Why most published scientific research is probably false [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/10/daily-chart-2 <comment><USER2> Look. Clearly science makes progress that's "true" in the sense that it becomes useful and can be used as functional models of the way things work.

This video's using a very reductionist kind of statistics to point out that, yes, an individual piece of research making a claim might have a good chance of being wrong. Which is why science doesn't say, "Oh, well Larry just proved that Saturn orbits Uranus so let's just never think about that again and instead move on to proving that the Sun is fully powered by excess heat radiating off of Elon Musk's brain." Science is a process that works in aggregate, using a large volume of research and scientists checking one another as a way to smooth over this very imperfect process. Over time. Science checks itself. That's the whole point. That's why it reaches some pretty damned good conclusions about the way things work.

So.

I don't know what the point of this video is. Science is wrong? Scientists are stupid? The Economist is smart? I should believe the Republicans when they say the Earth couldn't possibly be warming because that one time it snowed in a part of Texas where it never really snows all that often?

<comment><USER3> _> Science checks itself._

Not that much, actually. There's no point in reproducing the work of others to advance your own scientific career. Unless your research directly directly depends on them, it is counterproductive.

<comment><USER4> In the important areas, it does check itself. If a scientist has been doing some interesting work, she will soon find herself with colleagues working on the same area. If she has not been doing something interesting, that line of research does not get cited, dies out, and does not get funding.

In active learning, there's a tradeoff between exploration and exploitation. Science does this too, but heuristically.

<comment><USER5> _If she has not been doing something interesting, that line of research does not get cited, dies out, and does not get funding._

Could you explain how this verifies results? Citation (alone) isn't verification. And its safe to say followers and funding correlate with one another, at least statistically.

<comment><USER4> You're reversing what I'm trying to say, I'm saying that verification or invalidation causes citations to occur, not that citation is verification. And that work that doesn't get validated dies out. Even work that gets "invalidated" in some sense can reveal other truths, or necessary changes in paradigms.

This is why scientists check the citations of a paper when considering its contents. It's important to ask if other people followed up on this, and what have they found if they did follow up? New papers, without any citations, must be held in a state of meta-information, until there's follow up papers. Old papers with few citations, and no validation citations, must also be considered as in a state of meta-information. Sometimes, really important things like Mendel's genetics get lost for decades in this state, until they are rediscovered, but it's fairly rare.

<comment><USER3> Work often gets cited without being either replicated or invalidated.

Do you do any kind of research? You seem to have an unrealistically rosy perception of the scientific process as it happens concretly.

<comment><USER4> >Work often gets cited without being either replicated or invalidated.

I'm not sure why you're bringing up this fact, which is not at all inconsistent with my comment. What's your implication?

>Do you do any kind of research? You seem to have an unrealistically rosy perception of the scientific process as it happens concretely.

In the past decade, I've spent probably 70% of my time on scientific research. At this moment I'm procrastinating from writing a letter of support on a grant. What, in particular, do you think I'm unrealistically rosy about?

<comment><USER3> _> I'm not sure why you're bringing up this fact, which is not at all inconsistent with my comment. What's your implication?_

In that case I may have misunderstood your point. What I mean is that, for a paper with 100+ citations (which, in some fields, is not rare), most of them are not verified by the authors.

 _> In the past decade, I've spent probably 70% of my time on scientific research. At this moment I'm procrastinating from writing a letter of support on a grant. What, in particular, do you think I'm unrealistically rosy about?_

The self-correcting nature of the process is very slow in most cases. Bad results end up being forgotten for minor findings, but for things of mild interest, it may linger far longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is extremely misleading and feeds an anti-intellectual notion that scientists are just lying to everybody.

First, it perpetuates a common claim of those who don't practice any sort of science: that the output of scientific studies is an enumeration of true/false claims determined with statistical inference logic. (Science media/blogs really aren't helping on this one.)

Second, the math is just wrong: the space of hypotheses is infinite, so it's impossible to say what fraction of these are true.

<comment><USER7> I don't think the technicalities of the size of the hypothesis space or its uncountability matter. We do studies over large numbers of hypotheses, of which we know _a priori_ only a few are likely to be true. Genome-wide association studies, for example, will study thousands of genes knowing that only a few will have true correlations.

In any case it is an entirely reasonable assumption that of all tested scientific hypotheses, a small fraction are true. We often do not _expect_ them to be true. (A clinical trial may test thirty or more hypotheses, such as "this medication causes diarrhea," and may expect most of them to be false. But they have to check just in case.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two game-theoretic strategies need to be mitigated/bred out out of Academia:

(1)'Security through obscurity' problem, where nobody can be bothered to verify your results as they are likely meaningless, lack broad applicability, or are not intellectally cost-effective for anyone to be bothered to understand them (etc).

(2) The "lick the cookie" problem, where nobody will verify your results because there its considered degrading (professionally) to 'not be first' at the table, as the author of origin. [a]

These both in combination lead to something of a "tradgedy of the commons" where the basic core of the discipline erodes in presitige/utility, as the individual contributors seek to maximize their personal productivity from the public good (the repuation of groundbreaking science).

[a] This is the childhood strategy of making anything you touch first unatractive to all those who follow.

edits: for clarity.

<comment><USER8> >(1)'Security through obscurity' problem, where nobody can be bothered to verify your results as they are likely meaningless, lack broad applicability, or are not intellectally cost-effective for anyone to be bothered to understand them (etc).

This is simply a problem of explaining findings to other researchers. _Every single researcher_ with a genuine finding on his hands will, at some point, seem like his work is obscure and pointless compared to "all those other guys" who are building on established research for immediate application.

And then there's the issue that your failure to understand someone's research doesn't mean it isn't research. Sometimes what a field needs is just a few more smart people willing to work at understanding what the hell's going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The conclusions of this video depend on an idealized view (and thus a poor model) of research and science. In fact, there are many different kinds of results (associated with different levels of confidence and which almost all require a nuanced interpretation in order to be properly understood) and many different kinds of researchers. The best results, across many fields, are rarely if ever single papers with a single experiment with p<0.05. The good ones have multiple mutually-confirming experiments with _much_ smaller p-values. And often for the very best results, p-value-style analyses are redundant: what would be the p-value associated with the line that Hubel and Wiesel claim was triggering the firing of their cat's retinal ganglion cell [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOHayh06LJ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOHayh06LJ4)]? Does it even matter?

[Edit: Parenthesis in first sentence, for clarity]

</comment><comment><USER10> Probably false? As in you have a better chance claiming the negation of a scientific paper's conclusion than the actual conclusion? I doubt it.

<comment><USER11> In certain fields, that's not implausible. Many results are along the lines of "compound X is effective against disease Y", where the negation, "compound X is not effective against disease Y", is a reasonable baseline assumption, because most compounds are not effective against most diseases.

Results where the prior odds could plausibly be considered 50/50 are another story. Scientific research that doesn't take the form "rule out the null hypothesis with p values" is also a different matter (lots of CS and physics, among other fields, has a more complex mingling of theory and epistemology than experiment/nullhypothesis/pvalue/repeat).

<comment><USER10> That's a good point. I didn't consider the fact that possibly many discoveries have a very low prior expectation of truthood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is a mistake of reasoning to take a meta-analysis of medical research and expand its conclusions to the rest of science.

Medical research has a number of peculiarities among the sciences, including the complexity of its subject (perhaps the highest of any discipline), the emotional reaction to the subject, the speed at which people try to turn scientific findings into products or advice, and the concommittal eagerness to trust epidemiological results without a known physical mechanism.

It's also a huge mistake to get your science news and opinion from The Economist--a magazine with a great reputation that has nothing to do with its coverage of science

</comment><comment><USER13> Here is the link to the source, much friendlier to HN folk that rather read than watch: [http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-t...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists- think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble)

EDIT: To add on to this, the source to the video does make an interesting observation about statistical methods being employed by scientists who doesn't know their pitfalls.

Other thing I take from a more careful reading (as opposed to viewing a two minute highly superficial video) is that the article makes the assumption that all hypothesis will be subject to only one study, if we have three studies denying a certain hypothesis and one confirming it it's pretty easy to catch the false positive on a literature review article (routinely done by people entering academia)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is just an adjunct to this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566915) (article and HN discussion).

</comment><comment><USER15> The claim is:

        "most published scientific research is probably false"

and the evidence for that claim is:

        The number of false negative "might easily be 4 in 10, or in some fields 8 in 10"

(quoted from the video)

This is rather weak.

And maybe more importantly: this assumes that researchers test random hypothesis uniformly drawn in the space of all possible hypothesis, which clearly isn't the case.

Anyway, this can't be really serious.

</comment><comment><USER4> The vast majority of scientific papers are not single experiments with one p-vaule, but rather a handful experiments to a dozen or more experiments, only some of which may be reduced to a p-value. And in most biological research, at least two lines of evidence are required before a reviewer will accept a claim (e.g. "OK, you may have found something, now verify it with a PCR.").

So this entire setup is just kind of crap, and not representative of scientific research.

In addition, this simple point, which is quite interesting, and necessary to keep in mind when interpreting multiple p-values, is widely acknowledged in the field, which is why False Discovery Rate methods started to be used as far back as the 90s. This initial point was first published as a "The sky is falling, what are all you idiot medical researchers doing?!" type of paper by Ioannidis, which is a great way to make a name for oneself. However, even his own interpretation did not hold up well, and he has stopped pushing the point. Summarizing an extensive comment on Metafilter [1]

>Why Most Published Research Findings Are False: Problems in the Analysis >The article published in PLoS Medicine by Ioannidis makes the dramatic claim in the title that "most published research claims are false," and has received extensive attention as a result. The article does provide a useful reminder that the probability of hypotheses depends on much more than just the p-value, a point that has been made in the medical literature for at least four decades, and in the statistical literature for decades previous. This topic has renewed importance with the advent of the massive multiple testing often seen in genomics studies.Unfortunately, while we agree that there are more false claims than many would suspect—based both on poor study design, misinterpretation of p-values, and perhaps analytic manipulation—the mathematical argument in the PLoS Medicine paper underlying the "proof" of the title's claim has a degree of circularity. As we show in detail in a separately published paper, Dr. Ioannidis utilizes a mathematical model that severely diminishes the evidential value of studies—even meta-analyses—such that none can produce more than modest evidence against the null hypothesis, and most are far weaker. This is why, in the offered "proof," the only study types that achieve a posterior probability of 50% or more (large RCTs [randomized controlled trials] and meta-analysis of RCTs) are those to which a prior probability of 50% or more are assigned. So the model employed cannot be considered a proof that most published claims are untrue, but is rather a claim that no study or combination of studies can ever provide convincing evidence.

>ASSESSING THE UNRELIABILITY OF THE MEDICAL LITERATURE: A RESPONSE TO "WHY MOST PUBLISHED RESEARCH FINDINGS ARE FALSE" >A recent article in this journal (Ioannidis JP (2005) Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med 2: e124) argued that more than half of published research findings in the medical literature are false. In this commentary, we examine the structure of that argument, and show that it has three basic components: >1) An assumption that the prior probability of most hypotheses explored in medical research is below 50%. >2) Dichotomization of P-values at the 0.05 level and introduction of a "bias" factor (produced by significance-seeking), the combination of which severely weakens the evidence provided by every design. >3) Use of Bayes theorem to show that, in the face of weak evidence, hypotheses with low prior probabilities cannot have posterior probabilities over 50%. >Thus, the claim is based on a priori assumptions that most tested hypotheses are likely to be false, and then the inferential model used makes it impossible for evidence from any study to overcome this handicap. We focus largely on step (2), explaining how the combination of dichotomization and "bias" dilutes experimental evidence, and showing how this dilution leads inevitably to the stated conclusion. We also demonstrate a fallacy in another important component of the argument –that papers in "hot" fields are more likely to produce false findings. We agree with the paper's conclusions and recommendations that many medical research findings are less definitive than readers suspect, that P-values are widely misinterpreted, that bias of various forms is widespread, that multiple approaches are needed to prevent the literature from being systematically biased and the need for more data on the prevalence of false claims. But calculating the unreliability of the medical research literature, in whole or in part, requires more empirical evidence and different inferential models than were used. The claim that "most research findings are false for most research designs and for most fields" must be considered as yet unproven.

[1] [http://www.metafilter.com/133102/There-is-no-cost-to- getting...](http://www.metafilter.com/133102/There-is-no-cost-to-getting- things-wrong#5256675)

<comment><USER16> What's infuriatingly ignored is that in that very same PLoS Medicine issue is a response to Ioannidis' work by Greenland, IIRC, that notes that by "False" he means the significance is wrong, but what's really of interest is the effect measure.

On a meta level, I've always wondered why we take a paper about most findings being false as clearly correct.

<comment><USER7> It's true that effect sizes are often more important, but it's also true that they're also often incorrect. See e.g.

Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2008). Why Most Discovered True Associations Are Inflated. Epidemiology, 19(5), 640–648. doi:10.1097/EDE.0b013e31818131e7

Most studies are underpowered and are incapable of detecting the true effect. Only if they get lucky and observe an abnormally large effect will they obtain a statistically significant result, so the published results tend to be significant overestiates.

For another good example, see

Gelman, A., & Weakliem, D. (2009). Of beauty, sex, and power: statistical challenges in estimating small effects. American Scientist, 97, 310–316.

[http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/po...](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/power4r.pdf)

<comment><USER16> I think part of the point there is not to pass effect estimates through a significance test filter first. Most studies are underpowered to _detect a true effect at alpha = 0.05_. That doesn't actually suggest that most studies are wrong as much as if a study is underpowered _and_ doesn't find a significant finding, we assert its dull and uninteresting.

Ironically, the Ioannidis paper is in Epidemiology, which is a journal that is fairly anti-significance testing, but where I still get reviewers suggesting that an effect measure with a confidence interval that brushes against the null must mean nothing at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A good opportunity for mentioning Benford's Law: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Scientific_frau...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Scientific_fraud_detection)

<comment><USER18> Maybe an opportunity for mentioning Simpson's Paradox: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox)

<comment><USER17> Good point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The problem with their reasoning is that it relies on a very high prior that the hypothesis is false.

In fact an explicit analysis of the prior over the hypothesis and the power of the test, would be roughly equivalent to the informal discussion that goes along with the statistical results.

The main issues in my opinion are that the number and nature of studies that produce null results if unknown, and that there is a bias in the literature towards positive results. While this bias incentivizes researchers to use powerful tests, it comes at a big cost.

</comment><comment><USER13> IMO what is damaging to society is that there is no PR to science, so the press takes things that are not yet fully understood or verified by the academic community and publishes it as confirmed (studies say, confirm, etc.)

Groundbreaking results give much more press than their rebuttal, for example, see neutrinos faster than light or that arsenic consuming bacteria both of which were later dismissed in academic circles, but did not enjoyed the same treatment from the media.

<comment><USER20> That sounds very much like the UK's Science Media Centre: [http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/about- us/](http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/about-us/) . How good a thing the SMC has been is another question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> so... non-scientific articles about scientific research are true? probably not.

<comment><USER22> See the original paper: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/)

<comment><USER21> i see. but then again, wouldn't their findings imply their own published results are likely false?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For me, the really remarkable thing about this graphic is that it doesn't even support the headline: the number of false positives is a minority of total positives in the given example: 45 / 125 = 36%

</comment><comment><USER24> It's just basic Bayesian reasoning. Most of the positive HIV test results are false positives. Even when the P value is less than 0.01 or so.</comment>


Going West: The World of Live Action, Competitive Oregon Trail - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/the-true-story-of-real-life-oregon-trail/380730/?single_page=true

<comment><USER2> Hmm. I did kind of enjoy the game as a child, but i cannot see the relevance in this article. Its mostly about some real world semi- adventure camp where you get a star for trying but failing. So. . . . Um . . . . Tech reference aside feom the inital paragraph or two?</comment>


Freelancing – Worth the risks? And how to get started - <AUTHOR> https://devletters.com/letters/get-started-with-freelancing/ <comment><USER2> _So how does one get started?

First, make some projects. Open source them on GitHub or make them live. Then, with your portfolio, apply to freelance gigs on Upwork or Freelancer.

These two steps are absolute absolutes. You can't skip or half-ass them.

You might have to work for cheap earlier on, but it's part of the process._

Sorry but I disagree with #2. Local clients will teach you so much more, even if brief interaction or solely a kickoff meeting. Those sites also come with a real risk of burnout, often before one might otherwise.</comment>


Hosted email service or run your own? - <AUTHOR>

Looking at how to deal with email service for a startup.
The obvious benefit of hosted is that you don't waste time on setting up email and you focus on your app.  But this option may have costs associated with it, are there any good free offerings?
Running your own has the upside of more control (do you even need that control?), but takes up time.
I am not talking about mail service as an integral part of the app (ie: the app doesn't email users updates) but more just handling email for the domain name of your startup. <comment><USER2> SearchYc for this as it's been covered so often here (<http://searchyc.com/>)

Good post by a fellow Texan here: [http://tedchoward.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/sending- legitimat...](http://tedchoward.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/sending-legitimate- bulk-email/)</comment>


Integrating Hacker News with a Blog - <AUTHOR>

I am college student who has made the foolish choice to blog, and on top of that I have made an even more foolish choice to roll my own blogging platform (as an excuse to learn ruby+rails) and since I am doing foolish things, I figure I might as well attempt to add novel features too.
Do any plug-ins or blog platforms already exist that integrate hacker news? The blog would have to be associated with a HN account. My goals are automatic posting of new content, display of HN comments, and the ability to comment on the blog with a HN account (actually commenting on the HN post and it displaying on the blog).
Am I insane? Foolish? or otherwise ignorant of a good reason this is a stupid idea? (I would prefer to know now, before I run off and do it) I am likely to run off and try no mater what the input, but additional knowledge can only help.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I think its a good idea. At bitcrumb.com we had to manually insert links to our hn posts, since we wanted to have the discussions here on hn rather than on our blog comments. While youre building cool features, heres a feature request - something that watches the reddit / hn / slashdot submissions and notifies you about new replies. It is very time consuming currently to check up on the discussions at three or four different sites.</comment>


Show HN: Tab Manager Plus – a Chrome extension for people with too many tabs - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-manager-plus-for-chro/cnkdjjdmfiffagllbiiilooaoofcoeff?hl=en <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN!

The backstory of Tab Manager Plus is an older Chrome extension called "Tab Manager". Unfortunately the main developer sold it off to some sleazy company that infested it with lots of adware, etc.

So Chrome webstore removed that old extension, and suddenly it felt like I lost a little finger - because none of the other Tab Managers were so simplistic like this one ( I tried many ).

Fast forward to Tab Manager Plus - it's a fork of the old ( clean ) Tab Manager extension, with an improved design and all improvement requests built in ( there were actually quite a lot )

Main features are : \- see all tabs and windows in a small chrome popup \- drag and drop tabs in between windows \- highlight duplicate tabs \- immediate(!) tab search once you open the popup ( type right away ) \- see the open tab counter over the tab icon \- you can limit how many open tabs there should be per window. e.g. if you set the limit to 15, and then open tab 16, it will move it to a new window instead.

That's the... main features. Code-wise it's based on React. The source is available here : [https://github.com/stefanXO/Tab-Manager- Plus](https://github.com/stefanXO/Tab-Manager-Plus)

Tab manager does _not_ mess with session data, nor does it submit any information anywhere.

Let me know how you like it!</comment>


Show HN: Re:consent – View and change the consent you have given to websites - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cliqz-oss/re-consent <comment><USER2> I don't want sites to track me, but these consent popup are very annoying and most don't allow me to opt-out (easily).

My best solution so far is using two Chrome extensions. "I don't care about cookies" and "Vanilla Cookie Manager".

The first one will accept GDPR consent, the second one auto delete cookies from non-whitelisted domain after a certain period (eg. 30 minutes).

Additionally, I have uBlock Origin blocking tracking domains.

<comment><USER3> It would be better to hide the consent banners (use any good ad blocker) and delete the unauthorized cookies anyway. Without having your explicit consent they cannot track you (they still might, but it'd be a violation) so the cookie manager is just a way for you to enforce your rights.

<comment><USER2> The problem is that many sites will break if I hide the consent banner.

Some sites will hijack the page, take you to another page, and if you reject then they will take you to a page saying you must leave if you do not consent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> More details on re:consent can be found here: [https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/re-consent](https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/re- consent)

Firefox Add-on: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/re- consent/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/re-consent/) Chrome Store: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reconsent/djcdlbbf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reconsent/djcdlbbfldmndgenehaifaiiahhhagfa)

Keep in mind that re:consent isn't just about consent cookies - it's also about educating users what they allowed services such as Google & Facebook to know about them.

</comment><comment><USER5> Requires a better explanation, perhaps a goal statement, a couple of screenshots, pros/cons, anything...

<comment><AUTHOR> More details can be found here: German: [https://cliqz.com/magazine/re- consent](https://cliqz.com/magazine/re-consent) English: [https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/re-consent](https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/re- consent)

<comment><USER6> Ouch... That smooth scrolling hurts experience and pleasure of being on cliqz website. I think I know how to customize my browser, so if I would like to have smooth scrolling or custom scrollbars I will add them to my browser. Please, don't take your visitors as dumb persons - almost everyone knows how to install extensions from Firefox/Chrome store and some others also knows how to develop own add-ons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I run with Ghostery and Privacy Badger with very restrictive settings. Google Tag Manager is blocked. Plus no third party cookies, and Firefox in site isolation mode. Few sites fail to work. General effect: the Internet has no advertising.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> re:consent

Welcome to more privacy control

re:consent allows you to view and change the consent you have given to websites for data processing. It works for websites that adhere to the IAB's Transparency & Consent Framework, as well as for Google and Facebook. re:consent offers more control over your direct interaction with websites making it a smart addition to third-party tracking protection powered by Cliqz. Learn more on [https://cliqz.com/magazine/re- consent](https://cliqz.com/magazine/re-consent)

</comment><comment><USER8> If you have uBlock Origin, you can just "zap" those elements without opting in.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you really want a website to erase your data use a service like [http://opt-out.eu](http://opt-out.eu) (disclaimer: I'm one of the creators)

<comment><USER10> I appreciate the sentiment, but unfortunately your website is quite misleading. For example, subjects do not have an absolute right to erasure, even under GDPR, but your detailed comments about this are hidden in your FAQ while your main introductory paragraph clearly says something very different. Your letter template also has a few problems. The date is not in European format. The content itself appears to be conflating different subject rights in a confusing way. It also refers to some contact methods but doesn't include all of the necessary details to use them.

Please be careful getting involved with legal matters if you're not sure what you're doing. You could cause real trouble for all involved if people think they have rights they don't and start trying to make a big deal of it.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the feedback! You have a point about the opening paragraph, do you have a better suggestion? The GDPR has a lot of "edge cases", which is why we placed the FAQ on the homepage and reference it throughout. The email template was reviewed by legal experts, I'd love hear your specific concerns. This is a free and open source project, maybe you can open an issue or a pull request on our github repo? Link is in the about page.

<comment><USER10> I'd suggest just being a little less heavy-handed in the wording. As written, I think your introduction will make many people think they have an absolute right to have their data removed, even if it's legitimately being collected and processed on a basis other than consent. It seems clear that you understand this is not really the case, as you do cover that in your FAQ, but perhaps the introduction could be altered to be less confrontational in style?

For the email, I'd suggest fine-tuning a few things. Numerical dates in European countries are typically given in D/M/Y order rather than the US-style M/D/Y, but the ambiguity could be avoided entirely by writing the month out in full, for example. Also, I wouldn't invite contact by methods where you haven't provided the necessary details, but IIRC your email template mentioned calling but without giving a phone number. If nothing else, these sorts of mistakes make such an email look less credible, which surely isn't going to encourage a positive response.

<comment><USER9> Thank you for taking the time to provide the feedback. We'll definitely take it on board.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found most GDPR consent popups and settings cumbersome. They are hidden, they often require a few more extremely slow HTTP requests. I suppose most people simply click _agree_ , because it's the fastest option.

I trust my AdBlocker more than any consent options/frameworks.

<comment> vertex-four Probably most consent dialogs are illegal, tbh. It just needs to get to court to prove that the GDPR is enforceable.

<comment><USER12> Personally I hope the outcome will be a strict interpretation:

* opt-out by default

* dismissing means opt-out

* users need to be able to dismiss banners (at least per session)

Along with a lenient interpretation of consent-by-default for "normal" use (i.e. serving the content, anonymized logging and anonymized analytics) I think this would make the most sense from a user perspective while still serving basic business interests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why are any websites going to use that IAB standard if all it does is make it easier for users to automatically opt out? None of them want that.

<comment><USER14> My customers want their customers to have a good experience and to feel safe and secure. They want to follow the law. They also want analytics. By following a standard that complies with the law here in Europe they get some of both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I want the opposite of this. Is there some tool I can use to just automatically agree to all of these annoying GDPR cookie popups so they stop bugging me?

<comment><USER16> There is a ublock list or three floating around.

<comment><USER15> I want to automatically opt-in, not opt-out.

<comment><USER6> I wish DNT (Do Not Track) header [0] was respected in case of automatical opt- in/opt-outs [1] but sadly, I think it won't happen (at least soon).

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

[1]: [https://www.w3.org/blog/2018/06/do-not-track-and-the- gdpr/](https://www.w3.org/blog/2018/06/do-not-track-and-the-gdpr/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's a good idea but it's adding manual work for the user.

I just block it all.</comment>


As of April 7, 2020, CA DMV has issued two Driverless Vehicle Testing Permits - <AUTHOR> https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/driverlesstestingpermits <comment><USER2> Interesting. There are permits for "testing with a driver" (about 20 of those), and "testing without a driver" (only 2), "deployment for public use" (none so far), and "autonomous delivery trucks" (none listed).

The CA DMV's requirements for testing with a driver read a lot like those for a learner's permit - must have licensed driver in vehicle, no commercial use, no large vehicles. Testing without a driver has more requirements, although it's mostly self-certification. DMV doesn't require a road test.

Here's the form for applying for testing without a driver.[1] It's all pretty straightforward. If you actually have technology to do the job reliably, it's not going to be a problem. Uber used to complain that California was too restrictive for them to test here, until they ran down a pedestrian in Arizona. DMV seems to be doing a good job of sorting out the working technology from the fake-it-til-you-make-it crowd.

[1] [https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/63d33316-895a-474c...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/63d33316-895a-474c-a410-8fce83330236/ol318.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=)

<comment><USER3> Are there really only 20 permits for self-driving cars with drivers?

I swear there are more than 20 self-driving cars driving around the streets of Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER4> 20 permitted companies

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case anyone is interested in a permit, they run a cool $3600, renewed every 2 years.

[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_content_en/dmv/vehindustry/ol/auton_veh_tester)

you also need to own more than 25 registered motor vehicles and a five million dollar surety bond.

interesting bits...

> a manufacturer shall report within 10 days after the collision, any > collision originating from the operation of the autonomous vehicle that > resulted in property damage, bodily injury or death.

10 days? why not 10 hours? these manufacturers ideally know at all times where each vehicle is and what its doing, and a police report takes about 20 minutes.

<comment><USER6> 10 days is the California standard time limit for reporting accidents: [https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/forms/sr/sr1](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/forms/sr/sr1)

This imposes the same rules on machines / manufacturers as humans. Seems right for this phase of development. If this whole driverless cars thing works out hopefully the machines can do better than humans. They can sit on hold for longer at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those curious:

Waymo is owned by Google (well, Alphabet), and is looking to compete with Uber/Lyft.

Nuro is backed by Softbank, and is looking to start with food/grocery deliveries.

<comment><USER8> Waymo has more competition with Cruise, Aurora, and Argo than what Uber/Lyft is trying.

I've heard that Uber ATG is barely staying afloat and Lyft is just pumping money just as a desperate attempt (their platform is much more powerful, which is what they're betting on).

<comment><USER9> I interviewed with one of those companies and it just seems bizarre that people are investing so many millions of dollars into building a taxi company. How big _is_ the taxi industry when all is said and done?

<comment><USER10> They aren't replacing _taxis_ , they are replacing _cars_.

Unless you want to own a specific speciality car (Ferrari, Jeep, etc), Waymo eliminates the need for you to buy one. It's Uber but without the overhead of paying a person, which means price could normalize so close to the actual operating expenses of the vehicle that it just doesn't make financial sense to use anything else.

<comment><USER11> Studies show something different - [https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/348138/person...](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/348138/personal- vehicle-ownership-extremely-important-t.html)

<comment><USER12> That study doesn't seem terribly relevant. It concludes that owning a vehicle is important to people _right now_. It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that in the future, cheap and ubiquitous ride sharing options could pretty quickly drive those percentages down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf Kind of surprised Tesla isn't further along. Maybe FSD is further than we thought.

<comment><USER13> Owner here of a TM3 here.

To me the issue is that Tesla seems to be shooting for the moon, trying to do it all in one shot, rather than its on rails method that we have seen from other manufacturers. By on rails I mean only on very accurately mapped routes with no deviation.

I would not trust my car with my eyes closed, I do however trust it with supervision which still is a major relief from the stress of driving.

One issue that seems being dodged is, my current software and hardware allows the cars too represent stop signs, traffic lights, cones, and oddly trashcans. Guess what is missing, speed limit signs. The suspicion is that MobileEye holds the patent and either Tesla won't pay for it or MobileEye won't license it. So how you can have a self driving car that cannot recognize speed limit signs is not evident to me; road data is not complete.

<comment><USER14> That can be part of the maps data, right? EG Google maps shows the speed limit when navigating.

<comment><USER15> What about variable speed limits, construction, etc?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can @dang or someone update the title with "California DMV" to be a bit more specific here?</comment>


Ask HN: Best European companies to apply for a Master's degree internship/thesis - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone, I'm an European student at the last semester of a Master's degree in Software engineering and CS.
I wanted to ask if you can recommend some particularly interesting IT company that provides internship programs I could apply for. The only constraint that I have is that the company must be located in an English or Italian speaking country inside Europe.
My aim would be to carry out a curricular internship and/or my final thesis inside a big company, and then try to get me hired after completing my studies. Plus, I think it would be a nice abroad experience from which I could profit from also on a personal level.
Thanks to everyone that will take time to respond or to give me any advice. <comment><USER2> Schibsted is one of the best in EU. They're basically like the Google of the Nordics but they are behind many brands instead of just one. The company culture is very diverse and there's a lot of opportunities inside the company as you can move from team to team and company to company inside the mother company.

Disclaimer: I am a happy employee there.</comment>


Ask HN: Please re-review my webapp: Playlistr - <AUTHOR>

The last version seemed to be fairly well-received, but it wasn't satisfied with it, yet. Since I last posted about it, I've made a few changes. The most obvious would be the interface. I'm not sure if anyone who commented on my previous thread has seen the new interface, but it's much easier on the eyes.
Most of the changes are on the backend, but are ones I'm sure a lot of you would appreciate. I've added a proper admin panel, so adding new streams is a snap. (Feel free to request some!) I've also made the playlists generate with titles, so they won't show up in your media player as a list of ugly IP addresses and hostnames. They also use CRLF now, instead of just LF.
You may also login (link is under the logo) using your Google account and your selections will be saved for you, then restored on your next visit.
http://playlistr.appspot.com <comment><USER2> I didn't see your first version, but I like what you've done overall.

A few notes: The interface is clean, but I wish I could see the major parts without scrolling. This probably doesn't need to have a period: "Login with Google."

I think you're one more design revision from perfection.</comment>


Ask HN: Open Source Ugly Code? - <AUTHOR>

hi, i have a simple question to the hacker (news) community.
some time ago i coded a simple google chrome web store (javascript) app "Farbzauber"
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ednbfblokipkbkecmfinlfhcikhidnoc
to be honest, the code is kinda ugly, if i now look at i get a strange feeling in my tummy. i don't know if there is a word for it, maybe "codeshame" would be a good name.
anyway, i have no plans to do much more with it, so i can either let it rot in peace or open source it?
my questions are:
- even though i know that the code is ugly (and undocumented), should i open source it - as it is?
- does the world need another undocumented, uglycode open source "project"?
- or wait until i find the time to clean it up and document it? (which will probably never happen)
- or is there a service to outsource proper open-source-ing? <comment><USER2> You should open source it. You lose nothing by creating a repository on GitHub and storing it there. And someone might find it useful.

That said, chances of it being useful to anyone would increase if the project had at least some introductory documentation. So, while there's no point in documenting and cleaning up everything, if you don't want to waste time on it, having a tutorial or "start here" documentation would probably help.

It takes a bit of courage to put up your "ugly" code out there, but then again, to paraphrase, if you're not ashamed of it, you waited too long :-) Maybe in the future you (or someone for whom the code is useful) will clean it up a bit, or add stuff to it. You never know.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes - opensource it. There's no reason against it really, is there?

Another potential benefit is that someone might be looking for some usage example of a specific set of functions and will find your code where it occurs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Release early, release often. Worst case scenario is that somebody tells you your code is ugly, and this happens to everybody, including the people writing the most beautiful, elegant algorithms in existence.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does it work how its supposed to?

<comment><USER6> sure

<comment><USER7> Then do it. No questions about it.</comment></comment></comment>


Recordings reveal how informant ring operated in Orange County jails - <AUTHOR> http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2015/5/28/orange-county-snitch-scandal-audiotapes.html <comment><USER2> Police and prosecutors misbehave frequently enough that the entire system is cast with a light of illegitimacy. The United States Government is one of the oldest extant in the world, and this epidemic of misbehavior, corruption and perjury is a good reason that it should decline and die. In my opinion, the only other alternative is to treat the misbehaving officials as criminals, but sadly, they are in practice protected from prosecution. One set of rules for the chosen, another set for the unfavored, and another set for those in the middle.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty disgusting, but not surprising.

What amazes me is that juries place any weight on jailhouse informants. As the article suggests you can be convicted solely on the information provided by a single jailhouse informant. What sort of jury could come to an 12-0 vote that any case like this was beyond reasonable doubt?

<comment><USER4> _> What sort of jury could come to an 12-0 vote that any case like this was beyond reasonable doubt?_

People that have not ever had had friends or family ensnared in the criminal justice system tend to project popular myths and natural biases onto anyone in jail. One of those is that people in jail are all idiots that do nothing all day but sit around bragging to their cellmates about their crimes. This is why jailhouse snitches are believed by juries, despite the obvious incentive to lie.

<comment><USER3> Well yes. If juries gave no weight to the testimony of convicted criminals with an enormous incentive to lie then prosecutors would stop putting them on the stand. It tells us how broken the whole jury system is when prosecutors go to the effort of obtaining these testimonies.

Interesting here in Australia these jailhouse testimonies are not given much weight by juries and when used (rarely) they are seen as a desperate attempt by the crown to bolster a very weak case. I guess the more people learn about how corrupt these testimonies are the less juries will believe them and hopefully they will stop being used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there an upper limit to how large a portion of the adult population of a country can be in jail before that country collapses?

<comment><USER6> Yes, but it's a matter of time, and it's more likely that the country would just decline in global status to a state of stagnation.

Last I looked the US were still below 1% of the population being incarcerated (~0.7% total, ~0.9 adult). This is (or was, there may be newer figures) the world's highest rate.

These numbers are disgusting (especially considering the number of people in US prisons purely because they can't afford to post bail), but I think it would take substantially higher rates to cause the collapse of a country.

The _detriment_ of a country is a completely different matter, and this situation in the US is already recognized by most of the rest of the world.

Similar issues are being seen in China and Russia.

From [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm) (which is probably well out of date by now):

"Half of the world's prison population of about nine million is held in the US, China or Russia.

Prison rates in the US are the world's highest, at 724 people per 100,000. In Russia the rate is 581."

<comment><USER7> Seychelles 868 USA 698 Russian Federation 468 China 119

[http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to- lowest/prison_popula...](http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to- lowest/prison_population_rate?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the updated stats! Did you see the graph of the Seychelles since 2006? What's going on there?

EDIT: I hate to post links from the UK Daily Mail but they have an article on this: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2219618/Will...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2219618/Will- Thurbin-Our-man-Seychelles-whos-locking-pirates-Indian-Ocean.html)

EDIT 2: From [http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/feb/23/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/feb/23/john- legend/fact-checking-john-legends-claim-we-live-most-inca/) : ""I think countries that small are just not comparable," Wagner said, adding that his group's 2014 States of Incarceration report filtered out countries with less than a half-million residents." ... "Only Seychelles technically has a higher incarceration rate than the United States. But experts said it's an outlier because of its miniscule size and largely should be disregarded."</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. - <AUTHOR> http://eduardosasso.posterous.com/heres-to-the-crazy-ones-the-misfits

<comment><USER2> Eduardo I can relate to everything you experienced this year, except that I'm from Mexico and I got to travel to Chicago for a job I landed. Here's to great 2012 much much better than this great year thats leaving us as we read!

Happy new year.</comment>


CloudApp Roulette - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/10/cloudapp-roulette.html

<comment><AUTHOR> CloudApp Roulette itself: [http://cargo.dustincurtis.com.s3.amazonaws.com/cloudapp- roul...](http://cargo.dustincurtis.com.s3.amazonaws.com/cloudapp- roulette.html)

Original link is to an article explaining CloudApp Roulette. From the article: "...as explained in this Lifehacker comment from August, it's very easy to just change around the letters in the structure of CloudApp's short URLs in order to see files other people are sharing. In the latest exploitation of that flaw, CloudApp Roulette provides a stream of "random private images" from CloudApp."</comment>


Show HN: Csysdig – think strace and htop and Lua and container support - <AUTHOR> https://sysdig.com/announcing-csysdig-strace-htop-lua-container-support/

<comment><USER2> This tool is incredible. I love the ability to dig into system trace level activity per container when running a cluster of docker containers on my machine.</comment>


Why Women Bully Each Other at Work - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-queen-bee-in-the-corner-office/534213/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-080217&single_page=true <comment><USER2> This article is very sexist...

It assumes only women are bullying eachother and men are immune to this scourge.

<comment><USER3> Also, the article specifically refers to lawyers, and this is a very particular profession: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace#C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace#Careers_with_highest_proportion_of_psychopaths) \- I don't think it's sex that matters.</comment></comment>


Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987 - <AUTHOR> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2018972097_microsoftlogo23.html <comment><USER2> The logo is O.K. Their homepage <http://microsoft.com> looks like a mix between a "corporate" website template you'd buy for $50 and a domain squatting page with amazon referral links.

Gosh I want to cheer for microsoft but they make it real hard.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention the URL… <http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx>, really? Have they not heard of internal/external URL mapping and Accept-Language?

Not to mention it won't even load for me; I guess they don't cache this stuff either.

<comment><USER4> LCIDs in the URI remove ambiguity about which language to serve (do you use Accept-Language? Or IP sniffing? Or user prefs in cookies?), they remove ambiguity about which storefront to show for a market and - most importantly - they make alternate language/markets indexable by search engines because each has a distinct URI.

Why are Apple, IBM, Amazon, Google doing it if it's such a terrible design?

<http://www.ibm.com/us/en/>

<http://store.apple.com/us>

<http://www.apple.com/ca/fr/mac/>

<http://support.google.com/adwords/?hl=en>

<http://www.amazon.ca/fr/>

<comment><USER3> Accept-Language is clearly the correct solution. It's easy to set in browsers (at least it is in Opera, if it's not in some other browser then I contend that's a UI bug), and OEMs should set it to a sane default for the region in which the browser is distributed.

The indexability is an interesting argument, but my response is that there should be a standard mechanism to query, via HTTP OPTIONS, in which languages a resource is available. By doing so, a user agent or search engine can easily index all versions of a resource.

Whether or not such a standard _exists_ I do not know, but Google certainly has the clout to standardize such a mechanism (viz. sitemaps and #!).

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately Accept-Language simply doesn't work - if you talk to engineers at Google they'll tell you that they've done the research and an enormous number of browsers have the incorrect setting and hence send an inappropriate header.

<comment><USER6> How often is an accept-language that isn't set to English wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I... don't hate it. What's wrong with me? It's bold, it's fresh, it does a pretty damn good job of shrugging off the Microsoft of the past 25 years.

<comment><USER8> You mean the one that utterly dominated the computer market and made money by the truckload when other companies could barely survive?

Well, at least that's over now.

<comment><USER9>
      > made money by the truckload when other companies
      > could barely survive

The other companies would probably have fared better of Microsoft wasn't dominating the market. This phrasing makes it sound like the market wasn't a zero-sum game.

<comment><USER10> The market wasn't then, and isn't now, zero-sum.

Microsoft's domination was achieved by making passable-to-excellent browsers in the beginning and putting them on the desktop, which made the web more accessible to millions of people, boosted commerce, and pushed feature development forward much more quickly than Netscape (or any company) would have done absent competition. Bigger market, bigger pie, more investment, more jobs, more consumers.

Netscape died, of course. But it didn't have to be that way; and Microsoft won far more than Netscape lost.

<comment><USER9>
      > The market wasn't then, and isn't now, zero-sum.

How many desktop operating systems are normal people going to use? Operating systems don't tend to be complementary (people running multiple OSes and desktop VMs are the exception, not the rule... especially back in the 90s).

<comment><USER8> For desktop, probably only one, but who uses "desktop computers" any more?

Now that your phone, your music player, your computer, your notebook, your tablet, your game console(s), your television and your video playback device all need an OS, I'm guessing the number of operating systems people use on a daily basis is higher than you think.

<comment><USER9> Now? Yes. In the 1990's? Not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For me... personally, the logo doesn't work.

I am slightly colour blind.

The logo in the article I see just fine, and all of the squares are the same size. And I get it... Metro theme.

The favicon.ico and small logo on Microsoft.com

Those don't fair as well. The red and yellow squares are much larger than the green and blue, and my eyes see a throbbing line around the bottom and left of the red box, and a black line at the bottom of the blue box.

Now... I know that those boxes don't have those lines. For I know what the Metro style guide looks like. But there it is, the logo has not been viewed by anyone colour blind with the ability to have it modified. There should be more space between the boxes when it's shrunk.

The red box is literally 20% wider than the blue to my eyes.

You know how much of the population is colour blind? A very significant chunk.

Also... those colours... very bad choice. When you print this logo (greyscale), all of the colours come out too similar a shade of grey. There is no distinction between them.

<comment><USER12> I'm part of that colour-blind chunk, and I don't see anything like what you're seeing. The squares appear to be an uneven size, but what would that have to do with our lack of ability to see colour?

Colour-blindness comes in a great many varieties, and to be honest, if you're making something involving colour, you're going to displease some of them.

<comment><USER13> Arguably (for this logo) seemingly wrong proportions are worse than too similar looking shades of grey, since no writing or visual metaphors lost are lost when you convert this logo to greyscale.

And I personally believe that this could (and should) have been worked around in some way since about 7-10% of the population has some kind of color blindness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Jokingly: That logo cost them $50 [1]

My real questions are whether there will be a one-color variant, whether the symbol will be allowed to be displayed without the type, and how you could ever secure international trademark on four squares. My guess is that you'd have to be, well, Mircosoft. More than the logo designers, I'm really impressed by the legal team. My trademark lawyers would laugh at me.

[1] <http://www.bestlookinglogos.com/2009/07/four-square-logo/>

Edit: fixed to read 'international trademark'

<comment><USER15> Should I make a FourSquare reference?

I'm just amazed that the colours are a rotation of Google's Favicon... Red Green Blue Yellow. (Alright so it's orange, not red.)

[https://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imgh...](https://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1600&bih=1088&q=google+icon&oq=google+icon&gs_l=img.3..0l10.1847.3183.0.33188.8.131.52.0.0.0.117.806.9j2.11.0...0.0...1ac.NvWvYh2x8Po)

Is there any way to get a compressed google search URL that's not a redirect?

<comment><USER16> Those are the Windows colors. They predate Google.

<comment><USER15> Oh.

I wonder why Google chose those colours then? There was a rumour about their first server being made of various colours of lego bricks, but maybe someone put more thought into it...

<comment><USER16> The full-saturation primary colors, plus green? Because they're obvious.

<comment><USER17> Aa

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting... I've never seen this before: <http://i.imgur.com/Ag3fl.jpg>

Edit: found better res

<comment><USER19> I did vote for that one, but I am listening to 80s metal right now - that may have influenced me.

<comment><USER20> I voted for that one too! Never seen it; spitting image of MegaDeth or Metallica! Haha

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You know the greatest lesson I learned from the tv show The Wire? When your brand lacks credibility you make a change to the brand.[1][2] Good move by Microsoft.

On other hand, I'm still trying to grok why Twitter changed it's logo recently[3]? Was something inherently being tarnished about the Twitter brand? As far as I know, the answer is NO.

I'm going to make a major assumption here, but I think it had to do with it being driven by a Creative Director and not by a Marketing (i.e. Business) person. The blog post and title at least reads that way.

[1]- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undertow_(The_Wire)#Barksdale_t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undertow_\(The_Wire\)#Barksdale_trade)

[2]- <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbbZc2pab9k>

[3]- [http://blog.twitter.com/2012/06/taking-flight- twitterbird.ht...](http://blog.twitter.com/2012/06/taking-flight- twitterbird.html)

<comment><USER22> Microsoft isn't changing their brand, they're updating their brand. It's something virtually every company does from time to time, and it's not a sign of the apocalypse. Microsoft isn't escaping any of their past with this change, they're still very recognizable as the same company as before.

Your assumptions about the reason for updating a brand are even wronger in the case of Twitter. They didn't update their brand because it was weak, quite the opposite. The twitter brand is currently so strong, it afforded them the unique opportunity to drop the words from their trademark and use just an icon. Twitter's rebranding was them stepping up to an exclusive club of the worlds most highly recognizable brands.

<comment><USER21> > _Microsoft isn't changing their brand, they're updating their brand._

Semantics.

> _it's not a sign of the apocalypse._

I'm sorry if I implied it's a sign of the apocalypse. I didn't mean it that way. The point is Microsoft has suffered greatly due to the massive success of Apple. This is no news to anyone. They're not going to die anytime soon, but they have a MASSIVE threat. The Wire's portrayal of the character's brand and that of Worldcom, are not a 1:1 match, I agree, but the theory is the same.

My point was to draw the real reasoning behind branding and why companies shift and update brands. I've personally been trapped in this before, and thought "God that logo looks like shit! That company, or my company, should change it! They would do so much better if they did!" Branding/Logo is about associations of an image with the company and its values. When the values of the company deteriorate, lack credibility, etc, than the association of the logo starts portraying those negative values (or lack thereof).

For example: How many people here think Google should change it's logo? The logo itself lacks any sort of design principles and very clearly was created by a techie with lack of graphic design. So why on earth hasn't Google changed it?

> _Your assumptions about the reason for updating a brand are even wronger in > the case of Twitter.Twitter's rebranding was them stepping up to an > exclusive club of the worlds most highly recognizable brands._

I apologize, I wasn't aware that the logo before explicitly included the name. Regardless...

> _Twitter's rebranding was them stepping up to an exclusive club of the > worlds most highly recognizable brands._

8 of the top 10 brands in the world have their name in their logo...[1] What exclusive club are you talking about?

[1] - [http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/07/top_brands/source/1....](http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/07/top_brands/source/1.htm)

<comment><USER22> >How many people here think Google should change it's logo? The logo itself lacks any sort of design principles and very clearly was created by a techie with lack of graphic design. So why on earth hasn't Google changed it?

They have changed it. They subtly update it every couple years to keep the shading and the bevel in line with current trends.

In any case, you're either missing my point, or you're missing the point of the scene in the wire. That was about a brand escaping their old image. Microsoft isn't doing that. They're embracing their old image, celebrating their old brand, and remaining recognizable as who they were before, even though they had the new logo. That's pretty much the exact opposite of what worldcom and the barksdale crew were trying to do. If they wanted to escape their old image, now would be a perfect time to do it, with their most different products ever, but they are sticking by both the windows and the Microsoft brands.

<comment><USER22> and your link to the top 10 brands only shows coke for me, but here's what i'm thinking of: golden arches, chevy bow tie, nike swoosh, apple logo, playboy bunny, wikipedia crossed W.

<comment><USER21> Apparently you didn't scroll through.

1\. Coke (name only, stylized)

2\. Microsoft (name only, but recently changed)

3\. IBM (name only, slightly stylized)

4\. GE (name in a circle)

5\. Intel (name with a swoosh)

6\. Nokia (name only)

7\. Toyota (no text regularly)

8\. Disney (name, highly stylized)

9\. McDonalds (normally has name in logo)

10\. Mercedez-Benz (no text regularly)

So, Toyota and Mercedez-Benz I discounted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Microsoft should sue the _Seattle Times_ for desecrating their beautiful logo with compression artifacts.

edit: I retract that, Microsoft is doing the very same thing:

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/08/23...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/08/23/microsoft- unveils-a-new-look.aspx)

<comment><USER24> Same with the Windows 8 logo. Without the artifacts it would look so much better.

[http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive...](http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2012/02/17/redesigning- the-windows-logo.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> >Ironically, Windows 8's new logo is now single-colored.

While I don't enjoy the perspective on the Windows 8 logo, I at least respect the single color. As usual, it doesn't seem like the right hand is talking to the left hand. I actually like the previous logo. It feels like it has some character and I'm not surprised it lasted 25 years. This new logo feels so damn generic, like a generic brand you would pick up at the grocery store...

* _Compare to the active ingredients in Apple._ _

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if that independent Microsoft re-design seen on HN a few weeks ago - [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/journal/2012/7/3/the-next- mi...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/journal/2012/7/3/the-next- microsoft.html) \- had anything to do with this.

<comment><USER27> I doubt it, this was probably in the works for much longer than a couple of weeks.

That said, I like the minimally minimal redesign _much_ better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Many commenters here are predictably unable to look at this as the business decision it is.

What people don't seem to understand is that the price of a logo is not based on how it looks. Aesthetics have nothing to do with this. It's based on how much the ability to make sure that the entire system is implemented properly is worth to MS.

This is not a question about whether the logo "works for you".

<comment><USER29> It's a question of whether it works for everybody, and unless somente here wants to do free research, we can only extrapolate from our on perceptions.

<comment><USER28> No it's not a question of whether it works for everybody. The world is filled with successful companies with ugly logos.

The purpose of the logo is not to look pretty but to identify.

<comment><USER29> That's the definition of _working_ in this context: fulfilling it's purpose as a logo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Looks more like a new version of Windows logo to me.

<comment><USER31> I assume it's intentional. Isn't OSX full of apples here and there?

<comment><USER32> But Apple isn't full of OSX logos. It seems weird that the windows association needs to stay in their primary mark.

<comment><USER8> It usually one in the top left corner, just as it always has.

<comment><USER33> That's an Apple logo, not on OS X logo. OS X logo is the giant X, which you only see on OS X marketing material, not on iPods.

<comment><USER8> Ah, in that case it shows up in the About screen and that's about it, huh?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> They should go back to that Metallica logo they had in 1980.

Nothing says corporate dominance like thrash metal font.

</comment><comment><USER35> Interesting that as soon as they dump the old Windows logo, they just start using it as the company logo, minus the swoops.

That said, however, I like it. I'm a big fan of color, and, while not a big fan of Windows, I've always liked its logo. In fact, while I probably won't ever install or use it extensively, I've really been liking the bold, primary color design of Windows 8.

<comment><USER36> My first thought wasn't Windows, it's Live Tiles. It seems to have the allusion of Windows (the past) and "the design style formerly known as Metro" (the future).

All in all, a big improvement!

Only one thing: I can't believe it doesn't render properly in mobile safari on MS home page! Bottom line gets clipped...

<comment><USER37> They should go the "Prince" route. They should just adopt the 4 square logo as the official name for "The design style formerly known as Metro".

Brilliant

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I can see the anti-Apple mentality of this.

Apple icons are glossy this is flat. The icons on an iPad/iPod are small glossy "chicklets" but on Win8 they are flat and large tiles; no black space.

I like the look and the design it's a nice change, as for the inner workings of the OS I have no idea since I only used it briefly in a (non-touchscreen) VM.

<comment><USER12> Different to Apple != anti-Apple

I think it is a tremendous disservice to the amount of work that went into the Metro (or whatever it's called now) interface to describe it as an anti-Apple reaction. It isn't, and not everyone in the tech world bases their entire business around what Apple is or is not doing. It wasn't created to spite the memory of Steve Jobs.

<comment><USER38> I'd say different is anti-Apple when you're Microsoft and Apple is your primary competitor your goal is to gain customers, being the same doesn't make sense since it already exists.

A great quote I heard once (not sure who) to paraphrase: _Trying to be as good as your competition just makes you equals. To be better you have to exceed beyond what is being done._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The 1975-1979 logo is neat. I actually really like it. The new one is so boring.

<comment><USER40> The 1980-81 looks like Gates and Balmer were trying to start a Metal band.

<comment><USER41> Their first song: "Developers".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Anybody notice this is basically the AVG logo with the colors flipped around?

See: <http://www.avg.com/us-en/homepage>

<comment><USER43> No, but now I see that the AVG logo has always been the windows icon, but with the colors flipped around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Here's the intro video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzkZWvAJUr0>

</comment><comment><USER45> While the new logo is OK what I found intriguing is that for the first time Windows is associated with the corporate image. Isn't that betting the whole company on a single product?

Not that is not true since a decade ago but it might reduce the chances in the future to make a turn around. Apple did remove "Computer" from his name to make space to iOS devices and to me Microsoft is doing the opposite... let's see how it goes, at least they are working hard to refresh their selves and that's good for the industry.

</comment><comment><USER46> I still don't get why Microsoft is pushing Metro SO HARD to bet everything on it when nobody really likes it that much.

Zune (where I saw it for the first time) failed in the market. Windows Mobile (that has the Metro theme) failed in the market. Now I don't know XBox (at all) and its GUI, but its success happened long before Metro was created.

People don't seem to like it in the new Windows preview all that much, either.

Why the big bet on Metro?

<comment><USER47> Similarly the Ribbon. The Ribbon was supposed to make Office easier to use. It was so incomprehensible (not to mention annoying and wasteful of screen real estate), Microsoft created a GAME to explain to users how to use the Ribbon. (How bad a UI fail is that?) Still no-one likes it, so they shoehorn it into more places.

I think Microsoft gets that Apple doesn't allow itself to be driven by focus groups, but instead they allow random insane people to drive them.

<comment><USER48> Well, to be completely fair MS Labs made it, not the office team, and there is no indication that they made it because it was so hard to use. If that was the case surely then Office would actually ship with Ribbon Hero, instead of having it as an unmaintained experiment you can download from their website if you happen to have heard of it?

IIRC, it was an experiment in gameification and Office and the ribbon was the thing that was new at the time, and it made sense to write it on top of teaching users the new UI.

While we're throwing around anecdotes on how incomprehensible ribbon is, I know plenty of people who are totally fine with it. I don't really use any MS products (and so never encounter it) and don't have an opinion on it, but I think phrases like "no-one likes it, so they shoehorn it into more places" are neither true nor even potentially valid (no one likes it so they use it more because... they're evil? They want you to hate them?)

<comment><USER47> The fact there's a Ribbon Hero 2 with what looks like pretty solid marketing behind it would seem to undermine your take. (No, I didn't know it existed either, but I don't think it was is a lab demo any more.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I think MSFT is starting to get a little obsessed with the boxes - excuse me "tiles". I went to the store opening today in Boston, and I was pretty impressed. Very clean, bright, lots of screens.. made the Apple store across the street seem very conservative. We'll see if it ends up being a hit, but it is definitely standing alone as it's own unique store experience.

</comment><comment><USER50> Is it just me or does the laptop in this (stock?) banner photo on their homepage look like a Macbook? (With the Apple logo photoshopped off.)

[http://i.microsoft.com/global/ImageStore/PublishingImages/As...](http://i.microsoft.com/global/ImageStore/PublishingImages/Asset/features/OfficeBackToSchool_0813_800x470_EN- US.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER51> Can someone explain me why do they have that _strange_ blue windows logo at the bottom of the page?

[http://i.microsoft.com/global/ImageStore/PublishingImages/lo...](http://i.microsoft.com/global/ImageStore/PublishingImages/logos/32x32/windows_symbol_clr_32x32.png) [http://res1.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/Windows%207/main...](http://res1.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/Windows%207/main/4300ae64-546c-4bbe-9026-6779b3684fb9_61.png)

I mean, it's not the current Windows 8 logo, nor the Windows 7 logo. It's a merge of both worlds: Old logo with Win8 colors.

Are they planning to change it in the very last second? (I don't think so) Or do they want to make a slow transition between the old and the new Windows logo?

Or... probably, according to Occam's razor, someone just failed to put the right logo there.

</comment><comment><USER52> The article starts of by saying that a lot is at stake when a company rolls out a new logo. I'd like to point out the Microsoft has, either intentionally or unintentionally, been piloting this logo-style in their products for the past few years, which is ostensibly a lower-risk proposition. Rolling out their parent brand logo to conform to this arguably successful re-branding that their individual software products have underwent over the past three or so years seems like a reasonably sound decision. Furthermore, if Microsoft has intentionally been piloting this new brand on parts of their business that are subordinate to the brand as a whole, then I'd have to say bravo for likely reducing a huge business risk in the making of a relatively permanent, long- term decision.

</comment><comment><USER53> _[The logo] is intended to "signal the heritage but also signal the future — a newness and freshness"._

Does _every_ marketing exec have to say that about their new logo? Must be the same effect as sports players saying "We just gave it 110%" when they win.

</comment><comment><USER54> As much as I just __loathe __saying "I told you so," I direct your attention to this prediction 55 days ago:<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4174622>

</comment><comment><USER55> The logotype would have been better alone. The symbol should have been the Windows 8 symbol. It makes me think that they used two teams and they didn't communicate during the process. Overall I like it, is refreshing.

</comment><comment><USER56> Personally, I'm a big fan of their short-lived 1980-1981 logo. I realize it has no place among today's clean, "Metro" look, but I love Metal and this just speaks to me. :)

<comment><USER57> It's not just metal. It's full of "tech" and "science" and "future" and "enthusiasm" and even "fun".

Re-adopting the 1980-1981 logo would send a signal that I would love to hear. That Microsoft is rebooting Microsoft and that things are going to be new and fun again.

<comment><USER56> I totally agree. Honestly MS really needs this sort of overhaul if they want to remain competitive down the road. They still have a pretty good hold on enterprise IT (slipping with the cloud) but I personally think they are in a bad position in just about every other market.

Though I've never had much love for Redmond despite using their products for 20+ years, since they feel like an underdog now I instinctively want to cheer for them. But, like someone said in another post, they sure make it difficult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I prefer the windows 8 logo much more: [http://www.fastcodesign.com/multisite_files/codesign/imageca...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/multisite_files/codesign/imagecache/inline- large/post-inline/inline-2-windows-8-logo-pgram.jpg)

The unsolicited redesign "slate" logo is cool too: [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next- microsoft....](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next- microsoft.html)

</comment><comment> yew-right Does your TV need a "user-interface"?

Does your secretary need a touchscreen?

MS's last remaining market is business. As others bring to business the old power of UNIX, for less cost, and repackaged with now commonplace buzzwords like "opensource", "linux", and "cloud", MS is in big trouble. For most of the business world, software is an expense, not an asset. Inexpensive wins.

But those guys who could say "FU" in 1992, why should they care? MS has had a GREAT run.

</comment><comment><USER59> I'd have preferred a thinner, longer variation of the font like they had in their win8 demos or Zune menus. This one looks a bit short and stocky imho.

</comment><comment><USER60> Interesting that 3 of the squares represent Windows, Office, XBox. I'm guessing the 4th square will represent Surface once it de-vaporizes?

<comment><USER61> Condensates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> "The new logo, which incorporates a multicolored Windows symbol in addition to the "Microsoft" name in straightforward, lighter type, is intended to "signal the heritage but also signal the future — a newness and freshness," said Jeff Hansen, Microsoft's general manager of brand strategy."

Freshness? The most underwhelming design "innovation" yet... Playing it safe, boring, square as ever.

</comment><comment><USER63> The Google+ button (right towards top) in this article about Microsoft's new logo is totally spoiling it for them.

[http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/08/23/microsoft-now- bra...](http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/08/23/microsoft-now-brand-new- logo-first-since-1987/)

</comment><comment><USER64> Bahahahaha, it's pretty much the old telecom New Zealand logo [1] . that makes me laugh. a lot

[1] [http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/telecom_...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/telecom_logo.gif) \- the one on the left.

</comment><comment><USER65> Did they hire the same designer that created the game "Simon Says"? Even the colors are the same.

Image: [http://www.digitalrendezvous.net/wordpress/wp- content/upload...](http://www.digitalrendezvous.net/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/2007/10/simonextreme.png)

<comment><USER66> You mean simply 'Simon.' The Chrome logo has been called into question about it's similarity in the past. Weirdly I now associate those primary colours with Google rather than M$.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Reminds me of Philip Morris' rebranding ([http://taxtrials.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/05/altria_logo1...](http://taxtrials.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/05/altria_logo1-1.jpg))

Problem is, I'm pretty sure "Altria" was trying to be generic and forgettable.

<comment><USER68> It seems to be the common theme among all giant multinationals -- they're trying to soften their image by using pastel colors, rounded, clean fonts, minimalist shapes.

See also: BP, Walmart

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> They started using the new wordmark in June, in the Surface promo materials: [http://photos.allthingsd.com/photos/i-vGmfLVB/0/M/i-vGmfLVB-...](http://photos.allthingsd.com/photos/i-vGmfLVB/0/M/i-vGmfLVB-M.jpg)

I guess this is the official launch.

</comment><comment><USER70> "is expected to unveil its new, more colorful logo"

Picture of logo already available in the article.

</comment><comment><USER71> It seems it is NOT the first logo change since 1987. Some previous logos are displayed here : <http://facts.swebee.com/microsoft-logo.html>

</comment><comment><USER44> I wonder why they didn't choose this logo (colorful tiles) for Windows.

</comment><comment><USER72> At the top left corner, I think the text "menu" should be replaced with "Start" and dropdown icon should be replaced with the icon found on windows start button (the MS logo)

</comment><comment><USER73> Actually quite impressed. Not because of the logo's quality, since it's not that a radical change, but because Microsoft finally got the guts to make a change.

</comment><comment><USER74> It's nice to see Microsoft putting some effort into design. The logo doesn't take my breath away or anything, but I think it's an improvement on the old one.

</comment><comment><USER75> Good change!! the new logo is simple and direct the point.

</comment><comment><USER76> I like how from 1980 to 1981 it was not Microsoft but really a front for Metallica to make it's big step in disrupting the corporate technology industry.

</comment><comment><USER77> Interesting. Is it just me or does their new logo seem to suggest that Microsoft has given up on trying to be anything _other_ than Windows?

</comment><comment><USER78> It seems odd that they chose to post the logo as a jpeg. The compression artifacts stop it from appearing as crisp as it should be.

</comment><comment><USER79> Something I noticed: beside the M, the rest of the font is very similar to the font Myriad (the font used by Apple in their logo).

<comment><USER80> I believe it's Segoe, which Microsoft owns and has been using everywhere lately.

<comment><USER81> So basically, Segoe is to Myriad as Arial is to Helvetica.

Got it.

<comment><USER80> It's more like they're both similar to Frutiger. And Myriad is barely 2 years older than Segoe, and it was developed by Agfa not MS, so it's not likely that it was copied. While Arial was kind of a crappy font, MS's new stuff (Consolas, Calibri etc.) has been pretty nice.

<comment><USER82> They're all Humanist fonts so there's a fair amount of family resemblance. So take the school of thought that finds Helvetica boring and corporate and apply to the new Segoe-based Microsoft logo. One thing I find interesting is that there was some legal brouhaha over Segoe a few years ago which appears to be all resolved but still makes it a little surprising to me that they'd go so all-in in such a visible context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> The four boxes don't bother me, but the segoe font is way too plain. I guess they use that font on everything, though.

<comment><USER84> Their choice to use their own Segoe typeface is what will make this a less- pleasing logo than it could have been.

Segoe looks good in its intended use for text on screen, and printed text at small and normal sizes, but Segoe does not look good at very large sizes.

When this logo appears on billboards, and in other large display settings, its weaknesses will become apparent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Really not bad looking. Amazing what you can do with MSPaint these days.

</comment><comment><USER86> The colours remind me just a little bit of Google..

<comment><USER33> Because Google uses the same primary colors that MS Windows used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Italics in logos may well be offically out!

</comment><comment><USER87> This logo just screams "compromise".

</comment><comment><USER88> Are those the Google colors?

<comment><USER22> They're the windows colours. [http://thegadgetsite.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/06/windows-...](http://thegadgetsite.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/06/windows-logo.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Wow, microsoft.com looks like shit on iOS with a Retina display. Couldn't be bothered?

</comment><comment><USER90> shuffling the deck chairs...

</comment><comment><USER91> On the homepage at microsoft.com, they are using the same logo for Microsoft Store as the company name.

</comment><comment><USER92> Very ubuntish.

</comment><comment><USER93> The logo from the 70's is so disco.

</comment><comment><USER8> What the hell is this? Are they trying to take the Gap approach and turn out a turd so terrible that designers storm the campus and flood them with better logos?</comment>


New Microsoft, Google, Amazon cloud battle over world without code - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/01/new-microsoft-google-amazon-cloud-battle-over-world-without-code.html <comment><USER2> Microsoft already owns the most successful no-code/low code platform in history: Excel

Millions of people with no coding experience are able to successfully use Excel to solve their problems, from personal budgets all the way to large stock trades.

The other successful no-code/low code software Microsoft has made was Visual Basic. In my opinion, there is no current solution to making applications that is as easy as Visual Basic 6.0. You could literally drag and drop a CRUD application connected to a database with no code.

Whoever can make the equivalent of Excel and Visual Basic for the cloud/web will dominate the market.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure I'm liking this turn of events. Sounds like a recipe for fragile stuff and walled gardens.

I don't think you can safely paper over the lessons devs learn by failing.

The other thing I've notice is that non-devs tend to build in production. No version control no testing. Just straight into prod

</comment><comment><USER4> just awesome, vendor lock-in on a whole new scale.

<comment><USER5> Open source "low-code" for devs here: [https://github.com/hofstadter- io/hof](https://github.com/hofstadter-io/hof)</comment></comment>


Enigmail and p≡p are partnering together for developing Enigmail/p≡p - <AUTHOR> https://www.enigmail.net/news/index.php#pep <comment><USER2> Is there any known WhatsApp-Like chat for mobile-phones using PGP/Mail technique? If not, why? Are there limitations for a (near)real-time-chat? If yes, why are they not successful?

What if you can chat from within your app with all characteristics you already know from WhatsApp and your chat-partner just uses his thunderbird with enigmail and you do not have to take care of encryption, but it happens from end-to-end?</comment>


Tell HN: I do analytics analysis for hire - <AUTHOR>

Do you have a ton of Google Analytics (or any other exportable analytics product), across many sites that you need analyzed and compared?
I do extensive analysis of many different data points across multiple domains/countries/etc. in Excel and send you reports.
All done manually for now.
Introductory rate of only $75/hour. All major credit cards accepted.
Serious inquiries only.
Email me: marcamillion {at} gmail {dot} com <comment><USER2> hnhackers.com</comment>


Hacker News introduces new feature - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2011-10-05 <comment><USER2> That feature exists since years. Here's a submission from 2 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13219727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13219727)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I only recently became aware of it when @dang mentioned it on one of my submissions.

This is now also getting a dedicated button on the dash soon!

<comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19072986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19072986)

'dang explicitly said "might". I'd say this is still up in the air.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably. Either way, I'm happy to see new features coming up on HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, OP here. Hacker News now permits you to go back to front page of any date.

Interesting to note how Front page was on the day of Steve Job's demise.</comment>


Okeanos Explorer: Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas - <AUTHOR> http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/media/exstream/exstream.html <comment><USER2> Too bad there is nothing on the cams right now.

> In Port in Saipan!

> NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer pulled into port in Saipan around 10:00 AM this > morning, bringing the first leg of the 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the > Marianas Expedition to a close! Our next cruise will start on May 20th and > will be a 24-hour mapping cruise to collect data on priority areas in the > north of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument and the Commonwealth > of the Northern Marianas Islands. We will use these maps to select targets > for further investigation with ROV Deep Discoverer during our third cruise, > starting June 17th. Tune back in and explore with us!</comment>


After fighting over& destabilizing Kyrgyzstan- US,Russia do nothing as it burns - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/world/asia/19memo.html

<comment><USER2> Oh, the answer is simple: Kyrgyzstan - no gas, no oil, no metals - no reason to worry. In fact the story is very complex here, and I am suspecting that was not Bakiev's deeds, but somebody else...</comment>


ZeroTier Releases LF: A Fully Decentralized Fully Replicated Key/Value Store - Steven-Clarke https://www.zerotier.com/lf-announcement/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author of LF and founder of ZeroTier here. I think my write up was a bit wordy so here is some more TL;DR:

LF is like etcd or consul (or so far just the data store aspects) but for decentralized systems that can be run by multiple parties across trust and organizational boundaries. It's an orchestration backend for decentralized apps.

We are going to use it to fully decentralize ZeroTier and for some specific enterprise customer projects, but others can use it for other stuff.

<comment><USER2> Big fan of zerotier. But not a fan of GPLv3. Would you consider a different license?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've thought about it, but the alternatives we have considered are those that restrict cloud SaaS monetization. Mu guess is that you don't like those either. We are a commercial venture and licensing to for profit users is currently a lot of our revenue.

<comment><USER2> Copyleft discourages me from adopting the technology, I'm not much for including anything with a copyleft license in my stack. I clearly understand the need to make a profit and have nothing against it ... I understand that you feel that SaaS monitoring would be a problem and that this project is not just technology to support your primary product (the zerotier network stack), but that it is a product you wish can generate a profit on its own. Maybe the ideas behind CockroachDB's work could be helpful? [https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/oss-relicensing- cockroach...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/oss-relicensing-cockroachdb/)

<comment><AUTHOR> CockroachDB's license is exactly what we're studying. We're also eyeing their technology for future use, though for the moment stock PGSQL still wins due to query complexity.

I'm curious to understand why you're so anti-GPL though. Linux is GPL and it hasn't stopped people from using it.

The GPL is not perfect but at the time we adopted it there were no other good alternatives except more permissive licenses that would have led to other companies just taking our stuff and monetizing it without compensation. We are not interested in charitably donating free labor to Amazon.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mozilla to let enterprises build custom Firefox browsers - <AUTHOR> http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/306685/mozilla_let_enterprises_build_custom_firefox_browsers <comment><USER2> They are "letting" them, or "helping" them? Firefox has always been open source, after all.

<comment><USER3> This was my initial reaction, but I think it's just bad writing. The headline should have been "MoFo offers new branded bulk-installer product" or similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Will this also allow you to preset some about:config settings?

<comment><USER4> nevermind, you apperently can already do that. ( [http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/custom-firefox- inst...](http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/custom-firefox-install- part-1) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You mean like Flock?</comment>


The world's first hack: the telegraph and the invention of privacy (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/15/first-hack-telegraph-invention-privacy-gchq-nsa <comment><USER2> The article misses quite a bit of the real story. Codes came to telegraphy both for reasons of privacy and for reasons of economy. The story in the US is about like this: The price of a telegraph message was based on the number of words, mostly a certain number of cents per word. For businesses that communicated regularly with a regular set of sales and purchasing agents (either traveling or fixed) in remote cities, the telegraph expense was sufficient for them to adopt communication by code words that could shorten their messages considerably. Two implications of this were obvious. First, the telegraph customers realized that because they were encoding and decoding their messages anyway, they could obtain privacy with little extra expense by going to 100% ciphered messages and securing their codebooks. Second, the telegraph companies realized that they were losing revenues and worked out a new rate structure for coded messages. The use of 5-letter groups as code words developed in this period because the telegraph companies figured that a word was (on average) five letters, and they did not want to would lose revenue if they charged per word for messages with longer code words. The hackers still found ways to hack the system. For example, before the age of government-issued IDs, a stranger (from out of town) could go into a telegraph office and send a telegram over the signature of any other similarly unknown out-of-towner.

</comment><comment> frosted-flakes If anyone's interested in learning more about the history of the telegraph, I recommend reading The _Victorian Internet_ by Tom Standage[1]. It's an approachable and fairly short book (200 pages) that tells the stories of all of the people involved with it.

If you want to know what it was like to be a telegraph operator, check out this cheesy 19th century novel about a romance that develops over the telegraph, called _Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and dashes_ [2]. I don't know how accurate it is, but it was certainly entertaining.

[1] [https://www.kobo.com/CA/en/ebook/the-victorian- internet-1](https://www.kobo.com/CA/en/ebook/the-victorian-internet-1)

[2] [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24353](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24353)</comment>


Ask HN: How can a developer become good at documentation - <AUTHOR>

I have been coding all my life with most of the documentation limited to the comments I put in the code. But in my new role, I need to document the existing designs, architectures of the existing or proposed systems, prepare presentations for upper management etc. I am somehow getting this done but I don't see the end result as particularly appealing.<p>Are there any guidelines or a set of rules that I can follow. Also how can I get those nice graphics/flowcharts etc. into the documents, are there any good tools that anyone can recommend. <comment><USER2> I personally like documentation to be brief. This is easier if you are targeting management, because they're not going to digest details anyway, so you only include the essentials.

Brevity helps maintainability. It increases the chance of correctness. It also saves time; you _will never_ anticipate every question, so it is far better to document some basics and instead just expect to answer questions periodically.

To be able to answer questions, you should document _the people_ involved with each part of a system. This makes it incredibly obvious if you have any holes (i.e. is there any place in the system where, if ONE guy leaves the company, you're screwed?).

OmniGraffle (on the Mac) is an outstanding tool for making various charts.</comment>


A professional programmer joined an amateur gamedev project… it didn't go well - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3244ex/a_professional_programmer_recently_joined_my/ <comment><USER2> That's not a professional programmer, that's a cowboy coder. As somebody who makes his living by writing code, I would not want this guy on my team/project/anywherenearmycodebase.

</comment><comment><USER3> Woe is a professional programmer, who in in their day-to-day life with programs so poorly structured that their idea of recreation is to re-factor code.

</comment><comment><USER4> At least redditors seem to be calling out the "professional" for reckless egotism. I'm pleasantly surprised.</comment>