Ask HN: What's THE way to setup a OS X dev machine 2015? - <AUTHOR>

I'm going to replace my 5 year old MBP with a new machine in a week. What is considered a good way to setup a machine from scratch for web and mobile development nowadays?<p>I'm familiar with Github's boxen but would love something more "macish". As far as I'm concerned I would ideally click some packages hit install and the magic system does the rest and always keeps that stuff updated ;) <comment><USER2> Homebrew and pretty much anything else that lets the *NIX of OS X shine through.

Check out Github's tools as they seem to use OS X heavily.

Homebrew - [http://brew.sh/](http://brew.sh/)

Also the ~/.osx dotfiles in this repo ([https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles](https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles)) are quite handy especially space order locking. That used to drive me mad.

Finally Amethyst ([https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst](https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst)) is still a lil buggy but so nice to have. If you want to go the 'more OS X route' check out BetterTouchTool instead.

<comment><USER3> After trying to make use of Homebrew for a couple of years, I've given up. I refuse to install it now.

Using a combination of Vagrant for project environments, and a generic Debian VM (which could also be handled by vagrant but has much less need for it) for miscellaneous stuff, I am not missing brew.

The other advantage to this approach is your mac will likely remain stable and fast for much longer. Running a web server and a database server and an app server and who knows what else constantly (and by default, at startup) can make for a lot of RAM usage and ridiculously slow startup/logins.

Move that shit all into VMs, and keep your host as simple as possible. Sure, run your IDE, editor, debugger, what have you, but you should be able to quickly and easily just stop everything related to any given project/app.

Edit:

Also, and I _know_ this will probably not be a popular opinion around here:

Whenever possible I use Mac App Store versions of apps. After a couple of clean-installs since the inception of the MAS, I am absolutely in favour of this approach. I can generally queue up all my MAS sourced apps for download + install quicker than I can open site, download, install & add license details for probably _ONE_ app from outside the MAS. I know it has limitations and some apps will likely never be available in it, but those that are, are so much simpler to re-install on a clean OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.getmacapps.com/](http://www.getmacapps.com/) could probably save you some times for common applications.

</comment><comment><USER5> Thoughtbot also have laptop ([https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop](https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop))

I write a bash script to install standard development tools for developers in my company. I put most of the application on local server inside company network so I don't have to re-download the application from internet. I plan to release this script sometime this month

</comment><comment><USER6> For mobile and web development, use Vagrant + Virtualbox. No reason to pollute the base system with different versions of weblibs, languages and servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any recommendations for good and ready to use base boxes there?

<comment><USER7> Create your own base box that might have a typical stack you always use. Treat this like your gold image and you can use it for trying out new technologies without installing on your host machine as well as a different VM for every project or even forks of a project if you want.

Vagrant's docs are pretty decent on how to create a custom box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a micro EC2 instance I do my development on. I just the repo on my mac, put the folder into sublime and I'm ready to go. There's just something about having Redis, Postgres, Nginx, gunicorn, flask, etc. running on my mac that I don't like.

If you don't want to pay $5/month for an EC2 instance, just run everything in a docker container.

</comment><comment><USER9> I use Ansible for provisioning my machine itself with the needed Homebrew and Cask packages, and then Vagrant + Virtualbox for setting up dev. environments.</comment>


My Dad died because the Cardiologist didn't think to refer to a Neurologist - <AUTHOR>

My Dad died because the Cardiologist who was treating him didn't know that he was going to have a stroke even though he complained of all the typical pre-stroke symptoms, i.e. severe headache, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, dizziness. The doctor controlled his blood pressure but, saw nothing alarming in EKG, ECG etc.
Could this have been avoided if the Cardiologist and a Neurologist consulted each other. Hell yeah. Can we solve this with software tech? I think so, I am working on a platform (Web + Mobile) for simpler, better communication between different specialists in medicine (unfortunate, sometimes doctors in the same hospital don't talk to each other, let alone outsiders)
I know HN is a great place with forward thinkers, your thoughts are much appreciated. <comment><USER2> I'm sorry to read about your loss, and I applaud your initiative. I believe a large part of the reason things like this happen is because the solution is so enormously complex. Developing the software tech (a undertaking in itself) is one thing. Also required: updating/changing existing regulations (slow & bureaucratic), training & support, budget approvals, politics, not to mention the doctor's decision-making process and communication responsibilities...the list goes on and on!

Eventually we will have a better system. Unfortunately this is likely to be a very slow, gradual process, which I hope to witness over the course of the next few decades. In this particular case, software tech could have served as a communication platform to reduce the chances of doctor miscommunication and/or overlooking a patient's varying conditions. Generally speaking (and by my personal experience), doctors seem to be notoriously bad about communicating the overall picture to responsible parties, at least here in the U.S. Each doctor takes care of his/her own "backyard" before dashing off to the next patient. I recognize that this is by no means solely the fault of the doctor. It's the system!

Again, good on you for wanting to be part of the solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> So, your problem isn't simple ease of communication. Your problem is willingness to communicate. You even recognize that, because you say that doctors in the same hospital don't talk to one another.

That's not easily solved with tech. It's solved with hospital policies that foster communication.

I'm sorry for your loss. Unfortunately, the doctor would still have to recognize that a neurologist needs to be brought in, even if communication was facilitated.

<comment><USER4> I agree, but there is room to think about a tech solution a little further.

What if the patient himself foster the communication? If the patient can input all the symptoms and the results of all the exams ordered by one doctor, the system can detect all the "red flags" that a particular result raises and tell you which kind of specialist should take a look at it. Example: your cardiologist register dizziness and high blood pressure. The system knows that a cardiologist already saw it, but it also alert you that these results and symptoms should be studied by a neurologist and a endocrinologists.

<comment><USER3> Using the examples of dizziness and high blood pressure, you've got thousands of possible outcomes and stroke is not the most common. This is an incredibly complex system, made more so by the fact that it's so individual. If I experience dizziness and high blood pressure, it potentially means something quite different than if you do.

I'm not saying it isn't worthwhile. It is. But let's say you raise all these symptoms and red flags and decide you need specialized testing from 3 different specialists. Then it turns out you didn't need that testing at all.

Who pays for it? Your insurance company won't.

One of the things I'm working on right now is software to facilitate the coding process for payment and insurance purposes, and let me tell you, it is complex for a reason. The insurance companies do NOT want to pay.

This is changing. One of the most likely potential models is a condition based pay model. An example case would be a 50 year old smoker with high blood pressure; the insurance company says, ok, on average it costs $1000 to cover this person for one year. They pay the hospital $1000. If the patient needs a procedure, the hospital eats the excess cost. If the patient needs no procedure, the insurance company does.

Now, couple this with a change in how MD's are reimbursed, so it's a performance based plan rather than a procedure based plan, and you have a more efficient and better managed system.

We're not quite there yet. When we are, your planned software might work. Give it 1.5-2 years at a minimum. The new coding processes come out in 2014 and we're shifting away from private practice, but it takes time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Check out the NHS Direct Symptom Checker <http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/checksymptoms>

I doubt it has a public API available (although that's certainly something I'd advocate the NHS building), but it might give you an idea of the sheer complexity involved in something like this.

<comment><USER6> ...and people will criticise from both ends. One group of people will say that it's too safe; driving costs up and subjecting people to unneeded tests and hospital visits (which are not risk free). Another group of people will say that it's not safe enough, that it should err on the side of caution, that it is risking people's lives by not sending them to hospital soon enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it would be nice to have an app to: \- allow person to select quickly and easily a set of symptomes that he/she feels. \- Upon submission the app would send notification to person's doctor as well as search world's databases for possible diagnosis.

This way your dad would get an immediate feedback on his screen: "POSSIBLE STROKE! URGENTLY CONTACT YOUR DOCTOR", allowing him or his loved one to apply extra pressure to medical professionals.

<comment><AUTHOR> what you propose is interesting, it's so simple that it sounds borderline idiotic but i think this awareness alone could have prompted my dad to ask his doctor about a possible stroke or approach a neurologist just to be on the safer side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can you tell us in more detail about your application?

All those doctors can use IM, phone, email to communicate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you are right, most doctors can also use their commonsense but in my dad's case they didn't! i hesitate to say this as my best buddy is a neurologist but i agree with vinod khosla, in a few years doctors as we know them today will be replaced by technology ([http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/02/vinod-khosla-says- technolo...](http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/02/vinod-khosla-says-technology- will-replace-80-percent-of-doctors-sparks-indignation/))!

they should be able to work on a higher level, just as we moved up the chain from punch cards and assembly code on 8080s doctors need to move up the chain as well, otherwise we will have many near and dear ones dying due to single point failure (PCP)!

to answer your question, i am working on an app (will post a link to it in the next 2-3 weeks) that brings the patient closer to more physicians, hopefully someone relevant, in my dad's case, a neurologist (at least it takes the risk of seeing one doctor out of the equation).</comment></comment>


Don't use Shopify to sell pre-order items or to run a crowdfunding campaign - <AUTHOR> On September 1st, 2017 at 10:08PM, two days after the launch of the Type 77 presale campaign (where 50% of the Type 77 timepieces available had already been pre-ordered), Division Furtive was notified by Shopify that the proceeds of the campaign were going to be frozen for 90 days because of a "chargeback risk". The email from Shopify included the threat that the situation would continue if a single chargeback was to occur during that period. You can read this email here (division-furtive.com/share/ShopifyNotice.png).
Division Furtive was immediately worried for its collectors. Having collectors' money in limbo for 3 months can only create two things: fear and uncertainty. Which, ironically, is a perfect scenario to see chargeback starting to pop-up. A lot of the future Type 77 collectors are returning collectors from the Type 40 and Type 50 presale campaigns and are among the world's most faithful and patient people (e.g.: feedback from the Type 40 and Type 50 Kickstarters) but they did not sign up for this and it is unfair to impose this situation on them.
As you can imagine, being imposed a three months delay out of nowhere from a minor actor in the project has devastating consequences on the project planning. This single action from Shopify has ruined more than a year of development and planning for this launch. What strikes the most is the unpredictable nature of Shopify's decision. In addition to being a fellow Canadian company, Shopify had been chosen for its openness toward pre-orders. The rules instructed by the Shopify Guru in this post (division-furtive.com/share/ShopifyPreordersPost.png) on Shopify ecommerce university had been followed (division-furtive.com/share/ShopifyStoreEn.png).
Division Furtive has decided to put the money back where it belongs, that is in collectors' pockets, not Shopify's. At least by doing this, Shopify won't be making 3-month worth of interest on the money of the presale campaign they decided to freeze out of nowhere. <comment><USER3> IMO it sounds like you've interpreted "pre-order sales" very differently than Shopify does. The below references this document:

[https://help.shopify.com/themes/customization/products/allow...](https://help.shopify.com/themes/customization/products/allow- pre-orders)

"Pre-order" in that document appears to refer to products that authorize (make a "pending charge") at checkout but capture (make a real charge) later - <USER2> merchant doesn't receive the money until the capture, when the product _ships_. How far apart in time these two events can be depends on the processor's contracts with the rest of the upstream network; the Shopify doc specifically lists a maximum of 7 days. The Guru post mentions "capturing but delivering later", but _how much_ later is unclear.

Combine that with the "no refunds after September 29th as the money will be gone" policy which seems (IMO, IANAL) in opposition to chargeback policy from the card networks and I can totally see why Shopify might not want to carry the risk of your customers.

Also, if this is the first time you've interacted with Shopify support you should've spent some of that "year of development and planning" making sure your partners were 100% on board...

</comment><comment><USER4> Shopify has a seven day window from charge authorization to shipment. I think you are stretching the bounds of what Shopify has been known to allow. I think this is either a severe miscommunication between you and Shopify on what you are doing or you need to be on a traditional crowdfunding platform for preorders as you have used in the past.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not true. Not according to the terms terms of service of Shopify Payments ([https://www.shopify.com/legal/terms-payments- ca](https://www.shopify.com/legal/terms-payments-ca)):

"Stripe, on behalf of Shopify and/or Wells Fargo reserves the right to change the Payout Schedule or suspend payouts to your Bank Account should we determine it is necessary due to pending disputes, excessive or anticipated excessive Chargebacks or refunds, or other suspicious activity associated with your use of the Service or if required by law or court order."

"Further, if we reasonably believe that a Chargeback is likely with respect to any transaction, we may withhold the amount of the potential Chargeback from payments otherwise due to you under this Agreement until such time that: (a) a Chargeback is assessed due to a customer's complaint, in which case we will retain the funds; (b) the period of time under applicable law or regulation by which the customer may dispute that the transaction has expired; or (c) we determine that a Chargeback on the transaction will not occur."

"Funds held in reserves are amounts of money set aside to cover Chargebacks, refunds, or other payment obligations under this agreement (a "Reserve Account"). We, in our discretion, will set the terms of your Reserve Account and notify you of such terms, which may require that a certain amount (including the full amount) of the funds received for your transaction is held for a period of time or that additional amounts are held in the Reserve Account"

These are the three parts in the Shopify Payments terms that concern the current discussion.

The first, I believe to be misleading because the payout was held back but not for none of the listed reasons. That cannot be it.

For the second part, to support Shopify's move, it would means that Shopify Payments believed that 100% of the transactions were going to result in a chargeback since they were freezing 100% of the funds. Again, the terms of the presale mentioned no refunds after September 29th, 2017 making the case for chargeback very easy to win for the payment processor. That cannot be it.

Which leaves the third "god" part which I'm sure Shopify would use to defend their move. Which brings me back to the title of this post: don't use this payment processor for presale/crowdfunds...it's asking for trouble. True story. Hope this helps someone in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the first time I've read something that makes my blood boil enough for me to log in and comment.

When a company screws you more then Paypal, there's something wrong.

Wow.</comment>


Is Uber Making NYC Rush-Hour Traffic Worse? - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-uber-making-nyc-rush-hour-traffic-worse/ <comment><AUTHOR> The metric here is number of pickups. Which is flawed for several reasons: If Ubers spend disproprotionately less time seeking rides, then the street- vehicle use is lower even if the number of pickups is greater. Similar caveats for distance, and also for rides which exit manhattan core quickly (e.g. to new jersey/outer boroughs)</comment>


Making the Grade - <AUTHOR> https://www.verticallifemag.com.au/2020/08/making-the-grade/ <comment><USER2> I think it's funny that he got through the whole article without using the term Elo even once. Maybe because "AI" and Elo are incompatible?</comment>


HBO Now DNSSEC Misconfiguration Makes Site Unavailable from Comcast Networks - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/blog/2015/03/hbo-now-dnssec-misconfiguration-makes-site-unavailable-from-comcast-networks-fixed-now/ <comment><USER2> This shouldn't be possible. In a sane design, a transient policy failure should produce a warning light or a browser popup; _something_ that applications can use to sensibly convey what happened, in some form, to users.

Instead, because DNSSEC makes security policy decisions at a very low layer, in a protocol that virtually all applications expect to work transparently so long as you have connectivity, you get this: instead of a browser popup, a connectivity outage so complete that it is indistinguishable to users from "the site you are trying to get to doesn't exist and never has".

DNSSEC is a terrible, terrible idea. Comcast should stop validating it, immediately. If someone from Comcast's network engineering team is reading this: I was a network engineer, and then worked for 4 years with tier-1 engineering getting Netflow monitoring deployed and scalable. I've been writing DNS security software since I was 19 years old, in the 1990s. You have reasons for whatever configuration you've decided on, but I will take as much time out of my day as is productive for you to convince you to stop working on rolling this out.

What happened yesterday with HBO Now, which had half of Twitter screaming "NET NEUTRALITY OHNOZ!", is going to keep happening over and over again.

See also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8894902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8894902)

<comment><USER3> While I agree DNSSEC has its limitations and problems, I haven't heard many alternatives (in general).

DNS has two inherent issues:

\- Hijacking traffic via spoofing responses.

\- Private information leakage.

With DNSSEC combined with HTTPS it is very reasonable to say that both you're connecting to the party you're expecting to connect to and in addition, no third party listening on the line either knows what host name or page you're visiting (only the IP address of the box).

A lot of people dismiss these limitations or just point wildly at certificate pinning to solve all of our problems (while ignoring that HTTP isn't the only type of traffic the internet was designed for).

Plus with NSA mass surveillance, DNS makes seeing what domains you're visiting and building a "picture" of you as an individual absolutely trivial. The IP addresses still may help them do that to some extent, but it certainly becomes very easy if they can see your DNS packets.

<comment><USER4> > I haven't heard many alternatives (in general).

These problems don't call for a general solution. We should respect the fundamental truth behind the end-to-end principle and solve these problems as close to the application as possible. The likely threats, appropriate default choices and trust model are all best understood by each application developer and building these solutions into Layer-3/4 is bound to cause short-term pain and reduce our long-term flexibility to meet new risks.

For example, EFF's STARTTLS Everywhere project takes into account the fact that a huge percentage of the world's mail moves between a small enough number of providers that human verification of announcements is possible. It also recognizes that the MX configuration for these providers is reasonably static, meaning that changes that propagate in minutes do not need to be accommodated. Small specific solutions like this can be rolled out and provide a real, tangible benefit to users much faster than we can upgrade the entire DNS system to provide a more general solution.

I agree that we need a DNS privacy solution, one that hopefully doesn't eliminate the existence of caching infrastructure.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _I agree that we need a DNS privacy solution, one that hopefully doesn 't > eliminate the existence of caching infrastructure._

Please do take a look at what the folks are doing within the DPRIVE working group of the IETF:

[https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dprive/charter/](https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dprive/charter/)

They are working on mechanisms to bring privacy / confidentiality to the "last mile" of DNS connections. Any input you have would be useful. (There's a link there to a mailing list to which you can subscribe.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "As a result, the many networks around the world that perform DNSSEC validation to ensure that customers are getting to the correct sites (versus being redirected to bogus sites for phishing or malware) were blocking customers from getting to the possibly bogus order.hbonow.com!"

The "versus being redirected to bogus sites for phishing or malware" part here is funny. Because that generally happens when some scammer registeres hb0now.com. Not when someone is intercepting your DNS.

And actually, in case of the latter, all bets are off anyways. Because client resolvers DO NOT CHECK DNSSEC.

(Yes, I know _you_ are on your custom configured Linux box or OpenBSD firewall and that DNSSEC works wonderful for you. But the majority of the internet using world with OS X or Windows behind a $15 DSL router or WiFi AP does not.)

Stop. The. DNSSEC. Nonsense.

<comment><AUTHOR> And actually...

> _And actually, in case of the latter, all bets are off anyways. Because > client resolvers DO NOT CHECK DNSSEC._

... please visit APNIC's DNSSEC Statistics site where you will see that about 12% of all DNS queries globally ARE being validated by DNSSEC:

[http://stats.labs.apnic.net/dnssec/XA?c=XA&x=1&g=1&r=1&w=7&g...](http://stats.labs.apnic.net/dnssec/XA?c=XA&x=1&g=1&r=1&w=7&g=0)

In Sweden this is about 71%:

[http://stats.labs.apnic.net/dnssec/QM?o=cXAw7x1g1r1](http://stats.labs.apnic.net/dnssec/QM?o=cXAw7x1g1r1)

Slovenia 67%, Estonia 55%, Denmark 48% ... on down to the USA at 23%:

[http://stats.labs.apnic.net/dnssec/XQ?o=cXAw7x1g1r1](http://stats.labs.apnic.net/dnssec/XQ?o=cXAw7x1g1r1)

So DNSSEC validation very definitely * _IS_ * happening out there!

<comment><USER6> Checks being made doesn't mean the _clients_ are checking. What's the point of validating the communication between the servers if the last mile is unprotected?

<comment><AUTHOR> > _What 's the point of validating the communication between the servers if > the last mile is unprotected?_

It's all incremental ways of reducing the attack surface. Get DNSSEC validation happening at large public DNS services... then at ISPs... then on network edge devices... then into operating system (in stub resolvers) ... then perhaps into applications themselves.

Each step reduces the attack surface a bit more. I wrote about this at:

[http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/resources/plan- dnss...](http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/resources/plan-dnssec- validation/)

This is why some people are using libraries like the GetDNS API to build DNSSEC validation directly into apps:

[https://getdnsapi.net/](https://getdnsapi.net/)

And solving the "last mile" problem is exactly why the DPRIVE working group was chartered within IETF:

[https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dprive/charter/](https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dprive/charter/)

(And anyone is welcome to contribute to the group.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Several people have confirmed to me that they were unable to see the site from Google's Public DNS Servers (18.104.22.168, 18.104.22.168 and the IPv6 addresses). This makes sense given that Google has been performing DNSSEC validation since early 2013.

I've updated the post to more clearly note the fact that this was not just an issue on Comcast networks. (I mentioned that it would be an issue on _any network performing DNSSEC validation_ , but then only gave Comcast as an example.)

</comment><comment><USER7> DNSSEC causes more problems than it solves. And even if it were reliable, it's still based on obsolete crypto and _isn 't even encrypted_. But on top of that, it's an outage factory.

<comment><USER8> Why would it make sense to encrypt queries and replies from a public data source? Signing the data is all that is needed.

<comment><USER9> Some users might not want intermediate hosts to see a request for the IP addr of "ginger-midget-porn.com", for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Also unavailable from Android devices…

<comment><AUTHOR> Which would make sense because they may be set to use Google's Public DNS Servers (184.108.40.206 and 220.127.116.11 and the IPv6 equivalents).

Google Public DNS has been performing full DNSSEC validation since May 2013: [http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/blog/2013/05/confir...](http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/blog/2013/05/confirmed- googles-public-dns-now-performs-dnssec-validation-for-all-queries-by-default/)

<comment><USER11> Yea, it is fortunate that people on Twitter quickly figured this out.

<comment><USER12> To be fair though, it's not that hard to test for DNSSEC breakage if you have dig available. If "dig +cdflag example.com A IN" works and "dig +adflag example.com A IN" returns SERVFAIL, it's DNSSEC's fault. (If that latter command returns responses without the ad flag, the domain lacks DNSSEC signing.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Airbus to put sleeping berths in cargo holds - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/11/airbus-to-put-sleeping-berths-in-cargo-holds <comment><USER2> I travel a lot and this seems insane to me. The noise a lone would be enough to drive me away from this.

Even if you are doing a transcontinental flight, I would much rather be set up in chair with ample leg room and access to my own entertainment system.

If I'm hopping on a 8 hour flight across the Atlantic, do I really need to settle in my own sleeping compartment as if I'm spending the night in a hotel?

Perhaps for super long haul flights from Australia or NZ this makes sense, but getting settled into a bed for an America - Euro travel seems unnecessary.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it would be much noiser than a night train, especially if they work on the noise isolation of the berth.

On the mockups ([http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press- releases/en/2018/04/air...](http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press- releases/en/2018/04/airbus-and-zodiac-aerospace-enter-into-a-partnership-for- a-new-l.html)), it looks a bit like the Japanese pod hotels.

Depending on departure and arrival times of the plane, it could make sense to me. I have used night trains quite a lot and it works fine.</comment></comment>


Puzzlebox Orbit: A brain-controlled helicopter - <AUTHOR> https://puzzlebox.io/orbit/

<comment><USER2> The helo I fly via conventional remote control unit already crashes all the time. If I were to impose my brainwaves unfiltered on that poor machine, I suspect it would just explode mid-flight.

</comment><comment><USER3> This thing was on the new show 'American Makers.' The Neurosky sensor in use doesn't allow for much more than getting the unit to hover based on the EEG reading.

After the initial wow factor of using your first EEG sensor, the limitations quickly start to add up: you are left with nothing more than a ball that can move up and down based on how furrowed your brow is. It looks like they added an accelerometer to the headset too, but it's still severely constrained in what you can do with it.

We're not at the point where "brain controlled" helicopters are a reality for the consumer set. You can't throw this on and think "go higher" and "strafe left while decreasing altitude" and I fear that level of expectation will drive many impulse buys to be returns.

</comment><comment><USER4> The Puzzlebox Orbit uses the Neurosky eeg helmet. It uses 1 sensor. It mainly captures whether you squeeze your muscles in your forehead.

Its pretty poor, thanks to the eeg helmet. The helicopter is a pretty sturdy build.</comment>


Ask HN: Startup CFO Compensation? - <AUTHOR> Company background: SaaS, 50 Employees, Series A, first hire to build & scale entire finance function.  What would you roughly expect for salary and equity?  Thanks. <comment><USER2> don't ask us, hire a comp consultant</comment>


Pope Francis's Theory of Economics - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/pope-franciss-theory-of-economics/281865/

<comment><USER2> Nice catch. If more people look at Polanyi`s economic ideas then it will shape the debate in a positive way so that we can discuss the ideas without getting into that left versus right battle. Truth is that there is a lot more to economic and political theory than the blandness of socialism versus capitalism and it is high time that we step forward out of the past centuries of conflict and get to work crafting a Star Trek social order.

<comment><AUTHOR> I couldn't agree more. I think the "frame" of the political discussion is undermining an real progress. The fact that one of the most influential figures in the world is helping to evolve the dialog in a new direction can only be a good thing.</comment></comment>


Stop using JWT for sessions, part 2: Why your solution doesn't work - <AUTHOR> http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2016/06/19/stop-using-jwt-for-sessions-part-2-why-your-solution-doesnt-work/ <comment><AUTHOR> All of these points are sound. There are some benefits of using a JWT over a session identifier, though. And I think that most of these were covered in the comments of your first post.

We have an implementation of JWTs @ Stormpath for Token Authentication. We help a lot of customers with token authentication / user management and Stormpath hold a whitelist of all unexpired tokens.

In the Stormpath SDKs, there is the ability to locally validate the token for speed or validate against our API to make sure the token hasn't been revoked.

A common strategy for our customers is to always validate an access token locally, but force refresh against the Stormpath API. This is a good way to not incur state in your application (Stormpath will keep the state for you).

The Stormpath Integrations (like Express / Spring / Laravel / etc) use cookies to store the tokens because we have been advocating for cookies as the JWT storage mechanism for a while:

[https://stormpath.com/blog/where-to-store-your-jwts- cookies-...](https://stormpath.com/blog/where-to-store-your-jwts-cookies-vs- html5-web-storage)</comment>


The story of Thanksgiving is the story of a migrant caravan - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/21/opinions/story-of-thanksgiving-is-the-story-of-a-migrant-caravan-parini/index.html <comment><USER2> "refugees who had undertaken a perilous journey to flee religious and political oppression"

Except for the part that they fled to the Netherlands first, then decided that Dutch culture was too libertine for them, and that their children were becoming too Dutch and not staying English.

This makes them, to use the modern terms, not refugees but economic migrants.

"There are reasons for this increase that we should try to address."

Like the effect of decades of US intervention to subvert local democracies in the interest of US corporations?

Or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation#Accusations_toward_the_School_of_the_Americas) ?

</comment><comment><USER3> and that turned out great for the native americans

<comment><USER4> No kidding. The Mayflower was the camel's nose under the tent. Had the natives known then what they know now, would there have been a friendly Thanksgiving dinner or a battle?</comment></comment>


Panasonic developing two full-frame mirrorless cameras with Leica L-mount - <AUTHOR> https://www.dpreview.com/news/9159684748/panasonic-developing-two-full-frame-mirrorless-cameras-with-leica-l-mount <comment><USER2> Wow.

My video kit is a GH4, GH3, and G7 for live or recorded-to-external events, so I am plenty deep in hock to Panasonic. But I did not expect that they would have a way to get even more of my money. I've been considering a Sony full- frame as a photo camera with some backup video usage but Panasonic has so much goodwill with me that I will probably hold off until I can play with an S1 or S1R and make a decision.

I don't get excited about cameras much anymore, but...dang.

<comment><USER3> Don't overestimate the value of full frame. Unless you're trying to get a shallower depth of field than you can achieve with your MFT lenses, a full frame camera doesn't offer much inherent advantage.

For example, the Panasonic 42.5mm f/1.7 lens is _visually equivalent_ to a hypothetical 85mm f/3.4 lens on a full frame (35mm) sensor. When I say equivalent, I mean these combinations would have the same practical field of view, the same depth of field, and—this is the part which trips people up—the _same overall quantity of photons falling on the sensor area._

Historically, larger sensors have been _more efficient_ at converting said photons into data, but the difference has narrowed greatly to the point where it doesn't matter so much, particularly at the relatively modest resolution of 4K video (approximately 8.3—8.9 megapixels) where the limits of lens diffraction don't tend to come into play.

Of course on full frame systems you can easily find inexpensive 85mm f/1.8 and very high quality f/1.4 lenses. But if you don't use the extra depth of field and you shoot FF at f/3.4 or greater, there was no fundamental benefit. (Of course you should never discount the glass advantage, as the mid-range FF glass tends to be optically superior to high-end MFT glass... but does that benefit apply to a new lens mount? Will these cameras do a good job focusing EF and/or F mount glass?)

<comment><USER4> Lower noise levels at high ISO are an advantage of FF. Very useful for shooting action in low light (e.g. sports and dance), where you need high shutter speeds to freeze motion.

<comment><USER5> I think what you meant is that low noise and high ISO are advantages of large pixels. Larger sensors just happen to have more such pixels. If you where willing to eat the reduction in resolution, you'd get the same noise and sensitivity from any size sensor. For example, a 10MP APS-C sensor has the same sensitivity as a 25MP full frame sensor, all other things held equal.

<comment><USER6> Per pixel. Not overall.

25MP (or any resolution) full frame sensor with a (say) 1.8 lens will gather more photos than 10MP (or any resolution) APC sensor with a 1.8 lens.

<comment><USER5> The amount of light falling on each sensor pixel is the only thing that matters in digital photography. The roof of my house also gathers a lot of light but it's not a good camera.

<comment><USER3> The quantity of photons captured and usefully turned into data by the total area of the sensor is what matters in digital photography. The physical size of each sensor pixel is irrelevant, except insofar as current technologies favour physically larger pixels in order to capture larger quantities of photons before the pixel is fully saturated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are a _lot_ of interesting camera products being released right now—the Fuji X-T3 is another: [https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilm-x-t3-first- impress...](https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilm-x-t3-first-impressions- review).

I personally think most of these full-frame cameras are overly pricey, especially for the marginal gains over APS-C-sized cameras, but someone must be buying them.

<comment><USER8> I bought one (the Sony A73). For me, low-light performance was the big draw vs sticking with a cheaper crop sensor. I'm just a hobbyist photographer, but I kept getting disappointed by things like an indoor family gathering where if I didn't want to use a flash, I had to bump the ISO up to super-grainy and drop the shutter speed lower than what my kid can keep still for.

With the A73 and a nice prime lens, I can go all the way to ISO 6400 with perfectly acceptable noise levels, and thanks to the great dynamic range, bring the shadows up further at my computer. It allows me to capture certain scenes that would be hard to get a "keeper" from at all on a crop.

For well-lit outdoor photography, including sports & wildlife, I agree that the gains over a high-end APS-C are marginal. Even for portraits, the bokeh on a full-frame is going to be better, but it'd probably be fair to call it marginally better.

<comment><USER9> > … disappointed by things like an indoor family gathering where if I didn't > want to use a flash…

I didn't want to use flash at family gatherings because 1) I didn't want the disruption of flash spill in people's eyes 2) the aesthetics of hard flash shadow.

Now I use bounce-flash close onto a wall and a half-snoot made from $1 artshop foam + elastic hair band, at base ISO.

If they're too dark I'll make tifs across a range of EV and blend with [https://wiki.panotools.org/Enfuse](https://wiki.panotools.org/Enfuse)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Happy to see Panasonic competing with Sony in the full frame space, and glad to see they realize m4/3ds isn't really competing with full frame 90% of the time.

Ergonomically speaking my m4/3ds camera is just too convenient for traveling and hiking and such to ever seriously consider a full frame option solely because of lens size differences: small lenses that perform pretty decently are the bee's knees, especially if you're lucky enough to have one of the models with a huge and decent viewfinder. Not interesting if massively increasing the size and weight I'd be carrying for full frame images.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. "Full" is a weird way of saying 35mm. Aside from that I've come to think that software beats hardware in photography. My m43 body can drive the sensor around using the IS actuators to take a high-resolution image with no color filter artifacts. With a speed booster and an old Nikkor lens there's a stupefying amount of light hitting the sensor. Best pictures I've taken in my life and I've used all kinds of cameras. So what's magic about "full" frame digital?

<comment><USER11> I'm in the market for m43 and have been reading into some of this. One of the things I get told is that full frame produces 'better looking' images due to differences in focal length. Things like certain bokeh effects that aps-c/m43 cannot achieve, even with wider apertures and zoom lenses.

Also the sensor resolution trick only works on stationary subjects, so probably a no-go for sports photographers.

But I'd love to hear otherwise, as m43 seems a lot more appealing to me, considering cost, weight and size.

<comment><USER12> My hobbyist opinion... m4/3 has it's limits, but they are well beyond my limits as a once-a-month photographer.

I'm currently shooting an Olympus OMD EM5ii (standard-sized body) and a PEN EP5 (smaller rangefinder-sized body). I primarily use the 12-40mm f2.8 Pro lens on the big body and either the 17mm f1.8 or 25mm f1.8 on the small body.

All three lenses will produce pleasing bokeh. Sometimes, I have to run them wide-open to do so. But, at laptop-screen size, any CA or distortion isn't noticeable to the people looking at my photos (family and friends).

Anyway, for me, m4/3 hit the sweet spot of price, size, and photo quality. I used to shoot a Canon DSLR (older Rebel crop-senor) and it was just too bulky to haul around on active vacations. I stopped carrying it, preferring a compact Canon S90. But, it wasn't flexible enough, especially indoors. So, I moved to an Olympus PEN EPL7 to try out m4/3\. Loved the size of the complete kit, and traded it for the EM5ii after a year of use. Added the EP5 a bit later just to have a second body on hand (was used and cheap, so I'll carry it places I won't take the more expensive EM5ii).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if this will increase the dynamic range? Anyone can answer this?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the size of the pixel that matters, rather than the size of the sensor. Sensors with fewer pixels will perform better than the same sized sensors with more pixels simply because they each have a larger surface area and can capture more light.</comment></comment>


Privacy monitor hacked from an old LCD Monitor - <AUTHOR> http://www.instructables.com/id/Privacy-monitor-made-from-an-old-LCD-Monitor/?ALLSTEPS

<comment><USER2> I have done something like this. Had an LCD projector with a burn on one of its polarizers. I took the polarizing film off an old LCD display, but it wasn't efficient enough and burned up. However, I found someone online with a different busted projector and traded him some old jumk for the polarizer. The result was viewable but not perfect.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just don't lose those glasses.</comment>


No, you don't own it: Court upholds EULAs, threatens digital resale - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/the-end-of-used-major-ruling-upholds-tough-software-licenses.ars

<comment><USER2> Isn't this going to upset the IRS slightly?

Are they going to demand the money back from everybody that wrote off software as a depreciation?

Alternatively are people now going to be able to write off software as a cost rather than an asset?

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the legal basis for this? Under what circumstances can a contract I never even saw apply to me?

(Why not just sell the disks and serial numbers, then? You can't use the software, wink wink nudge nudge, but the disk does have the software and the serial number _will_ activate it.)

Also, that Amazon EULA is quite strange. You aren't allowed to "synchronize" the music file you bought? You can't have the music on your computer and on your mp3 player.

There's a rule that 0 of their customers follow...

<comment><USER4> The problem is more that he bought the licence off someone who had seen the contract, albiet a nominal sight. Remember those 'you must accept this 10000 word agreement' every time you install anything on your computer?

There's a lot of dodginess going on in EULAs issued by software companies, for example I was forced to accept a 55 page legal document just to download a free app on iTunes the other day (the iTunes terms of service). I cannot believe that more than a tiny percentage of people have ever read those terms (and they know it).

Forced is a strong word, but how else could I use the phone I bought? It's a major selling point of the phone and yet there's a 55 page agreement to use it? Nonsense.

While I realise it's a 'legal' document, there's something very wrong with a legal system that essentially relinquishes basic consumer protection because they've made it impossible to use your purchase without relinquishing significant rights.

Courts shouldn't uphold these extremely complicated EULAs which basically say 'screw you'. In the end, a digital good which was never used should be able to be resold.

As others have said, we can only hope this is overturned as it does have massive implications for the future of digital goods.

<comment><USER5> It's also not clear to me what distinguishes this from the book EULAs that were held unenforceable in the original 1908 case. Publishers there printed purported "licenses" on the copyright page of their books, including terms like "you may not resell this book for less than $1.00". But those were held not to be enforceable, because it was held that the contractual relationship between publisher and bookbuyer is terminated when the sale is completed, at least in the normal case of books sold at retail (books provided under privately negotiated contracts, like documentation provided under an NDA, can still be enforced).

Could something like that be upheld today if the publisher were a bit more careful with its legal fictions? Perhaps something like: _You are granted a single, non-transferable, non-exclusive license to read this book. For your convenience, a hardcopy, which remains the sole property of Publishing Co., has been provided for your use. You may retain this copy so long as you remain in compliance with this license, but may not transfer it to any other party._

<comment><USER6> This sort of nonsense got me to look up free software CAD programs. Sadly, the big one is BRL-CAD and the documentation for it is downright depressing.

Their FAQ ( <http://brlcad.org/wiki/FAQ> ) tells me that the silly thing can't even print out a drawing normally! Essentially, you render your current view to a BLR-CAD format, use a command line tool to turn that into a PNG, then print that via some other program, not supplied.

Does nobody using it print enough things to want a normal print dialog? If anyone wants to see what I mean, look for the question "How do I get a hard copy of what I'm looking at in MGED?" (MGED is the geometry editor for BRL- CAD.)

To be fair, their list of priorities DOES list UI improvement. I'll have to see if I can find some ways to help... assuming I figure out how to use this thing.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it's an unfortunate niche. I think it's the sort of thing where there are companies that would be happy to contribute back code, but _only if_ a CAD program were already at 80% of their needs. But without commercial support, the hobbyist-CAD community is way too small to get a system to that 80% to begin with. Lots of industry doesn't really enjoy paying large per-seat license fees for the dominant CAD systems, so I think they'd be willing to work on an open-source one and contribute back, the way embedded-systems companies do with Linux, but they aren't willing to take a leap onto something that isn't there yet

BRL-CAD's particular problems are because it's sort of a time-capsule project, I think. It's an Army project from the 1980s that was open-sourced in 2004, but is still very "1980s Unix workstation" in a lot of ways, and the ratio of interested developers to giant crufty codebase has meant that modernizing it is slow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Same story, but from Wired: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679906>

</comment><comment><USER8> The article says this ruling came from US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Can the case still be appealed, e.g. to the Supreme Court, or what? (I'm not a lawyer.)

<comment><USER9> It was heard by a 3 judge panel. As I understand it the next step is an appeal to the full court, and then to the Supreme Court.

I hope it gets appealed and this ruling is overturned.

<comment><USER10> And the 9th is notorious for being overturned.

That said, if CamperBob at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1680416> is correct in that " _It involved a user who sold copies that were contractually supposed to be destroyed (or at least not reinstalled) after an upgrade_ " then the copies were never legit to begin with and the First-sale doctrine is not necessarily in jeopardy.

<comment><USER11> The 9th is by far the largest circuit, so its rates of being successfully appealed and overturned are proportionately greater.

Conventional wisdom says that the 9th gets overturned when its decisions skew too liberal. The Roberts court is far less likely to overturn a decision perceived as skewing "business-friendly". Nothing's more business-friendly than enforcing contracts, right? Personal responsibility and all that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _So, to recap: EULAs are binding, they can control just about everything you might dream up, and only Congress can change the situation._

Huge leap. From what I can tell, the ruling only applies to resale, and can't reliably be construed to imply that you can barter for people's souls in a EULA or what have you.</comment>


Start-up vs. Corporate vs. Consulting vs. Combination Platter - <AUTHOR> http://vladlokshin.com/start-up-vs-consulting-vs-corporate-vs-all-3

<comment><USER2> Liked it. I think he missed one good option, though: Getting a Doctorate aka Grad School aka Phd.

At least in Europe its, very well payed if you're an engineer. Depending on your advisor you can have a lot of freedom and still earn similar to the start up work he did. In Germany, as an engineer, you usually you get a full position at a lab which is, according to the contract, a bit less than 40 hours, starting at around 38k Euro per year. Thats about 54k USD. I don't have the exact numbers but I think after tax and considering life expenses its not to different for US Grad Schools.

Even if you have to do some course work or teaching, I think its a good base for starting new projects that can become companies. We all know famous examples.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent point, and I can't help but agree.

I guess my view on it is a bit skewed since with while pursuing an undergrad degree, it's hard to be taken seriously.

In most subject areas here, depending on the school, you'd need to get sponsored by an employer to have the schooling itself paid for. Unless you're on a full scholarship or having someone else pay it, you're subtracting 20-50K from that 54K salary.

That, and personally, I'm just not an academic. I learn faster on my own and from a blog or lynda.com than I do from an actual course...

Even now, I'd either pursue an MS for pure tech core knowledge to build bleeding edge tech around or a top 10 MBA -- but that would be purely to meet and work with the individuals that worked hard enough to get to the same point.

Given the scenario you've outlined however, that sounds like a perfect setup. It'd be even more perfect if one could study something in the field related to their startup project and learn subject matter directly related to their business ventures 24/7

<comment><USER2> Come to Germany, Switzerland or any other country with the european Dr. system then. You don't have to take any classes or pay tuition. In fact, you are not a student. We don't call them students and we don't treat them as students.

But watch out for an appropriate Professor! If you're lucky you don't have to do any teaching. This is usually the case for non-university research institutes like those who belong to Max-Planck, Fraunhofer or Helmholtz. At universities it depends. In some cases, TA'ing alone can be a fulltime job. Other professors see you as cheap labour and you have to do lots of work for them that you're neither qualified nor motivated to. Examples could be applying to grands, doing PR or managing the labs computer network.

I've lately seen many top tier professor and students from the US coming to Germany. Part of it, I think is that the government has invested a lot more money on carefully chosen projects in an effort to catch up with the US. Another reason, is that they have become a lot opener to non German speaking scientist. When I took classes two years ago, even the young Professors where all German. But recently, I hardly see a German post-doc or Professor landing a job. They are all foreigners.

Anyway, in my experience, the German Diploma and Doctorate Systems is perfect for people who like to learn by them self. For the Diploma, you have lots of choices after the first years and often there is only one final exam. No assignments or midterms. You can pass a class with an A* without knowing how the Prof. looks like. How you learn the required content is totally up to you. I've often chosen good American books and video lectures over the lectures here. And again, for the Dr. you can do what ever you like as long as your advisor is cool with it.

Actually, I found your quote quite confusing. "I'm just not an academic. I learn faster on my own and from a blog or lynda.com than I do from an actual course..."

English is not my first language but academia = higher education / research, right? To me this is almost a synonym with learning and discovering on your own.

PS: Its all not roses and unicorns, though. For instance, becoming a Professor right after your Dr. is very uncommon if not impossible. A US Phd from a top tier school usually is worth a bit more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Find a 40-hour/week opportunity"

Ah great. I'll ride my unicorn to work every day.

<comment><AUTHOR> Negativity always helps, right?

These exist. If you really have a problem finding them, look for European based companies. The work/life balance there is much more reasonable.

Kill it doing your 40 hours, and no one will have any complaints with you. If you're REALLY passionate about entrepreneurship, you won't be there for more X years anyway (different for each person) so making a 30 year career out of it doesn't really matter.

Again, these exist -- just filter through opportunities correctly and stay confident. If you do good work, you shouldn't have any problem finding such a fit.

And with these gas prices, a unicorn would be sweet too. I'll google what's available later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like the idea of hedging your bets. People always poo-poo working on your startup "on the side," but for some people it makes a lot of sense until you've gotten something built... and it keeps you alive. FeeFighters was largely built on the side, with our CEO working "full-time" as a management consultant to pay the bills (allowed us to hire a designer to gain some leverage, etc)

Somewhat related: reasons to leave the corporate world for a startup: [http://feefighters.com/blog/5-reasons-to-leave-the- corporate...](http://feefighters.com/blog/5-reasons-to-leave-the-corporate- world-and-join-a-startup/)

<comment><USER5> HN views seem to be slanted on this subject. It's not "hedging" or "being cautious" as much as it is just being smart. Working on a business in your spare time till it makes more money than your full-time job is what most people who have bills and/or families typically do. It's risk-averse, and, if you don't want to quit your full-time job, a great way to make a lot of extra money.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't completely call it risk averse. Let's just call it smart and "less risky" than jumping out of a job and into an opportunity that doesn't exist yet.

Maybe I wasn't so clear about this point, but it's also about doing something that may not perfectly fit your passions because of a more reasonable work/life balance and in turn a more doable corp work/start-up balance.

It becomes adjustable risk.

How much more money can a corporate job pay? How much more free time do you have now that you're not putting your own heart into someone else's project? How much do you really need to survive? Now comes the factor that's adjusting your risk.... Salary - Necessity = Liquidity.

How much of your liquidity are you willing to invest in your start-up dreams and how much of that are you willing to invest in your "normal" life? I think that's what really separates the hobby entrepreneurs that never make it and the guys that can in fact make it building something on the side.</comment></comment></comment>


Samsung Should Be Broken Up. Here's Why - <AUTHOR> http://joshondesign.com/2015/04/01/samsungrant

<comment><USER2> Samsung is a huge multi-billion (maybe even trillion) dollar company of which Electronics is only one division and you think it should be broken up because a (non-flagship) Samsung Gear Live watch wouldn't pair with (non-flagship) Samsung Galaxy Tab that was so forgettable, you couldn't remember the name of it at the start of your blog post? You do realise that's incredibly ridiculous right?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry but this is a korean company. They work differently than the americans, europeans or japanese.

They are evolving...SK gov is supporting small and medium businesses but it still will take some time to happen.</comment>


Yahoo brings back the Toolbar - <AUTHOR> http://us.toolbar.yahoo.com/

<comment><USER2> I might be the only one but... I can't bring myself to use Yahoo! products because of the ugly purple.

I'm not even joking. Some of their apps are great. But the purple is just so _ugly_ , and in most cases you can't even change it. Purple on white is just not an attractive color theme for apps.

<comment><USER3> Every Yahoo workplace is wall-to-wall purple and yellow. Think about what it's like to work there!

<comment><USER4> This is actually not true at all. (Source: Intern this summer)

<comment><USER5> PURPLE OK

[https://www.google.com/search?q=yahoo+offices&safe=off&sourc...](https://www.google.com/search?q=yahoo+offices&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=jboNUrD1FOmb0QXKwYHgAw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=2074&bih=1342#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=607nLemAYWqFiM%3A%3B4zlRKqcdc69noM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fibrandstudio.com%252Fwp- content%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F04%252FYahoo- Taiwan4.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fibrandstudio.com%252Finspiration%252Fbeautiful- yahoo-offices%3B550%3B367)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's not for me, however:

The biggest hurdle is that I don't think their target demographic for the product is savvy enough to install it without being hand-led.

I also think it's a mistake to not have a news stream button that shows news and content that this demographic would find captivating.

If the person doesn't have a yahoo mail account (or it appears to not be used), clicking the purple envelope should open outlook or whatever the users' default client is. The envelope should also have some kind of "new mail" notification.

Also I want to know what the toolbar does inside of companies that block access to facebook.

And lastly, I think the hardest thing is that google appears to serve this demographic better. If I go to google.com and type in novice queries like "directions to the post office" or "movies playing tonight" or "where can I buy stamps" I get arguably far friendlier results than I do with yahoo.

Until Yahoo addresses this, it's not going to work.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yahoo [inexplicably tries to] bring back the toolbar

<comment><USER8> I'm sure there are scores of [unsavvy] people that love that toolbar.

<comment><USER9> And possibly twice as many advertisers that pay them to keep the toolbar alive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I believe there're a lot of people with the "click-to-continue" attitude when installing softwares.

I see a rather big portion of my website traffic (woman visitors mostly) come from some kind of toolbar search.

There's still a market for that.

</comment><comment><USER11> Even for the Chrome: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6221556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6221556)

<comment><USER12> The chrome "toolbars" are a joke. Especially this one. It makes all pages have a margin on the top (that flickers in) and then the toolbar appears several seconds later (after the webpage loads)</comment></comment>


How mozzarella became the perfect pizza cheese - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141006-the-secrets-of-perfect-pizza

<comment><USER2> Or maybe it's just because mozzarella is the most typical and wide-spread cheese in Naple area (Italy) - where "pizza" was invented. Just a guess.

<comment><USER3> But other places might have tried to bake flat bread, sauce, vegetables with cheese on it, and only the one which used mozza ended up spreading around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you've never tried Georgian "suluguni" cheese, it is an amazing replacement for slabs of fresh mozzarella. I just wish it was easier to come by. I've had some success making it, but that has been inconsistent. I am not cut out to be a cheese maker.

</comment><comment><USER5> The biggest issue I take with this article and the study it references is that they insist on calling the shredded abomination we consume in the US "mozzarella" without so much as a nod to the real thing [1]. I can say fairly confidently that Buffalo Mozzarella melts much more nicely than it's cow-milk counterpart. The cheese they refer to here is not, in fact, the "perfect pizza cheese".

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozzarella](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozzarella)

<comment><USER6> Note that there is a big difference between dried and "fresh" mozzarella.

The fresh [1] kind has a lot of water; it's typically sold either tightly plastic-wrapped box, or in a bag or box in a bath of liquid. It's noticeably squishy. If you use it as-is, your pizza will be a small sea of water. It needs to be dried a little out before use.

The dry kind has been dried (it's a little more than that, but drying is the important part) until its moisture content is around 45-52%, compared to at least 60% for fresh mozzarella, and it's either a block or shredded. The low moisture content means it lasts a long time in the fridge, and the long shefl life makes it popular in restaurants.

The difference, on pizza, is how it melts. The wet kind just doesn't melt that well; it turns into white globs with a kind of leathery exterior [2] and looks not unlike fried egg whites. The dry kind melts much more evenly [3], and doesn't have that same leathery texture.

Both types of mozzarella are definitely "real" mozzarella. The Italians even have several types of classic Italian dried mozzarellas, such as scamorza. You can also get smoked, dried mozzarella, for instance.

The true shredded abomination is the stuff that isn't cheese at all, but some horrific stuff made from vegetable oil and food dyes, sometimes in the name of being "healthier". Oh, and American cheese. There's no cheese in American cheese.

Personally, I think buffalo mozzarella is overrated. You can get good and bad buffalo-cheese pizza, and good and bad cow-cheese pizza; the big taste difference is usually elsewhere, in my experience.

[1] [http://www.cheese.com/media/img/cheese/Fresh_Mozzarella.jpeg](http://www.cheese.com/media/img/cheese/Fresh_Mozzarella.jpeg)

[2] [http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/grimaldi...](http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/grimaldispizza.jpg)

[3] [http://bit.ly/1CQwsXW](http://bit.ly/1CQwsXW)

<comment><USER2> Don't mean to troll, BUT scamorza isn't mozzarella. It's just another kind of cheese. Different stuff

<comment><USER6> You're right, I really meant mozzarella-like cheeses. In Italy there are other variations on dry mozzarella, too, that is different from the stuff you find in US stores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Making food is a lot like making musical instruments, or writing elegant code for that matter. You can mass produce or machine generate it and it will be decent, but to get that nuance - that warm sound, that rich texture, that super edge case - you need human hands and human instinct behind the process.

Another example of how science and technology can sometimes be perfect to a fault. Turns out, deep down, we don't like perfect.

<comment><USER8> This is a heap of feel-good nonsense. You are simply referencing the meme of home cooking and artisan hand crafted instruments without juatification. Furthermore, the aforementioned items are all highly subjective and strictly for human consumption so it is no surprise that human involvement is paramount. What is the correct/best amount/type of human involvement?

<comment><USER7> No it's from many years of experience in all of the stated domains (cooking, coding, and crafting instruments with my own hands).

The grave mistake very logical people make is to think that they can define, decipher, and manipulate all properties of any given domain without any regard to that fact that no domain exists in a vacuum, and thus, not all thing in this universe can be quantifiable.

Trying to quantify human involvement in anything is pretty much the same as asking, "why are we here?".

<comment><USER9> I disagree. Everything is quantifiable. Everything comes down to physical reactions that happen predictably. Even emotions like love and hate boil down to patterns of neurons firing and hormone levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm surprised they didn't mention that this is due to Neapolitan geography, where the pizza was popularized in its current form.

The urban legend says that poor people just took the fresh/cheap ingredients they had available: flour, tomato sauce from the Vesuvio area tomatoes, mozzarella which is widely available in Campania along with olive oil and basil, also used in abundance locally.

</comment><comment><USER11> Speaking about pizza, does anybody has the perfect recipe for the pie/whole pizza? I saw once here from a obsessed chef but can't remember the link. Thanks!</comment>


Analyse Asia 67: Enterprise Mobility in Asia Pacific with Charles Reed Anderson - <AUTHOR> http://analyse.asia/2015/10/17/episode-67-enterprise-mobility-in-asia-pacific-with-charles-reed-anderson/ <comment><AUTHOR> Synopsis: Charles Reed Anderson, Vice President, Head of Mobility and Internet of Things Asia Pacific, IDC, joined us in a conversation to discuss all things enterprise mobility in Asia Pacific. We discussed the recent report "Enterprise Mobility in Asia Pacific 2015" by IDC, where we defined the landscape of enterprise mobility, the key trends in how Asian companies are making decisions on the mobile device model and vendor selection, rules of governance from company to their users, the priorities for the companies in adopting mobility as a new channel, and last but the least, the threats and challenges that Asian companies faced in enterprise mobility. Last but not least, Charles also discussed the maturity level of countries in Asia Pacific in the adoption of enterprise mobility and which companies in countries within the Asia Pacific are likely to move up the enterprise mobility ladder in the next 12 to 24 months.</comment>


Ask HN: Who are the journalists covering Internet privacy?  - <AUTHOR>

Right now there's a lot of attention on NSA, surveillance, and the larger issues of privacy on the web. I'm thankful for that.
But it worries me that it takes something as catastrophic as a John le Carré character like Edward Snowden to bring this all to my attention.
I want to know: Who covers this stuff in depth on a more consistent basis that I can follow (twitter? tumblr? some blogs?) and how can I support them (with money)? I worry that news sources are increasingly moving to big home run stories and / or reactionary commentary instead of investigative and actionable reporting.
I'd like to find the passionate and dedicated journalists who are devoted to finding important information and then support them. Where do I go? <comment><USER2> Check out the work from my organization, the International Association of Privacy Professionals. We are a non-advocacy and non-policy organization focused squarely on privacy with an excellent reporting crew and many free resources.

Blog: [https://www.privacyassociation.org/privacy_perspectives](https://www.privacyassociation.org/privacy_perspectives)

Daily news feed: [https://www.privacyassociation.org/publications/daily_dashbo...](https://www.privacyassociation.org/publications/daily_dashboard)

Resources: [https://www.privacyassociation.org/resource_center](https://www.privacyassociation.org/resource_center)

<comment><AUTHOR> this is awesome. thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I follow KPoulsen from wired, on Twitter. Although I do question US media, to explain why, Snowden brought his story to Washington Post first and had to push them to publish by going to The Guardian[0].

[0] [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/nsa-leaker- shop...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/nsa-leaker-shopped-his- story-around.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you kindly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Declan McCullagh at CNet.

</comment><comment><USER5> dave winer. he's a beast. not a journo. but well written, and a legend in the space.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Simple setup for a new Windows machine - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the process of setting up and new windows box and about to reach that stage where I end up trawling websites for the installers of all my favourite development tools. This is something I really don't want to do.
Does anyone know of a way of automating this process? I'm thinking along the lines of something like puppet for Windows.
I have found http://chocolatey.org/ that provides an apt-get like function for Windows but there are some key 'packages' not there, Chrome and Java to name just two.
Does anyone have any ideas on this one? <comment><USER2> I use <http://ninite.com/>. Maybe a combination of the two might work for you?</comment>


What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-06-tools-humanity-year-trillion.html <comment><USER3> Isaac Arthur made a compendium called Civilizations at the End of Time [1] that goes into this territory. This guy, in my opinion, goes above and beyond even your typical hard scifi. Can't recommend highly enough.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p58yFf7aZsM&list=PLIIOUpOge0...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p58yFf7aZsM&list=PLIIOUpOge0LvHsTP5fm8oxB1qPS54sTMk)

<comment><USER4> I just gave this a go. It's amazing, thank you for putting it on my radar.

At first his speech impediment makes it harder to follow, but 5 minutes in you're used to it and you're just riveted by the content and the clear communication style.

This is quality stuff.

<comment><USER5> I guess it's more fun to dream about the world millions of years in the future, but wouldn't we gain so much more if we spent all of our energy trying to optimize acquiring knowing more rapidly in the next few decades?

For example, supply 9 billion humans with clean, renewable energy by 2050. Accelerate cures for cancers, heart disease, malaria, etc. Large colony on Mars within 20 years, ...

<comment><USER6> It is not how science works. You can't predict what might be useful.

      1940 Hardy labels number theory (his own area of mathematics) as useless
      1977 RSA

You can't imagine the modern internet without cryptography.

<comment><USER7> Hardy's statement was philosophical, not a scientific prediction. Encryption was already an important science by 1940

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This goes together nicely with the Aestivation Hypothesis ([https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.03394](https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.03394)).

If a civilisation puts itself on hold for a trillion years, just waiting around doing nothing, then when it wakes up the universe is much colder and it can do computations 10^30 times more efficiently. If the civilization consists of minds running on computers then they've increased their own lifespans by the same factor.

<comment><USER9> You might enjoy "The Last Question" by Issac Asimov:

[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html](http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html)

<comment><USER10> Having the possibility to ask this question to Google Now, Siri or Alexa and getting a real answer would be a cool Easter Egg.

<comment><USER11> WolframAlpha does this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's my take on the future: We'll upload ourselves and use much less energy. As uploaded agents we'll have all the advantages of software - <USER2> multiple instances of ourselves, backup for assured immortality, plugins and upgrades, changing our appearance at will, slowing down or speeding up, becoming part of a collective - everything. It will be Life 2.0, very different from our life.

We've already "uploaded" parts of the brain - visual processing, voice, simple communication and some interaction skills like playing game, moving about and handling objects.

Our age is the first where massive storage, worldwide communication and cheap cameras exist. So we will be an interesting case for the future uploaded agents - we'll be revived based on our digital traces in order to study the origins of Life 2.0 - digital archeology.

<comment><USER13> I'm finding it difficult to understand what you mean by 'uploading'. Do you mean in some kind of Mixed Reality scenario where we are interacting with virtual assets?

<comment><USER14> I think they mean this stuff [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To accelerate stars, you squeeze them until a jet of matter comes out in the opposing direction. For ideas on getting matter out of stars, see "star lifting".

Furthermore, most of the useful energy in stars is not their nuclear binding energy, it is their potential as gravitational fuel, for example when added into a black hole via the Penrose process. It makes sense to accelerate stars toward the central dwelling place of intelligent life, even if the stars have burned out by the time they get there.

<comment><USER16> How silly. Saying we don't know how to move a star is exactly the same as saying "you just squeeze it", right up until the point you actually go out there and actually fucking squeeze it.

<comment><USER15> I was on mobile so didn't have the time to post a link to more than "search on star lifting", but now that I'm off mobile, have a link.

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

EDIT: more material directly on moving stars:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_engine) [https://www.dynamical- systems.org/zwicky/stellarengines.pdf](https://www.dynamical- systems.org/zwicky/stellarengines.pdf)

<comment><USER16> You've also removed the part where you called those pontifications "engineering".

edit: No, seriously, the initial comment shat on the author of the link for not knowing anything about mega-engineering. That's what I was calling silly.

<comment><USER17> People need to stop abusing the term "engineering." This is dungeons and dragons fantasy with s bit of math for color.

<comment><USER18> If you like, you can reserve the term "engineering" for detailed currently- implementable designs (or for work by a licensed professional engineer, or whatever). But that doesn't mean it's impossible or useless to explore what's conservatively doable within the laws of physics using resources we don't yet have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> These are really mind-blowing szenarios. While they might appear as rather theoretical in nature, as they are in such a far distant future, the most striking part was the one of direct practical consequence: based on the theoretical models we can now and today watch for any indication of other civilizations preparing for the far future. And that is pretty cool, even if we might just not see anything interesting.

</comment><comment><USER20> There simply is no way to predict what life will be like in 1 trillion years. We are still riding horses in many parts of the world, we are still killing each other..

its like asking a caveman what the next update to windows will look like.

We simply have no capacity to think yet.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think tools 1 trillion years from now that stumble across that headline will wonder what humanity was.

<comment><USER22> > I think tools 1 trillion years from now that stumble across that headline > will wonder what humanity was.

We will be lucky to still be here in 100 years.

<comment><USER23> We've already come this far, we probably will be here for a while longer

<comment><USER24> We're kind of like rats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Have we ruled out the possibility that a future civilization could slow or stop the expansion of the universe before all the stars disappear from view forever?

<comment><USER26> For all we know expansion is their plan to eliminate the competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Kurzgesagt had some nice summaries of: 1) Why white dwarves might be the last home for life in the universe - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsN1LglrX9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsN1LglrX9s) 2) ...or maybe it will be black holes - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCdoCfw- bY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCdoCfw-bY)

</comment><comment><USER28> _all stars outside the Local Group of galaxies will no be accessible to us since they will be receding away faster than the speed of light._

Can anyone explain what this means?

<comment><USER29> There is a theory that the universe is expanding faster and faster. At some point in the future, stars would be moving away faster than the speed of light and we couldn't ever see them again or reach them.

<comment><USER30> How could they be moving faster than the speed of light?

<comment><USER31> Because while matter cannot move faster than the speed of light the universe itself is allowed to expand faster than the speed of light. Think of the spacetime fabric stretching so fast light cannot cover the increased distance. The universe is essentially creating more distance between objects.

Another way to think of it is velocity of an object is derivative of position in space over time. If space itself is moving your position relative to it isn't changing.

<comment><USER32> I still can't intuitively understand this. If two objects ar stationary relative to each other, the expansion implies that at some point, the distance between those two objects will increase (without either of those objects having moved).

So space is being somehow created?! What if i have a large object, will the length of that object increase? Or will it break up?

<comment><USER33> I think you are using a concept of space-time that is quite limited. You are at most using concepts from Einstein's Special Relativity. Everything changed with _General_ Relativity.

Space is not "created", space-time is warped. Gravity is the deformation of space-time by mass/energy. The distance from point A to point B is measured by the time it takes for a light ray to get from A to B using the shortest path. But if you move objects with mass (or with energy) near A and B, the shortest path will change. Also, it's easy to measure distance in seconds when you know the speed of light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How would this scenario change, if there was a Big Bounce? And how would we potentially recognize alien civilizations preparing for that? And finally: in order to find out which of the two cosmological models is actually the correct one, we just set up SETI to find signs as to which of those two hyper- engineering projects have been undertaken - by civilizations that are a bit further in their cosmological understanding ;-)

</comment><comment><USER35> Then, there will be a post on HN about it, marked [2018 FE (First Era)]. "Ancients knew all this would happen [2018 FE]"

<comment><USER36> And below that, a post about how this will be the year of Linux on the desktop?

Sorry, couldn't resist :-)

<comment><USER24> "What you need to know about the Windows 10 Star Squeezer's Update"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> this assumes that civilizations will be able to use energy from sources other then their own star (or galaxy) or that it will be possible to get a significant number of their individuals to other stars. unlikely. just hang on until your own star dies then its over.

</comment><comment><USER38> By this time in the future I hope we have worked out wormholes.

<comment><USER39> Highly unlikely. Unless wormholes are setup with strange restrictive configurations they allow sending messages back in time, without needing any new physics.

Once you have a wormhole, if you use gravity to accelerate one of the ends away then bring it back near the other end, they will have a time difference, due to general relativity. If you bring them close enough, that time difference will be greater than it takes to travel between them in normal space, allowing you to travel to your own past.

This video gives a quick explanation of the problem:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUqxzH0652w&t=186s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUqxzH0652w&t=186s)

<comment><USER40> Doesn't that just put bounds on which wormholes are possible, rather than proving no wormhole is possible?

<comment><USER39> It doesn't prove they are impossible, but what it shows is if they are possible, the universe is conspiratorial. Because it restricts your free will so you don't create time travel paradoxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Something wrong with that site. Crashed my browser.

</comment><comment><USER42> What a fascinating read. Thanks for posting this.

</comment><comment><USER43> Errr. I think by 2400 we've got every chance of living in the ruins of a past grand human civilization.

Trillion is nice sci fi. 10,000 years in the future with any recognizable civilization is even more of a stretch.

<comment><USER44> Thats a pretty pessimistic view to have when we live in an era of ongoing progress in almost every area.

<comment><USER45> A pessimistic or at least skeptical dialectic counterpart to the optimistic/progressive worldview is a valuable thing to have, I think.

You can't reach into people's brains and change their temperament (yet! say the optimists) but I don't think we should want to. And not allpessimism/skepticism is based on temperament, though certainly some is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I started reading this and then thought "what a waste of time". This pertains in no way to my life or the life of anyone for the foreseeable future. I read it just after the one about taking pictures preventing people from experiencing things and remembering them. Putting these together reminded me that reading some of these things on HN is preventing me from living. And with that, I'm gonna close this laptop and go do something rather than worry what people a trillion years hence will be doing.

<comment><USER46> The people who actually take humanity to the stars (if it happens) will likely be motivated, in part at least, by this and other grand, cosmic ideas. I personally find it motivating and invigorating in a certain sense.

But, of course, if it is bumming you out, then definitely go do something else :)

<comment><USER9> Oh, I agree with you. SpaceX is awesome and I'm excited about the idea of colonizing Mars. The difference is that Mars is attainable now. Lots of unknowns but it's within reach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> There is a lot of weird downvoting in these threads, can anybody explain what is going on?

<comment><USER48> I'm not sure what you're referring to, but could you please email email@example.com with details so we can take a look instead of posting a meta comment?

<comment><USER47> It was curiosity. Essentially what looks to be reasonable comments are being downvoted, not sure if there is anything nefarious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I wish I could still see people and nations with the optimism of youth.

But now I am going to point out that someone will probably weaponize fusion and that will be the end of that.

We're not making it off this planet as a civilization, and honestly that may be for the best.

(but I still think The Expanse may be the best show since Babylon 5)

<comment><USER50> Are you not familiar with the hydrogen bomb, or are you speculating about unphysical weapons?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think the movie Interstellar closely depicts how life on Earth may turn out. Climate change is never going to stop, humans except few just don't care. Instead they will try to create more machines which will try to use carbon engineering to reduce CO2(as one discussed few days back on HN). With less need for trees and more need to fulfill population demand, if this technology becomes successful, it can be a doomsday scenario for trees and land everywhere will slowly start to erode resulting in greater imbalance in the ecosystem and eventually worldwide famines. Add to that, thawning of permafrost will release large amount of methane along with bacteria which were inactive since ages and for which humans may have no cure.

Most of CO2 is absorbed by oceans, and humans may never be able to find a way to tame CO2 there, this will result in much faster melting of ice in Arctic and Antarctica than anticipated.

No, humans aren't going to find an alternative habitable planet anytime soon where they can travel.

<comment><USER52> In the '70s, movies like Soylent Green depicted how people thought Earth may turn out: more and more people supported by limited resources, food riots, etc. e.g. China introduced the one child policy to head this off.

In the '80s, movies like War Games and The Day After depicted how people thought Earth may turn out: nuclear war triggered through Mutually Assured Destruction. (Source: I lived through the '80s.)

you get the idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> This is a good contender for the next Ig Noble prize.

My knee reaction with such articles is "I am glad that the guy is not payed with my taxes" but then I wonder how many of such useless papers where actually trampolines for useful ones (by bootstrapping ideas, suggesting "some uses of vibranium which, in that specific case could be replaced with titanium", etc.).

This extends to topics like astrophysics of galaxies far away (which we will not reach within 7000 years), particle physics (which work at energies which cannot be replicated outside of the lab), ... I am well aware that things which happen around these topics (say, the need to better understand magnetism in accelerators which can lead to better tomography or something) but are these money pits really needed as catalyzers?</comment>


Ask YC: Twitter is the most exciting technology...? - <AUTHOR>

Descriptions range from it being the "most exciting technology i have come across" (Tim OReilly) to "lame tool for people who like to hear themselves talk" and "illusion of being desired"<p>What do YOU think of Twitter? <comment><USER2> One of the coolest things about Twitter is how it allows you to see, in almost real-time, what huge groups of people are talking about.

You can see a map with where people are posting on Twitter from: <http://twittervision.com/>

You can see a real-time tag cloud showing what topics people are talking about on Twitter: <http://www.twitscoop.com>

And of course, you can search Twitter to see what people are saying about something: <http://search.twitter.com>

Case in point: A few weeks ago there was a Yahoo outage on the East-Coast for about 40 minutes. When I first discovered it, I searched Twitter for "Yahoo" and found a dozen people within the past minute complaining Yahoo was down. This quickly confirmed the outage for me.

These are just a few examples, but I think you get the idea. I rebelled against Twitter at first, but now I think it's awesome. The turning point for me was actually a Penny Arcade comic (<http://tinyurl.com/6gh4lg>) and the follow-up blog post (<http://tinyurl.com/5c4zds>) that made me realize (<http://tinyurl.com/5tj2kk>) I don't use Twitter for what they intended (to answer the question, "What are you doing?"). Twitter is exciting because the number of possible things it can be used for are nearly endless and the ways the data can be used are almost equally as endless.

Another awesome usage of Twitter that I've seen recently is the way site admins are using Twitter to leave status updates about the outage. They list their Twitter feed on the "We'll be right back" page, but since it's Twitter, people can choose to "follow" the user and get updates without visiting the site (if they enable "mobile updates", they'll even get notified via SMS). mininova.org is one site I've noticed using Twitter like this.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it has a few uses. People like Robert Scoble have a lot of influence on there - and he spends a lot of time connecting people together. Which is really useful.

Companies are finding it useful for guerilla marketting.. which is bad when it's spam but if done right can be a thousand times better than a blog.

You also get to connect with people you never knew existed. Scoble retweeted a comment I made about Oauth and it led ot me having a fun discussion about it (and getting some new ideas etc.) with people who agreed and disagreed. We'll probably never chat again but I found some interesting people to follow and we hammered out ideas really well.

And then it can be just a simple comunications tool. I love seeing what people are up to (in a non freaky way) and Twitter is more real time that a lot of other social networks out there. I think probably due to the # of desktop tools.

Anyway - a month ago I would have said "nah it's a nice idea but full of idiots" now I say: it's still full of idiots but when you get past the spam and self importance ( _cof_ john chow _cof_ ) then there are some real gems there.

:)

</comment><comment><USER4> Twitter is like having a blog with very short posts. The upside is that everything happens at a much faster rate (syndication + feedback), the downside is that it is hard to have consistently good content. Using it as a information distribution network is really nice for open source.

</comment><comment><USER5> _"... Twitter is the most exciting technology ..."_

Pretty much a POTs replacement for the Internet with voice mail & conference calls.

</comment><comment><USER6> i'm neutral on it. i don't think its an exciting new technology, but i don't think its exactly totally lame, either. its useful but not groundbreaking. it just feels special because of the tech echo chamber that formed around it.

</comment><comment><USER7> i still don't get it. i try.. and want to like it, but have not found anything useful</comment>