Texas researchers seek to redefine U.S. whiskey - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-whiskey/fields-of-dreams-texas-researchers-seek-to-redefine-u-s-whiskey-idUSKBN1JD09C <comment><USER2> Traditionally, alcoholic beverages were shaped by the environment around them.

The reason that Scotch Whisky uses peat smoked malt was that there wasn't coal available for them to use instead. It was aged in used barrels for economic reasons, rather than taste.

It's the same for beer, different styles of beer largely came about due to differences in water chemistry.

It seems weird to try and artificially define American Whiskey by trying to force a terroir in the product using selective breeding. That's backwards from how the process has historically happened, it's artificial.

The whole artisan American Whiskey market is bullshit anyway. Most "craft distilleries" just buy bulk white spirit or pre-aged spirit from a wholesaler [1], then finish it in their own barrels. The usually use smaller barrels too, to try an impart as much flavour in as short a time, leaving you with an unbalanced whiskey that just tastes like an oak barrel. Sometimes they even use tricks like artificially heating and cooling the ageing warehouse or using ultrasound to try and speed up the process. But you can't rush time.

In fairness, it's not just American Whiskey that has this problem. It's luxury spirits as a market. Luxury alcohol is a marketing industry that sells alcohol. Vodka is especially egregious, where the bottle the spirit comes in is often more expensive than the contents. Only 10 of around 130 Scotch Whisky distilleries are independent, the rest owned by international conglomerates like Pernod Ricard.

[1] [https://www.thedailybeast.com/your-craft-whiskey-is- probably...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/your-craft-whiskey-is-probably- from-a-factory-distillery-in-indiana)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if the endgame will be starting with something like everclear, adding whatever aromas you feel like, diluting it down to 80 proof and finally bottling it.

<comment><USER4> That's exactly what Frank-Lin Distillers Products in Fairfield, CA does.[1] Ethanol arrives in tank cars from refineries in the Midwest, and is delivered to their railroad siding. Water come from the water main. The ethanol goes through some additional distillation and filtering. The water goes through a de-ionizing plant. Water, ethanol, and flavoring are mixed and bottled, to produce over a thousand different brands of booze, using many different types of bottles. The bottle factory is conveniently located across the street. Only a hundred different recipes are used. Few people notice.

Many brands of booze are purely marketing operations, with the production outsourced. Frank-Lin used to make Skyy Vodka. Skyy, the company, just provided the hype. That line was bought by Campari, which has their own in- house production facilities. Frank-Lin still makes Beyond Vodka.

Frank-Lin has a cost advantage. In the US, booze production is separated into distillers, distributors, and retailers for tax purposes. Frank-Lin is a distributor. The distiller is a refinery-scale operation back in the Midwest which makes industrial and beverage alcohol. So Frank-Lin handles the distribution of all those brands directly, bypassing a level of warehousing. Most of the low-end booze, and some of the high-end booze on the West Coast comes from Frank-Lin's plant.

[1] [http://www.frank-lin.com/](http://www.frank-lin.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does the mash composition contribute that much to the flavor of a whiskey? Or, how much of the flavor can make it through distillation?

I was under the impression that most flavor comes from the organic material present in aging barrels.

<comment><USER6> Yes, there are quite a few esters and acids that will hitch a ride with some of the alcohol and water molecules that make it up the column. This certainly depends on the type of still (eg plate vs alambic and continuous vs pot), but there are a lot of flavors transfered. The distiller's job is to choose which ones (eg at least remove the heads and tails).

One easy example is apple brandy which has a very distinct nose. It's not until you multiple distill and charcoal filter that vodka loses its flavor (you can actually detect potato, if you care to).

<comment><USER6> I should also mention that low pH (acidic) environment is important to the proportion of many flavors being transmitted. That means that distillers (looking for flavor) will often prefer lower alcohol but fully fermented brew, which usually means starting with lower sugar (less ripe fruit or less malted grains). Corn usually starts high sugar so I'm not sure about them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > they will plant thousands of non-genetically modified seeds on a commercial > farm to ramp up production

Why is it relevant if the seed were bred using genetic engineering or conventional?

<comment><USER8> The same reason scotch whisky needs to be from Scotland despite perfectly good whisky coming from elsewhere. It's social signaling which is the bulk of what you pay for in a luxury good.

<comment><USER9> And bourbon from Kentucky.

<comment><USER10> Bourbon does not need to be from Kentucky.

Legally, it has to be >= 51% corn mash, stored in new oak barrels, and a few other things.

<comment><USER11> It doesn't need to be from Kentucky, but it does need to be from the US (in addition to being majority corn, etc.) [0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_whiskey#Legal_requirem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_whiskey#Legal_requirements)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's the point of planting non-GMO corn? What impact do GMOs allegedly have on the final product?

<comment><USER13> > _What 's the point of planting non-GMO corn?_

Usually I would complain about the inanity of this process, but it's whiskey. The process is the point. It's a hedonistic venture and should be embraced as one.</comment></comment>


How do I delete my HN profile and all submissions permanently? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> PG wrote about this here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226).

</comment><comment><USER3> No one here is likely to hold a grudge. I see you got hammered on one thread, but once you figure out what specific things to avoid then people will treat you appropriately.

I have had a few comments downvoted. Some of them a lot, but I learned that sarcasm doesn't translate well in text. Complaints about downvotes get downvoted every time, usually even by people who didn't mind the first comment.

If you are worried about your karma level then try to post interesting stories you find elsewhere. A comment will never get more than a few upvotes, but you can get hundreds from posting a story.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think you can. You can scrub your profile of identifiable information, change your password to something random and then forget it, though.

<comment><USER5> I don't see it as an open ticket in issues, you would think that there would be a delete somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unrelated to your question, why are you leaving?

<comment><USER7> Flustered about getting downvoted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8117924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8117924)</comment></comment>


Apple is just Microsoft with better marketing - <AUTHOR> http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/apple-is-just-microsoft-with-better-marketing/ <comment><USER2> I disagree. Microsoft is a company that is about saying yes, to everyone. Apple is one of the few companies which says no on various subjects to reduce the problem space. Eg apple strategically obsoletes stuff like Carbon. I think this has a dramatic effect on the companies involved. Microsofts feature + backward compatibility matrix is so huge (theyre supporting applications that were written for Windows 3.1) that theyre stuck solving an unsolvable problem. Actually interesting anecdote - Simcity depended on a bug in windows 3.x for correct operation, the bug in question was fixed in windows 95. However in testing Microsoft found that simcity breaks and added code as a special case to emulate the bug if simcity is run. (<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html>).I am not favoring either approach, just saying that there is a big difference. Those that favor backwards compatibility have their adherents (big businesses etc) and those that stay nimble because of periodically cutting dead wood have their own followers (early adopters, technophiles).

<comment><USER3> > apple strategically obsoletes stuff like Carbon.

Way I hear things, Apple hasn't completely gotten rid of Carbon yet. iTunes is still around, in all it's terrible glory.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, 32-bit Carbon is still around, but they axed a 64-bit version that was (mostly?) complete.

<comment><USER5> And newer APIs (and even obj-c language features) are only available to 64-bit processes, so sticking with 32-bit so you can use Carbon will be less of an option over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's a ridiculous comparison. Apple is _far_ more closed and controlling than Microsoft ever was.

<comment><USER7> That's why I'm confused - I agree with you, Apple is way out of line on this. So why are they doing this, when they're not a monopoly? Do they think that having a walled garden of approved apps and the best UI will work forever?

It didn't work for their desktop business 20 years ago, why should it work now?

<comment><USER8> A monopoly exists when a customer has no alternative then to do business with the monopolizer. Microsoft was/is a monopoly because Dell, HP, etc have no recourse then to agree to MCSFT's terms or look elsewhere for their OS. And considering the general public hasn't embraced Linux, that pretty much locks those manufacturers in place.

Apple on the other hand develops its own hardware and software. I think they have every right to control their environment, even if I don't agree with it.

Developers are not locked into developing for the iPad, iPhone, etc. Don't like Apple? Develop for Android. Apple doesn't owe you a living. If you want to sell on their marketplace, you need to abide by their rules.

I don't disagree that it would nice if Apple was more open, but comparing them to MCSFT is somewhat of a red herring.

<comment><USER9> so replace MS with apple and Dell with app store developer and Linux with WebOS or Android. The exact same argument applies.

Same applies to the other Devs aren't locked in to windows, IE, etc. MS doesn't owe them a living. Develop for Linux.

Entity(MS, Apple) has vast majority of sales in the market place(os, phone applications) sets rules that favor themselves and you can either go along or die in a corner(develop for Linux, develop for WebOS.) Personally I prefer die in the corner with freedom than happy subjugation.

<comment><USER10> So you're implying that something like 80-90% of smartphones in use are iPhones? Because that's pretty much what the situation was with Windows in the 90s.

<comment><USER9> I am saying that 80-90% of apps sold market share is on iPhone. No one really cares how many devices are in the wild if people who have those handsets refuse to buy software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think this whole situation was summed up for me by a slashdot comment:

 _Steve Jobs: "We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers."

Yet, it is just fine with Steve Jobs if every iDeveloper is at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when their enhancements will be made available to their customers._

<comment><USER12> Actually, if you follow Apple terms, there it's really hard to be rejected. Yeah yeah I know, Google Voice, but it's one application over tens of thousands, and the fact that they are a major competitor didn't help. It's not even a matter of developing cutting edge, because great technologies like Siri or Remail made it to the store just fine. They have terms of services, developers should just read them and stick to them.

Yeah, my car can do 150mph but if a cop stop me cause i'm speeding over 65mph i'm not going to cry cause the USA aren't an "open" country where I can't decide how fast I can drive the hardware I own.

<comment><USER11> If you have to _follow Apple terms_ then they are, by definition, deciding _if_ you can provide certain functionality to your customers.

I'm sure Adobe could make the same argument to Apple. If you only do what's in our interests then we'll probably update our 3rd party libs within a reasonable timeframe. And don't bring up that one time we didn't bother supporting something in your API, that's just one feature out of thousands we did support.

<comment><USER13> It's just that there are no "your" customers anymore. Apple owns them all! Whether it's in your best interest? It depends on how big or small you are...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I must disagree.

As much as I dislike its present course, Apple has always pushed the boundaries of what's possible since the day 1 (Apple I, Apple ][, Disk ][) and continued pushing, sometimes crossing that border (certain aspects of the Lisa are more advanced than OSX, for instance, but its 68K wasn't fast enough).

Microsoft started life cloning BASIC for 8-bit computers, gained relevance cloning CP/M for 16-bit computers and became mainstream cloning MacOS for 32-bit PC-compatible computers, by entering shady deals with OEMs, by misleading competitors (Lotus developed 123/G - "the future", acording to MS - for OS/2 while MS developed Excel for Windows) and by hurting genuine innovators by announcing vaporware and half-brained products (like Windows for Pen Computing and its latest descendant, Courier).

No. As much as Apple has been every bit as evil as Microsoft, the two companies share a completely different ethos.

<comment><USER15> rbanffy is an Apple shill.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy>

<comment><USER16> Did you read any of those comments you linked to? Perhaps you missed these:

      Microsoft's keyboards are much better than Apple's

      Every single computer I installed Ubuntu,
      since the 6.x releases, has worked flawlessly ...

and so on. No more name calling please, ok?

<comment><USER15> I heartily approve and endorse your downvote of my comment. I posted a knee- jerk response and I paid the price for it (PWNed like a n00b in a first-person shooter). Nevertheless, it was satisfying to call some one a "shill", and I DO detect traces of shillery in every Apple-vs-Adobe polemic to be waged on this site in the past fortnight.

<comment><USER14> To be fair, my first computer was an Apple II and I have a large collection of Apples, from II clones to about a dozen Macs and a Newton (also a couple RS/6000, Suns, one PA-RISC, two Amigas and one 8-bit Atari). I still use my PowerPC iMac, but mostly to sync my iPod.

My wife has a Macbook. I tried to use Macs for work, but I prefer a more traditional Unix desktop, one with X and select-and-middle-click goodness.

We are a multi-platform household here ;-) I even have Windows on a VM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _The one answer I have is to rain (metaphorical) death and destruction on to Apple... I hereby declare myself, officially, anti-Apple._

Wow, great. I'm sure your bile and vitriol will create lots of value for customers. Who will want to pay for an iPad when they can get (metaphorical) death and destruction for free?

OP is hardly alone with his rage; I see lots of people storming and blustering about how Apple is the devil. But I see very few people making a serious attempt to actually deliver the goods that will make Apple irrelevant. If a mobile platform running Clojure-flavored HaskellLisp is the Silver Bullet, can you show us an example of its unique value? Or if a mobile platform running Flash is the Ultimate Object of customer desire, where can we buy it and try it?

(Personally, I'll put my energy into the standardized web. It's out there, it's ubiquitous. The servers run whatever software you like; the clients run Javascript, which has its troubles but is not the worst of all possible worlds. Steve Jobs himself endorses it and the iPhone platform has supported it nicely from day one. We've spent well over a decade building it.)

<comment><USER18> _If a mobile platform running Clojure-flavored HaskellLisp is the Silver Bullet, can you show us an example of its unique value?_

Of course he can't, because it hasn't been invented yet. But that's the point. Apple is trying to make sure no one can _ever_ invent it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This guy must be really young because either he's delusional or we read 2 different headlines in '00.

For Apple to be like Microsoft it would have to take a standardized language (like HTML, Javascript, or Java), fork it so it is unreadable by the original, then use it's monopoly so that no one else can create a competitor.

Here is a rundown of this MS behavior:

MS-DOS vs. PC-DOS

J# vs Java

IE6 vs HTML4

MS JS vs javascript

Now when Apple forks Flash and decides that is the only Flash that will be available on iPhoneOS then they will have become Microsoft.

<comment><USER20> _"fork it so it is unreadable by the original, then use it's monopoly so that no one else can create a competitor."_

Although MS may fork something, it does not force you to use their proprietary language - In the examples above, you can still use the original language...the choice remains yours.

I might be biased since I've basically only developed on Windows (Visual Studio, code warrior, borland, etc.), but in the big scheme of things, MS has been more open, had more alternatives and options and better developer support than Apple...IMHO.

<comment><USER19> When you are writing for a platform that controls 98% of the market its less a choice and more a mandate.

As anyone that has had to write parallel code in HTML/CSS/JS for IE vs every other browser your choices are: do it our way.

MS was only open in their willingness to assimilate other good technologies, and then lock everyone else out once they had enough influence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Apple plans and architects, sometimes acting autocratically. Microsoft grows "vegetatively", pushing a variety of technologies and letting the market choose. Honestly, I prefer technology to have a leader. Its almost poetic that the current leader is the underdog. And no, I'm not an Apple shill, I don't even own a Mac (or any other Apple device).

</comment><comment><USER22> I am not sure if the author is a native English speaker or not, but that article needs some heavy editing to make it legible for publication.

<comment><USER15> Great ideas: check. Decent writing style: check. Spell check: Houston, we have a problem.

<comment><USER23> Could also use some simple consistency checks. A great example of this:

 _"If this clause had been written fifteen years ago, the languages then would have been C, Fortran, and Cobol- and how would feel about being required to program in those languages today? Well, that's how you're going to fell about C++ and Objective C ten or fifteen years from now."_

Er... ALL of these languages are currently in use. Cobol is _finally_ be deprecated after decades of deployment. C and C++ are still going strong. Objective-C shows every sign of actually increasing in popularity as Clang rolls out and people realize that Objective-C++ actually does some pretty amazing things for you.

That whole paragraph is not only using bad examples, but it also is contingent on the premise that Apple has locked its user agreement in stone and will keep it that way for years. Who knows if that could be true?

It's simple mistakes like these that magnify the spelling and style errors to near intolerability, for me. I—like most readers, I think—can tolerate a lot of errors and awkward sentences if the message is spot on. That really doesn't seem to be the case here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The author is giving Apple a lot more power than they actually have. Apple controls Apple platforms; OSX, iPhone OS, etc. That's it. That's a small fragment of the market. Yes -- including the iPhone. There are good alternatives to both. What's the problem?

</comment><comment><USER25> Microsoft open sources the NT kernel... Not vs Apple releases the core of their OS as open source (Darwin)

Microsoft open sources Trident... Not vs Apple creates the WebKit project

Microsoft helps to develop a BSD licensed compiler... Not vs Apple helps to develop Clang/LLVM

<sarcasm>

Both companies are like twins.

<sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER26> I wish Apple would just change the agreement to say "if your app isn't totally polished to our legendarily exacting concepts of quality, we reserve the right not to bless it with the App Store".

It wouldn't make anyone even sort of happier, but I can't help but feel it's closer to the truth of the matter than questions of language use. I highly doubt Apple would cry if a top notch app was developed in Haskell so long as the developer knew the burden of maintaining the API divide and still delivered. It makes me feel the whole thing is a matter of lacking trust and legalese, and though language restrictions seem dumb I myself can't think of a better way to achieve the goals Apple appears to be aiming at.

<comment><USER27> Apple already rejects several applications submitted. If quality is the reason they want to avoid flash apps, let the reviewers check it for quality irrespective of how they are written.

If flash not utilizing the latest features of iPhone OS is a problem, market will kill apps which don't use them (assuming they are worth using) on its own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> People don't mention this enough, but the reason people build abstractions is to not bet the farm on a platform. Apple paints it like the platform makers are ONLY freeloaders that leverage their platform while also diluting it. While in many cases this is true, many small shops build tools to make it so that they can more cost effectively target more than one platform. Android/iPhone being a common grouping, Windows/OS X another, and in games it's XBox360/Playstation3.

And in my opinion, Apple is a monopoly or on it's way. But I almost don't care they've done so much to improve mobile quality they deserve to reap much of the benefit.

</comment><comment><USER29> If this is true about Microsoft, then isn't Apple just Microsoft with worse PR?

Microsoft didn't disallow netscape from running on it's platform. It came out with a competitive product and leveraged (what turned out to be illegally) it's position against it's competitor.

If Apple were behaving the same way, they would allow Flash (or other programs) to be installed on the platform duke it out through business processes to allow the market determine a winner.

</comment><comment><USER30> Unfortunately, the article doesn't do anything to back up the headline. Apple is being pretty douchey, but they actually make good products. Microsoft generally doesn't. I think Apple may eventually lose mobile to Android, but it'll take a while. I wish some one would make better products than Apple. Their products aren't perfect, but they are better than most.

</comment><comment><USER31> Pure linkbait title.

</comment><comment><USER32> Apple's marketing strategy is better than MSFT, e.g. restriction (i.e. iPhone OS 4.0 ToS) was marketed as a feature.

</comment><comment><USER33> "just"

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm glad this crap keeps getting to the top of HN. I want news, not opinion!

</comment><comment><USER35> The OP essay has about as much logical integrity as a damp paper towel. It's semi-transparent and will fall apart the second you poke it.

All you young people crying "monopoly!" and "anti-competitive practices!" could really use a dose of history.

Just like a blogger removing your comments is not censorship; just like Apple refusing your app is not censorship; Apple refusing to accept cross-compiled apps is not censorship, anti-competitive, or monopolistic.

Apple does not have a monopoly.

There are many, many other smart phones you can use and develop for. Apple does not control them at all, in any way, and has no agreements with their manufacturers. Apple has no exclusivity agreements with telcos, either, as to which phones the telcos will sell in addition to the iPhone.

Apple has nothing to do with twisting the arms of third-party companies who sell computers. There is no illegal monopolistic action going on, like charging OEMs for Windows licenses per computer sold - regardless of whether Windows is loaded on the device. Safari can easily be deleted and replaced with any browser you like on the Mac.

If you want to look at a company that is gunning for Microsoft-type monopoly, look at Google with their Android and their questionable licensing scheme for OEMs.

Blocking programming languages is not the same thing as blocking a competing browser.

Apple does not have a product that competes with Flash in the world. They are only disallowing it on their platform. That is their prerogative, and completely legal and ethical in every way considerable.

Furthermore, Apple and Adobe do not compete head-to-head on the products in question. Don't tell me "They would compete if you could use Flash apps on the iPhone!" because that argument holds no water at all. You'd still be using the iPhone, is the point.

If you don't like it, you are free to vote with your wallet and your code. Develop for Palm Pre. Develop for Windows Mobile. Develop for whatever the hell Blackberry runs. Develop for Android. Or how about Symbian?

Did I miss any?

This choice, by the way, is how you can tell it's not a monopoly.

Just because you WANT in, on your terms, and Apple says no, doesn't make it a monopoly. Just because it inconveniences you doesn't make it wrong. And just because it's happening to you doesn't make it important.

<comment><USER36> Where did the OP claim that Apple was a monopoly? Maybe it was this: "That is one difference between Apple and Microsoft- Microsoft was (still is) a monopoly, while Apple isn't." No, that can't be it. Hmmm, I can't find it...

<comment><USER35> The entire argument hinged around "cutting off the air supply to Netscape," which was Microsoft's defining anti-competitive (ergo monopolistic) practice -- for people who only heard about monopolies from the major news network soundbites.

This is just ludicrous:

> Microsoft may have destroyed Netscape, and Digital Research, and dozens of > other companies, with illegal abuse of their monopoly powers. But nothing > they did threatened to bring the industry to a shuddering halt, ceasing all > development of new and better ways of doing things. Microsoft never made > Haskell illegal.

Yes, they strongarmed every OEM within an inch of their lives -- and they actually stifled competition -- meanwhile Apple just won't let you crosscompile apps for their phone.

Yikes.

<comment><USER36> His argument really hinges on it being rediculous for Apple to dictate what language people can program in. Comparisons to any other company are just a rhetorical device. I actually think he overstates the effects of the Windows monopoly, but even if you think he understates it that doesn't make what Apple is doing ok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> And better products and better design

<comment><USER14> Microsoft's keyboards are much better than Apple's

<comment><USER38> Microsoft's mice certainly are.

<comment><USER14> That latest Apple multi-touch mouse is very nice.

<comment><USER39> I voted you back up to 1. Keep expressing your preferences. I don't know why you were downvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Apple makes things people like

</comment><comment><USER40> ... and vastly better products. Plus: they don't lie and cheat, and they are not convicted criminals. But still, you made your point.</comment>


Viewing Python 3.2 as the successor to Python 2.7 - <AUTHOR> http://sayspy.blogspot.com/2010/10/viewing-python-32-as-successor-to.html <comment><USER2> The short version is this: Python-Dev is working on the release we hope people are using _in a few years_ , not the one we hope you use in a _a few months_.

Python 2.7 will live for a _long time_ (years) as a stable, bug-fixed release.

There are no compelling features to "force" the existence of a 2.8 release, which would overly stress already over-allocated resources.

<comment><USER3> The majority of my day is spent working on projects on Google App Engine, so I'm forced to use 2.5.

I have a couple of toy projects in 3.x, but I'm stuck until GAE changes.

<comment><USER2> Yup, and that will be the same story for some time. Again, we're talking years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know if there are enough compatible libraries out there to make using Python 3 in production viable yet? Last time I looked into it (about 6 months ago), it was a non-starter for me.

<comment><USER5> If you have to ask then why even bother moving to python3 at this point? If you don't want a python3 feature bad enough to keep up with the library releases you depend on then chances are the major version of python you are running is inconsequential.

When the time comes, say Debian stable defaulting to python3, or RHEL (haha) then you can deal with porting.

Otherwise as an end user Python2.X is quite alright.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A very clear post on the future of the Python language that should probably be sung from mountain-tops in addition to being said in this blog post. Or at the very least, stated on every download page of the latest 2.x releases on python.org.

I still wonder about the rate of 3.x adoption will be, though. My university (RPI) still had Python 2.4 on all the CS machines last year, which made some minor things (I wish I could remember one!) a bit frustrating.

<comment><USER7> I also wonder how Django not adopting it for a while is going to affect the transition as well. I realize a lot of other things are in play but Django is a big one I think.

<comment><USER8> It's not like Djangonauts are against moving to 3.x it will happen, and probably sooner/faster than you think.

As for universities upgrading, it's like people who still use Windows XP and IE6. Most people have already upgraded but the long tail will stick around for a long time for no discernible reason.

<comment><USER7> I watched the last panel where the Django core team talked. It didn't sound like it would sooner/faster than I thought it would. It will happen is about all they said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Most (only) interesting thing mentioned was 3to2 <http://www.startcodon.com/wordpress/?p=373>

</comment><comment><USER10> What the dev doesn't understand is that from the users' point of view, 2.7 doesn't even exist yet, much less 3.2 Virtually everyone not administering their own machine is using 2.4 or 2.5

<comment><USER11> That was just as much the case when 2.5 had just been released and "virtually everyone" was still using 2.2 or 2.3 (or perhaps even 1.5.2).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm missing the point. What's the deal with language designers wanting to have just one version of a language? Why can you mix and match Python and C while still not being able to mix and match Python 2 and Python 3? Just stop improving and adding features to the Python 2 side.

Of course people want backward compatibility: don't you know that developing software is hard work? Even old and stale libraries can be useful: why should we discard them?

<comment><USER12> Could anyone please explain why I'm being downvoted? A compiler/interpreter which can compile/interpret two versions of a language is out of this world? I think it's the most pragmatic approach: let people use old libraries while allowing them to develop with the improved language.

If I'm not mistaken, ISE Eiffel (now EiffelStudio) can compile both C/C++ and Eiffel sources to make a single executable. ISE Eiffel however is an industrial-strength compiler backed by a great software engineer.

Current Common Lisp compilers can compile source code as old as fifty years ago with little or no modifications. Now, that's backward compatibility.</comment></comment>


A Manager's Guide to Kubernetes Adoption - <AUTHOR> https://unixism.net/2019/08/a-managers-guide-to-kubernetes-adoption/ <comment><USER2> While I know it's not the main point of the article, I'm getting really tired of the anti-sysadmin bias in pretty much anything related to devops. It seems to be a favorite trope to paint sysadmins as a dying breed of monkeys who are only capable of keeping pets and doing manual tasks when they get around to lifting their knuckles off the floor. Who do you think is writing the playbooks for ansible? How do you think you can even write those things without first having a deep understanding of how the system works and having a set of procedures around them? Who do you think runs the systems your containers sit on top of?

Just because infrastructure as code appears to use the same tools that developers use (text files, git) doesn't mean developers can do the job. Me having access to a pen and paper doesn't make me Shakespeare.

This is especially harmful in an article that claims to be aimed at management, ostensibly trying to set the future path for organizations.

P.S. Otherwise a nice overview of things

<comment><USER3> Developers did not took your job, it was the machines...

Kubernetes strength is its declarative nature. I.e. the actual "tasks" (the imperative part), moved into the controller code and is being automated away.

As more and more operators/CRD (i.e. automatic sysadmins) get written, more jobs will disappear.

For example, you can imagine a database operator that just by stating your schema (as an CRD), will create the tables for you, the indices, do automatic backup/restore, do automatic migrations, create the monitors and the alerts. I.e. will completely replace the DBA.

<comment><USER4> There already is a database operator that can do everything you have listed and a lot more ( I helped write it ), but it doesn't remove the need for DBA's. It just changes what they do on a day to day basis. I think this is what OP was saying. Just because you have an operator that can do most of what a traditional DBA does doesn't mean you can replace all the world's DBA's. Someone still needs to know _why_ a specific query managed to do a multiplicative join and lock all your tables for hours, even if the operator knows how to flag that query and reject it.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but in a day of a dba, or even over a month, how much does he deals with understanding deadlocks?

BTW, the operator that I saw are not there yet. What I want to see is a CRD for a set of input schemas, and an output schema, and let the operator create the most efficient query.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For the life of me I can't figure out why I would recommend Kubernetes to any company who is already on AWS. Except for the custom stuff, you should probably used a managed equivalent and for the custom parts where you need HA, scalability, etc. just use regular old ECS or Fargate for Serverless Docker. Heck even simpler, sometimes is just to use a bunch of small VMs and bring them up or down based on a schedule, number of messages in a queue, health checks, etc and throw them behind an autoscaling group.

I'm not familiar with Azure or GCP, but they have to have more easily managed offerings than K8s.

If you're on prem - that's a different use case but my only experience being responsible for the complete architecture of an on prem solution was small enough that a combination of Consul/Nomad/Vault/Fabio made sense. It gave us the flexibility to mix Docker containers, raw executables, shell scripts, etc.

That being said, for both Resume Driven Development reasons and because we might be able to find people who know what they were doing, if I had to do another on prem implementation that called for it, I would probably lean toward K8s.

<comment><USER6> > Consul/Nomad/Vault/Fabio

This is not very much easier to implement than kubernetes, in my experience, and you end up with a less capable system at the end of it.

<comment><USER5> And this was on Windows - for reasons.

None of these can run as Windows Services by themselves. I had to use NSSM. That being said.

-Consul a three line yaml configuration to set it up in cluster. It's a single standalone executable that you run in server mode or client mode.

\- once you install Consul on all of the clients and tell it about the cluster, the next step is easy.

\- run the Nomad executable as a server, if you already have Consul, there is no step 2. It automatically configures itself using Consul.

\- run Nomad in client mode on your app/web servers. If you already have the Consul client running - there is no step 2.

\- Vault was a pain, and I only did it as a proof of concept. I ended up just using Consul for all of the configuration and a encryption class where I needed to store secrets.

Did I mention that we had a lot of C# framework code that we didn't want to try containerize and Nomad handles everything.

That being said, I wouldn't do it again. If we had a pure Linux shop and the competencies to maintain Linux I would have gone with K8s instead if I had to do an on prem implementation.

But honestly, at the level I'm at now, no one would pay me the kind of money I ask for to do an on prem implementation from scratch. It's not my area of expertise - AWS is.

<comment><USER6> Well you can spin up a working k8s cluster in 5 minutes with Kops, but that's obviously not the end of the story.

<comment><USER5> How well would that work orchestrating a combination of a Docker containers, C# (.Net Framework not .Net Core) executables, Powershell scripts, etc?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the author missed some key points:

1) It will take you longer than you think 2) It will be harder than you imagined 3) It's harder to find people who know it and non-trivial to get good at it (this should have been closer to the top) your project can be done in six months by five k8s experts but you only found one dude who knows it and he's more a'ight than pro.

It's probably still worth it, just go in with your eyes open.

Be prepared for this unfortunate pattern: "this thing I want just doesn't work and probably never will.

Deploying k8s on a small, self-contained project that you just want to set up and go forever is probably a good place to begin. If you try to move your whole production workflow in one go... You're going to have a bad time.

<comment><USER6> > 1) It will take you longer than you think 2) It will be harder than you > imagined 3) It's harder to find people who know it

Just so people have an idea of how hard it is to find people. I've got just about 1 year of experience getting kubernetes into production at a very large (multi-billion dollar) company. I have so many job offers coming in that I'm not even talking to companies offering less than 350k total comp. I don't have a college degree and 5 years ago I was making $50k a year. That might be just the generally bubble-ish nature of the tech industry right now, but if they're throwing around that kind of money for someone like me, I imagine that small shops have no way to compete.

<comment><USER8> Any chance you'd be happy to elaborate on what your role is? Are you primarily part of a dev-ops team, or tackling Kubernetes as part of developing the product? Did you obtain CNCF certification / think there's much value in those?

<comment><USER6> devops and no certs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yuck. We blew a ton of money and time, despite a great infra/hpc/etc team (PhD, exGoogle, exNetflix, ex-scale video, etc), on a skilled but overambitious infra subteam where we should have (and ended on) docker / compose. K8s makes sense if you have a ton of servers or scale or devs, and want to pay employees and team in perpetuity to focus on it, but for half the folks out there, stick with the pieces or you have the cost of openstack and no better off for the increment over just a few of the pieces you can carve out without k8s itself.

The article that leadership needs, vs vendor / fanboy bullshit, is "only do k8s if you have these exact scale and ops problems and your stack looks exactly like this and your entire app team looks like this and you have fulltime k8s people now and forever, and you are willing to tax each team member to now deal with k8s glue/ops/perf problems, and xyz other things , otherwise if any of these simplifying or legacy assumptions apply, perfect: you get to focus on these way faster and cheaper agile orchestration options and actions".

<comment><USER10> > where we should have (and ended on) docker / compose

We ended up doing this too.

Do you have any links to deploying docker-compose in production? We've not been able to find out much. However our solution seems to work well - am keen to find out how other people are managing host setup, updating and remotely controlling docker-compose

In our setup, we essentially use docker-compose as a process manager:

\- Updates with docker-compose.yml via git syncs

\- Logging via journald (which in turn is forwarded)

\- Simple networking with `network: host` and managing firewalls at the host level with dashboard/labelling

\- Restarts / Launch on startup with `restart: always` policy

IMO, more straightforward in the past

1) Entrusting everything to a package manager or build script which might break on a new version release

2) Maintaining ansible script repository to do the host configuration, package management and updates for you - these too always need manual intervention on major version updates

<comment><USER9> Fairly similar. Docker/docker-compose takes care of launch, healthchecks / soft restarts, replication, GPU virtualization & isolation, log forwarding, status checks, and a bunch of other things. Most of our users end up on-prem, so the result is that _customers_ can admin relatively easily, not just us, despite weird stuff like use of GPU virtualization. I've had to debug folks in airgapped rooms over the phone: ops simplicity is awesome.

Some key things beyond your list from an ops view:

\-- containers/yml parameterized by version tag (and most things we gen): simplifies _a lot_

\-- packer + ~50 line shell script for airgapped tarball/AMI/VM/etc. generation + tagged git/binary store copies = on-prem + multiple private cloud releases are now at a biweekly cadence, and for our cloud settings, turning on an AMI will autolaunch it

\-- low down-time system upgrades are now basically launching new instances (auto-healthcheck) + running a small data propagation, and upon success, it dns flips.

\-- That same script will next turn into our auto-updater on-prem / private cloud users without much difference. They generally are single-node, which `docker-compose -p` solves.

\-- secrets are a bit wonkier, but essentially docker-compose passes .envs, and dev uses keybase (= encrypted gitfs) and prod is something else

Some cool things around GPUs happening that I can't talk about for a bit unfortunately, and supporting the dev side is a longer story.

Some of these patterns and the tools involved are normal part of the k8s life... which is my point: going incrementally from docker / docker-compose or equiv lightweight tooling will save your team + business time / money / heartache. Sometimes it's worth blowing months/years/millions and taxing the folks who'd be otherwise uninvolved, but easily for over half the folks out there, probably 90%+.. so not worth it. Instead, as we need a thing, you can see how we incrementally add it from a as-simple-as-possible baseline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For our organisation (mid size, varied skill level across the org) Kubernetes solves the problem of pattern drift. There is one way to do things, and when there are multiple ways, we enforce a single one.

An example is databases. We offer Postgres (via an operator that provisions an RDS instance). AWS lets you choose whatever you want, and frankly at our scale and level of complexity, there is simply no reason to choose one SQL db over another other than bikeshedding. So being able to enforce Postgres, and as a result, provide a better, more managed provisioning experience (with security by default and less footguns) and training and support just for one DB type is incredibly powerful.

As Kelsey Hightower has often said, Kubernetes is a platform for building platforms. Just deploying a Kubernetes cluster, giving devs access and calling it a day is rarely the right answer. Think of it as a way to effectively provide a Heroku alternative inside your company, without starting from scratch or paying Heroku prices

<comment><USER12> Aren't you using a technology to solve a social problem?

I don't have the experience with Kubernetes to have an informed opinion, but I've solved plenty of social problems in software organizations. Those are usually approachable without making a long-term commitment to a technology that may or may not be the right choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good points in here. The one thing about Kubernetes that I think teams need to be wary of is that upgrading needs to be treated as a first class citizen. In order to use the awesome tooling that so many people are building in Kubernetes (see basically all of the CNCF projects), the cluster API needs to be kept up to date. Once you start falling behind, you run the risks of being stuck in a version compatibility nightmare.

Other than that, I can't imagine not running non-stateful applications on something other than Kubernetes anymore.

<comment><USER14> > Other than that, I can't imagine not running non-stateful applications on > something other than Kubernetes anymore.

How do you deal with stateful applications like databases?

<comment><USER15> > How do you deal with stateful applications like databases?

The impedance issues between kubernetes and stateful applications have been mostly solved. The main problems stemmed from the object model not yet being mature enough. Deployments did not offer good solutions for assigning stable identities to pods across restarts, or making it possible for them to find and attach to persistent volumes. StatefulSets and PersistentVolumeClaims solve these problems. Most of our k8s workloads are stateless, but we do run some big elasticsearch workloads in it. Having said that, I think if you're a small- to mid-sized business running on the cloud managed offerings are the first place to look. GCP CloudSQL has worked extremely well for us.

<comment><USER16> To someone who is not familiar with the technology beyond a high-level overview like in OP, the sentence "The main problems stemmed from the object model not yet being mature enough" sounds like "The main problems with stateful applications stemmed from there being problems with stateful applications".

<comment><USER17> The problem was that these features came a little later after many of the stateless features were in there. Now we're talking about the stateful stuff being stable for many years, so all the arguments against it are usually old or uninformed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> DISCLAIMER:

I work for Buffer have been working on our production Kubernetes cluster.

When we started with Kubernetes we were faced with multiple challenges. Fortunately, with time we managed to tackle most of them. I will list them here and share our learnings.

Code Deployment:

[https://overflow.buffer.com/2017/08/31/buffer-deploy-code- ku...](https://overflow.buffer.com/2017/08/31/buffer-deploy-code-kubernetes/)

Application Observability:

[https://itnext.io/when-istio-meets-jaeger-an-example-of- end-...](https://itnext.io/when-istio-meets-jaeger-an-example-of-end-to-end- distributed- tracing-2c136eb335eb?source=friends_link&sk=b08b580596aea72b5404521df924a191)

[https://itnext.io/application-observability-in-kubernetes- wi...](https://itnext.io/application-observability-in-kubernetes-with-datadog- apm-and-logging-a-simple-and- actionable-790ee8aefe29?source=friends_link&sk=c1fa55fd604d968c1869e7e1efff218f)

Cluster Upgrade:

[https://itnext.io/upgrading-kubernetes-cluster-with-kops- and...](https://itnext.io/upgrading-kubernetes-cluster-with-kops-and-things- to-watch-out- for-8b5e7dff71c0?source=friends_link&sk=9f326510f264e7a2a2cac97ae70410d0)

[https://itnext.io/kubernetes-master-nodes-backup-for-kops- on...](https://itnext.io/kubernetes-master-nodes-backup-for-kops-on-aws-a- step-by-step- guide-4d73a5cd2008?source=friends_link&sk=6968c6521efcf0875db0f9a07db1fbd9)

I do think it's a long term investment but you will eventually see the benefits after 18 months or so.

</comment><comment><USER19> We just moved 34 microservices to EKS, along with associated migration of datalayer and built out coupling to the few things remaining on-prem. It took about 24 months and cost about $20M, about twice the optimistic estimates. We are beginning to see the force multiplier. As a person who does things, it was a slog, but it seems to have been worth it.

<comment><USER20> What cost $20M?

<comment><USER19> The labor. The AWS bill has not been significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really dislike the "herds not pets" analogy. It implies lack of attachment due to necessity of slaughter - it also implies lack of attachment to your craftsmanship (as in you care less about each host). I find it jarring every time I read it and think the analogy is fraught and totally unnecessary.

It is a really awkward way to indicate that you need to think of things on a service and resource basis as apposed to a hand-crafted machine basis. Do we need to bring animals into it at all?

<comment><USER22> It's a simple term which uses a well known social phenomena as an analogy to describe an architecture. You could have called it Maxwell-Hertz Philosophy of infrastructure design, but then would need to spend a ton of time socializing it. But ... why? Pets vs cattle is easy to understand, you get the concept right away with little explanation, and it's kinda tongue in cheek. Another term I've heard used for it is to treat infrastructure as phoenixes: you can burn it down but get a functioning one right away. But cattle vs pets lets you refer to both kinds of machines.

I'm sorry if the references to animal cruelty (kinda?) makes you uneasy, but let's be honest, this is CS. Master-Slave replication, parent killing child processes, canary deployments etc all seem distasteful if all jumbled together. Their use is intended as an attempt at humor, but also a catchy and vivid name to easily recall the underlying principles, which is kinda brilliant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is Kubernetes all about scaling a service on a cluster of servers? Or is it also used for managing the same applications on a bunch of servers?

e.g. 100 customers, 100 bare-metal servers, the same dockerized applications on each one. I need to deploy a new version of one of these applications on every server.

Or something like Ansible would be better suited and easier for this use case? I never used Ansible but I understood that I could make a recipe that does a git pull and a docker-compose down && docker-compose up -d on every server in a single command, right?

<comment><USER24> You can use Kubernetes to run service on every machine. But that is usually done for support services like logging that need to run on every node.

Is it one customer per server? That wouldn't be a very good fit for Kubernetes. Kubernetes is about running containers on cluster of machines, scaling multiple services.

Kubernetes would let you run service per customer on cluster of machines and scale the number of containers for each customer independently. You wouldn't have to setup new server for each customer.

<comment><USER17> I disagree about it not being a good fit. Even if you run one application per host (and if we're honest, it will always be more when we find flaws). You still get the benefits of very predictable deployments, failovers, lifecycle management, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm genuinely interested to know when containers should be used. I'm not ignorant and understand advantages - consistent env, run anywhere, fast startup time, etc. But there is also considerable cost involved with increased complexity, educating devs, hiring experienced DevOps, etc

I have over 15+ years of professional development experience and AWS experience and I understand the scale.

Our company has 20-30 instances used by 5-6 services. We use terraform/ansible to deploy infrastructure so deploys are pretty reliable and repeatable. So I am genuinely interested to understand if it's worth going container route?

<comment><USER22> I don't think you should move unless you expect your company will expand a lot. It seems like your scale is fairly modest, your setup works and users are happy. So it's probably fine.

Advanced orchestration systems like kubernetes are very valuable if you want to do multiple deployments in the same day, across many different services, without losing your mind. It lets you move very very quickly... the time to build a docker container, push it up to a registry and switch your deployment to start using the updated version is ridiculously simple.

So it depends on what kind of shop you are and what your devs want. If they like to iterate rapidly, containers and kubernetes is a well known path to get there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I find Kubernetes a funny tech experiment. It does not present any new innovation. We first had Docker. It's too hard to use. Let's abstract Docker with an orchestration layer. We have Kubernetes. It's now too abstract and hard to use. Let's create kops to tame it.

I guess this whole experiment is backed by a deep pocket tech giant trying to chip away market share from the other two giants.

If Kubernetes can make us less dependent on AWS, that's a good thing. Until then, I just sit and learn about this silly tech battle. I'm not keen to move production stuff into Kubernetes.

<comment><USER17> Things that are very general and powerful will always require some level of skill to use. There are easy ways to use kubernetes (look at kubeadm), but you still absolutely need to understand the fundamentals in case you hit a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Whether Kubernetes will really drive up your server utilization levels depends on how effective your Operations staff were at bin-packing and whether your a Kubernetes cluster uses cpu quotas. There are inefficiencies in how the Linux scheduler deals with cpu cgroups that constrain CPU utilization.

</comment><comment><USER28> K8s is insecure, heavily marketed by non engineers, and overally complicated for no reason.

Its basically openstack redux yet for the instagram generation.

Most devops people I know think it's a total piece.

If the fanboyism doesn't die down I'd like to see these articles heavily moderated.</comment>


'coding-night-live': web-based communication application for codelabs - <AUTHOR> I found that there's awesome project called 'coding-night-live'. it's a web-based communication application for codelabs.
Popular web-based applications like Slack, PingPong, etc., do exist for hosting interactive seminars, but none are customized exclusively for the codelabs. coding-night-live is the light-weight, installation-free, web-based solution for the awesome codelab-thristy programmers!
 codelab is a fun step-by-step, seminar-based approach to developing a software together.
- Youtube introduction for coding-night-live v1.0 is here: https://youtu.be/EgOmuShXVNE
- coding-night-live github: https://github.com/dduk-ddak/coding-night-live <comment><USER2> It's an interesting project. It might be useful to let students know about programming.

</comment><comment><USER3> `docker-compose up -d`

i like the ability to run with docker ;)

and i'm surprised you created it with django.

<comment><AUTHOR> and with python!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> awesome project!</comment>


Ask HN: Can you take something and make it better? - <AUTHOR> Is it the same thing then after you edited it.<p>Is iterative improvement a valid concept? <comment><USER2> [https://twitter.com/kaimarkaru/status/1139134499390988288?s=...](https://twitter.com/kaimarkaru/status/1139134499390988288?s=21)

Sorry, to better picture my answer see the following:

[https://d32ogoqmya1dw8.cloudfront.net/images/NAGTWorkshops/c...](https://d32ogoqmya1dw8.cloudfront.net/images/NAGTWorkshops/complexsystems/workshop2010/history_complexity_science.v2.jpg)</comment>


BitcoinWireless.com - 280 carriers in 112 countries, exclusively with Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoinwireless.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> >> Hey All! We just rolled out the soft launch and looking for people to test and review for us! As always, if your order fails and its our fault...the transfer is free! Thanks, Charlie and the team @ BitInstant

(from the reddit thread: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/180alb/bitcoinwirel...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/180alb/bitcoinwirelesscom_280_carriers_in_112_countries/))</comment>


Megaupload Seizure Order "Null and Void" Says High Court - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-seizure-order-null-and-void-says-high-court-120318/ <comment><USER2> Kim Dotcom's personal asset seizure null and void. Not the seizure of Megaupload assets. This really has very little bearing on the Megaupload case as a whole.

<comment><USER3> Unless it may reflect an overall careless (or worse, abusive) attitude by the various prosecution teams. This is a tough case, involving many jurisdictions and different civil, criminal and process law and, worse of all, driven by economic pressure by companies that are being questioned on many levels for using law enforcement as thugs, as well as other shady business practices.

If they want to win this case, they'd better do all their homework flawlessly, dot all i's and cross all t's. If they don't, it will set a precedent that will frame future cases like this.

And there will be many more of them.

<comment><USER4> An error has been made and is now beeing admitted. A good sign for a working jurisdiction imo.

While companies may be questioned I much more question the ethics of this kim distributing copyrighted material without compensating the authors and then buying ferraris instead. Not a role model I'd like to prevail.

<comment><USER5> Why is this being downvoted? It's not the popular view in these parts but it's a legitimate one and did not strike me as trolling.

<comment><USER3> I believe people disagree with him and downvoting has replaced discussion in many cases. You may downvote a comment that's plain wrong, but you shouldn't do it if someone else already countered the argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Rather than applying for an interim restraining order, the Police Commissioner applied for a foreign restraining order instead, one which did not give Dotcom a chance to mount a defense."

This makes a case for the mistake being deliberate, since it may have given the police the element of surprise or let them move quicker on the seizures.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is great news. Seizure laws are terrible. The ability of a government to destroy a business without due process should not be permitted (especially a foreign government). It's unfortunate that the ruling is based on a technicality.

<comment><USER8> I get what you're saying, but imagine that someone stole your TV, and the police found the guy, but they didn't get your TV back because the courts hadn't convicted the perpetrator yet. They should at least hold the assets in escrow until a resolution is reached, otherwise people could just spend / destroy the assets. Many courts will require a perpetrator to pay restitution in cases where a victim is financially harmed, but in this case there's nobody to pay back, just millions of dollars to blow before an inevitable conviction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Original story: [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5...](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10792862)

Let's hope it's struck down but I'm going to guess they'll hold up the proper order under pressure from the US.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is already a thread on this on the front page: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3718922>

</comment><comment><USER11> So there is a police guy who doesn't know how to do his job meeting a judge who doesn't know how to do his job, and all on a case that gets world wide, front page press coverage. Talk about bad luck.

<comment><USER12> Bad luck... or evidence of officials being systematically bad at their jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The first order is void. The validity of the second order (that corrected the original issue) is still up for debate (if I read this correctly).

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a totally off topic but are those legal terms or that 2012 is code year?

</comment><comment><USER15> _"The blunder, which occurred because the police applied for the wrong type of court order..."_

Blunder my ass, sounds like abuse of power that, against the police hopes, ended up being checked.

<comment><USER16> I'm skeptical that they could have deliberately done something wrong just hoping it wouldn't get noticed. This is a very high-profile case; they would be expecting a lot scrutiny.

<comment><USER17> Plus the guy can afford the very best of legal counsel. Any holes in the case are sure to get found and exploited.

<comment><USER18> All his money has been seized. He might not get it back. Some countries separate out the mis-handling of a case form the actual case.

"Fruit of the poison tree"[1] doesn't hold in the UK, for example.

[1] (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree>)

<comment><USER19> Google couldnt find anything to prove this to me, but if its true then how the country can properly function (UK) if cops can do whethever the heck they want to as long as they get the "evidence" as a result. no idea.

<comment><USER18> Cops can't do whatever they like to get evidence. But evidence is not thrown out because the police used the wrong warrant or whatnot. Maybe the officer doing wrong would face disciplinary procedures (resulting in loss of pension and job) or maybe they'd face criminal trial.

<comment><USER19> there won't be nothing. Cops whether break law or not don't get in trouble, by the rule. There is exemption but its a statistical noise just to make people feel like there is a justice.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is YouTube doing mining? - <AUTHOR> I am using the YouTube app installed from Google Play on an Android TV box. Everytime when I start a video, it is smooth for the first second, then highly congested in the coming few seconds (less than 10 seconds) but there is plenty buffer (white area in the progress bar). Then the video become smooth again. This pattern happen to every video on the Android TV. <comment><USER2> No.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's other possible reason? This pattern is really annoying.

</comment><comment><USER3> What exactly are you suggesting?

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect so but I've not inspected the device so no evidences. Want to see if others is having similar behavior. It seems to be fine on Android phone version app and website version.</comment></comment>


IBM patents runtime code replacement in web applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20120216184.pdf

<comment><USER2> I really feel like there is an educational opportunity for the HN community about patents. We frequently have these articles where the title of the patent is copy pasted into a submission to generate the largest amount of hysteria possible. Then the HN community completely ignores the fact that a) the titles are misleading and b) the titles are meaningless in terms of patent protection.

Based on the claims, they are patenting a system for updating client side web server applications. The system attaches source code information to JavaScript object in order to be able to determine the version of source code that generated the objects. The system attempts to provide a way for web applications to update client side code in a browser using the source code the objects were derived from as a way to continue operation without restart.

Now, I'm not saying that is novel. What I'm saying is that there are a lot of presumptions that happen before people even get to the claims. Typically, I encourage people to read the claims first, then work their way back through the rest of the application. Without knowing the claims, there is no way to know what they think is protectable.

This isn't a justification of the system. I think (software) patents and the patent system are incredibly broken. Thats not a reason to be unfamiliar with the systems. Know your enemy. reply

<comment><USER3> It's also not a patent, just a published patent application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> THIS IS NOT A PATENT. This is what's known as a pre-grant publication. This application has been filed, but it has not yet been examined. Chances are quite low that it will issue as a patent in its current form.

Yes, the claims are broad... but this is just a published app, not a patent.

<comment><USER4> I'm really curious which claims will stand if it's accepted. Obviously not claim 1, but maybe some of the others could look novel enough from a patent examiner's point of view.

Doesn't Rails do this already? What other prior art could a prosecutor show?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is almost exactly what I'm currently coding in a side project in order to dynamically load different parts of a game when necessary instead of front- loading it all at once.

This is just another example of an obvious method to solve a problem that any developer will come up with as soon as they need to solve that problem.

<comment><USER6> almost exactly... ok.

<comment><USER5> Did you read the code in the linked document? It's trivial and obvious.

<comment><USER4> It's also an extremely narrow patent; the only claims that are likely to be accepted only cover _web_ applications, and the later claims only cover programs written in Javascript. If you can successfully convince people that your game is not a web application, or if it is not written in Javascript, this patent may not even apply to you.

We'll have to see.

(IANAL)

<comment><USER5> My program is a web app, and it is written in JS. The code in the application looks remarkably similar to my own.

The major difference is they're looking for a new version of software that exists on the client while mine looks to see if a certain module/game is loaded in the client and then loads it in if it's not already present.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Prior art: <https://trigger.io/reload/> <https://build.phonegap.com/docs/hydration>

Plus every app that has ever had to solve this problem. There is nothing non- obvious in this patent.

<comment><USER4> Question for all you patent lawyers:

When was this patent filed? Was it filed Jan 24, 2012 and the international patent filed Feb 22, 2001? If so, why does the "Publication Classification" section show a date of (2006.01)?

If this patent was filed in 2006 (which is unlikely but I can't tell), then these might not count as prior art.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is not novel. This is not innovative. It is a relatively obvious method for dynamic code loading over the web that any intermediate programmer could have arrived at independently.

<comment><USER3> It's also not a patent. It's a patent application.

<comment><USER9> The USPO seems to rubber stamp all software patents.

<comment><USER3> As a patent attorney, I can assure you that this is not true.

<comment><USER10> As a programmer you're going to have a hard time convincing me that it's not.

<comment><USER3> No one could argue that the patent office never lets through a patent that claims obvious subject matter. Mistakes get made, and bullshit patents issue.

In general though, the examiners I have dealt with are more likely to advance bullshit _rejections_ than issue bullshit _patents_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think this is the first time I've seen actual code written into a patent. I didn't know you could do that.

<comment><USER12> Oh, I'm sure you could, but most don't seem to bother because it would be too specific and might possibly make it easy to create a workaround to the patent. Why be specific to control a small part when you can be general and control the majority?

<comment><USER13> I don't think this is true in general. Most patents I have read have had very detailed descriptions of the invention. In fact, it is to the patentee's benefit to be as detailed as possible in describing the invention. It will be harder for people to claim you didn't invent something if you have completely described it in your patent.

In contrast, what is actually claimed (that is, the bounds of the legal right to exclude that a patent grants), is typically made as broad as possible. Claims will be included that are both broad and narrow, so that if the patent is ever used in court, and the broad claims are knocked out by some new prior art, there are still narrower claims that can be asserted.

In general, the patentee should describe every version of the invention they have conceived of, in as much detail as possible, so as to support both broad and narrow claims. If the description is not specific, it is generally for lack of time or money on the part of the patentee or inventor, and it results in a weaker patent.

<comment><USER12> I would agree with regular, every day patents describing mechanical inventions and the like. But show me software patents that show the actual code involved in producing the result. From what I've seen they usually have drawings showing the method and/or result. They do not show how it works.

It would be like a patent for a hand gun that has exterior drawings of the gun, a hand holding the gun/pulling the trigger, and then showing the bullet coming out of the barrel. No explanation of how the inner mechanism itself works. Therefore any other gun that works in a similar exterior manner but has a completely different inner mechanism would violate the patent.

That's my understanding of how most software patents are done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could someone more knowledgeable please explain what the consequences of this patent might be?

<comment><USER15> On first glance it looks like it could cause trouble for frameworks like Meteor - <http://meteor.com/>

<comment><USER16> Except Meteor is clearly prior art. The patent was filed Jan 24, 2012 and Meteor's first commit was in November 2011.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> IBM folks never aware of Erlang hot code replacement. [https://www.google.co.in/search?q=erlang+hot+code+replacemen...](https://www.google.co.in/search?q=erlang+hot+code+replacement&oq=erlang+hot+code+replacement&sugexp=chrome,mod=11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

<comment><USER4> Did you read the patent? This one only applies to web applications and many of its claims are Javascript specific (which is pretty narrow for a patent, but that's how it was written).

Erlang is great, but depending on which claims are accepted, it probably can't count as prior art here.

There's also some secret sauce in here about hot patching JS objects and annotating JS objects with information about which source files they came from.

(IANAL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So.... where do I send my examples of prior art? patent office?

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm so happy to live in Europe.

<comment><USER20> It's a US extension of a European patent application: [http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?FT=...](http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?FT=D&date=20120823&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP&CC=US&NR=2012216184A1&KC=A1&ND=4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This certainly isn't Sparta</comment>


Warning, component.io is on sale - <AUTHOR> http://component.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just a warning for anyone who might have dependeded on it</comment>


Inspiritas - a free Bootstrap theme by Ripple - <AUTHOR> http://littke.com/2012/11/06/inspiritas-bootstrap-theme-by-ripple.html

<comment><USER2> Somewhat misleading, highcharts is only barely free, any use with a profit motive requires the paid license.

The other parts are pretty though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

I've mentioned this in the code: [https://github.com/littke/inspiritas- bootstrap/blob/master/j...](https://github.com/littke/inspiritas- bootstrap/blob/master/js/inspiritas.js#L27)

I'll clarify it in the blog post.

<comment><USER3> There's a typo: the code you pointed to says Highcarts.com, it should read Highc_h_arts.com

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, fixed

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Non-designer here - I've _never_ been able to get gradients right (the ones on the buttons, headers, etc). Is there a comprehensive guide to crafting this look?

<comment><USER5> Take a look at these for inspiration: <http://hellohappy.org/css3-buttons/>

The basics: choose a color, lighten it 5-10% for the top, darken it 10% for bottom, add a little saturation to the darker color. Dark (but not black) text with a `0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.75)` shadow.

<comment><USER6> I found it amusing that a recent blog post of the creator of those buttons has the quote:

      I believe 'a science of design' to be an impossible and indeed misleading goal.
      — Fred Brooks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pay attention folks, _this_ is how you use bootstrap.

<comment><USER6> Care to elaborate? I love Bootstrap but I look at this and see a design whose creator probably didn't see much benefit to using Bootstrap beyond being part of the Bootstrap ecosystem (i.e. they can clearly create a great design with or without Bootstrap).

<comment><USER7> Well, just because you can roll your own javascript library doesn't mean it's always the most effective way to build a website. What I like about this specifically is: it extends and overrides bootstrap, which makes it forward- compatible, and it does a great job of creating a very distinctive UI while retaining standard bootstrap DOM structure, so (in theory) you can just drop it into your existing bootstrap site and nothing will break.

Everything else I've seen so far re: skinning bootstrap has been very underwhelming. Tweaking the default color variables just isn't enough.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I love bootstrap's structure and formatting, but am hesitant to use it anymore since it gives off a "weekend side-project" vibe instead of "serious company".

Themes like these that change the appearance without changing the structure are awesome. Most bootstrap themes are just color modifications to the standard bootstrap. Inspiritas actually looks and feels completely new, which makes it useful. Kudos to Jonatan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great work. Just wondering if you tested on IE<9? On IE8 does not look very good.

</comment><comment><USER10> What's with the dashboards on all these Bootstrap themes?

</comment><comment><USER11> Are we going to get submerged with bootstrap/wordpress/else themes? I understand you want to show it off and that it is development/design/"hacker" related, but I also think that there are more appropriate places to receive the feedback you are looking for and to get in touch with the correct audience. I know that a lot of people show their products to HN and often get a good feedback but I would prefer if it was a new product or something more interesting.

<comment><USER12> At the moment we are far from swamped with Bootstrap themes. They are fairly relevant to my interests at the moment and I'm happy to see at least a few more before I start complaining.

I'd be happy to see a few less U.S. startup culture-related posts but I never vote them up so I suggest you do the same in cases like this.

<comment><USER13> I agree. I wish you could filter startup porn (and job ads) out of HN.

But bootstrap is great for hackers who don't have design help so it really is "Hacker News".

<comment><USER14> The show and ask HN posts are extremely simple to speed read over. Just as in any other aspect of your life you don't have to read everything in front of you. Just learn to skim and cherry pick your articles.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Visualization of Reddit votes and comments in realtime - <AUTHOR> http://erqqvg.com/vizeddit/?v=2.0

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised people haven't seen this before, considering how many times it's been posted on Reddit: <http://www.reddit.com/domain/erqqvg.com/top/?t=all>

What's really interesting is how fast the votes come in now vs. when this released early last year before the 2009 giant uptick in popularity of Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of some old (2006) Digg Labs experiments by Stamen Designs: <http://stamen.com/clients/digg>

Too bad labs.digg.com has been taken down by now...

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow...that felt like the love child of Frogger and Tetris. Fun to watch, but not exactly a good use of time.

</comment><comment><USER5> Easter egg: Rot13("reddit") = "erqqvg"

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems to stop after a minute or two...

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems to me that clicking on the column should open a new window/tab to that particular reddit.

</comment><comment><USER8> That's a lot of upvotes and downvotes. The vizeddit is proabably good for marketing reddit.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this all done in HTML5?

</comment><comment><USER10> wow this is really pretty!

</comment><comment><USER11> How is getting the data?

EDIT: It sounds like periodic scraping coupled with a lot of made up data to add flavor.

<comment><USER12> Reddit has a pretty decent API, you can add ".json" or ".xml" to pretty much every URL (e.g. <http://www.reddit.com/.xml>).</comment></comment>


Why a federal high-tech startup is a money loser - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/02/why-a-federal-high-tech-start-up-is-a-money-loser <comment><USER2> Similar article from last week:

[https://apnews.com/4936bda1a23d402787b73c2a9af21a3d/Washingt...](https://apnews.com/4936bda1a23d402787b73c2a9af21a3d/Washington%27s-version- of-Silicon-Valley-startup-founders)

</comment><comment><USER3> This was a really vexing article to read. No mention of other benefits of having a startup mentality inside the federal government, or any of the other benefits that groups like 18F or USDS have had.</comment>


GameQuery: javascript games with a jQuery plugin - <AUTHOR> http://gamequery.onaluf.org/

<comment><USER2> Sorry to harp on about Google's Chrome but - compiled JavaScript is just what you want to make JavaScript based games a practical proposition.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is one major problem when it comes to writing games in JavaScript: sound. Controlling sound _sucks_ in the browser. It's just about impossible to get it working well for any kind of game.

</comment><comment><USER4> just ran this site again today, and the JS is far faster now.</comment>


U.S. vs. Jeffrey Epstein - <AUTHOR> https://www.scribd.com/document/416168038/U-S-vs-Jeffrey-Epstein#fullscreen <comment> chupa-chups [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20661919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20661919)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the official indictment. It's a different document.

<comment> chupa-chups Sorry, I am so used to reposts. I just skimmed it and going to read it fully, and upvoting your post. Thanks for pointing this out.

I will be more careful in the future :)</comment></comment></comment>


Yahoo says COO De Castro leaving Thursday - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/yahoo-says-coo-de-castro-leaving-thursday-2014-01-15

<comment><USER2> The Register hasn't posted its bang-laden made-redundant story yet, but here's their take from when De Castro joined YHOO:

Yahoo! hires! top! Googler! to! revamp! operations! Marissa Mayer gets her man – for a price

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/15/yahoo_hires_coo/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/15/yahoo_hires_coo/)

 _" Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I'm personally excited to have him join Yahoo!'s strong leadership team," said Mayer in a statement. "His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo! as we propel the business to its next phase of growth."_

So! Much! For! All! That!

</comment><comment><USER3> Stuff like this happens all the time. Tim Cook fired John Browett, who was recruited with great fanfare from a huge retail chain.

<comment><USER4> One of my first managers confided in me that there were no bad employees, there were just bad fits. And over the years I have really come to appreciate the wisdom of that. I've watched folks who were useless in one environment become superstars in another, and superstars, recruited with much fanfare, who just couldn't get it together when their environment changed. What I haven't found is some magical factor which allows me to predict if someone will do well or not in some environment.

Given the short time between announcement and departure date, I'd be curious to know how that worked. At Sun one of the VP's was told it find a new job and he basically walked out that afternoon and did not return. Other situations have had transition periods. I recognize its a sort of morbid curiosity, wondering if it is something I would do in a similar situation.

I believe it's the curiosity factor that drives interest in these stories, not any intrinsic news value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It sounds like the knives and "I told you so" peanut gallery are out in force on this one.

<comment><USER6> What does "knives" mean?

<comment><USER7> It's a references to the 'the knives are out'.

[http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/the+knives+are+out](http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/the+knives+are+out)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some more information here: [http://www.businessinsider.com/after- only-15-months-marissa-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/after- only-15-months-marissa-mayer-fired-her-first-major-hire-2014-1)

</comment><comment><USER8> I have a feeling this guy is going to appear somehow, somewhere in the Portugal Telecom / Oi merger.

</comment><comment><USER9> You lure advertisers by building great products people want to use (and spend time on). Has Yahoo released anything truly noteworthy since she became CEO?

<comment><USER10> Their digest and weather app are both rated 4.5 stars in the app store and received very positive reviews. Digest is featured in the app store right now.

These apps are both (presumably) something people use every day.

<comment><USER11> Maybe. But who exactly is passionate about a weather app?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's Yahoo? I'll google it.</comment>


Pratham OS: Linux distro based on Debian Sid - <AUTHOR> http://www.prathamos.com/Index.html#home <comment><USER2> For a distro marketed as having _The Power Of Simplicity,_ the website leaves me confused about what makes this distro unique, who it is for, what problem it solves, or even what makes it simple.

In fact the website seems to go out of its way to shove complexity in my face.

<comment><USER3> Right! It actually took me clicking around a bit to even find it was a Linux distro. I was hoping for something different

<comment><USER4> Especially that the logo and the layout looks like a music album, it made me confused for a bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> vhost- I have no idea what it is because that landing page, or any other page on the website for that matter, doesn't tell me anything.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well...I have to admit that while our linux skills are kind of ok...designing HTML is pretty poor.So on behalf of Team PrathamOS, I accept the shortcomings on the UI Part.Thankfully,we recently got some good hands and within the next few weeks, a more user friendly visualization will be on offer.

The Distribution (we dont consider it an OS!!) is dedicated to the community itself.No conscious or percieved effort is intended, to showcase some sort of innovation or uniqueness.Primarily because,there is none.But over the years,due to benevolence by numerous netizens, we happened to learn some tricks here and there.All that is a part of this initiative.Automation has been implemented to make things easier to use for new / non-power users.For example, java installation requires just typing setuporaclejdk on the terminal.or to upgrade kernel (4.18rc3 latest) just type kernel-upgrade...This is what we interpret as the Power Of Simplicity.Thus the TagLine...

The donation is just to solicit support to keep operations running.Nothing is premium or paid in nature.When we ourselves have been staunch supporters of Open Source Philosophy,it makes no sense to charge anything...specially when everything belongs ot the community anyway!!!The distribution allows users to add functionality in layers called packs.Higher demomination Contributions get to download everthing in one iso..thats it.

I would like to thank all participants here for giving their valuable time to provide constructive criticism & feedback.It keeps the team motivated to put in more effort and bring whatever little value to the Linux Community.

Thanks A Lot On behalf of Team PrathamOS Rakesh Khandelwal

</comment><comment><USER6> Oh boy, another preconfigured Linux installation conceited enough to call itself an Operating System. Right along with Elementary OS, PopOS, PeppermintOS, PurismOS and all the other ((distributions)). Let's keep splitting hairs by adding custom skins and icon packs while avoiding real issues like hardware incompatibilities and the overall trainwreck known as the Linux Desktop Experience. Don't forget to donate, forking Debian and hosting .iso files over ftp is pretty tough!

</comment><comment><USER7> It looks like they also offer a premium version when you PayPal them $5 or more

> All Contributions Of & Above $5, Are Eligible For A Private Download Link To > PrathamOS Full Edition. > [http://www.prathamos.com/Index.html#connect](http://www.prathamos.com/Index.html#connect)

Seems weird that this doesn't seem to be advertised otherwise, or include a description of what's in the premium edition.

</comment><comment><USER8> The project should consider https/ssl for the website.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's Up With The Casing On This Site?

<comment><USER10> I suspect English is not the author's primary language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't tell what the fuck this is.

The website takes ~8 seconds to load what I think ought to be a static page and says some things about simplicity and The Lord of the Rings as well as Vagrant.

I like all of those things, but I don't trust an OS that has a slow-ass web page that tells me nothing about it.

<comment><USER5> Could you please let us know where you are based out of...We will try to look at response time...The site is utilizing Cloudflare CDN model along with standard bootstrap & SPA,so ideally this should not have happened.

LOTR has fans everywhere :) We also seem to be referencing a lot of Star Wars as well !!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One can never have enough linux distros.

</comment><comment><USER13> And me naively thinking this would be something worthwhile looking at, instead of yet another Linux copy.

<comment><USER14> I thought the non-profit created an OS for "edge education". Oh well :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This looks like a distro with quite a lot of innovation going on. Anyone on HN tried it?</comment>


Don Knuth, the Analysis of Algorithms - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmcSzzN1gkc <comment><USER2> I miss Dijkstra. He always new the fastest way to make me happy.</comment>


Android N's name to be announced today - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Android/status/748534094405857281 <comment><USER2> ... it's Nougat

[https://twitter.com/Android/status/748642375908589568](https://twitter.com/Android/status/748642375908589568)

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only one who really hopes it's Android Nutella?

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm gonna guess that, like KitKat, Nutella is trademarked, so there were, perhaps, some agreements to put in place first?</comment>


No YC for you? Drinks on StyleSeat - <AUTHOR> http://stylese.at/drinks4devs

<comment><USER2> I'll be there, man.

Where you from Dan Levine?

<comment><AUTHOR> Lovely! SF Bay, born and bred...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Will I lose traffic If I use a .co domain instead of .com? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Why not both? If the site gets popular, you run the risk of squatters taking the alternative (.co or .com) and hosting ads/malware, etc. Something to think about anyway.

I haven't seen any studies that .co is worse or better than .com. My gut reaction is that most non-technical people assume ".com", so if they see "www.example.co" they would type "www.example.com" out of habit and/or thinking the .co was a typo.

That's if they know the URL in the first place. I would bet most people just enter the "example" part in the address bar and assume Google or Bing will do the rest for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No.

<comment><AUTHOR> But according to some online articles .com domain should be the first priority. According to my teachers, friends they suggested me the same.

<comment><USER3> That's not for any SEO reason. The .com TLD is preferred because it's easier to remember—it's what everyone is used to.</comment></comment></comment>