Ask HN: do you trust your "secure email" now? - <AUTHOR> After Lavabit and SilentCircle shutdown (the first said "better shutdown than give 'em access")...do you trust the other "secure email" providers? <comment><USER2> I consider everything I type into a computer with an active network port to be published.

Anything less would be folly, there are so many hops where people could be listening in on your data (starting with the cable that runs from your keyboard to your computer) that even an email sent to your 'drafts' box on your own IMAP server is probably not secure. Unless you own the co-location facility and all the infrastructure between where you sit and where you store the mail.

The whole security thing to me is a matter of economics. I assume that any data that is not worth reading is collected and that anything that is worth more than it would cost to collect and read is read.

Maybe that's a paranoid view of the state of affairs but at least I won't be surprised or disappointed. My main bulwark against wholesale exposure of the contents of my inbox is a 'Rob'. Rob is a veteran sysadmin who configured and set up my machine and I trust him (I have to, since he has access).

Rob is secure in the sense that he's an honorable person, and that I believe that there is no offer that could be made that would make him break our bond of trust. So short of blackmailing Rob (which is hard, and I would definitely forgive him if that were to happen) my stored email is reasonably secure, but any email in transit is fair game and will probably be caught somewhere along the line and I treat all email that I send and receive as public as a consequence of that.

<comment><USER3> I think you get to a point, where you can't trust electronics at all. (Active network or no.)

Van Eck phreaking. Optical Time-Domain Eavesdropping [1]. Zero-Day exploits on operating systems, browsers, etc. Built-in vulnerabilities to processors. Backdoors in encryption algorithms. Acoustic Keyboard analysis [2]. Laser Audio detection [3]. Hard drive recovery. DRAM recovery. [4]

[1] [http://www.rootsecure.net/content/downloads/pdf/optical_temp...](http://www.rootsecure.net/content/downloads/pdf/optical_tempest_crt.pdf)

[2] [http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~tygar/papers/Keyboard_Acoustic_E...](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~tygar/papers/Keyboard_Acoustic_Emanations_Revisited/tiss.preprint.pdf)

[3] [http://spie.org/x40847.xml](http://spie.org/x40847.xml)

[4] [https://citp.princeton.edu/research/memory/](https://citp.princeton.edu/research/memory/)

If I wanted to send (very) secure email, I think I would want a Kindle-like device, with an ePaper display, no physical keyboard just a touchscreen, no bluetooth or wifi or 3G or microphone - just a single USB port. I'd install the software I want on it, and then I'd physically destroy the USB port. I'd want 4 AA batteries, no recharge port. I guess it would need a camera, as well. And it would have its own Faraday cage. And a built-in, non-electronic method that slags the RAM and storage with acid; possibly by pulling a pin out. I'd wipe the screen clean, every time I used it.

How do I get data out of it? I drop data into a QR code sending system. It would generate one full-screen QR-code like image every second or so. On another computer, I'd have a camera that I'd show the device to, and it would read the QR codes, and reconstruct the data. I can reverse the process to send data to it. Show it my computer screen, and it decodes the QR codes to a data file.

And if I personally wanted to increase the security, I would buy three completely different hardware random generators, XOR their output together, and make a giant One Time Pad. I'd invent a way to keep track of where you and I were, in that pad. (You'd start at one end, and I at the other.) I'd physically copy that data onto my secure-Kindle, and your secure-Kindle, and then physically destroy the random number generating system in its entirety. (And then destroy the USB port on both Kindles.) If I ever got a suspicious message from you (re-using One Time Pad, etc.), I'd slag my secure-Kindle. And you and I would invent pass phrases that we would use to communicate messages in secret.

My secure-Kindle would also have a password to let me power it on. And it would have one or more dummy passwords. If I entered a dummy password, the system would act completely normally in every way, but it would secretly insert the phrase "[COMPROMISED, DO NOT TRUST!]" or something like it, in the middle of every message I send.

I might need to have the dummy password electronically wipe the system, to help protect you from a government forcing me to decrypt messages you sent me.

But I honestly don't think there's a good way to stop this. If they have physical possession of the device, and of me, they can force me to reveal my passwords, and there's nothing I can do to stop them.

<comment><USER2> My second line of defense: I'm not important enough to monitor :)

<comment><USER3> First they came for the... well, you know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Secure email" is an oxymoron. Email isn't secure. We should treat it as such.

Even if you use the "technically challenging" PGP (i.e. challenging for the layman), then the metadata still leaks relationships.

We need a replacement that is secure by default and easy to use, so that 'Mom and Pop' can make the easy switch. Get that right and you can replace email.

In my opinion, a company like Yahoo is in the perfect position to write, sponsor and open source an new innovative messaging solution, that is secure by default (and cannot be made insecure) and cannot be monitored. External validation of the source code and cryptographic implementation would be paramount. A whole ecosystem of new "secure messaging" servers and clients could spring up. It could be the next paradigm shift on the internet.

Yahoo are slowly getting back on their feet. If there ever was a perfect time to release a killer app that would resonate with the majority, it would be this. From trampled and downtrodden to the golden boys (and girls) again.

Go on Yahoo. I dare you!

<comment><USER4> Here's a tongue in cheek piece that goes with this post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185468)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the Director of the CIA can't keep his email secure, what makes anyone think that their email is more secure than his?

<comment><USER6> What makes you think that Director of the CIA would have particularly secure e-mail setup?

<comment><USER5> As the director of one of the world's most well funded intelligence agencies one would expect that Petraeus would have been properly versed in all manner of security precautions, as well as knowing how to conduct clandestine affairs without coming under the scrutiny of his counterparts, yet this was not the case at all.

So, either Petraeus was a blundering fool, or there exists no privacy for anyone...

I'm guessing that Petraeus was no blundering fool.

<comment><USER7> His professional email was likely secure moreso than we'd ever see. However, directing agency resources to cover for an affair would be more blatant than someone discovering his GMail drafts folder. Being in charge of security and having excellent delegation / leadership - doesn't make one the technical expert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If my, or some one else's, life or liberty depended on it, no. Not email, not the internet.

From a simpleton POV... there is a wire from my computer to an ISP. Then from that ISP to another ISP. Then from that ISP to a recipient. At any point some one can intercept and decode. So, AFAIAC, that's an end to it. Even if the data can be secured from being read, there is proof that one computer talked to another computer about something. That's often enough "evidence". Its an opening.

Frankly I don't see how the internet can be secure. AFAIK, it never was.

<comment><USER6> > Even if the data can be secured from being read, there is proof that one > computer talked to another computer about something. That's often enough > "evidence".

Tor/i2p mostly solve that problem.

> Frankly I don't see how the internet can be secure. AFAIK, it never was.

"internet" is not secure, but you can build secure communications over insecure transports as long as you are able to do initial key-exchange somehow securely (ie. face-to-face meeting). Something like OTR with Tor hidden services is very secure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My secure email provider is /usr/local/bin/gpg, so ... yes?

<comment><USER10> Still leaks email metadata:)

<comment><USER11> Which is cryptographically tied to an identity.

<comment><USER12> Nope, just to a key.

<comment><USER11> So Ann doesn't know she's really talking to Bob? Ann just has some key that she hopes is Bob's, and isn't Eve doing MITM? Isn't that why web-of-trust is important?

<comment><USER13> Nope, that Eve can intercept a copy of GPG-encrypted mail and extract plaintext To, From, Title, time, with some luck also some info about sender's IP and software, plus all info that is in recipient's and possibly sender's public key (this usually covers full, true name, work, approximate location and alternative e-mails, often also a photo). What you mention is an orthogonal problem.

<comment><USER11> Hang on, I'm a bit confused here.

Ann has a key. Ann must know that the key is Bob's key. If Ann isn't sure that the key is Bob's key there's a bunch of bad stuff that might happen.

So now Eve can get the metadata, and be pretty sure that the stuff sent to Bob actually is sent to Bob, and not someone else, because it's encrypted with Bob's public key.

Eve can't decrypt anything. But my post wasn't about Eve getting any content, it was about Eve getting metadata that's cryptographically tied to an identity.

Where am I going wrong?

<comment><USER10> The connection between key and identity doesn't have to be public.

The point is that the headers of an email aren't encrypted (otherwise it couldn't be delivered). In the headers is who the message is to, who it's from, the subject, the time, and if you're lucky, the ip of the sender. All of that isn't encrypted and free for the taking and has nothing to do with the id attached to the key used to encrypt the content.

<comment><USER11> Right, the metadata is always public.

Without strong encryption you have metadata that can be tied to an identity using statistics with enough data.

With strong encryption you have metadata that can be tied to a key and an identity using statistics with enough data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't trust other secure email providers, and to be honest, I don't trust Lavabit or SilentCircle...at least I don't trust them as far as they suggest I should trust them.

I trust providers that offer encryption to prevent basic things like my ISP looking at data or maybe casual eavesdropping if I'm in a foreign country. But the idea of hosted services that completely protect you even against the government of the hosting country, which is how these services seem to be sold, is sort of unrealistic.

And in the broader sense, I trust something like Lavabit less than Gmail. Permanently losing access to my email without any warning is a bigger threat to me than whatever ill defined privacy line Lavabit claims was being crossed. Email for me is primarily about convenient communication. If I want extra security for some reason, I'll use something else or combine GPG with email.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not especially. As others have mentioned, email leaks metadata and the existing protocols are such that it would be impossible to secure them reasonably.

Of course, it all depends on what your threat model is. Are you a target of the NSA, or a jealous spouse? That's what this comes down to. Neither Lavabit nor Silent Circle could have given encrypted and unattributable email service - so if that's what you needed, you're SoL. If server-to-server encryption was all you were interested in, then the distros of pgpu they used would have been fine for you.

It's hard to think of a threat that would be stymied by server-to-server encryption alone. Maybe someone else has a good idea of what that might be, but it's too early for me.

</comment><comment><USER16> Yes.

Lava happened to have a known, admitted national security threat as a client/user. It is expected, legal, and proper for a national security letter to be used in this context.

It is possible that the NSL was demanding things that were way too broad, but I imagine that this was not the case (and rather that Lava had an ethical issue with the whole process).

</comment><comment><USER11> What are you protecting, and who are you protecting it against?

I knew that well funded government agencies could probably get access to anything, so with that caveat yes, I trusted a few providers.

In general if it's important you shouldn't trust anyone. Use GPG, but do so carefully after reading all the documentation.

<comment><USER17> Do you trust the person on the receiving side? Presumably so if you are sending them something, but once it leaves your computer its out of your control. The recipient could do something like accidentally (or intentionally) forward or reply in the clear, or could have malware on their computer that copies emails as soon as they are decrypted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I will trust Lavabit if they reopen.

<comment><USER10> Which may be exactly what "they" want;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is no such thing as secure email. Use another channel.

Yes I'm aware of GPG etc but no one else is.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes, I do, because I host my own email on my own hardware.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> so apparently there's no reason for lavabit, silent mail, hushmail ...?

<comment><USER21> There is if you still care about keeping the contents of your message secure.

Or in a simpler sense; do you put your letters in an envelope, or do you just put a stamp on the paper?

<comment><USER6> By that analogy so called secure email providers would receive plain letters and put those into envelopes before handing them to you, and conversely ripping your envelopes open before sending out your mails. Because the rest of the world doesn't know how to use envelopes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Go back to the stone age. Hand written notes with couriers.

</comment><comment> Dirty-flow never trust anyone! :)</comment>


Ambrosia: the startup harvesting the blood of the young - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2017/aug/21/ambrosia-the-startup-harvesting-the-blood-of-the-young <comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWdCyfrt7Z8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWdCyfrt7Z8)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting subject, too bad the writing is immature.</comment>


Federal Agency wants black boxes in every new car by September 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/federal-agency-wants-black-boxes-in-every-car-by-september-2014/ <comment><USER3> I love how these stories - and most of the discussion around them - <USER2> choose to ignore the larger issue of "does the federal government belong in the business of telling auto makers what equipment cars must have" or even more, "does the federal government have the authority to do this"?

I would argue that the answer to both questions is unequivocally "NO" and that we should be raising absolute bloody hell with Congress over this. Despite what the SCOTUS and Congress have done to brutally butcher the 9th and 10th amendments, and despite their twisting and mangling of the "necessary and reasonable" clause and the "interstate commerce clause" it seems quite clear to me that this is an improper role of government in an open, free society.

I say let's quit nit-picking over details and privacy concerns, etc., and let Congress know - in no uncertain terms - that we simply don't accept this whole game, period.

<comment><USER4> > "does the federal government belong in the business of telling auto makers > what equipment cars must have"

> it seems quite clear to me that this is an improper role of government in an > open, free society

i'll bite.

from a practical perspective, the federal government should have the authority to say what kinds of vehicles should be able to drive on public roads paved by us tax dollars. maybe you think you should be able to drive a car with no headlights, but the other people driving on the highways at 60mph could get hurt. it seems pretty clear that federal government should be in the business of telling car makers that street legal cars have to have headlights.

from a theoretical perspective, the commerce clause, taken at face value, seems to give board powers to the federal government to regulate any commerce that happens across state lines. cars are certainly sold across state lines. i don't understand why you think its so clear that the federal government doesn't have this authority.

<comment><USER5> As I understand it, the word "regulate" had a different meaning at the time the commerce clause was written. It generally meant "to make regular", as in, prevent states from taxing imports from one state higher than another.

Now it essentially means "control".

<comment><USER6> I can't find any actual citations of the word regulate used to mean "to make regular". The only references I found are in articles trying to explain the Commerce Clause.

The word regulate comes from the Latin _regulare_ "to control by rule, direct". I don't see any evidence that the meaning has changed much over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My former job was systems programming on precisely this sort of project. We ran embedded ARM based Linux systems in cars, motorcycles and over the road trucks to gather research data from the vehicle CAN. The volume of data and variables collected was immense. Lateral acceleration (swerve), turn signals, seat-belts engaged, gear position, vehicle speed, individual wheel speed, engine rpm, GPS coordinates, steering wheel angel, etc, etc, etc. We were collecting petabytes of data for research. We had cameras on the vehicles as well so that we could correlate all of the collected data with what the driver was doing, where they were looking, etc. I doubt the cameras will exist in the mandated black-box systems, but who knows.

I only say this because there are tons of research projects in this area right now and likely will be for many years to come.

<comment><USER8> How often did you sample most of those variables?

I don't doubt the petabytes of data, but I'd be surprised if data that wasn't visual, all included, was more than a couple of terabytes (if even that .. a terabyte of textual data is a ridiculously large amount).

Counting the gzipped data is the only meaningful thing here, btw - because a verbose XML document with repeating data "<absoluteLocation>17,34,25</absoluteLocation><absoluteLocation remark="notMoved">17,34,25</absoluteLocation>" is not more informative than "l=17,35,25", despite being 10 times longer.

Video ... that's a completely different story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Such devices, which are already in use in 96 percent of 2013 model year cars, record various types of data that can be accessed in multiple ways."

Whoa. 96% of new cars already have black boxes? Did not know that...

Wait til people get convicted of crimes based on the data in their black boxes. "OJ, your car shows it was used between 8pm and 10pm, and you were not home sleeping as you said you were..."

<comment><USER10> You own a cell phone, right? That's your current black box.

<comment><USER11> I leave my phone at home when I commit crimes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Next up is a peronal rifd card for ALL forms of public transport, eg the bus, metro, train... A card that can be loaded with dollars using your credit/debit card only. Think it won't happen? It already did in the Netherlands. They're trying to add Black boxes to cars here as well. Oh, did I mention the other privacy-nightmares? How about a mandated centralized database for health- related issues? Run by the insurance companies. We have licenceplate scanning CCTV camera's at all major roads as well as all borders.

<comment><USER13> Not that I like the surveillance state anywhere, but I'm a lot less concerned about "advances" like these in societies where democracy is already established than countries were authoritarian regimes are still in charge.

EDIT : Why is my comment being down-voted ?? what part of "Not that I like the surveillance state anywhere" don't you understand. It's a FACT, the consequences of Big brother are magnitudes of order more terrifying for societies that still don't have institutions to protect them.

<comment><USER14> I agree. Often the benefits of these kind of things outweigh the risks of abuse. Law-abiding citizens rarely have what to fear from normal "surveillance".

<comment><USER15> _I agree. Often the benefits of these kind of things outweigh the risks of abuse. Law-abiding citizens rarely have what to fear from normal "surveillance"._

Do you live in the US? If so, you're not almost certainly not a "law-abiding citizen." The only question is, which laws count?

<comment><USER16> and which laws will be enforced, or ignored by the reigning excecutive

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Involved people at the site of an accident often have no compunctions about lying. If such data can be securely provided in only 5 minute increments, I'd be all for it. We should be able to do this with a sequence of keys based on timestamps. Basically, each 5 minute parcel of data would be timestamped, then a symmetric algorithm with a master key used to derive a parcel key from the timestamp. The master key would never be revealed and only the parcel key given to the authorities.

Authentication could be done through PKC and/or a hash chain. (As in bitcoin.)

<comment> X-Istence The data records only the last 30 seconds, and will only save said data if a crash of substantial force happens, at least in the cars that I am familiar with.

<comment><USER17> A much more elegant scheme for protecting privacy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's a good summary of what this means, what the implications are, and who has rights over what here: [http://jalopnik.com/5966628/everything-you-need- to-know-abou...](http://jalopnik.com/5966628/everything-you-need-to-know- about-the-black-boxes-coming-to-your-next-car)

</comment><comment><USER19> Perhaps they should be mandatory, but they should be signed by a user-owned key. In this way the data exists, but it becomes optional to share it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't plan on being a car owner any time in the near future, but out of pure curiosity I wonder how easy/legal it will be to remove these?

</comment><comment><USER21> What is the potential cost of this?

<comment><USER22> What is the potential profit for whoever is contracted to make the boxes?

<comment><USER23> Just think how rich the manufacturers of seatbelt latches are getting in this era of mandatory seatbelt laws. It's clear proof that all laws exist only to make special interest groups ultra rich so they can screw us over in some future dystopia more easily.

<comment><USER24> Hey, if you want to increase your chances of not being around for that dystopia, don't use the seatbelts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> this is waaay more scary than itu standardizing on deep-packet-inspection ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> Insurances agencies are going to love this one, they might even want to fund this whole idea, if they can get the black box data, they might save billions on not fixing your car as much because you drove like a primate would, breaking all traffic laws and showing signs of intoxication or extreme carelessness.

If it can be shown that the party who is technically guilty of causing an accident has a perfect black box record, while the one who didn't has a terrible black box record, does it change who is at fault?

<comment><USER27> Insurance companies already offer this to clients. The understanding is that it won't raise your rate, but it can lower your rate.

That being said, if someone is "breaking all traffic laws and showing signs of intoxication or extreme carelessness," I'd hope they are paying more for insurance than I do. Sort of common sense.

<comment><USER9> <http://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot.aspx>

I saw this advertised the other day...

<comment> X-Istence They say they don't check for speeding, yet they have full access to your OBD- II information, which definitely does include that. They could for instance easily add when you go over 85+ Mph which is the highest allowable speed in the US...

They might not be able to check on the location you are in to compare it to local speed limits, but they can definitely know if you are driving faster than the max.

I'm wondering how I can get one of these devices to play around with, without handing anything over but cash.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Audio Launches Next Week - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/google-audio-lala-ilike-pandora-and-imeem/

<comment><USER2> I've asked friends who work Google why they didn't have any music search or other music-related projects. One popular theory was that Larry and Sergey personally just aren't that interested in music, so ideas in that area always lacked their enthusiastic support. Regardless, it's nice to see someone finally managed to release something.</comment>


Programming Languages Should Satisfy College Language Requirements - <AUTHOR> http://www.andykessler.com/

<comment><USER2> As a software engineer and graduating Linguistics major at Berkeley, I can say without a doubt that this is total bollocks. The author's poor understanding of natural language is clear. As far as my own anecdotal experience can be trusted (as one who has studied Greek, Latin, German, Anglo-Saxon and Sumerian in depth, and as one who has learnt many programming languages), education in programming languages does not augment understanding of natural languages. There are indeed theoretical relations (when looking at syntax, semantics and formal language theory, etc.); but these are largely irrelevant to someone who is trying to derive value from actually _knowing_ languages, rather than someone trying to understand the general structure of Language itself.

In addition, his total misunderstanding of programming languages is indicated by the inane turn of phrase, "If you want to require a useful language, make it Java or Perl or Python or any object-oriented language rather than Spanish." What could possibly make an object-oriented language any closer to fulfilling a natural language requirement than a different programming language? Note that I'm not at this very moment arguing that OO languages are bad (ask me about that some other time); I'm simply noting that whether or not a language is OO is orthogonal to his point. In the best case, he's dropping names unnecessarily; in the worst case, he's repeating words that he doesn't understand. It would be like saying, "If you want to learn how to cook, start with spaghetti, manicotti, or any other kind of pasta"; it naturally brings up the question, "Why must one learn to cook using pasta?"

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm unsure how to take this. Foreign language skills in the US are dismal compared to just about any other country in the world. Usually by 7th grade most non english speaking europeans can at least communicate in English, whereas in the US (according to the article), foreign languages don't begin until after 7th grade. And the world is only getting more globalized, so the importance of being able to communicate in a foreign language is just as important as ever. That said, I agree that these skills should be attained much earlier, that's how it is in Germany, Poland, and the few other countries I have experience with. In high school you learn foreign langs, maths, the core skills, and once you're 18 you major in whatever and take only classes that relate to that subject.

All that being said, I'm a software developer and, in my opinion, the skills for programming are largely completely unrelated to those of communicating yourself in a foreign language. When you speak a foreign language, you have to convey abstract and complex thoughts in a matter of milliseconds, also comprehending what is being said, metaphors, slang, slurs, etc. In programming you're also in an abstract realm but you're dealing with numbers, functions, and non-verbal/acoustic information processing... So I don't think Programming should satisfy a College Language requirement, just teach the kids earlier, and do away with all non-relavent "requirements" once they go to college and major.

that's my 2 cents :)

<comment><AUTHOR> This was just an interesting supporting point in his larger argument of reforming American education. I would not remove foreign language requirements entirely but I support giving students a choice in what they learn.

Foreign language is a skill that enables you to communicate with the world around you and that world around you is now becoming increasingly computer- centric. I can see his argument. I never had a chance to learn CS in school as I was too busy filling in all kinds of requirements for my major. All kinds of things I rarely use today, it would hav e been nice to have the option to dabble in JS as a "requirement" in college!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Git hook for Rails to rollback/migrate database on branch checkout - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/scouttyg/rollbackoncheckout

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many caveats to this hook -- so be sure to read the warnings associated with it.</comment>


11:57 – A short virtual reality horror film made for Oculus Rift - <AUTHOR> http://1157.pm/ <comment><USER2> I downloaded it for Windows. It has a mp4 file inside the zip. I was able to watch it using VLC on Ubuntu. Despite being a 360° image all cramped on a square screen it was still pretty scary =P

<comment><USER3> Cool, thanks for the feedback :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ran the Mac OS version on Yosemite with 0.4.2 version of the Oculus SDK on a DK2.

Loved it. Awesome job. Feels like a haunted house that moves around you instead of you moving through it. Very immersive. Will show this off to other people.

IPD was kind of weird though. I felt like a giant in the dungeon. What kind of camera setup did you use to film this, and how far apart were the cameras?

Also, I did not feel the 3D sound, though the issue may have been with my ears or me not paying attention to it. I will retry again later tonight and report on the results.

<comment><USER3> So the camera setup was a fairly standard 6 GoPro rig (Freedom Rig). Unfortunately we didn't have the budget for the 3D VR GoPro rig (needing 12 GoPro's).

Would love to hear your feedback on the sound, as audio was a big focus for us on this production

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has the adult film industry developed anything with Oculus? I would have expected them to be early adopters.

<comment><USER6> There are these guys: [http://oculusrealporn.com/](http://oculusrealporn.com/)

Not going to pretend I haven't tried it out of curiosity, along with the usual Rift demos.

It's quite immersive but there's no getting past the fact that you have a big mask strapped to your head. However, trying it, you can see how once the Rift is more popular and less bulky, and the providers in this space can justify investing a bit more, it will take off.

Just as interesting will be new types of cinema-style experiences and short films, hopefully!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you download on a PC you should also:

a) Use VR Player [https://vrplayer.codeplex.com/](https://vrplayer.codeplex.com/) or equiv.

b) Set to dome projection

c) Set to barrel distortion

<comment><USER3> thanks for the tips :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This was cool - very scary!

One suggestion: On my first view, I ended up looking "backwards" for ~75% of the movie. I might have hit something at the beginning, but my forward-facing orientation couldn't see any of the action and there weren't any visual cues to tell me that if I turned around there were things happening until late in the movie. May be one of those weird things that VR needs to handle differently.

Excited to see more!

PS - I have a mac and DK2 but it's brand new, so could have been user error.

<comment><USER9> This actually strikes me as the #1 limiting factor for this technology and interactive fiction in general. A good story depends very much on causality. If the viewer in a virtual environment can get stuck in the corner (ie failing to direct attention/activity to key narrative elements) then the basic options are to a) move the viewer along automatically, as in some videogames or b) wait for the viewer to get un-stuck and pick up the story again. Unfortunately the first approach ends up more as a ride than an interactive experience, while the second baldy undermines the suspension of disbelief.

This is not to say there's no way to do it - if you establish the basic narrative grammar early you can certainly tell an interactive story, but probably at the cost of limiting complexity. The most effective examples I can think of are from ThatGameCompany, especially Journey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> hey, i would love to see this work for google cardboard (i'm too poor for rift ;) - i see there's a get notified when it comes to mobile, but i can't click it.

<comment><USER3> Yes, we're actively working on getting a mobile version out, we expect to have an Android version this week, and iOS shortly after (obviously pending app store approval as well). If you shoot us an email at firstname.lastname@example.com we'll let you know when you can download it.

</comment></comment><comment> vr-freak First you need to setup VR Player as follows: [http://www.vrcircle.com/post/how-to-watch-movies-on-the- ocul...](http://www.vrcircle.com/post/how-to-watch-movies-on-the-oculus-rift- development-kit-2-dk2)

In VR Player, I found the best options were as follows:

Media Menu Option, Format: Mono, Projection: Sphere, Effects: None,

Device Menu Option, Layout: Side By Side, Distortion: Barrel, Tracker: Oculus Rift DK2,

</comment><comment><USER3> We've updated the copy to make it a little more clear what version to download. This is a little side project we've done besides our regular day job so every piece of feedback is helpful, thanks :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Will this work with Google cardboard? Occulus is great, but I'd like to use my $25 digital viewfinder instead if possible.

<comment><USER3> Yes, we're actively working on getting the Android version up and running so people with Google cardboard can view it as well (and any other VR cardboard ofcourse)

Shoot us an email at email@example.com and we'll let you know when it's ready (hopefully this week)

<comment><USER12> Isn't it as simple as uploading it to Youtube or similar and telling people to use any Cardboard (etc) aware video player?

<comment><USER11> You could watch a static video, but head motion would not be tracked in that configuration. They probably recorded with some sort of non standard fish-eye lens, so no video player will exist that could achieve the desired effect. A bunch of transformations have to be done to make the video work with cardboard (source, I have developed a quick demo with cardboard and OpenGL before).

<comment><USER12> There's multiple video players for Android that take 'oculus' style side-by- side video and allow you to watch it with head tracking. OK - the inter-eye distance and distortion<>lens mapping might not be 100% but it mostly works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> does it require dk2 or will it work with dk1?

</comment><comment><USER14> Typo in the submission title: "Oulus"

<comment><USER15> Thanks! Fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Requires OS X Yosemite. If you've chosen not to upgrade, for example because you value your privacy and disagree with Apple's recent data collection policies which are enabled by default in Yosemite, then you won't be able to run this.

I don't understand why. As far as I know, there's no such thing as an executable that requires Windows 8. Or, if there is, then no one would think of excluding those who are running Windows 7. So why exclude those who are running older OS X versions? Are there any legitimate technical reasons for this decision?

It would be cool if you could watch this on Youtube. I know you won't get the same experience as if you had a Rift, but there are hundreds of thousands of people who would love to watch a reaction video of someone experiencing it, along with seeing their perspective.

EDIT: Okay, this was a dumb thing to say. It came across as a complaint, but really I was just trying to ask a question. Sorry.

<comment><USER3> Hi,

I'm one of the makers. I run Mavericks and can run the Mac app (that has 3D sound), but you will need to hold down Control when opening the app (its in the README).

If you still can't run it, you can download the PC version (which is just the regular movie file) and use any Oculus Rift compatible player (though you won't have 3D sound unfortunately).

<comment><USER16> Cool, thanks! What sort of libraries are used for crossplatform 3D sound nowadays? FMOD used to be the gold standard for this. I'm wondering if it's still sufficient, or if that's changed. Thanks for your time!

EDIT: Oh, I see. The PC version is just an MP4 file. Neat hack. I wonder if there are any video formats which embed 3D sound...

EDIT2: Hmm, just to let you know, it seems the mp4 file is somehow corrupt: [http://i.imgur.com/Zn44nvJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/Zn44nvJ.png) It plays, but only one frame every five seconds or so are showing up. I'll try redownloading it.

<comment><USER17> What is 3D sound in this context? At the end of the day you've got however many channel to work with, and that's it. You can do lots of fancy phase trickery to make things sound like they're going up and down on the Z axis, but it's still delivered in stereo or 5.1 or whatever.

When I think of 3D sound I think of stuff like ircam spat[0] but that just outputs normal audio like anything else.

[0] [http://www.fluxhome.com/products/plug_ins/ircam_spat-v3](http://www.fluxhome.com/products/plug_ins/ircam_spat-v3)

<comment><USER18> 3d sound in this context means when you turn your head the sound remains in the same '3d' position(so if the sound was coming from the side and you turn to face it, it now sound like it's coming from ahead), which is important for vr (with headphones). This isn't really possible with a prerecorded video file unless you have a clever player that can do the 3d transformations from the original sound channels, but I'm not aware of any that can do this yet

<comment><USER17> I suppose this would be pretty difficult with "live" recorded sound. Stereo microphone arrays are a complex business already, AFAIK there's no audio equivalent of the 360 degree cameras they use for recording VR. Microphones simply cannot be made as directional as speakers.

However with a multichannel surround sound recording, panning/fading the tracks dynamically according to head movements is trivial, all games do this. So I guess you would want a file format that placed all the channels in 3D space over time. That's the kind of thing the spat software I linked in the above post does, except it's also doing cutting edge acoustic modelling and so forth. It needs a hefty computer.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely true what you're saying. That's why we didn't use live audio for this, but all the sounds were made by a sound studio and placed in a virtual room around a head. We just didn't have the budget to record binaural audio, so we're faking it, till we making it :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dr. Seuss URL Names - <AUTHOR> http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/the-dr-seuss-jumble-naming-web-sites/index.html?hp

<comment><USER2> This guy is completely mistaken. It did at least occur to him that the two most successful web startups to date, Google and Yahoo, both did what he says startups shouldn't. He replies to that by saying that you can only get away with a goofy name if people love what you build.

If he had followed that line of reasoning one step further, it might also have occurred to him that, conversely, if you make something users hate, it won't matter that you have a good name.

In other words, what matters is what you build, not what you call it. Names just don't matter much. Which means he's wrong, since the thesis of this article is that they do.

Startups choosing random names are in fact pursuing a near optimal strategy: just choose something reasonably short and catchy, and spend your time working on the product, because that's what matters.

<comment><USER3> Pogue isn't arguing that names are life and death for a startup, he's just pointing out the obvious: Given two sites that do reasonably similar things, the one with the "catchy" name is going to be remembered.

I think there is a tendency here to conflate short with catchy. In my opinion, there's nothing catchy at all about any of these: Etelos. Iyogi. Oyogi. Qoop. Ooma. Some of it may be a function of personal taste, but I think there's plenty of room for improvement.

<comment><USER2> No. If you read the article, he's complaining about names that are merely catchy-- which is exactly what Dr. Seuss words are: interesting sounding, but "meaningless" and "silly."

His claim that names matter for a startup is implicit in choosing to write a whole article about how the names startups currently choose aren't good enough.

<comment><USER3> I did read the article, and what he's really complaining about is words that are "meaningless" and "silly", and still are not "catchy" (oxford: instantly appealing and memorable). He's most concerned about the fact that the names are not memorable.

There is obviously an implied claim that startup names matter to a degree, but I think he makes it clear he doesn't think it's priority number one. Not to mention, it wasn't a whole article, it was a blog post. He writes for the Times, and he certainly didn't choose to make this the topic of one of his printed articles. He certainly isn't the first, nor will he be the last, to complain in his blog that web startup names these days kind of suck. I'm not naive enough to think David Pogue's blog is anything like mine or most, but it's useful to gain some perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think he understands the extent of the availability problem. We wanted to avoid the Web 2.0-ish name, since our audience is a little more pedestrian, and ended up having to write a script to combine keywords and check for availability.

And there were certain keywords for which there was just no good option left. For instance, sports. Our keyword list returned thousands of total availables, only two of which contained the word sports. One of which was sportshit.com.

<comment><USER5> It is a memorable name.

<comment><USER6> Almost as good as expertsexchange.com

<comment><USER4> Or whorepresents.com.

<comment><USER7> Great place for Christmas shopping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Naming probably mattered more in the era of phone books and neon signs: if you didn't recognize the name as relating to the service you wanted, it counted against the name.

These limitations aren't present with a URL; a short meaningless name is probably better than a long meaningful one.

An interesting recent phenomena is companies replacing their trusted names built up over many decades with a short, catchy, meaningless one: the rebranding of Washington Mutual to WaMu comes to mind.

A better article on the same topic from the Post: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/11...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR2007112702321.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Some of the names are thought out! Kijiji means village/small town in Kiswahili and gives a sense of locality.

<comment><USER4> That's fine if your audience is a village in Africa. If you're targeting English speakers, it's essentially nonsense.

<comment><USER9> Not really. Words from such languages are commonly found in the West. Microsoft named their Silverlight search front end Tafiti which is also derived from Kiswahili (tafuta - to search). Kiswahili is a widely spoken language in East Africa. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language>). There are many other occurrences of the language in popular American culture! It makes sense to borrow words from other languages when there is "just no good option left" as you yourself say.

<comment><USER4> Tafiti is gibberish too. Any word I haven't heard and can't squarely place the language of is gibberish to me. And given that like 8 people who own a computer have ever even heard of Kiswahili, Kijiji is gibberish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > So little imagination is on display nowadays, you could create an algorithm > that spews out comparable domain names with the click of a button.

pwgen! :-D</comment>


Show HN: Simple Add To Calendar JS Script - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN, it's my first week at Hacker School and here's what I've been working on since yesterday. It's a simple JS script you can use to add an "add to calendar" button (for websites with events). Would love to get your thoughts/ feedback!<p>http://carlsednaoui.github.io/ouical/ <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://carlsednaoui.github.io/ouical/></comment>


Do you think people would use... - <AUTHOR>

a website that focuses on aggregating the best strictly editorial content online?  Does something like this exist? <comment><USER2> I'd really like that.

You could probably collect statistical data on reader's preferences and make really good recommendations as well (like Amazon or something, but people tend to read a lot more editorials than they do books, so you'd have more a lot data to work with).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think they would. People enjoy debate, and there's certainly a huge need for _high-quality_ debate.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am not sure what exactly is meant by "strictly editorial content. Are we talking about newspaper-style Op-Ed pieces and the like?

It's been my experience that the most ravenous consumers of these type of materials are essentially looking for a named essayist to argue their personal position. As such they tend to pull from places which serve as echo chambers for "their team," be it Huffington Post, Reason.com, or Townhall.com.

I, further, believe you will run into copyright problems if you try to reproduce (as opposed to merely pointing to) pieces from Kristol/Krugman/Hitchens.</comment>


Reading List for a New Kind of Manager - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/about-work/935a550ddd02

<comment><USER2> There's some really good stuff on this list... A few titles I was aware of, but just had not gotten around to, but there is quite a bit of material on this list that I was totally unfamiliar with as well. I'm definitely looking forward to digging into some of it.</comment>


Google has developed speech-recognition technology that actually works. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2290516 <comment><USER3> Sorry to be a killjoy, but the premise of this article--that _Google_ developed the speech-recognition technology--hurts my feelings (to say the least) and underestimates the contributions of the NLP community.

Speech recognition, like machine translation, is academic in origin, and much of the work is still carried out in academia. For example, Google did not "invent" machine translation. No, Google Translate is an adapted version of academic systems. Perhaps the phrase tables are sharded and so is the language model, but the general algorithms are the same. Sure, one of Berkeley's NLP grads is working there, but it's basically an adapted version of what's available. They publish papers like "Stupid Backoff" [1], but that makes them as much a contributor as any other member of the NLP community.

Speech recognition is the same thing. Google is the company that takes existing research and adapts it.

To claim that Google developed the speech recognition technology is to discredit the contributions of _everyone else_ in the NLP community. Google has been generous at funding NLP research at the university level. Do you consider the results of those research "Google"'s?

 _Ultimately, the main difference is that Google has magnitudes more data and the physical capacity to handle that, not that it solved some systems or architectural bottleneck that has been limiting us._ Someone once said that all you need is a crappy model and great data to build a good ML-based algorithm...

[1] <http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/D/D07/D07-1090.pdf>

<comment><USER4> Having done only the smallest amount of work trying to apply academic research, I have to say that the standard approach through a lot of AI is to develop good ideas about as far as needed to get a few papers done (though I don't know NLP in particular).

The work of putting this stuff together into a system which works consistently and at-scale is _hard_.

Basically, it is unfortunate that the standard academia is publishing _papers_ (or pdf files) rather than publishing _libraries_. With this standard, the academics can't even readily use each others algorithms with this situation.

But when academics have this standard, it seems dumb to hear the complaint "uh no, you didn't do anything but apply our ideas..."

<comment><USER3> I am not an expert on speech recognition, but I am somewhat involved with machine translation. For MT, it's very architectural systems issues that limit us, first from trying different models and algorithms, but also in general.

How do you know ideas are "good" enough to be publishable unless you do plenty of experiments involving billion (or trillion) word corpora? I have a hard time imagining that research in other fields don't require validation.

<comment><USER4> I'm not saying that the papers that get published aren't good or valid. "Good enough to publish a paper" is indeed good.

It's just that once the paper is published, it becomes a cul-de-sac, a nice little city with no roads leading in or out, etc. Other researchers can only use the result by reproducing the idea by-hand (or at best through crufty Matlab code).

Yes, I'm sure the papers I've scanned involved considerable work and data (I worked in computer vision). But that work is often if not generally unavailable to the reader of the paper.

The point is that in creating a working system, Google has to do more than _extend_ academic research, even if academic research involved good ideas that had been given some thorough tests in isolation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I tried it up. It doesn't work went well services dept.

Maybe this is my voice doesn't give me a couple of words wrong in all 50 states. Did welcome center for dental bar kansas city missouri.

\----

I tried it out. It doesn't work quite as well as the article suggests.

Maybe it's just my voice, but it gets at least a couple of words wrong in almost every statement. "It", "welcome", and "thoughts", for example, are consistently misheard.

<comment><USER6> You can really see the "search term bias" in that snippet.

<comment><USER7> I've found the Android speech recognition works great for voice search and sucks for everything else. I've written a HN post or two with it; it either needed much hand editing or an outright translation to be intelligible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It got " _how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wouldchuck would chuck wood_ " right for me. I am impressed now.

But it couldn't handle " _Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn_ " Maybe I'm not pronouncing it quite right.

<comment><USER9> "how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wouldchuck would chuck wood"

That isn't really the best example, considering how these systems tend to work. If their system has a giant bank of text it's using to predict the statistical likelihood of your next word, once you've said "how much wood ..", 'would' is a very high probability candidate for the next word, and once you get to 'woodchuck' the rest is statistically almost inevitable.

A better 'difficult' test would be something along the lines of 'colorless green ideas sleep furiously', although we can't actually use that one since that example is so famous it would likely turn up in a web-derived corpus many times.

<comment><USER10> How is that even a test for it? If you input garbage into a system like that your going to get garbage out. And for fun, walk up to a stranger and say something like that and see if the stranger can provide useful information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems even strange to me that the article makes no attempt to survey other current examples of speech-recognition technology in order to support the unsaid implication of their lede. That is: "speech-recognition technology developed by those other than Google does not work."

I just downloaded the Bing app for iPad last night, and noticed it has a pretty decent speech-recognition engine from a company they acquired a few years back: TellMe. I tried all the examples given in the Slate article, and they were recognized just fine.

This makes me curious, are there a number of current-generation speech- recognition technologies that work at the level of Google's?

I should note that I didn't receive the desired behavior once my speech was recognized. When I asked the math question, a link to Wolfram Alpha was given, but I would have to click that link to get the answer. I had to go to maps to get any kind of relevant answer for "Directions to McDonalds," and I had to just say McDonalds and then click Directions to get the actual information. This failing appears to be a trait of the iOS app itself. Hand typing the math query into Bing on a proper browser did give me Google Calculator style results.

<comment><USER12> That's because it's Google PR (<http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>). Nuance Communications[1] (who makes Dragon and N other speech rec systems), is really the leader in this space. They've done server-based recognition solutions ~forever, and is the solution Siri uses for their app, for example.

[1] Note: this is not the same as the Nuance Mike Cohen started, but a conglomeration of speech companies purchased over the the years which inherited the name.

EDIT: Added some more detail

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but... i've tried Google Voice Search and it works incredibly well; whereas Dragon on the iPad did not work well enough to actually use for its intended purpose (although it was fairly impressive - i had low expectations).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder at what point Apple is going to have to start building these kinds of technologies. Purchasing Siri was supposed to be a step in that direction but nothing has come of it yet.

I worry that it's not in Apple's DNA to build products they can't directly charge for. Apple doesn't do freemium. The hope would be that third parties would pick up the slack.

However I'm not sure that startups can match Google in bigdata. So how will Apple catch up in voice recognition? In mapping (which also uses Android data to improve things like traffic and rerouting)?

<comment><USER15> I honestly can't see Apple doing speech recognition. It's good, but it's only 99% good, and Apple are known for being perfectionists.

I'm not sure about mapping, it also doesn't seem like an Apple product to me, but I can't really articulate why.

<comment><USER16> That is a cliche, and an incorrect one. Take autocorrect for instance - <USER2> a perfect product. (<http://damnyouautocorrect.com/>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Whatever anyone wants to say negatively about this article, it's bang on. I just got my first android phone, it has 2.2 and the little microphone is my new best friend. I talk out todos, write emails, texts, search youtube, search everything, it blows my mind. The only thing it's not good at is uncommon names and places (like my name "Micah" and "Quebec"). Rock on Google.

</comment><comment><USER18> "It even works if you've got an accent."

I have an indeterminate accent and my voice is on the low side of Bass so I trip up google voice pretty badly - it's mostly useless for me. FWIW, Rockband also can't make sense of what I say. I do wonder when it'll be good enough to understand me.

<comment><USER19> I hate to break it to you, but Rockband doesn't score you based on what you say. It just scores you based whether you're hitting the right notes. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone happen to know if there are significant companies in the speech- recognition space besides Dragon and Google?

<comment><USER21> One assumes that the NSA is doing a lot.

<comment><USER22> When I took a speech rec class last semester, we had a guy from BBN (subsidiary of Raytheon) give a talk about large-scale, extremely fast audio transcription. As in, systems that could process audio 30-40,000 times faster than real-time. They traded off recognition accuracy to get this, so their accuracy was around 50-60%, as I recall. I asked why something like that would be useful, and he said if you're looking at a lot of data (which I heard: eavesdropping on an entire telephone network) then all you need is a general idea of what people are saying and a few keywords before you can zoom in on specific clips for more thorough analysis.

So yes, I'm sure NSA is interested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What are the chances that Google can pick up enough from our voices to biometrically identify us from a crowd in future?

E.g. On a Google phone conversation or when licensed to a surveillance company.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hopefully they'll be able to apply this to Google Voice. The voicemail transcriptions are almost always hilariously wrong.

<comment><USER25> Google Voice actually uses the same technology and same dataset, AFAIK, which is why I was so confused by reading this article.

Google's stuff is pretty good some of the time, but they've hardly solved this problem to the degree the article suggests (as anyone who has actually used this for more than 5 minutes could tell you).

<comment><USER22> long-form transcription is a pretty different problem for language models than parsing search queries. There's lots of audio-processing overlap sure, but parsing a voicemail definitely has different, harder challenges.</comment></comment></comment>


I accidentally had a popular political live stream - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@duggan/the-time-i-accidentally-had-a-popular-political-live-stream-7b50f43bf8e8?source=hn

<comment><USER2> AFAIK in Hungary you can't just put out your camera pointing to the street and start recording indefinitely. You can apply for permission though. I don't know what's the case with actively going out with a camera and streaming, I would definitely not do that on a political event though even if it's legal.

<comment><USER3> As others have said, legal restrictions on broadcasting political events have dubious morality.

I can't judge your specific circumstances, but I can say how much I admire the people involved in the highly illegal activities of the 1967 writer's conference[1] that was at least partially responsible for the Prague Spring.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring#1967_Writers.2...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring#1967_Writers.27_Congress)

<comment><USER2> > legal restrictions on broadcasting political events have dubious morality.

Well I do not doubt this. However voluntarily documenting that you were there could hit back decades later. It's hard to predict the political situation in the far future even if you have a pretty good democratic setting in the present.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you limit your speech based on a speculative Orwellian autocracy, you are already living in your own personal one.

<comment><USER4> Don't tell Roko's Basilisk.

<comment><USER5> That actually is a very close analogue, isn't it.

Nearly exact I think. Only difference being the thing being created is a government system instead of an AI, and the torture is done physically, instead of to a simulation.

And really, if one accepts the idea of a simulation of oneself as being oneself, then the govt/ai distinction is, I think, mainly decoration at that point.

Hm.

<comment><USER6> I think the analogy is pretty good. I've used the political example as a way to think about Roko's basilisk without the extropian/singularity mysticism that attaches to the original formulation.

Recast, you could say: At some point within your natural lifetime, a brutal dictator will probably arise in the world (because, let's face it, horrific despotry is a recurring theme in human affairs). Clearly, any such dictator will want to punish people who did not help their rise to power by putting them in torture camps. Therefore, it is your _only rational option_ to seek out the most brutal, repressive tyrant you can find and help them gain power. Any other action would be foolish!

While that sounds kind of absurd, people do act on it. People assume that there will always be a neighborhood bully, a local crime boss, an exploitive employer, and so they try to get on the good side of the inevitable by gravitating to the most ruthless (and therefore most likely to overpower the others).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In most countries, this is (rightfully) illegal. You have a right to privacy, even in public places, and this includes not getting filmed arguing with your girlfriend by a stranger who then publicizes the video.

<comment><USER8> In most (Western) countries you have a right to privacy when there is a reasonable expectation to privacy. What you do on the public streets is presumably something you don't mind the people seeing.

What you are suggesting is analogous to yelling out a personal secret and then being mad that people "eavesdropped".

<comment><USER9> > What you do on the public streets is presumably something you don't mind the > people seeing.

The law of certain countries disagree with your.

A simple example that applies to the Italian law and to almost all continental EU countries. You are allowed to take pictures of every public crowd, simple. BUT you are not allowed to share (display) those pictures if they contain elements that could lead to the identification of somebody who is "already known to the general public". [1] The definition of "already known to the general public" is very fuzzy.

In addition, you are going to be in trouble if you publish a photo a crowd where there are minors and the faces of those minors have not been blurred or authorized.

[1] [http://www.fotografi.org/pubblicabilita_foto_ritratto_esempi...](http://www.fotografi.org/pubblicabilita_foto_ritratto_esempi_concreti.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> tangent: "Winter 2010 was a tough one for a lot of people. Physically, it was brutally cold, the coldest in more than a century. I had to stuff up my stupid, impractical windows with black bags and cower with an electric heater through the nights."

Black bags are not going to do it. Get a 3m window insulation kit. It is available in Ireland and actually does a pretty good sealing job. Used it in an apartment in ND and it did wonders. Plus, you can remove it easily so it doesn't damage the apartment.</comment>


Government censorship vs. corporate censorship - <AUTHOR> https://seds.nl/politics/censorship/internet/2017/04/12/different-censorships.html <comment> wu-ikkyu I would argue that in this day and age the corporate Internet Gatekeepers (i.e. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast etc.) have more leverage to threaten free speech and thought on a global scale than any government or organization has in history.

Sure, it's _legal_ , but we all know just because something is legal doesn't mean it _should be_.

Humanity can't survive and evolve without freedom of thought. _That_ is what's important here.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have updated my post pointing your opinion.

I agree with you that major corporations can threaten free speech more than governments, but my point is: when a government censorship's something is different when a corporation censors something, because when the gov. makes the decision, you have nowhere to run.

<comment> wu-ikkyu It seems like we have little to nowhere to run in both cases. Sure we can always "pick another service" to use, but it will invariably be another corporately owned service in which the number one concern is making money above all else, to the detriment of free thought.</comment></comment></comment>


DigitalOcean partners with Mesosphere - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/28/digitalocean-partners-with-mesosphere-to-allow-developers-to-focus-on-apps-not-servers/

<comment><USER3> This seems completely insecure. I just spun up the small cluster, and it does nothing to firewall off or isolate the instances from the internet?

Eg, Zookeeper is listening on port 2181 on the public internet?

How is this OK?

<comment><USER4> Use iptables. I know it's a glib answer, but that's how hosting always worked until AWS came along and introduced filtering from an interface outside of the control of the OS.

<comment><USER3> That is a horrible glib answer.

I was supposed to get a EASY TO USE, READY TO GO, Mesos development environment. So now I have to ssh to 5 boxes and manually add iptables rules? Why don't I just install Mesos myself then?

Honestly this whole thing just reads to me as a marketing releases, not something I would recommend anyone to use.

If the answer is 'use' iptables, fine, but then I would expect the automation that builds my cluster to do it for me, not leave me with a $200 a month cluster just waiting to get hacked.

<comment><USER4> >If the answer is 'use' iptables, fine, but then I would expect the automation that builds my cluster to do it for me, not leave me with a $200 a month cluster just waiting to get hacked.

Did you confirm that the tooling is indeed missing?

<comment><USER3> Yes, iptables is installed as a dependency of Docker, but is not configured to do anything:

    		$ iptables -L -v
    		Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT 2172 packets, 459K bytes)
    		pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination

    		Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT 0 packets, 0 bytes)
    		pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination
    		0     0 ACCEPT     all  --  any    docker0  anywhere             anywhere             ctstate RELATED,ESTABLISHED
    		0     0 ACCEPT     all  --  docker0 !docker0  anywhere             anywhere
    		0     0 ACCEPT     all  --  docker0 docker0  anywhere             anywhere

    		Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT 2350 packets, 461K bytes)
    		pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would love to see someone quantify the value in this through a tutorial or real world use case. I am Having a little bit of trouble wrapping my head around it.

Does this have enough security baked in to run a production web app? Still trying to get through the marketing speak on on the page...

<comment><USER6> Why is this awesome?

Production ready Mesos hosted in the cloud.

Now I dont have to run a $500M company to cut server costs and save dev ops time. Apache Mesos is a system predominatly used by large companies, to more efficiently utilize servers in their data centers.

The traditional way of organizing your servers requires a certain number of servers per cluster. For example: 50 webservers for your web app in one cluster, 5 servers for your database in another cluster, and 10 servers for redis, etc. On average, you'd utilize 50% of each cluster, but have the extra capacity for spikes.

Mesos makes your servers way more efficient by treating them as raw power, allowing any server to run any kind of app/task. It chops a server up into many linux containers and can shuffle around your tasks, so that a web app, redis server, and database server could all be running in different areas of the same "physical" server. I read that one company saved ~40% of their server costs and served the same load just by switching to Mesos.

Marathon is made by Mesosphere and acts as the brains or controller for your servers. You can allocate what percentage of resources go to certain apps/tasks, and it also handles deployment, scaling, failover and restarting.

Mesos supports Docker, so converting an existing app to run this on DO with Mesosphere is simple. Some applications are built for Mesos already, like Spark (MapReduce replacement), and will be inherently faster without the Docker overhead.

I found Mesosphere's tutorial useful for setting up a dev environment and trying things out - [https://mesosphere.com/docs/getting-started/playa- install/](https://mesosphere.com/docs/getting-started/playa-install/)

<comment><USER4> >Apache Mesos is a system predominatly used by large companies, to more efficiently utilize servers in their data centers.

I love Apache Mesos as much as the next person, but this isn't true. It's predominantly used by Mesos devs. It's one of the up and coming hot technologies, but it hardly has enough users to say it's predominantly used by anyone more than enthusiasts and devs.

<comment><USER7> It's powering huge infrastructures as we speak; Twitter, Airbnb, and many others: [http://mesos.apache.org/documentation/latest/powered-by- meso...](http://mesos.apache.org/documentation/latest/powered-by-mesos/)

<comment><USER4> Last time I checked very few of them relied critically on Mesos (Twitter, some parts of Netflix, and Airbnb did IIRC). Most are just test deployments or non- critical applications. (e.g. I know Ebay and Paypal are also OpenStack users because they try all the new things).

Other than those, none of those are really huge companies. I have nothing against Mesos, but I hate overhyping something when it's still clearly in an early adopter phase. The side effect of overhyping is that the tooling isn't mature/simple enough for less ambitious people so they get a bad association with the project because they tried it too early after someone implied that it was mainstream already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How does Mesosphere differ from CoreOS? I haven't worked with either one, but as a casual observer it seems like there's a bit of overlap between the two platforms. Is that a fair assessment, and can anyone comment on the maturity of one solution vs the other?

<comment><USER9> Mesosphere is based on Apache Mesos, Marathon and other technologies. Mesos is an abstraction of the underlying hardware - exposing APIs to allow running tasks in a cluster ~ think of just launching threads on your linux box - <USER2> Mesos it's similar, you can launch processes on your servers across your datacenter or cloud. It's production software that powers Twitter, Airbnb and other companies at scale. Mesos is more than just orchestration - it's really a fabric for writing distributed systems. Apache Spark was a sample app written for Mesos. Marathon is another application that runs on top of Mesos and orchestrates containers. It can handle tens of thousands of containers and more in a single cluster. Chronos and Storm are other systems that can run on top of Mesos.

Marathon: [https://mesosphere.github.io/marathon/](https://mesosphere.github.io/marathon/) Chronos: [https://airbnb.github.io/chronos/](https://airbnb.github.io/chronos/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The current options are $80 development and $200 for production a month. I would like to see a $60 option for starter, but I would imagine the benefits of the mesosphere deployment are better seen on a higher number of instances.

<comment><USER11> You can create your own custom cluster[1] with the specs and number of instances that you desire, which would allow you to easily create a $60 option.

[1]: [https://digitalocean.mesosphere.com/clusters/new/custom](https://digitalocean.mesosphere.com/clusters/new/custom)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Will there be Mesos-specific pricing? The full benefit of Mesos abstraction would remove the concept of a physical machine, and allow DigitalOcean to compete with Heroku-like services even better!

</comment><comment><USER13> This is great. The tools are still pretty buggy though.

<comment><USER14> How so? What would you like to see handled differently?

<comment><USER15> "Internal error while provisioning. We're looking into it! In the meantime, try creating and launching a new cluster."

Tried launching like half a dozen clusters (both custom and default)

Would also be nice to see a post-process set up tutorial on security (iptables and whatnot that people here are talking about)

The execution on GCE was much better imho with VPN support and generally better security (albeit the cluster cost was significantly pricier).</comment></comment></comment>


Older Entrepreneurs Do It Better - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/older-entrepreneurs-do-it-better-1518098400 <comment><USER2> This just in: People who have some experience doing things in general tend to be better at doing those things.

In my experience of working at startups they are generally too focused on "disruption" and tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Sometimes existing industries do things for valid reasons that you just don't understand yet and you need to in order to change them. Instead the community looks up to those fortunate (often just lucky) enough to be successful and tries to derive a signal about why they succeeded in the first place that doesn't really exist.

Experience in business or an industry gives you understanding of things it might take years to learn and helps you avoid making simple mistakes that can ruin your company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Older entrepreneurs are much less willing to sacrifice their health for the change of making someone else rich. They're generally harder to push around and intimidate too, making them much less attractive targets for investment.

<comment><USER4> I can't tell if you mean it that way, but that sounds like a good thing.

<comment><USER5> Your point is unclear.

The point _you responded to_ is saying that silicon valley investment favors youth because they can get better ROI by working younger folks harder and extracting better terms. They're saying older folks are harder to do that to, and you're saying "that sounds good" without specifying who you think it's good for.

It's good _for entrepreneurs_ to have more work life balance, not get burned out, and capture more return for their hard work. It's good _for investors_ to get max returns from their investments. There's a set of parameters to maximize returns for both parties.

You don't clarify what you mean by "a good thing."

<comment><USER6> > You don't clarify what you mean by "a good thing."

To be fair to the grandfather comment, that was the point.

<comment><USER5> The grandfather comment was making an observation, not asserting something as being good or bad. The child comment didn't add value because it was unclear.

<comment><USER7> > The child comment didn't add value because it was unclear.

I'd like to paraphrase it. "The child comment was unclear so it doesn't appear to add value."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Overall, I agree with the premise (seeing all the silly mistakes the younger folks - including myself earlier in life - do), but it also differs by area.

"Hip" stuff, B2C, is an area where the younger folks may fare better because they know the segment of the market which is willing to spend more (namely, other younger folks).

On the other hand, B2B requires an extensive network of connections, knowing the corporate bureaucracy, and a lot of patience. It's very unlikely under-30s will have advantage here.

All in all, us old farts are less likely to play by the VCs' destructive narrative of "all or nothing" and aim at the more realistic "much or something". Seriously aiming to be a Facebook or a Google is like including a lottery win in your budget.

And, of course, bullshit radars honed by experience never get obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER9> I believe this is true for businesses in general, but that doesn't mean it's true for startups. Startups are a tiny proportion of businesses, and things work very differently in that world.

Exactly how and why they work differently is a fascinating (and very useful) topic. And yet instead of exploring that interesting topic, reporter after reporter goes for the easy debunk-the-young-hotshot-myth article, using an argument based on conflating startups with businesses in general.

</comment><comment><USER10> Non subscriber link available?

<comment><USER11> Full article always available via ampurl:

[https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/older-entrepreneurs-do- it-b...](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/older-entrepreneurs-do-it- better-1518098400)

Use "Reader" mode in the browser to avoid AMP advertising or do something like

       curl -o 1.htm https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/older-entrepreneurs-do-it-better-1518098400
       sed -n -i '/<title>/,/<\/title>/p;/<p>/,/<\/p>/p' 1.htm
       firefox file:///1.htm

For even better results use a text-only browser for reading the news. AMP pages look great in a text-only browser. No ads.

<comment><USER9> The amp url just stopped working. Do you know an alternative?

<comment><USER12> [http://archive.is/ni2yb](http://archive.is/ni2yb)

I go to [http://archive.is/](http://archive.is/), put in the paywalled URL, and get a link like that one back. It usually works.

<comment><USER9> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is just semantic confusion. A local restaurant is not a highly scaleable technology company. They're both "new businesses" but radically different in every other way. It's an apples and oranges comparison.

One good definition of a Silicon Valley "startup" is Paul Graham's:

 _" A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth."_

[http://paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://paulgraham.com/growth.html)</comment>


The science world is freaking out over this answer to antibiotic resistance - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/the-science-world-s-freaking-out-over-this-25-year-old-s-solution-to-antibiotic-resistance <comment><USER2> The title is very click-baity. A better reading would be the embedded source it links to[1].

Will this technique of 'ripping holes in the bacteria' cause high collateral damage of the 'good' bacteria in our bodies? We can't design and inject medicines that destroy all bacteria, else we risk dying in other ways.

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/health/does-this-25-year- ol...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/health/does-this-25-year-old-hold-the- key-to-winning-the-war-against-th/)</comment>


Twitter Acquires Magic Pony - <AUTHOR> https://blog.twitter.com/2016/increasing-our-investment-in-machine-learning <comment><USER2> Machine learning on your images and videos to "enhance our strength in live and video and opens up a whole lot of exciting creative possibilities for Twitter"!

As ironically stated here [1], "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

Though Twitter has a good record of open-sourcing internal infrastructure projects, I think it's it's safe not to expect any substantive amount of this work to see the light of day.

On the other hand, the quality of their search and recommendations when it comes to non-text content will significantly improve. They're really doubling down on Twitter being the "best place to see what's happening and why it matters, first", which is a welcome change from the confusing signalling in months prior.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11930354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11930354)

<comment><USER3> > As ironically stated here, "The best minds of my generation are thinking > about how to make people click ads."

Thanks. Perfectly succinct summary of what I hate so much about today's business world.

Dear all advertisers: how about you stop trying to figure out how to make people want your product/service more, and focus on making it discoverable and clearly understood when the time comes where they finally realize they _do_ want such a product/service and go seeking it out from someone? And if they never do end up wanting it, MAYBE THAT'S FINE and maybe it's time you stop selling it?

<comment><USER4> As I was reading your comment, I was thinking - "Why not? Why shouldn't advertisers figure out how to advertise in ways that comes somewhat close to what you are suggesting, but make you want to buy before you know you want something?" ;-)...

Sometimes I think we are in a difficult dichotomy -- we like Twitter and we consume it voraciously and love that it is free, but we don't want them to use advertising as a source of revenue even though that might be the source that keeps it alive for us to consume. And, for free!

<comment><USER3> For sure, we're a greedy, selfish, and short-sighted species. But that doesn't make the advertisers _right_ for doing what people are implicitly asking them to.

<comment><USER5> People say 'the advertisers', but don't most people in the world work for a company that uses ads?

It seems that there's a mentality of compartmentalization, where people believe there to be 'evil ad companies' that somehow do nothing but make ads and don't actually sell products, nor employ people in the creative industry.

<comment><USER3> Just a crazy idea, but what if instead of TV/radio commercials and billboards and internet popup ads, products advertised themselves in the places they are sold (e.g. the sign next to a restaurant, or the side of a shampoo bottle on a shelf in the store), to explain very briefly why they're better than the competition? Most of the time, people will come across it organically, and that's healthy and good. But if discoverability is needed too, they can advertise in appropriate places, like restaurant listings, etc.

<comment><USER6> One of the buzzwords a few years back was the "intention economy"; the idea is that you wouldn't have ads, instead you'd have a kind of automated RFP process in which consumers would say what they want and sellers would reply with offers that matched the request.

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

<comment><USER2> Like a reverse auction or call for tenders?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I looked into these guys a month ago, they have a great team of young researchers.

The main application I saw was applying neural networks to video compression, improving compression by 3x or more (I guess by regenerating the lost detail?). Not sure if Twitter has much use for that but it looks like they have patented a bunch of other stuff too, and I'm sure will be a great addition to twitter's ML team.

Congrats to the guys - and hope they continue creating interesting tech in old blighty after the vesting period is over.

<comment><USER8> Do you have a link to the compression stuff?

<comment><USER9> [http://www.cv- foundation.org/openaccess/content_cvpr_2016/pa...](http://www.cv- foundation.org/openaccess/content_cvpr_2016/papers/Shi_Real- Time_Single_Image_CVPR_2016_paper.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know nothing about Magic Pony, but I'm starting to wonder how much of this craze is a form of "keeping up with the Joneses", except with tech giants and ML/AI startups instead of suburban families and their cars, etc.

<comment><USER11> Its not, its a fundamental shift in how you power your applications. Not acquiring and building this talent at a major firm would be the equivalent of sticking to steam power in the face of oil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is amazing to me, not because it's a great purchase but rather because of the absolute tone deafness that Twitter is demonstrating.

People are not using Twitter because of many reasons and bad image compression is probably not one of them. Unless Twitter is planning some massive pivot what they should have spent their M&A budget on companies that will help them improve their growth situation directly (in my opinion).

<comment><USER2> Twitter's massive pivot is actually well underway:

\- They bought Crashlytics and released Fabric.io, a souped-up Twitter SDK + Crashlytics + their bundled ad platform MoPub. The idea is you'll develop your app with this SDK and get crash reporting, usage stats, ad serving, 'Sign in via Twitter', Twitter integration, and all of this other stuff [1] for free.

\- They bought Digits, which is a 'log in with your phone number'-as-a-service and made it free to use. It's now integrated with Fabric.

\- They just bought Magic Pony which will help them better classify non-text posts so that their currently-awful suggestions are better.

Fact is, 'Twitter', the service where people post tweets, is no longer their primary growth area. It's their most externally visible, sure, but they want their SDK inside every app, and mine data and serve ads, just like Google and Facebook. This might actually work, because their SDK has some very nice things you might want anyway, compared to the other two that only give you identity, integration, and ads.

[1] [https://get.fabric.io/kits](https://get.fabric.io/kits)

[2] [https://get.digits.com](https://get.digits.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It would be super cool if Twitter let me write my own algorithm to decide what I get to see.

Or even better, let me "publish" an algorithm and let other people use it.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am pretty sure this whole article is just a euphemism for a new drug that twitter execs are super into right now.

</comment><comment><USER15> Twitter should spend some of the money getting someone to actually improve their web ui. Click a link to an individual tweet and read it. Now you click out of it to read the person's timeline. Here comes the janky timeline refresh. I mean shouldn't someone spend some time so it doesn't look like they had to pull the user's timeline?

I still get errors sometimes where I see, "1 new tweet" and it's the top tweet in my timeline, except here it is again.

</comment><comment><USER16> The bit about the Twitter Cortex team reads like an MBA approach to product. If I just rub together some PHDs and engineers then magic will happen.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is very sad news.

The #1 reason why I moved from Facebook to Twitter was that the latter service used straightforward algoritms for deciding what to show me. When I opened Twitter, I could be almost sure that the timeline would only contain posts from people I followed, arranged in chronological order.

Of course, there were some exceptions. Firstly, they always had ads. I see how many people here get angry about it, but I think ads on such site is perfectly normal. After all, they have to make money somehow, right?

Secondly, there were times when I saw "While you were away" box. This was the thing I found annoying from the beginning. How did Twitter infer that I was interested in these five posts more than in those five posts? It got worse over time. In fact, now this box shows up after a few hours of my absence, as if I am expected to check Twitter 10 times a day.

And it appears that they are planning to take these features to a new level. I really hope they don't do everything they talk about, but if they do, maybe I will have to seek a new social media service.

<comment><USER18> I can't laugh hard enough at this. I agree I (sorta) hate the Facebook filtering algorithm, but I find Twitter even more impenetrable. It's just impossible to figure out what's going on. Here's my timeline, just opened it up for this comment:

* Account I follow, 15s ago.

* PROMOTED post from 5 days ago. (here I've already run out of browser real estate on a 27" display because the tweets take so much damn room. Scroll down a page)

* While you were away: post from 3 days ago

* While you were away: post from 4h ago

* While you were away: post from 1 day ago

* While you were away: post from 3 days ago

* While you were away: post from 6h ago

* While you were away: retweet from 2 days ago

* While you were away: post from 1 day ago

* Actual twitter post from user I follow, 2h ago.

* PROMOTED from 18 days ago

For all intents and purposes, the Twitter feed is less chronological, less useful, and less content-dense than Facebook, and that's saying something considering that Twitter is supposedly a 140char service.

I had to scroll through 3 pages of crap before I got to the actual chronological twitter you speak of.

Also, they have this horrible habit of making tweets with a white background, then a tiny grey divider between tweets so it can be hard to tell at a glance when you've moved from one section of content to another -- much like when GMail went from colored message threading to all-monochrome.

<comment><USER19> When you had to scroll through three pages to get what you want. They archived what they wanted.No?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gh-lfneu28 Magic Pony Technology, you say?

[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is- optimal](http://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-optimal)

</comment><comment><USER20> Where is Twitter getting this money from?

<comment><USER21> They have a lot of cash on hand: [http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=TWTR](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=TWTR)

It's likely money left over from the IPO & previous fund raising events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I guess they've given up on making the text part of their product make a damn bit of sense.

<comment><USER23> I wondered this too. Twitter's app is broken - numerous complaints by power users that they should be addressing but instead they're busy buying companies?

<comment><USER24> I think probably team of people who develop and fix bugs on the app aren't the same team that buys companies, so Twitter can probably do both.

<comment><USER23> Obviously it has the resources to do both. The point I'm making (badly) is that if their core product is broken perhaps buying other companies should be put on hold until they fix it.

<comment><USER24> Ah, gotcha. When you stated that the app is "broken" I assumed you meant buggy, not "broken" as in a bad core product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This headline is far better if you don't know what Magic Pony is.

<comment><USER26> Even a magic pony can't save Twitter.

<comment><USER27> That's why Twitter also plans to acquire Magic Beans. Guaranteed to grow instantly up into the sky!

<comment><USER28> Magic Enterprise Beans?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Another sad moment for the London startup scene as one of the most promising startups of recent years get acqui-gobble-hired up by $BIGCO

<comment><USER30> For most companies in the startup scene getting bought by a larger company that has the scale and resources to apply your tech to bigger and more interesting problems is the planned exit strategy.

<comment><USER29> While not 100% comparable this feels as weak a move as selling Facebook to Yahoo for $1B

London needs strong, original startups. It's dire if you're looking for employment out here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Tensorflow, MagicPony.

I sense a trend here (machine learning).</comment>