Ads Coming to Skype Audio Calls on Windows - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405757,00.asp

<comment><AUTHOR> RE: "Conversation Ads will serve as an opportunity 'for marketers to reach our hundreds of millions of connected users in a place where they can have meaningful conversations about brands in a highly engaging environment,'"

Sure, it will do that. And it will also provide an opportunity for an ad-free new entrant (or existing) to the take market share from Skype).</comment>


What Size Am I? Find your perfect dress size on the high street - <AUTHOR> http://sizes.darkgreener.com/

<comment><USER2> Wonderful site. I will not be sharing this with my wife, however. :)</comment>


Apps, social media fuel 'booming' online prostitution: study - <AUTHOR> https://news.yahoo.com/apps-social-media-fuel-booming-online-prostitution-study-134405615.html <comment><USER2> Strange that the article mentions Instagram, but only as a tool for "pimps to recruit young girls".

It totally ignores the very large and well-known contingent of IG "models" selling their own bodies. Just search for "Dubai porta potties".....

www.tagthesponsor.com [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPOYMojEP9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPOYMojEP9k)

</comment><comment><USER3> Who else's first embedded advert in the article about online prostitution was a picture of a beautiful woman with the tagline, "Here for every beauty. Shop now."?

Top notch work, there, Yahoo Marketing.</comment>


A Lot of What You Know About North Korea Is Racist Nonsense - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/defiant/a-lot-of-what-you-know-about-north-korea-is-racist-nonsense-a625256b51cc <comment><USER2> I am traveling in West Africa right now, and the same applies to this part of the world.

This place is very, very different from that portrayed by the Western Media.

I was sitting in the Nigerian Embassy waiting for a visa, and an American tv show was on.. NCIS or something, and they had these American "heros" over in some African hell-hole saving the world.. of course they get attacked and then work hard to survive and find their way to some place. People are being dragged out of cars, men smashed in the face by the butt end of AK47s, women thrown to the ground. People's eyes show pure hatred - enough to actually scare me, even though I was just watching TV.

The show was set in Mali, they were supposedly in Bamako.

The kicker?

I was sitting in Bamako that very moment, having spent over a month there already, walking around every day, on my own, perfectly safe and happy. I even walked around at night multiple times. People would say hello and invite me into their homes.

The reality is that I met hundreds and hundreds of the kindest, friendliest and happiest people I have ever met in Bamako, yet millions of Americans are seeing realistic looking images that it's a complete hell hole.

I have driven through more than 500 road blocks in 10 countries in West Africa, and I have never, ever seen anything remotely scary or threatening. Not even once.

It's simply not true. It's fake.

When Africans see super heros flying around New York saving us from Aliens they know it's not real. When Americans see African Hell holes on TV, they have no idea it's not real. They are being lied to en-mass and have no idea.

(if it makes any difference, I'm white, and driving a not-cheap Jeep around Africa)

<comment><USER3> I've never been to Africa, so my perspective has likely been tainted by media and entertainment programs like the ones you describe.

How often did you travel to rural parts of Mali? Is it as safe as Bamako?

> ... I met hundreds and hundreds of the kindest, friendliest and happiest > people...

Over the years, I've learned that most people from most places are sane, regular people just trying to make their way in the world. People from Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Afghanistan, Tibet, Venezuela -- they're just regular folks like you and me. They get up in the morning, go to work, try to have a good time with friends/family in the evenings.

If we were to hold up a mirror and try to judge ourselves based on the outlandish things people do and say that end up being worth news coverage, I think we'd feel some dread about where we live too.

<comment><USER4> > People from Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Afghanistan, Tibet, Venezuela > -- they're just regular folks like you and me

Of course. However, the environment where they live may not be so regular. Of course it often surprises you when your expectations and prejudices aren't based on real experience, but crazy regimes make people also behave in crazy ways.

Remember the idolatry around Pavel Morozov, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article ignores the fact that the stated goal of the NK Regime is reunification of the peninsula(under their rule, of course), and that they were the ones that started the war to achieve that goal in the 50s.

</comment><comment><USER6> "U.S. propaganda can dismiss North Korea's legitimate concerns so easily because of the underlying racist assumption that these are a bizarre and simple-minded people that believe in things like unicorns. This feeds off of and into orientalist logic that sees East Asians as a nearly subhuman "other" that can't be reasoned with and so must be handled with force."

I don't particularly see this logic with Vietnamese, Chinese, South Koreans, Japan. At least in the particular context of military action. In fact, most of the articles I end up reading about Japanese, South Korean, or Chinese responses to what North Korea is doing at the current time.

That said, I think there is a big role of racism to play when North Korea is used as a fear tactic during political cycles locally. But maybe everything is just about America and I'm wrong here.

<comment><USER3> The "US propaganda" that I see and hear regarding PRK is almost _always_ regarding the cult of personality of the Supreme Leader. I don't think I've ever seen anything that would lead me to believe that its people are simple- minded.

The thing that puzzles me is, as in any dictatorship -- why does the military enforce the unjust rule? Is it that they don't see the plight of their people, they don't care, or they're enriched by the status quo and can't imagine disrupting it? Or something else entirely?

And why do the Chinese continue to support this state? Is it because of a belief in the ideology? Or a perpetual bargaining chip with the US?

<comment><USER7> > The thing that puzzles me is, as in any dictatorship -- why does the > military enforce the unjust rule?

Self-interest (in the most case, individual, on the part of each actor.) As in any dictatorship.

> Is it that they don't see the plight of their people, they don't care, or > they're enriched by the status quo and can't imagine disrupting it?

They see the plight of their people, and don't want to join it, and even moreso don't want to be (along with potentially their family) killed when any one of the many co-conspirators they would need to do something about it turns out to be a regime loyalist who scuttles the plan before it kicks off.

> And why do the Chinese continue to support this state?

Because they don't want a united Korea, and even moreso don't want a US (and Japan)-allied united Korea on their border. The DPRK is an alternative focus for China's global and regional rivals attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The North Koreans are dangerous because they refuse to submit to our > imperial authority and play ball with our global order.

Like it or loathe it, this is the problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> Media has its own image of things, yes. I've verified that in many places where what you see on the ground is substantially different from what you see on CNN.

But so does this piece, when it is referring to the U.S. armed forces: "still technically at war with them and poised to invade at moment's notice."

Hardly poised to invade at moment's notice. There is no such capacity to attack quickly. The U.S. is there and together with South Korean forces, able to respond to fire, and perform limited airstrikes, but there is nothing that would realistically be useful for an actual invasion of North Korea.

The article makes it a big thing that DPRK has no real capability to attack the U.S. using ballistic missiles. It does not make a big thing that DPRK loudly and repeatedly announces it has such a capability. Or that it has repeatedly used so-called unconventional methods, such as murdering people on the shopping concourse in other countries. [0] I don't consider it an exaggeration to expect that they might try things like packing a nuclear bomb in a freight ship that then attacks a coastal city of a perceived enemy.

That is quite clearly the reason that it is considered as somewhat crazy, or at least unstable and unpredictable.

I am not much worried about DPRK launching a nuclear attack against Western countries in the short term, but thinks like the recent threats against Australia [1], [2] don't make it any easier to accept them as harmless.

Their Twitter feed [3] makes a rather disconcerting read.

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/14/kim-jong-un- ha...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/14/kim-jong-un-half-brother- reportedly-killed-malaysia-north-korea)

[1] kcna.co.jp/item/2017/201704/news21/20170421-29ee.html

[2] [http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/north-korea-threatens- aust...](http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/north-korea-threatens-australia- with-nuclear-strike-over-us-allegiance/news- story/fa28ccb9eaaff6c02f5c12bdc19bc227)

[3] [https://twitter.com/dprk_news](https://twitter.com/dprk_news)

<comment><USER9> "Their twitter feed": DPRK_News is a parody account by Ken White of Popehat.

<comment><USER4> Right, thanks. In this case I can't tell difference between parody and the actual statements by DPRK News.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. You're not alone. Even journalists have quoted it. Poe's Law is strong with that one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a huge strawman. Most people do not, as the author claims, believe that North Koreans in general are irrational, stupid, warlike, etc. They believe that the North Korean _leadership_ has most of those qualities, which is pretty well proven. Unable to counter that, the author chooses to "disprove" that which is never claimed. As jrhurst has already pointed out, this supposed "orientalism" doesn't seem to exist for Viet Nam, China, or even South Korea. I'm not going to say there's no such thing as anti-Asian discrimination or even outright racism in the US, but we don't fear nations that aren't led by provably-insane coddled children of past dictators,.

<comment><USER11> Assuming that your enemy is crazy is just intellectual lazyness. If you can't explain the behaviour of your enemy then it's probably because your understanding of his motives is lacking.

<comment><USER10> _Assuming_ that your enemy is crazy is intellectual laziness. However, there really are crazy people in the world. Some occupy positions of power. Do you deny either part of that? When the craziness is _thoroughly proven_ it's not lazy to recognize it. You know what _is_ lazy? Assuming that someone's _not_ crazy, or assuming that an interlocutor is jumping to conclusions. Turn that lens on yourself first, not last.

<comment><USER12> "Crazy" suffices to say that the behavior set is far outside of regular norms as to be unworkable with normal reason. It doesn't have to imply the actor is schizophrenic or anything.

It doesn't matter if the actor, behaving rationally towards his ends, has ends that are absolutely incompatible with ours, or if he's acting irrationally. [edit: I mean it doesn't matter from a defense of his behavior standpoint. It's fine to call him "crazy" if his ends are absolutely unacceptable]

I agree with the critique of the piece - no one thinks North Koreans are inferior as human beings. We think they've been fed a ubiquitous dose of propaganda their entire lives. We think that a dictator, so very isolated through years of behavior that necessitates (and invites) it, lacks any sense of acceptable end-states for his country.

I also agree that it's misguided to dismiss him as actually crazy. One must treat him as a rational actor - moves you make will have moves he makes. There is rationality involved. May be shitty rationality, may be myopic rationality, but it's rationality. You move warships towards North Korea he's not going going to launch Rubber Ducks at you. That'd be crazy. He's not going to poop his pants and eat the feces on live television and announce he's a little princess.

<comment><USER10> Don't try the "excluded middle" trick on me. Rationality is not an all-or- nothing proposition. Literally nobody is 100% rational or 100% irrational. The question is where the balance lies; "crazy" is an apt term for someone who is only rational in limited ways or for a small percentage of the time.

<comment><USER12> I ain't try any trick yo

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> While it's true that the media overplays how volatile NK is (mostly by acting like saber-rattling has any reasonable chance of devolving into full-scale war), let's not act like their administration is ran by reasonable people either.

Remember that according to KN Kim Jong-il's birth caused a new star to appear in the sky and the season to miraculously change from winter to summer, and never needs to defecate. This is also the same country that is home to some of the worst human rights violations in the world and keeps their dissidents in concentration camps.

Painting them as innocent and reasonable feels like a bit of a stretch.

</comment><comment><USER14> There is Russian article about this. Not sure how 'fake news' it is, but seems to have many details and numbers.

[https://eadaily.com/en/news/2017/04/12/nuclear-kim-armed- dem...](https://eadaily.com/en/news/2017/04/12/nuclear-kim-armed-democracy- against-helpless-totalitarianism)

</comment><comment><USER15> Having resigned myself in most international matters to narrative collapse, a post-modern inability to determine the relative truthfulness, completeness or meaning of conflicting narratives, I offer only the following content:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4rfHAqs9EI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4rfHAqs9EI)

</comment><comment><USER9> In the author's own words, in a comment to his own article: "I don't claim to be an expert or even that well-read on the subject." In context, the "subject" he refers to appears to be "North Korea."

</comment><comment><USER16> Stopped reading at "war-horny bigot like Trump". I'd rather invest time in an even-handed analysis of the situation...

</comment><comment><USER17> The article is not wrong. We had a real chance to negotiate a roadmap towards a real peace agreement with NK, and end its nuclear program, but as usual the _Republicans_ were against it. After all, if NK disarms then we don't get to bomb a country of "others" (Communists, Shiites etc.) who are against our ideological preferences. And that would be a shame.

As usual the bonehead Repiblicans under Clinton, and later the disastrous George W Bush administration preferred to save a buck and reneg on the Agreed Framework, instead having their children spend 100 bucks and people's lives go up in smoke in what might be the first nuclear war since WW2.

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

 _" Soon after the agreement was signed, U.S. Congress control changed to the Republican Party, who did not support the agreement.[16][17] Some Republican Senators were strongly against the agreement, regarding it as appeasement.[18][19] Initially U.S. Department of Defense emergency funds not under Congress control were used to fund the transitional oil supplies under the agreement,[20] together with international funding. From 1996 Congress provided funding, though not always sufficient amounts.[11][21] Consequently, some of the agreed transitional oil supplies were delivered late.[22] KEDO's first director, Stephen Bosworth, later commented "The Agreed Framework was a political orphan within two weeks after its signature".[23]

Some analysts believe North Korea agreed to the freeze primarily because of the U.S. agreement to phase out economic sanctions that had been in place since the Korean War. But because of congressional opposition, the U.S. failed to deliver on this part of the agreement.[24]"

"As late as the end of 2003, North Korea claimed that it would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for additional American concessions, but a final agreement was not reached. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty in 2003."_

However keep in mind that NK already helped Syria build a NUCLEAR WEAPONS FACILITY in 2006, which Israel had discovered and successfully destroyed.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Orchard](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Orchard)</comment>


Ask HN: Ideal language for running the systems of an Orion class spaceship? - <AUTHOR>

In science fiction tv, movies and books we often see and hear about systems and sub-systems working together to run the entire ship. And almost always there are scenarios where the "OS" for the ship allows quick hacks to re-purpose modules or re-route data/power across areas.
Being a developer, I have always wondered whether there is a language currently that can withstand the rigours of deep space? Or it is something yet to be invented?
Such a programming language should have certain features - fast execution times, versatility, good driver support for hardware components, ability to script in, baked in support for messaging,etc. <comment><USER2> An oldie but a goodie: "Lisping at JPL".

[http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html](http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl- lisp.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> well it does mention how they had 'political pressures' to move to C++. I believe C++ is great when you are talking about performance, something which is absolutely critical when you are talking about calculating minute adjustments to trajectories on the fly really fast.

But the programming language we are looking for must be a 'hackable' one - something for you which you can hack together a fix or bypass fairly easily and quickly in case of situations encountered in interplanetary space. C++ is definitely not something I see capable of achieving that.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have found that the International Space Station Flight Software Guidance, Navigation, and Control uses 'Ada' [http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada- project-summary.html](http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada-project- summary.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seems like ESA has put its money on MicroPython [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9699798](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9699798)</comment>


The College Wealth Premium Has Collapsed - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/college-wealth-premium-collapsed/604579/ <comment><USER2> N=1 anecdata, I'm 26, net worth of ~$10M, barely finished high school. Avoided University on purpose because spending 4 years not working in tech seemed really expensive opportunity cost wise. Was the right choice. Can't be a doctor without going to college, but you can get rich.

<comment><USER3> Congrats! And you are right. You don't get rich by going the beaten path. If your grandfather could hope to reliably get kinda wealthy by going to college, it doesn't mean you do. More: it means you CAN'T, because too many people 'know' they 'can', if even their grandfathers knew. Money is where no one is looking for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't even understand why is there any confusion about it. College is a competitive tool. With share of people with a degree rising from 4% to 33% (and fewer than 33% have ANY net worth), how can it be otherwise? Having a college degree 60 years ago meant being a member of the elite. Now it means nothing. Except a pile of debt.</comment>


Why isn't someone using my software product or open source tool? - <AUTHOR> https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/921921604140937216.html <comment><USER2> My pet peeve: Not providing screenshot, gif or video.

Some developers even do that with themes. Yeah, I am not going to DL a theme file only to find out I don't like.

<comment><USER3> This is one of the most common errors that open source projects make: not providing screenshots, not providing info for the beginner. There is almost always some "help us" or "documentation" corner on the web pages, but the screenshots, even if it is just a CLI tools, are too often missing.

<comment><USER4> What's the point of screenshotting CLI tools? I'd much rather have an example command line that I can copy/paste than some image of a terminal...

<comment><USER5> I, for one, have been helped much by some project providing screenshots or even animated gifs of input and possible output by a tool...

<comment><USER6> And, for everyone's benefit, LICEcap[1] is a FOSS tool to make just that (animated GIFs showcasing your software) from the guy responsible for Winamp and Reaper DAW (the GIF's on the Reaper page are made using this tool).

[1][https://www.cockos.com/licecap/](https://www.cockos.com/licecap/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the first points are the most salient. Developers undervalue the skill of marketing and sales frequently. It is one of the most powerful secondary skillsets a creator needs. If you are unable to inspire, trust and expertise you will forever have a hard time selling your product. I wrote a post on this area just a couple hours ago and what mindset can help fix that: [http://blog.adimofunne.com/no-one-gives-a- shit/](http://blog.adimofunne.com/no-one-gives-a-shit/)

<comment><USER8> Funny story. On my last 2 day hack project [1] I was really concerned about "no-one-gives-a-shit". So the last project I created something everyone wants: You trade Github stars. Even though the users loved it, it will not spread because on any forum/twitter/channel it is down voted almost immediately. Even though people do give a shit - the group that hates the project drowns it out.

[https://www.gitstarred.com](https://www.gitstarred.com)

<comment><USER9> I'm not trying to be inflammatory but I think the first issue that comes to mind is that giving stars at random kind of circumvents the meaning of stars.

<comment><USER10> The the reason this is disliked is pretty obvious IMO. It's undermining the value of stars as an indicator of a projects health / usefullness. People explore tools and libraries on GitHub to incorporate into the work they do at their jobs. If this were to take off it could potentially make everyones job harder, yikes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My most important takeaway from my past projects is. No matter how cool/sophisticated your product is, people are interested in solving their specific problem and won't discover most of what your product can do. They are coming to your site/product because they tried to solve a specific problem.

So focus on a very narrow use case and make that as simply and frictionless as possible to solve (installers for all platforms, bundled libraries, simple tutorial for the main use cases people are downloading your software for, ...). Your product may still support all the cool stuff you put into it, but accept the fact that most people wont use those features.

Once your user is invested in your software he might try to expand his use further which is what might keep your users invested, but to get there you need those specialized narrow key use cases that are your hook to get them.

</comment><comment><USER12> Missing: marketing? Just being able to find the product _even exists_ is crucial in my experience.

They wont even get to reading the description or trying out the product/demo if they don't know it exists. Point #7 is getting at this, but I personally feel like this should be Point #1 and probably also have a load of sub-points about it :-) A single post on a forum or a handful of blog/twitter posts probably isn't going to cut it.

You need relentless self-promotion via appropriate communities (which might be twitter, but possibly IRC, forums, mailing lists, hell even youtube) in a _genuine & non-spammy_ way that is appropriate, interesting/useful, and (crucially) relevant to the people in that community/discussion. Once your product becomes more widely used and well-known enough in those communities, then it starts to become a bit more scalable since your happy users will suggest people use your tool for you, and you dont have to be the one to pounce on every opportunity to suggest people use your tool to solve their problem X.

Marketing is tough and its a really crowded space.

</comment><comment><USER13> This checklist misses the most important question; Are you using the tool yourself?

<comment><USER14> And also..."Why should I trust you?"

<comment><USER15> You shouldn't trust random strangers on the internet at all, no matter what good story they spin for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Also: Have you built something people actually want to use? (There is a good chance the answer to this is 'no')

</comment><comment><USER17> There's nothing wrong with this advice, but you could do everything on the checklist and still attract no users. However, I'd like to question the premise that that's a good way to measure the success of a project. Having written a very successful open-source library with one user (me), I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out. Some of my other stuff has more users, but I can't say I'm happier with it.

<comment><USER18> Maybe somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that there's an implied and generally understood "...that I want other people to use," at the end of that headline.

<comment><USER17> There is. It's what I'm responding to here; I want to contest the idea that attracting users is a measure of success. I wrote a library to do something that nobody else really wants to do. But I wanted to have it, I think it was well-executed (one design flaw notwithstanding), and I'm glad I wrote it. So it's a success, and it has exactly one user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "4\. Do you compare your tool to other similar tools so people feel educated about pros/cons of yours?"

This I find is an important one most developers forget. I want to know why you consider your tool/library different from the solutions already out there. It might be better in some respect, it might sacrifice some functionality for the benefit of simplicity, usability, etc. Or you might have created a 'yet- another-X' in which case I probably won't bother as I might already have a solution I'm fine with.

</comment><comment> DC-3 > And if the tool is meant to be used by devs, still describe your tool in a > way a non-developer can understand

Why?

<comment><USER20> The dev-specific explanation will often be dull and hyper-specific, narrowing your target market _even among developers_.

<comment><USER21> And at the same time, don't make the explanation sound too patronizing or infantile, or litter your landing page and docs with stupid little memes. Strike a professional tone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This checklist is a petty distraction from the most pertinent truth; it's all about trust. Reputable people and companies don't trust your project because neither you nor your project have connections to famous people or companies. Big companies don't trust projects that aren't used by other big companies. Especially open source projects; this is because companies don't trust someone who works for free and has no skin in the game (nothing to lose). Small companies and individual developers also tend not to trust projects that aren't already used by big companies so it's a catch 22 from any angle. Trust in open source is about money; you need connections to big capital. Everyone follows capital like moths to a flame. You can have the worst product in the world, but if you have connections to big corporate capital, you will succeed.

That's what I learned from my own open source work; without meaningful social connections, it took me about 10 years working nights and weekends to get one of my projects to reach 200K+ downloads per month. I have about 4 full years of 'failed' projects behind me; even though they were actually successful from a technical perspective.

<comment> maze-le >> neither you nor your project have connections to famous companies or people

It may come across like this, but most often, a decision is made against a solution by an individual, because the risk of a project like this not being maintained after a while is quite high.

<comment><USER22> If you're talking about a small/trivial/low-complexity open source library then that is probably the whole story but if you're talking about something more ambitious and opinionated (like a framework or platform) then the element of trust becomes very significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Related: If you're trying to decide between two projects you want to start is there any methodical but simple way to determine which might be more useful or gain more traction?

I don't mean methodical as in heavy or complex. Example, there's a short book on designing good usability into a UX with some really simple and quick methods ([https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy-Yourself- ebo...](https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy-Yourself- ebook/dp/B002UXRGNO)).

Isn't choosing which open source project to invest in a bit like market research, as is UI/UX design? Maybe that's stethching an analogy.

The point is I always have strong intuitions and opinions about what project to invest time in, independent of interest/passion. However, it seems even one or two more methodical decisions processes could be provide useful data points to factor in.

If you feel roughly as passionate about two projects, why not try to maximize your chances all the work will go somewhere?

</comment><comment><USER24> Good advice.

"Please forward to marketing" is based on one of my highest-rated HN comments. It starts:

Tell me what your product is. What it does, where it works, how it does it, what it requires. Is it a physical product (or is it shipped in one), an interactive application, a Web service, a programming language / tool? As a reader notes, don't make me use Wikipedia to figure out WTF your company does.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_forward_to_marketing_how_to_present_your/)

</comment><comment><USER25> You have to get it linked on HN for some shameless self promotion. For instance, check out my project [https://github.com/keredson/gnomecast](https://github.com/keredson/gnomecast), a linux native Chromecast broadcaster for local files, which supports MKV files, subtitles and 4K! I'm only a few stars shy of 1000! Help me out here guys! =P

</comment><comment> aaron-lebo Is it too much to ask for evidence for any of these claims? More than "trust me"?

<comment><USER26> >If you know of good resources for the folks interested in learning more about marketing or sales, reply with links and I'll happily RT.

She's crowdsourcing it, very efficient from her perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is this the new trend?

Somebody relatively new to the tech industry who seems to have time to write tons of "expert opinions"?

I have seen more and more of these sorts of articles coming on HN, and other tech orentend places on the internet. I am starting to question if coding is the right path for anybody doing tech, and simply skip stratit to being a expert in field that takes decades to master even a small segment.

It's not every single post. The ones I am talking about are ones where they have worked a hand full of a jobs -- about a year each and yet find themself speaking at conferences and writing grand articles as if they are somehow a proven expert in the topic they are talking/writing on, but lack the actual experience to justify their stance.

To me, the real experts who have something valuable to say are probably too busy writing code and solving problems. It is not until much later in their career can they even begin to connect the dots of their mistakes and success to be able to talk about them.

I think people should be leery of advice given by those with no real track record to support their views and positions.

Yes, I know this is a bit of rant, but it seems to me that the industry is starting to look a lot like other industries where a class of people who actually can DO things are getting left at the sidelines while those who only talk about things are being trumpited as superstars and leaders of the industry -- without ever writing any significant amount of code or being a valued team member.

Please feel free to correct my thought process on this, I am open to other interpretations of what is going on.

<comment><USER28> Stephanie Hurlburt cofounded Binomial, which builds Basis, an image compression system that's licensed to Netflix because of its quality. She's very much an expert in her field, and she indeed writes a lot of code.

<comment><USER27> First off, all text available seems to indicate Basis is a WIP. Everything talks about what it will be, or how it would work, and if GPU manufacturers did X.

Furthermore Basis seems based off the open source work of Richard Geldreich. The company seems to be attempt to license this work, or license derivatives of this work. Richard appears to still be involved.

<comment><USER28> Binomial was founded by Stephanie Hurlburt and Rich Geldreich. They both work on Basis. Basis it not a WIP, it is used by games today (and also Netflix). All of this information is available on the single page that is their homepage.

[http://www.binomial.info/](http://www.binomial.info/)

<comment><USER27> > making Basis

I nearly watched/listen to everything posted by this company. Every wording in in future tense, with the exception to crush which is the free version, that had been available before the company existed, and was written by Rich Geldreich. There seems to be no information on the different between the free crush -- that existed before the founding of the company -- and the Basis, nothing you can tell from the there website anyways.

There is no doubt that people are using crush, and that even some people did buy licenses to the crush taken private version. The slides seem to indicate -- again crush is what is in use, and Basis "will" do x y or z. It seems they are using crush and basis interchangeably.

But even so, the slides clearly state that Rich wrote the software, and it seems to do so in such a way to make it clear that it was Rich. But that doesn't even matter. The point of my comments was not to argue about what somebody has or has not done.

But none of that actually matters, if I took everything the site said, and everybody else is saying here at face value the company, the people involved with maybe the exception of Rich are not industry experts on starting companies, running companies, or pioneering technology yet.

Simply having a one big named customer is like winning the lottery, so any advice anybody there would have about that would be a waste on the vast majority of people trying to start a company.

If you simply dug deeper you would see what Binomial is. The history goes a bit like this.

1) Hated interviewing (interview processes seemed to be rated if there was a job offer or not) 2) Hated working with people. 3) Found Rich. 4) Liked working with Rich, and Rich with Stephanie 5) Both decided they hated working with people and that people seem to be the problem. 6) Both decide to start working together as contractors. 7) Rich had crush, which was a successful piece of software. 8) Idea!!! Take free software and make a for pay software company out of it to pay the bills!

None of this is really up for speculation, she blogged all about it over the past 5 years.

Stephanie and Rich are super smart and talented people, and are doing some cool things.I look forward to seeing if they do become the type of people I think should be having blog post and articles posted on sites like HN. But as my main point is scuessess is not a switch, it does not happen instantly. The company, is too new, and at least the main member of it speaking at conferences and simply lack a history that suggest that they have consumed enough of information to really understand how they got to where they are and if there is anything they could say that would help others.

No I am not trying to stop people from writing about their experiences, but what I am concerned about is how HN and sites like HN seem to get flooded with tech and business articles from people who -- again -- seem to have a ton of time to write about things on a constant bases -- but lack a history around them that supports their views and thoughts on subject matters.

I have a lot more to say but don't have time time. But I should make it clear that the issues I have are with the poster, and that stupid site that concatenates tweets into articles. Things like that I feel are a plight on getting ture information transfer from those who know to those who don't know. I expect the bar to be a bit higher.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Satellites see big fishing's footprint on the high seas - <AUTHOR> http://digitaledition.baltimoresun.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=8839d4ae-7892-42e6-8e4a-77b6c2b67d1f <comment><USER2> When I read "but they hover at the edge of marine protected areas" I'm wondering if anyone's done any analysis to see whether the AIS signals for some of those ships mysteriously disappear for periods which coincide with them reaching the edge of marine protected areas...

(Edit: they have done this for a region of interest: [http://globalfishingwatch.org/fishing-vessel- behavior/signal...](http://globalfishingwatch.org/fishing-vessel- behavior/signal-gaps/what-can-we-see-when-ais-signals-disappear/) )

<comment><USER3> This absolutely happens. Fisher boats will turn off AIS routinely. The nonprofit Global Fishing Watch is doing research to analyse AIS signals, and determine if illegal fishing happens in protected areas. See [http://globalfishingwatch.org/fishing-vessel- behavior/signal...](http://globalfishingwatch.org/fishing-vessel- behavior/signal-gaps/what-can-we-see-when-ais-signals-disappear/)

If you browse their site, there's also stories about other illegal activities, such as laundering fish (it's being mixed with fish caught in legal areas on sea). Also some boats are staffed with people that are essentially slaves. They typically stay on sea permanently, and are fueled on sea. ([http://oceana.org/blog/how-global-fishing-watch-can- combat-s...](http://oceana.org/blog/how-global-fishing-watch-can-combat- slavery-thailand%E2%80%99s-fishing-industry))

<comment><USER2> You posted about the same time as me!

(Having worked with people involved in EO and law before, I know it's not just fishing boats where AIS being switched off in certain places may or may not be evidence of other stuff happening)

<comment><USER3> Actually a couple of people mention the GFW in this page. Good to see that people are aware of the work being done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Compare with chlorophyll levels in the ocean:

[https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30786](https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30786)

Essentially there are small diatom things at the bottom of this food chain (and at the top of the ocean) that do the heavy lifting of converting sunlight into energy. Plankton (diatoms and the many, many, many variants) then get eaten by fish and then those fish get eaten by bigger fish and then the Japanese/Chinese/Spanish fishing fleet scoops them all up.

Temperature is important to the phytoplankton so there are places like the seas around Iceland that are extraordinarily rich for marine life. Also important is what flows out of rivers and gets blown off the land, grasses on land are therefore surprisingly important for fisheries - nitrogen has to come somewhere.

In conclusion I am surprised at how different the two maps are of where the fishing happens and where marine life as measured by chlorophyll happens.

</comment><comment><USER5> The backstory behind the data gathering to make the map is a good read. They have put a lot of effort to cleanse and understand the raw data. There are plenty of nice articles on the what and why: [http://globalfishingwatch.org/explainers/data/what-does- an-a...](http://globalfishingwatch.org/explainers/data/what-does-an-ais- message-look-like-anyway/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Is this dataset available anywhere, it could be very interesting to play with.

<comment><USER2> Data's here for registered noncommercial project use [http://globalfishingwatch.org/research/research- accelerator-...](http://globalfishingwatch.org/research/research-accelerator- program/)

More generally, there's plenty of AIS data providers who'll sell you raw data and have visualizations on their website, though there's a lot of cleanup work to narrow it down to things like fishing activity. AIShub offers free feeds, but only if you've got AIS data of your own to share (or maybe if you have a particularly good reason and ask them very nicely)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What are the empty circles and squares?

<comment> jake-low Some of them (like the ones in the south Pacific and the one south of India) are exclusive economic zones around islands. EEZ boundaries typically extend 200 nautical miles from shore (or until they run into another EEZ). See this map [1].

Presumably the nations that control these zones aren't fishing them extensively, but other nations are fishing the international waters surrounding them, which is why you can see certain EEZs as negative space on the map in TFA.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone#/media...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone#/media/File%3ATerritorial_waters_- _World.svg)</comment></comment>


The Reddit Island Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.redditisland.net/ <comment><USER2> I'm considering starting a jungle resort where people can come and hack for a few weeks and build a house with their own hands. Unlike the reddit people, I actually already own the place. In october or so, I'll start some preliminary work, perhaps to be fulfilled a couple of years later.

<comment><USER3> How much have you done there? I found the technological challenges people faced in the Amazon pretty fantastic when I visited Yachana Lodge [<http://www.yachana.com/>] in Ecuador. This was a few years ago, and their use of water wheels, (some made out of bicycle tires) gas engines, and mesh networks to get around the difficulty of wiring and power generation was simply fascinating.

<comment><USER2> Nothing is done, just cleared the spot of grass and there is some shack there. I worked on a water wheel when I was there a year or two back, but we could not get it to work (and produce electricity). I'll make a HN post maybe someone will give me some tips on this.

<comment><USER4> r.e. electricity production; I might be able to help. My degree was Electronics (rather than Electrical) Engineering but you can't help pick up a few tips :)

(I expect there are more qualified people here too; but if none appear...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> At first this might not seem interesting to HN, but I'm wondering if this is a progression of the open source movement. First software, then hardware, now big projects like resorts.

I'm not sure what would make a resort "open source", but a bunch of strangers collaborating over the internet to open a resort is pretty awesome.

<comment><USER5> That's arguably the same way the United States came into being: People didn't like the way the current closed system was being done, so they decided to fork a new government and invite everyone to contribute.

<comment><USER6> Well, not quite everyone. White male property owners.

<comment><USER7> That's pithy and funny, but not really fair to most of the Founders. Akhil Amar's biography of the Constitution gives a readable refutation of that concept.

<comment><USER6> He doesn't really refute the concept as much as he suggests the system was better than others at the time.

<comment><USER7> In his lectures, at least, he argues not only that the system was better than others at the time, but also that the founders designed it in a far more democratic way _than people give them credit for in retrospect_. Perhaps this was not emphasized in the book; it's been awhile since I read it.

<comment><USER8> It is a very difficult thing to argue for the correct amount of credit to give a historical figure. I respect anyone who tries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now that this Reddit Island Project has surfaced and gained some support, I actually think that an island for a larger group might be more practical. A group the size of YCombinator with the resources of YCombinator just might be able to do this. If we expand the project to include all YCombinator startups and contributors to HN, there should be enough people so that each person would only have to pay a rather small sum. I know that I am putting the cart before the horse here, but with a somewhat reasonable goal of 10M, we could probably purchase our island within a few years.

Just to continue with the brainstorming, it would be even more practical to have an "island" on land. We could purchase about 50 acres worth of some backcountry land in the US and develop it into a place for some sort of entrepreneurial or internet-centered facility.

</comment><comment><USER10> This seems like a case where they really ought to consider starting 'lean'.

Initially buy a small house in an area densely populated by redditors and turn it into a coffee house or something where they can go to hang out. When you've gotten past a certain point, move to a small resort location, then eventually get to the island stage. It just seems like setting yourself up for failure to go straight to the island, which has soooo many more obstacles in the way.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interestingly, I saw a similar project a couple of months ago. But it was for the Anonymous group. Don't know what happened to them.

      We are not attempting to establish a separate
      country or create problems for ourselves.

I wonder what would happen if they were. Not that I want to see them in trouble, but a big, populated version of Sealand could bring many economical, political and even ethic concepts to discussion.

</comment><comment><USER12> Just putting this out there: I don't think this idea is crazy. I fully endorse this.

However, I'm not really a part of the Reddit community.

If HN wants to start a similar project, or combine, I would be completely for it and would to like be involved. Or, I seem to remember a submission a while ago about creating off-shore communities.... Could just join that initiative.

Was it the Venus Project perhaps: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project> ?

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. Speculation: The bigger the project, the more difficult it will be to maintain order and continuity.

It's not easy to fork an island.

<comment><USER13> Forking is one click away: <http://github.com/echo0101/Island>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> At the least, they'll get enough to start a Second Life island.

<comment><USER15> But then they'll develop their own economy, banks, and an economic crisis of their own.

[http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2007/08/virtu...](http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2007/08/virtual_bank)

<comment><USER16> Which brings about an interesting question; every independent country either needs to be self-supporting (which would be friggin badass, and hackers seem one of the most likely groups to grow their own food etc- but still unlikely) needs an export. What export would a computer geek nation produce? Skilled labor is hard to export.

*: as for hackers growing their own food, I consider myself somewhat of a hacker in the frame of mind sense, and I find I can absolutely obsess over any topic if necessary- so I can just imagine hackers obsessing over farming...

<comment><USER17> Hackers, and 80 million other people. Reddit suggest tourism. Pitch "come see how hackers farm" to the farmvillians wanting an edge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do the islands come with internet connections? I can see getting a good internet connection to the island will cost more than the island itself :)

</comment><comment><USER19> This strikes me as the perfect candidate for a kickstarter donation page. I'm surprised they haven't done it already.

</comment><comment><USER20> Dean Kamen did it on his own:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dumpling_Island>

</comment><comment><USER21> I know how this story ends: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163978/>

<comment><USER22> This is what I was thinking. I hope these guys have the presence of mind to basically fund a local militia should they go the route of "solitary island out in the middle of nowhere." They aren't actually considering only islands though, as parts of islands are in their spreadsheet as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd be curious to see what legislative bodies full of trolls look like. Assuming the US Congress isn't an example.

</comment><comment><USER24> I will donate all of my assets to this project if the name is changed to Reddit Monster Island.

</comment><comment><USER25> the project seems to be stagnant right now.

i love the idea, but what i would prefer is the establishment of a community where people would come to live and work remotely, instead of buying an island primarily to create a resort on it for vacations and tourism.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is a good idea, akin to a Luxembourg for technology, except for one thing.

A lack of women. Oh sure maybe some redditors will bring their wives and girlfriends, but they will still be outnumbered in the same proportions as Women In Tech.

Solve the women problem and you'll have your island.

<comment><USER27> I smell an opportunity for an escort service :)

<comment><USER28> You have a truly entrepreneurial mind!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hacker Island, anyone? Or are we too busy/pale-skinned for a tropical island?

It should be located across from Reddit Island though, and smaller. Oh, and everyone on Hacker Island must have a hatchet and a monocle.

Perhaps a cave would be more appropriate.

<comment><USER30> Hacker Island would be sweet. PG, you got $17K on it? You can have 6% of the island

<comment><USER31> It would just turn into Reddit Island eventually anyway..</comment></comment></comment>


The R&D Technique for Startups – Ripoff and Duplicate - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/startupsco/the-r-d-technique-for-startups-rip-off-duplicate-21236e687df1 <comment><AUTHOR> Arguably this is just another article advocating the "fast follower strategy"[1], but it's something worth thinking about. You don't always have to have some earth-shatteringly new idea in order to be successful. Sometimes you just have to execute better than everybody else.

[1]: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/avaseave/2014/10/14/fast- followe...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/avaseave/2014/10/14/fast-followers- not-first-movers-are-the-real-winners/)</comment>


The Strange Numbers That Birthed Modern Algebra - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-strange-numbers-that-birthed-modern-algebra-20180906/ <comment><USER2> The accompanying video from 3Blue1Brown is nice too. Thanks for posting this - it's hard to find good learning material on quaternions. Even after this they're still a bit mysterious to me.</comment>


China said to be discussing ZTE ban with U.S. officials - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/04/china-said-to-be-discussing-zte-ban-with-u-s-officials/ <comment><USER2> ZTE is also a company that specifies age limits in its job posts for positions like engineer. Hugely unethical company. Yes other Chinese companies do this too. That doesn't excuse it.</comment>


Marriott's breach response is so bad, security experts are filling in the gaps - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/03/marriott-data-breach-response-risk-phishing/ <comment><USER2> Could someone explain to me what's up with the "monitoring services"? I recently read a book on infosec risk, and they keep mentioning that the usual response for data breach involves sponsoring a "credit monitoring service" for customers. Marriott is now referring people to some non-credit "monitoring service", that (from skimming their site) ultimately tries to fill in some holes left by "credit monitoring".

Here's what I don't understand:

\- Why?

\- Why is that not a service provided by a bank, as a part of having a credit card?

\- Why do individuals have to pay some random third parties to protect themselves from some fraudster defrauding some bank via data obtained from some company (even if, in publicized breach cases, this gets covered by breached company)?

\- (Somewhat related) how is it that your "credit score" isn't just a number on your bank dashboard, but you have to pay third parties to discover it?

It can't be that all of this is just a legalized racket, can it? Because if feels like it is.

<comment><USER3> > \- Why?

Because they're probably paying Marriot for the privilege of being listed as a provider for monitoring services. Once the free tier runs out they'll try to milk the consumers for an ongoing protection charge.

> \- Why is that not a service provided by a bank, as a part of having a > credit card?

Separation of concerns. A bank or card issuer cares more about covering their own liability for fraud on a particular card. They don't care if a new one gets issued in your name somewhere else or if a line of credit gets opened.

> \- Why do individuals have to pay some random third parties to protect > themselves from some fraudster defrauding some bank via data obtained from > some company (even if, in publicized breach cases, this gets covered by > breached company)?

That's not strictly true. Freezing your credit across all the major credit agencies is free. They likely don't want you to know or do that as it also limits junk mail for credit cards.

> \- (Somewhat related) how is it that your "credit score" isn't just a number > on your bank dashboard, but you have to pay third parties to discover it? It > can't be that all of this is just a legalized racket, can it? Because if > feels like it is.

It _is_ a racket with a private sector origin that effectively got standardized over the years. There's a number of private organizations that provide "credit scores" with FICO being the most prominent.

Starting a few years ago most financial providers provide free access to your current score or some "fako" equivalent.

<comment><USER4> In the UK much the same racket is going on. A couple of years ago I was the target of identity theft, which involved somebody walking into a phone store, and giving for 'security purposes' my full name, address and date of birth, and walking out with a new iPhone on contract. I am a director of a limited company, so all of this information is freely available online.

I eventually got it sorted (the suggested route of contacting Action Fraud did nothing; I had to make numerous proactive calls to the network's fraud team), but in order to prevent it from happening again they suggested I mark myself as high risk with the credit agencies (CIFAS protective registration), which involves paying a £10/year fee to set a boolean on my file.

I'm tempted not to renew it, and if it happens again send a strongly worded letter telling them to cease all communications as there has been an error on their part (maybe GDPR gives more powers in this case?). I'm not a heavy credit user, so the impact on my credit score isn't a concern.

For anyone concerned, the best way I found to monitor this is through free credit score monitoring services such as ClearScore. Through their website I can see any searches on my credit score (unfortunately they don't notify you). If a search appears for a company you don't recognise, it is most likely an indication of something similar going on.

<comment><USER5> I use ClearScore too (which covers Equifax), as well as the MoneySavingExpert Credit Club which covers Experian, and is also free: [https://moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub](https://moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub)

<comment><USER6> I don't believe that these 'free' credit score services are free, you just don't pay them a monthly fee. Instead, they make money from having your financial details, presumably to sell you other services. Same as farcebook et al, not really free at all.

<comment><USER7> I use Noddle (operated by CallCredit) and I don't recall ever having been upsold anything.

Edit: After logging back in to have a look, it turns out that the website has a bunch of cross-selling adverts mixed in and around the 'free' credit- reporting service:

[https://imgur.com/bBl8y2T](https://imgur.com/bBl8y2T)

Going through the process of drawing red circles around the adverts made me realise 80% of the page is in fact advertising but for some reason I just never noticed them. I like to think I have a built in uBlock in my brain although I'm probably subconsciously absorbing their marketing message without realising it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Things like this seem to indicate an almost complete lack of competence in regards to security and breach response. Can Marriott not afford to hire one full-time, experienced, competent person to oversee security policy? Of course they can. But it seems that they haven't, because someone who's job it is to oversee security policy should certainly be right in the middle of Marriot's response process, and should have caught something like this.

I'm not saying there are no competent people doing security at Marriott. If you work at Marriott doing security work, I'm not trying to attack you; this kind of thing is not one person's fault (unless it really, really, really is, and not even then, because the other people in the organization shouldn't have allowed such a single-point-of-failure). But really.. it's just abysmal.

<comment><USER9> The top two items in the MBA handbook is firstly to keep personnel count as low as possible (because the few left are more "productive" somehow) and secondly to shrink any IT department to the bare minimum (it's a cost center, no good comes from a cost center).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> To me the annoying thing about the e-mail from Marriott that I received, was that it simply says my details 'may' have been breached and that 'some' of the breached e-mails had various types of data stolen.

I understand this as an initial response. What I _don 't_ appreciate is the lack of a line in the e-mail saying 'as soon as we have more details about the extent of the breach for your particular account. we will let you know.

I still have no real idea what was stolen and I don't know if I'll ever be told.

</comment><comment><USER11> Unions should post bug bounties on their employers for a more modern take on relevance and contract negotiations

Because that two month strike was an exercise in futility

Would harden the employer system too

</comment><comment><USER12> Personally, I would like to see a legislation similar to the Privacy Act of 1974 be passed that governs how cooperation's use PII:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Act_of_1974](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Act_of_1974)

</comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps marriott.com would be at risk of being sent to junkmail if they sent out mass security update emails. Maybe that's a risk they weren't willing to take. They clearly only care about their business and not their customers so why would they junk their domain?

</comment><comment><USER14> Anyone know if there are any grounds for a class action?

</comment><comment><USER15> The letter I received from Marriott went straight to my spam folder (Gmail).

</comment><comment><USER16> I signed up for the monitoring service they provided, and much to my delight I discovered the service retails for $130 annually.

I genuinely hope Marriott has to pay that price, even though I've given it no information to monitor except my email address.

I suggest as many people as possible sign up for this service.

<comment><USER17> So it probably is a paid worse version of Have I Been Pwned...</comment></comment>


Leran to build a website from scratch - <AUTHOR> http://hackertrails.com/class

<comment><USER2> TBA location doesn't help me much at all. What city will it be in, lets start there?

<comment><USER3> Hi Pilom, I am one of the organizers of the event, it will be held at The University of Pennsylvania. This was supposed to remain somewhat internal until the content / site was improved but if you're in the area, please do stop by!

Cheers! Jonathan</comment></comment>


Usability Tips for Back-Enders using Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jackbach/usability-tips-for-back-enders-using-bootstrap-1dc59557db15

<comment><USER2> Great article! Added to or Bootstrap resources list [https://twittstrap.com/usability-tips-back-enders-using- boot...](https://twittstrap.com/usability-tips-back-enders-using-bootstrap/)</comment>


Ask HN: How to detect the three bursts in this data - <AUTHOR>

I have this accelerometer data from my phone: http://imgur.com/a/cJoJH
The first artifact is when I lifted my phone from the table, the 3 bursts in the middle when I tapped on my phone 3 times and the last artifact when I placed it on the table again.
I want to detect the 3 taps in the middle algorithmically and ignore the other things.
I already have some working code that relies on thresholds, and another version that looks for high peaks followed by smaller peaks within a window.
But I think there should be a more reliable solutions to solve this, I assume this is a somewhat common problem. I also played around with FFT and power spectrums a little bit but I am not really satisfied. Maybe I should train a neural network or another machine learning algorithm?
How would you solve that? <comment><USER2> So, from the second figure you can see that you have a series of decaying envelopes. For the individual taps you should be able to model this as some event at an unknown scale with an apriori rate of decay. You can easily discard the non-activity regions based upon some windowed estimates of the energy. That leaves you with what's essentially a template matching type of problem for each of the three areas where the signal is showing above noise levels of activity. The first and last region don't match the decaying exponential well and the middle one matches it fairly well with 3 distinct events.

That said, this approach introduces what may be more latency, coding complexity, and computational work than is desired. I'd take a look at a spectrogram and see if there's some bandpass filter which makes it easier to see these events compared to the 'false activity'.

</comment><comment><USER3> hn may not be the best place to ask this question.

a neural network is almost certainly overkill, and likely too slow for your purposes. you probably want some additional smoothing. i don't know why FFT doesn't work for you, since this accelerometer data can almost certainly be decomposed properly.

a window-based threshold approach is fine in my opinion as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like a good solution might be a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. A lot harder to explain than to implement.

</comment><comment><USER5> Could this possibly be solved using derivatives?</comment>


Dell XPS 13, one year later - <AUTHOR> http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=4178 <comment><USER2> Coincidentally, I just got my new XPS 13 today. Took it out of the box, booted it up, and was greeted by ... coil whine. Friggin coil whine. I knew this had plagued previous models of the XPS 13, but I figured Dell would have gotten their act together by now. Nope. It sounds like a bowl of Rice Krispies. A high pitched squealing sound comes out of the laptop anytime you launch a program or do anything that even remotely uses the processor. I tried booting into a USB to reinstall windows to see if that would help, and it got worse. The whole laptop would start to buzz whenever I touched the trackpad, and I starting hearing the most wonderful chirps and squeaks coming from underneath keyboard. Wonderful. I paid $1600 for what I thought was a premium laptop. Based on the OP's experience with Dell tech support, I don't even want to mess with trying to have it fixed. Nope, this piece of crap is getting returned, and I'm getting a Thinkpad.

<comment> m-j-fox Hey buddy. I got one yesterday. Such an adventure. Coming from the MacBook experience, I will say it's glitchy AF. But I still haven't linuxed it. Doubt that will help.

I will say it's fast.

My complaint is the Thunderbolt 3. It is a lie. First you need an adapter because of course you do and the only one at the store is Apple's. I have a bunch of Macs and displays and peripherals and zero success talking to any of them.

I don't know if I'll even complain. I have an Intel desktop mobo that after several years learned to drive a display over Thunderbolt iff it's connected on boot and that's all. So I'm not expecting much.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, this laptop was supposed to replace my old MacBook Air. I had that thing for five years, and not once had a problem with it, even after dropping it and damaging the shell. I wanted to get a linux-compatible laptop and switch to it full time, but I'm having serious second thoughts. The build quality of Macs is top-notch, and to use the old cliche, it "just works". Honestly. They're ridiculously expensive, but hey, you get what you pay for.

<comment><USER3> I agree. The Precision 5510 I have at work (basically an XPS 15) is definitely not a MacBook Pro. I adore how you can still upgrade the ram, replace the hard drive, and use standard m.2 SSDs, but the chassis is not that rigid, and the screen might be better on paper, but I find it very annoying to use.

The trackpad is terrible!! You can't click it if you're holding the laptop because the chassis flexes too much!

The keyboard is fantastic though! It's just like my MacBook Air's keyboard! Just the right amount of travel and give. I'll give them props for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I work for a small software company, we pick our own laptops from the Dell business account.

Anecdotally, every Latitude we've bought has been rock solid, and every XPS - without exception - has had issues. Sound cards dead on arrival, random bluescreening, dead SSDs, faulty HDMI ports, you name it. Sometimes they'll send a new one, sometimes they'll send an engineer to replace the motherboard.

I can't recommend XPS based on my own experience. The quality control just doesn't seem to be there. The specs are too good to be true for the price anyway. If you need the specs, go Precision.

<comment><USER5> Yep, latitudes and precisions (except m3800) are quite ok and difficult to beat on price vs specs. I only don't like the myriad of options to choose from, why not decide on some standard like screen resolution or keyboard backlight?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been at same company for 13 years. I'm only on my 2nd computer, both ThinkPad. (the expensive model that you can pick up by edge of its display and swing it around even though it weighs 6 pounds)

Usually, our company forces us to upgrade laptop after 3 years, but when I heard they were changing supplier to HP, I told them, over my dead body. Eventually they stop harassing.

3 years go by, I get the same notice. This time, instead of HP, they had moved onto Dell.

Horrified, I told them to go pound sand, and they eventually went away.

Another 2 years go by, and I must've ended up on our IT's most wanted list or something. I relent, and turn my 8 year old machine in. Mind you, this laptop went through daily grind, tens of thousands of docking and undocking, enterprise software updates. (you know how brutal those are)

When IT guy saw my machine, he said, "Wow, I haven't seen this in years! Hey guys, check this out!"

Luckily, by then, my company had switched back to Thinkpad.

That was almost 6 years ago, and I'm still rocking my W520.

<comment><USER7> Why does the company force hardware upgrades?

Software upgrades are necessary for security, but it sounds like you saved the company about $1000 - $2000 without incurring any negative effects.

<comment><USER6> really beats me... i thought the whole point of paying premium for Thinkpad was for lower support cost and longevity. I think they finally got the hint when they switched over to Thinkpad, because I haven't received any notice about machine upgrade in 6 years.

Unfortunately should my current machine craps out, they'll issue newer model with that horrible keyboard.

<comment> apk-d How do current Thinkpad machines compare to the classic "indestructible" models from a decade ago? Pretty satisfied with my x230 but going to have to start looking for an upgrade soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Most of this is to do with the customer support, and not really about the actual laptop. But... It is annoying when things go wrong and you have to deal with poor customer service and you feel like you are constantly battling the company.

I've had a little Dell XPS 13 Dev edition and I really really like it. Everything works well, it's fast, it's got a good display and it stays out of my way and allows me to fully focus on work. I've added gestures on the trackpad to act similar to OSX as I got used to them on my Macbook. Nothing really special to this laptop, but it's damn good and has been behaving itself.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have had the Kaby Lake XPS 13" for about a year. Linux is nice in many ways and it's a decent laptop. The small formfactor/screen might be the best thing about it hardwarewise. Here's my rant:

\- I had to research and create a bashscript with these cmds to get better defaults / fix stuff:

\</comment><comment>-

# Longer timeout for backlit keyboard

echo 5m > /sys/class/leds/dell::kbd_backlight/stop_timeout

echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/dell::kbd_backlight/brightness

# This is to stop touchpad from beeing to sensitive while typing

syndaemon -t -k -i 1.0 -d

# Fix headphone hissing

amixer -c PCH cset 'name=Headphone Mic Boost Volume' 1

\</comment><comment>---

\- Wireless networking performs way worse then on my macbook pro 2015.

\- Bad palm rejection on the touchpad bites me all the time, even though I tweaked it with above script.

\- Power supply stopped working after ~6 months. Dell sent me a new one though.

\- Feels more sluggish then the older MacBook Pro 2015 even though the specs are better.

\- Battery-life already feels ... bad.

\- When I close screen and opens it back up it's very slow to re-connect to the WLAN. Again, my older MacBook Pro is so much faster.

\- Ubuntu have some bad defaults for how certain things work. For example, when I connect to a bluetooth-speaker the default isn't that the volume- buttons on the keyboard controls the bluetooths-speakers volume.

I really wanted to like this laptop, but I'll most likely go latest MacBook Prop for my next. Even though I enjoy the power of pure linux.. and the keyboardlayout better then on a Mac.

</comment><comment><USER10> FHD versions suck at inverted color schemes (white on black text). (The 4k version can be patched)

When there as primarily black on the screen, the monitor dims the backlight and brightens the screen. This saves backlight, but cut's of the peak brightness (the white of your text). You can test if you are effected here: [http://tylerwatt12.com/dc/](http://tylerwatt12.com/dc/)

There is no patch for the FHD version, the problem exists since 2015, so for several generations of these things... [https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2](https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2)

Also a lot of coil whine and without up to date drivers a lot of bluescreens.

Oh and the only big USB-C Dell Dock, it has no USB-C out, so it uses up all your USB-C. Not very future proof.

<comment><USER11> I have an XPS 13 from 2015, the full HD variant, running Linux.

For the most part, it's a great machine, and I have no noticable coil while. However, since I always code with a black terminal window and bright text, I'm very affected by that dynamic backlight bullshit. I can't comfortably code if there's a lot of sunlight in the room (not to mention being outside on a sunny day). It's really quite annoying.

<comment><USER10> Me too and I moved from lenovo to dell for the brighter screen :'(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I will never buy another Dell after using a m3800 for a couple of years. Suspend stopped working after a couple of weeks. I've had to replace the fans twice. The trackpad stopped working correctly (but that was because the battery started to bloat). The worst part was that the screen started to get horizontal lines that would never go away. Sometimes bios text would get burned into the display. It has been sitting as a paper weight on my desk for months. I actually painfully switched back to an older 2011 macbook air.

</comment><comment><USER13> Unfortunately I experienced much the same sort of symptoms with my 15" XPS as well, culminating in unbearable coil whine and a display that just never worked properly, so it was returned and I promptly got myself a MacBook. Prior to this, I ran thinkpads for years without issue, so next time I'm in the market for a linux/windows box I think I'll give them another go...

The support staff at dell just seemed so incredibly uninterested in helping me after I bought my machine, and getting a refund organised was just painful.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reporting in with similar issues. My first gen XPS13 had a keyboard whining issue, then the trackpad popped out of the case (and that is with light use). The keyboard is not your usual chiclet affair---the key travel is significantly shallower than any other machine I've owned. It often registered a double press when typing normally (not just the space bar) and the keys are light enough to depress when resting on the home row. The bezel-less screen was glorious though...

I was happy to be back to my trusty ThinkPad.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have a Dell XPS 13 1960 - bought at start of this year, currently running Kubuntu

It has been awesome, no complaints yet.

Space bar has no issues, No coil whine.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have had experience with a DELL PC(Alienware), where the wireless card had poor reception. The problem very much lies with the incompetent tech support. They had me replace the motherboard, the card, but the problem still persisted. In the end, I gave up and used a USB wireless card.

<comment><USER17> Wait what? How is the problem tech support?

<comment><USER16> Because they have no clue what the problem is..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Pro Support or standard warranty?

Sounds like basic support to me, with pro support a tech had been at your place the nbd.

</comment><comment><USER19> Had a Dell Inspiron (1300 I believe), made a nice heater in the winters.</comment>


Parental Control for iOS (my weekend project) - <AUTHOR> http://mocava.de/ios/parental-control

<comment><USER2> The idea is outstanding. Thank you for making this.

One nitpick. It is confusing that all your options are named "disable" and "allow" but your instructions say "if you set this control, it will disable...". So the control is "set" when it says "disabled"? It is also against convention in the sense that your options are negative-positive (disable-allow) when the convention is positive-negative (yes-no, set-unset, block-unblock, etc).

Personally, I would change the controls to "block" and "unblock", and the instructions to something like "set this to _block_ to disable and hide... ". In the very least, I would change them to "enable" and "disable", in that order.

Edit: just wanted to add that after completing the whole sign-up, I found your overall style clear, concise and organic. You did get a lot of things "just right". Great job.

<comment><AUTHOR> good points, thanks for the feedback! I'll look into how I can reword the text to make it clearer.

<comment><USER2> One more suggestion, in case you don't know, there is this HN parents mailing list:

groups.google.com/group/hn-parents

I vaguely recall there being a discussion on it a while ago about this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't know about the group, thanks for the pointer.

Seems like the group is invite only (my signup is pending for approval). If you have a minute, would be great if you could help me post the link there, otherwise I'll wait for the approval and do it later.

<comment><USER2> How about I test it out on my iPhone (left it at home today) and post a recommendation to the group tomorrow?

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be awesome of course, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How does this work? Is there a public API for these settings or does it require jailbreaking/sideloading?

<comment><USER4> The site generates a .mobileconfig file, which is an Apple plist file in XML format. The API is public, and easily reverse-engineered from other .mobileconfig files.

The "app" that gets installed is actually a webclip, not a native iOS application. They embedded the icon as a base64 string inside the .mobileconfig.

The webclip opens mobile Safari in fullscreen, with a link in the format of "[http://mocava.de/ios/parental- control/profiles/UNIQUE_ID/par...](http://mocava.de/ios/parental- control/profiles/UNIQUE_ID/parentalControl-active.html), where UNIQUE_ID ties back to the choices you made on the setup screen of their website. This will allow Mocava to track usage stats, which seems like a fair trade-off for a free service.

You could roll your own version of this using Apple's Configurator application, however Mocava has done a decent job of streamlining the setup and installation.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Mocava has done a decent job of streamlining the setup and installation."

Thanks :) Usability wise, the hardest part was to explain that you have to _install_ a profile to deactivate an existing profile. Also people associated the word "profile" with a facebook profile and thought it contains their personal data like name & address. To prevent confusion, the page I removed (almost) all instances of the word profile from the page.

<comment><USER4> The whole "profile" and "mobileconfig" nomenclature is confusing to most people, I'm a little surprised that Apple hasn't put more effort into this area.

Sorry if I came across as damning you with faint praise, you really have done a nice job of setting up the service for non-technically minded people who want to keep their kids safe online.

I can't find any reference to your privacy policy or terms of service. You appear to use a unique string to identify profiles, what are you doing with the data you collect?

<comment><AUTHOR> The unique identifier was really just the technically simplest way to do it. I might eventually deduplicate the data and aggregate profiles with identical settings into a "canonical profile" if I can find the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why say "Toddler" ? Could be any child.</comment>


The Capital One breach is more complicated than it looks - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/31/20748886/capital-one-breach-hack-thompson-security-data <comment><USER2> Possibly the worst article I've ever read.

An article full of speculation, without any speculation.</comment>


The Daily Miracle: Finding Magic Inside the Times's Printing Plant - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/magazine/daily-miracle-times-print-plant-college-point.html <comment><USER2> I feel like this article should be paired with a watching of "Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu" (1978):

[https://vimeo.com/127605643](https://vimeo.com/127605643)

A quote from the film:

 _Printer: "I find it very sad. Very sad. I've learned the new stuff. The new processes and all. But I've been a printer now for 26 years. I've been in this place for 20 years. Six years apprenticeship, 20 years journeyman, and these are words that aren't just tossed around. They've always meant something to us printers.

I hate to see it. It's inevitable that we're going to go into computers. All the knowledge I've acquired over these 26 years is all locked up in a little box now called a computer. And I think probably most jobs are going to end up the same way."

Questioner: "Do you think computers are a good idea in general?"

Printer: "Oh, there's no doubt about it. They're going to benefit everybody eventually. How long it will take, I don't know."_

Also:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/insider/1966-2016-the- las...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/insider/1966-2016-the-last-hot- type-printer-puts-down-his-tools.html)

<comment><USER3> I also really enjoyed the beautiful "Meet the Machinists Who Keep the New York Times Running":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGHStfuLdyY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGHStfuLdyY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Used to print the New York Times at a newspaper plant I worked at 10+ years ago now. Fun and a bit nostalgic to look at those photos and note the similarities and differences to the machines I worked on. It was/is more of an art than people realize, and in many ways set me up well for working in web development (color, attention to detail, working under time pressure, handling multiple crisis at a time as a few instances of things that translate). Due to the time spent as a newspaper printer, I follow the industry a bit and it is really sad to see how they have mismanaged the transition online so badly. But also how the printing process hasn't really changed that much even since I left - they're just riding the wave to the bottom in many cases, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER5> The UK is small enough and with good railways so newspapers in the 19th century were (I think) printed in London and distributed by rail.

How did that work in the USA, before fast electronic communications? Or was it not possible to read the New York Times in, say, Texas?

<comment><USER6> There's actually a really interesting historical relationship between the U.S. postal service and newspapers in the early republic; basically, newspapers could be mailed at a rate far lower than then-expensive personal and business correspondence.

Check out David M. Henkin's _Postal Age_ [0] if you're interested in learning more.

[0] [https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo41...](https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo4134270.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a subscriber to the paper version of the NYTimes (weekend editions), it's nice to see the behind-the-scenes of how it is printed—even though my copies are printed in a different state, I assume the process is the same.

And yes I consume news online but I like the act of timeboxing news-reading into a more thoughtful moment than how it usually plays out when reading online.

<comment><USER8> I was holding onto it as well but at the end my fingers got dirty reading it and it's just huge thing to handle.</comment></comment>


Pesticide Turns Male Frogs into Females - <AUTHOR> https://www.livescience.com/10957-pesticide-turns-male-frogs-females.html <comment><USER2> I'm not familiar with this website and whether this is legitimate but holy shit, does this mean Alex Jones was right?

<comment><USER3> The web site, to the extent I recall it, seems to just or mostly rewrite academic press releases and maybe abstracts. In that sense, it aggregates scientific "news".

Here's what this article is talking about, from a quick Google search (I note that lack of source linking in the livescience article):

[https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/faculty/tyrone-b- hayes](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/faculty/tyrone-b-hayes)

[https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/pesticide-atrazine- can-...](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/pesticide-atrazine-can-turn- male-frogs-females)</comment></comment>


Show HN: GitHub Windows Edition – a bit of nostalgia inspired by a Twitter post - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Athari/CssGitHubWindows <comment><USER2> I'm actually going to use this indefinitely. Not only does it perk up my day it's surprising clear. Maybe Material went too subtle.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Decided to turn a joke into a full-featured user style. It's a work in progress.

There're some technical difficulties which I have trouble overcoming, but overall I like how close I could get to the original Windows 95 style.</comment>