) for Bad and inconsistent grammar, (-1) for Spelling Errors, (-2)for saying iphone (An overpriced piece of shit with an environment that's toxic to devs and more recently content publishers) is better than Android, which makes no sense because you compared only the iphone against one android phone, and a bad one at that. I mean, if you're willing to spend that much on an iphone, why didn't you just get a better android phone? And finally, you are docked for supporting apple, which the most bullshit company I've ever laid eyes on and deserves all the bad publicity it gets. (-1) Also, -1 for advertising for apple by not giving a fair comparison of solely the operating systems but the phones. That's a 4/10. All in all, a failing grade for a failing article.

<comment><USER17> Not everyone chooses Android because of a desire to customize or tweak. I bought my N1 because I wanted a smartphone with a decent browser on TMobile. I know plenty of people who've purchased Androids for similar reason (wanted a 4" screen, wanted front facing camera, etc).

While all of us techno-geeks like to obsess over every minor difference between the Apple and Android platforms, the reality when you step back and look at it is that for most users, the difference is negligible.

People get _way_ too invested in these stupid product/platform wars. Everyone needs to remember: You aren't defined by the products you buy and use!</comment></comment>


Ultibo – An embedded or bare metal development environment for Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://ultibo.org/ <comment><USER2> Had to dig around a bit to find out what this is. [https://ultibo.org/wiki/Getting_Started](https://ultibo.org/wiki/Getting_Started)

Seems to be a Windows IDE in Free Pascal that renders single self sufficient program images to use on the pi without any linux involved, similar to Arduino.

I would prefer it to be in c and on linux, but nonetheless, interesting.

<comment><USER3> Well the IDE, Lazarus, is cross platform so it looks like you would just need to put the ultibo source some where Lazarus knows about. Free Pascal/Lazarus are infamous for the ease of cross compiling (or they would be if any one paid attention to them).

<comment><USER2> Might be so, but they make no mention of it on the page.

<comment><USER4> One of the items in the carousel is about Linux [https://ultibo.org/ultibo-on- linux/](https://ultibo.org/ultibo-on-linux/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pascal is a neat language. I am generally in agreement with Kernighan's assessment of it ([https://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-on- pascal.html](https://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-on-pascal.html)), but most of the problems he lists have since been fixed by many implementations of the language, leaving something quite usable, and a heck of a lot safer than C.

It is unsurprising, in light of this, that the person who submitted this to HN is pjmlp, a well-known fan of Wirth's languages, and a person who notably dislikes C. He's probably also a Unix Hater, although I never asked.

Not that any of this is _bad_ , mind you (I was raised on C/UNIX, and even I'll indulge in some Unix-Hating from time to time (It's probably the Lisp that does it), and whether or not you like the Wirth family, you can't deny it's interesting), but it explains a lot about why this (exceptionally interesting, by the way) project was likely submitted to HN.

<comment><USER6> > _most of the problems he lists have since been fixed by many implementations > of the language_

Which problems haven't been fixed?

<comment><USER5> None I can think of, but I've long since given up on absolute certainty.

<comment><USER6> Then what are you in agreement with in Kernighan's assessment of Pascal? His assessment may have made sense 35 years ago but is out of date today.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even 35 years ago it didn't make much sense, because he deliberately ignored the Pascal dialects that didn't had those set of issues.

Also C outside UNIX was just a mix of K&R C dialects, each with its own set of quirks and as portable across compiler vendors, as those Pascal dialects.

<comment><USER5> C inside of unix, which is probably the world Brian was coming from, didn't have those problems. And he had a point about the lack of unification. As to ignoring the dialects lacking that set of issues, I don't see how so. He explicitly stated that various dialects had solved the problems he discussed, but noted that such solutions were non-portable.

So I still consider it a valid assessment of the language he assessed. But I also acknowledge that Pascal is no longer that language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's interesting. The fact that it's written in Pascal takes me back to my youth, when Pascal was still commonly taught as an entry-level language in schools.

It's probably not for everyone, and the license terms suit it best for a hobby projects (LGPL or a more permissive license would be better), but it's neat that it exists.

EDIT: I stand corrected. It is released under the LGPL. That is permissive enough for more use cases when static linking is required.

<comment><USER8> Umm... FAQ says:

"What licence does Ultibo use? The GNU LGPL version 2.1, the same licence used by many other popular open source products."

<comment><USER7> I stand corrected. I thought it said GNU GPL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is alaso eLua but for other (dumber, smaller) platforms.

[http://www.eluaproject.net](http://www.eluaproject.net)

</comment><comment><USER10> Considering the link doesn't send me there, but redirects to a showcase, consider me disappointed.

I remember spending a great deal of time playing with the TurboPascal compiler, and the Pi is a nice, simple piece of hardware to build an OS for.

This sort of thing could be great fun.</comment>


Mozilla Finalist for UK ISPA 'Internet Villain' Award 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ISPAUK/status/1146725374455373824 <comment><USER2> I thought this was a joke initially, but it appears not.

It's quite something when the ISP association starts attacking an organization that supports user privacy and security.

Let's hope that some of the "feedback" they receive over this changes their minds...

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm having trouble recognizing some of the villains on the image in the tweet. I'm guessing it is Cat Woman, then Loki, then Cruella from 101 Dalmatians on the first row.

I have no idea who the first one is on the second row, then I'm guessing Dr. Doom, and finally the Joker.

</comment><comment><USER4> I had to go to the account bio twice to confirm it was not a joke.

</comment><comment><USER5> They won, over Trump and the infamous Article 13. While literally no one nominated them (except the organization themselves). So strange.

I hope for them /b/ doesn't find out.</comment>


Senate Torture Report Condemns C.I.A. Interrogation Program - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-intelligence-committee-cia-torture-report.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8723548](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8723548)

</comment><comment><USER3> By the way, the CIA contracted people to teach and operate the torture. They paid them $80 MILLION. Truly the "american way"

[https://www.google.com/search?q=cia+$80+million](https://www.google.com/search?q=cia+$80+million)

The CIA has already won when the press is still using the phrase "enhanced interrogation" instead of what it was: torture.

And sometime in the next decade the torture will start again despite all the useless outrage, just like the NSA continues on with the public shrugging.

Remember the CIA actively lied to congress, ignoring any objections and even as this report was being gathered, they were hacking into the committee's computers to delete content. These are not good people but we are stuck with them because no-one is willing to do anything about it.

</comment><comment><USER4>
        "Strongly urge that any speculative language as to
        the legality of given activities or, more precisely,
        judgment calls as to their legality vis-à-vis
        operational guidelines for this activity agreed
        upon and vetted at the most senior levels of the
        agency, be refrained from in written traffic
        (email or cable traffic)," wrote Jose A. Rodriguez
        Jr., then the head of the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorism
        Center.

        "Such language is not helpful."

Vile.

<comment><USER5> Why is this Hacker News? Is there some debate that we're going to have for or against torture? It sounds like we're just reporting major news that's already covered by CNN and the NYT.

<comment><USER6> Plenty on non-tech articles make it to the front page.

Check out the HN Guidelines here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

The relevant portion:

 _Please don 't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did._

<comment><USER5> No, here's the relevant portion:

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. "

<comment><USER6> Huh? Your original post is not appropriate, that is what I am referencing.

Ugh. This isn't complicated.

The guidelines state: Don't comment about how an article isn't appropriate for HN, just flag it.

<comment><USER5> I flagged it immediately. Sorry, if people are too stupid to realize that they're just shooting the shit on politics all day, I'm gonna say something. Go to reddit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> TL;DR

\- anal rape

\- waterboarding

\- sleep deprivation

\- death threats

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks like the US regime is not doing a good job of keeping mouths shut. Yankees haven't learned a thing from snooping on other dictators.</comment>


WeWork Is Looking to Go Public in September - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-23/wework-is-said-to-target-september-for-initial-public-offering <comment><USER2> Guess who thinks that isn't going to go well... the CEO.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20473819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20473819)

<comment><USER2> Seriously... selling some of your founding stock months prior to an IPO is a huge indictment of its potential.

Sure he has plenty left and you could argue it was a hedge, but still.

Also, who buys the founder's stock right before an IPO? Talk about buying into a story... 'this is going to go through the roof at the IPO, so let me sell it to you just before'

This is such a red flag</comment></comment>


Kevin Kelly's 6 Words for the Modern Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/kevin-kellys-internet-words/ <comment><USER2> Kelly is a great optimist and I love his list but the first comment calls out some more words worth thinking about, even if you don't agree that they're on the same level:

>> s.g. (<http://twitter.com/1111Observant>)

>> here's 6 more.

>>Invading. Recording. Tracking. Influencing. Exploiting. Robbing.</comment>


Traveling back into the past to trade for present gain - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/05/traveling-back-into-the-past-to-trade-for-present-gain.html?repost=from-3-days-ago

<comment><USER2> Really interesting thought experiment... At first I was disappointed that the first major comment threads covered bringing back pieces of art. Is that all that we can think of that has value from the past?

Then things got more interesting - variations on taking knowledge from the present and applying it to the past: buying successful stocks, investing in successful companies, etc.

Finally, comments hit upon my favorite definition of "present gain" \- making the world a better place by saving lives, curing diseases, etc. Someone mentioned teaching the Mayans to repel the Spanish, bringing medicine to help American natives cure smallpox, etc. How many wars could be prevented, injustices righted, and inequalities balanced with a bit of know-how and modern biology, chemistry, and tactics?

<comment><USER3> Were the Mayans an especially just society?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I feel like somehow the answer will involve penicillin.</comment>


In January, the EU Starts Running Bug Bounties on Free and Open Source Software - <AUTHOR> https://juliareda.eu/2018/12/eu-fossa-bug-bounties/ <comment><USER2> PVS-Studio and Bug Bounties on Free and Open Source Software: [https://medium.com/@karpov2007/pvs-studio-and-bug- bounties-o...](https://medium.com/@karpov2007/pvs-studio-and-bug-bounties-on- free-and-open-source-software-538f42ee2701)

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be exciting to see these sorts of initiatives grow. Imagine if the EU helped fund Debian or Gnome or LibreOffice to reduce their dependence on closed source software from the USA.

Edit: typo

</comment><comment><USER4> This could be frugal practice to follow in other public institutions that run parts of their infrastructure on FOSS, many larger corporations that rely on FOSS sometimes do contribute to the projects or have bug bounties because they know that when something breaks or worse, you are going to lose money. So why not do it by auditing the software and basically give back to the software you rely on, it works almost like insurance, when the shit hits the fan you are paying anyway so why not upfront it. This is an area public institutions could certainly follow since they can't lead.

</comment><comment><USER5> I came in this thread to make fun of how little software development is paid in Europe, but these are some of the largest bug bounties I've seen</comment>


Jobs expected to ring in Apple's new iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/08/BUPF11383C.DTL&tsp=1

<comment><AUTHOR> Anticipation.... I heard one of their supplier's warehouses was overflowing with mysterious unmarked shipping boxes.

and...if the purchase price is as heavily subsidized by at&t as everyone thinks it will be, apple will sell a boatload of them...;D</comment>


Everyone will be a programmer one day - <AUTHOR> http://kamilmroczek.com/2013/05/12/everyone-will-be-a-programmer-one-day/

<comment><USER2> Title: "Everyone will be a programmer one day"

First line of the third paragraph: "Everyone will not become a programmer."</comment>


Palm Pre Review - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/2009/06/10/palm-pre-review/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the review, Matt. I had consciously avoided reading news about the Pre b/c of the painful ride that the iPhone speculation news was. I was waiting for a review from someone I trust and didn't want to wait until 2011 when David Pogue picked one up.

It sounds really great, I'll have to give it a look.

<comment><USER2> It is really surprising. I left out a couple pages worth of why I decided to get one because I thought it too boring, but suffice it to say last minute reviews had me skeptical and I was counting on Sprint's 30 day return policy. I knew after about 15 minutes I wouldn't be using it though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a fantastic review.

I'm one of those users who has big fat viking fingers and I was also worried about the keyboard, particularly with respect to the top row, which was one of the more common complaints of fellow-fat-finger-folks. And while I don't yet own a Pre (I'm on the list at the local Sprint store), I did try out the keyboard on a demo unit, and found the keyboard surprisingly nice.

I've been a Treo user for about 3 years now, and am very proficient on that keyboard, but I have a feeling that the Pre will be a bit of an upgrade as far as typing speed is concerned (and not losing everything I'm currently typing when a call comes in will be a bonus).

</comment><comment><USER4> Well I'm assuming the 3rd party battery manufactures are pushing hard to make a "mega" battery pack that will maybe double the milli-amper hours.

This will of course add more weight and thickness, but it sounds like the phone is pretty light so shouldn't be a problem.

<comment><USER2> Let's hope.</comment></comment>


What if there were a $1 fee to post to HN? - <AUTHOR> http://chrismaury.com/post/19540905391/what-if-there-were-a-1-fee-to-post-to-hn

<comment><USER2> This can work with an ad profit-sharing model for people who post content (which is how sites like ustream work, as far as I know), but that model doesn't really extend to article aggregators and I highly doubt a user would donate $1 to the community every time he sees an article he likes. An entire newspaper doesn't cost much more than that (nor do I think any balance of cost-to-post vs cost-to-upvote would really work). And you don't want users with deep/generous pockets doing all of the upvoting while the rest of the community is leeching.

If you could manage to build a reddit-style community behind a pay-wall, the pay-wall could be used to generate the 'finder's fee' money for posts and you could allot every customer x number of 'coins' that they could upvote with-- needs to be tied to what they pay to prevent scamming. The end product would need to be vastly superior to HN to have a hope at attracting the initial community, but that's basically what Bloomberg machines do for finance, right? I'd easily pay $100/mo if not more for the best hacker news and commentary on the web (you could have the same pay-to-post, get-paid-for-upvotes model for comments to keep them quality).

<comment><AUTHOR> I would fully except there to be people with deep pockets paying more often than others, but that's an interesting thought. How much would that affect the content being produced.

The pay wall was exactly what I was thinking. It would get users used to paying for upvotes, and then when that money runs out, their credit card is already linked, and makes it easier to fill up.

The main goal is to create a market which supports high quality/high cost content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So it's a $1 advertising fee? Are I guaranteed that the posting will appear? Do I get a refund if it isn't, and if not, what does HN do if I take the issue to the credit card company? Do I get a discount for many posts? Will HN take foreign credit cards? How does HN pay foreign people? Is there sales tax or any other tax to worry about? How does the infrastructure change to handle credit card processing?

That's all above the question of 'how much will it improve the site?' and 'will it prevent people from giving good, interesting links?'

There's what, a few hundred new links per day in 'newest'? That's ~$200 minus credit card fees. Is that enough to manage the headache of dealing with the issues surrounding money?

My answer to these is "no." It's not worthwhile. What are the problems you're trying to solve?

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is creating a market for content creation. The idea is that if you can generate revenu from quality content, then more quality content will be generated. Think of what Etsy has done for small craft products or what hollywood has done for movies. HN and reddit have created enough of a viewership that an upvote has some amount of value. However that value is only enough to support link aggregation, blog posts, and other low value items.

the idea behind charging to post/upvote is to generate enough of a return to warrant higher value content creation.

<comment><USER3> Great idea, but does it work? To start with, please address my questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Tim-Boss Then people would double check their spelling before committing a post ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> You would lose all the casual members like me who occasionally have useful things to say -- even more so on Reddit. You thought the Digg redesign was a bad business decision? Implement something like that on Reddit and most of their userbase will vanish overnight.

</comment><comment><USER5> Then there would be a lot more different crowd on HN, more people trying to monetize on their posts.

This would get in the way of innovation.

</comment><comment><USER6> It would be the end of the essence of HN.</comment>