Managed Kubernetes Price Comparison - <AUTHOR> https://devopsdirective.com/posts/2020/03/managed-kubernetes-comparison/ <comment><USER2> Egress costs at those major clouds are ridiculous. Once you start having some traffic it can easily make 50% of all costs or more. That is not justifiable! Meanwhile hardware costs are going down. We need more k8s providers with more resonable pricing. Unfortunatelly both Digital Ocean and Oracle Cloud don't have proper network load balancer implementations which is a must for elastic regional clusters and to forward TCP in a way that client IP is preserved and be able to add nodes without downtimes or TCP resets. OVH cloud doesn't implement LoadBalancer service type at all. So the choice in 2020 is really just Google, Amazon, Azure with their rolls-royce pricing. The cost difference between them is neglible. And then there are confidential free credits for startups. So sad...

<comment><USER3> All of AWS's VPC features are free. You get Security Groups, Subnets, Route Tables, all kinds of shenanigans in a very stable way, with basically no incidents that I can remember.

Except those are not free, they're just charged for separately under "egress transfer costs". End of the day, the engineers in the networking teams at AWS still have to get paid and that service probably also needs to run at a profit. When seen under this light, the costs make more sense to me than the usual simple view of "but bandwidth transfer costs are cheaper everywhere else!!!"

<comment><USER4> NAT gateways (a required component if you want real security) cost like $30/month each and you need at least 2 for HA.

<comment><USER5> Well, I've got bad news for you, if you think NAT Gateways are required for "real security", just wait until you enable IPv6 on AWS.....

<comment><USER6> Could you elaborate on this?

<comment><USER5> When you enable IPv6, there is no NATing. All of the IP addresses are public. You can use an Egress only Internet Gateway.

[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/vpc- nat.htm...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/vpc-nat.html)

But technically, your EC2 instance never has a public IP address. You can see for yourself by assigning a public IP address to an ENI attached to your instance and doing an ifconfig.

An Internet Gateway is a one to one NAT.

<comment><USER4> Interesting, I did not know this is how IPv6 worked. Need to investigate this more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> david-s It doesn't seem to include Digital Ocean in the comparison.

<comment><USER7> Digital Ocean is still significantly cheaper (unsurprisingly). They don't charge for the control plane, so you just pay the normal prices for the droplets and resources you use. It's well integrated, allowing K8 to provision load balancers and volumes, and the Terraform provider for it works well.

My (admittedly small) cluster of 3x 4Gb droplets, an external load balancer, and volumes enough for logs, databases and filesystems costs about 70 USD/Month. It's been absolutely rock solid too. I have very few minor gripes and a lot of positive things to say about it.

<comment><USER8> Isn't it more limited though, e.g. with auto-scaling not available for nodes, but only for pods?

<comment><USER9> DigitalOcean now has a node auto-scaling as well [1]. It was released very recently. It was not available in the first general release.

[1] [https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/kubernetes/how- to/autoscal...](https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/kubernetes/how- to/autoscale/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Only Azure doesn't charge for the k8s control plane, that is the most surprising thing for me.

<comment><USER11> We don't know how long that's going to last. Google didn't charge for control plane either, until recently. So Azure couldn't charge, in order to be competitive. Now that Google has started charging Azure may start too.

<comment><USER12> Azure also doesn't have an SLA, so that's why they don't charge.

Google started charging after they added an SLA.

<comment><USER13> Makes sense, the point of an SLA is that you agree to pay back the customer's money if you don't meet it. What does it mean to have an SLA for a free product?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Scaleway gives you a k8s cluster starting from 40 EUR per month

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this! I've looked at Scaleway and so far I like it a lot, this looks like the end of my months of suffering. It seems to fit my needs perfectly. Finally a smaller cloud provider doing it right!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not familiar with the space so my question might not be that relevant - where does OpenShift fit in all of this (I still struggle to differentiate it from Kubernetes) and is there any merit to IBM trying to sell it so hard?

<comment><USER16> Openshift _wraps around_ Kubernetes, with some of their own special offering stuff on it. Generally, plain K8s is a building block - RedHat made Openshift with a bunch of opinionated choices, geared towards enterprise deployments, some of them migrating later to Kubernetes itself (OpenShift's _Route_ inspired K8s' _Ingress_ ), some OpenShift cribs from K8s (Istio becoming part of OpenShift by default in OS 4).

Generally OpenShift heavily targets enterprises as "All-in-One" package. Some of that works, some doesn't, but honestly it's often more a case of the IT dept that manages the install ;)

Except installing OpenShift. That's horrific. Someone should repent for the install process, seriously.

<comment><USER17> Even with OpenShift 4? I thought it was pretty nice and straightforward, to be honest...

<comment><USER16> I have yet to touch OpenShift 4 - every environment that used OpenShift that I worked with professionally except for some testing runs was air-gapped to some extent from internet, something that is not supported on OpenShift 4, and which was treated as a crucial requirement by the customer deploying OpenShift.

<comment><USER18> Airgapped is now available in 4.3 (although it has some rough edges that will be addressed in 4.4).

<comment><USER16> Oh, that's a good news. Just this friday when I first looked into OpenShift install, it looked like it wasn't even in the plans, so I might have hit older docs than I intended.

Makes for higher possibility that $DAYJOB upgrades to OpenShift 4.x, but then, we would rather get rid of our (intra-group) provider and their openshift environments...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Too bad AKS is just terrible.

Slow provisioning time, slow PVCs, slow LoadBalancer provisioning, slow node pool management, plus non-production ready node pool implementation.

<comment><USER20> Agreed, not below usable though.

Some more: rolling upgrades of k8s (said to not affect the uptime of the cluster) not being rolling in actuality, allowing upgrades when the service principal is expired thus preventing the nodes from being added to the LB, certain aks versions not being upgradable requiring you to recreate the cluster from scratch ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone have experience with OVH's managed k8s offering? I've had good experiences with them in the past on pricing/quality.

<comment><USER22> I tried it out briefly and it seemed to work well. I never went to prod with it tho. I also didn't try out the LoadBalancer so I can't say how easy that would be to use. I've heard that cost can unexpectedly jump, so read the docs before you get too deep into it[1]:

I now have an OpenShift cluster that I do testing with, but if I didn't I'd probably use OVH k8s in dev because it does seem by far the cheapest.

[1] [https://docs.ovh.com/gb/en/kubernetes/using- lb/](https://docs.ovh.com/gb/en/kubernetes/using-lb/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As someone who manages a production cluster, I spend about 1% of my time worrying about the control plane. It's trivial to get it running and keep it running now. It's all the stuff you build on top of k8s that's the hard part. I don't see much value add to eks, personally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you use something like kops for setting up and maintaining your cluster?

Most of my direct experience with Kubernetes has been on GKE, but I have been meaning to work through [https://github.com/kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the- hard-way](https://github.com/kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way) to gain more appreciation for what is going on behind the scenes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://aws.amazon.com/en/blogs/aws/amazon-eks-on-aws- fargat...](https://aws.amazon.com/en/blogs/aws/amazon-eks-on-aws-fargate-now- generally-available/)

</comment><comment><USER25> At the low end it's worth considering Fargate distinct from EKS. You don't need to provision a whole cluster (generally 3 machines minimum) and can just run as little as a single Pod.

<comment><USER11> I tried Fargate and found it to be crappy. It is very hard to use. It is proprietary, so your app will not be portable, and your knowledge and experience will not be portable either. If you use Kubernetes there is tons of tutorials, your app becomes portable across clouds and your knowledge is portable from cloud to cloud too. GKE only costs around $60 per month for a single-machine "cluster".

<comment><USER26> I use fargate and pretty happy with it. Don't need big scale out - it supports $1M/year revenue so not huge, but LOVE the simplicity.

I just have the CLI commands in my dockerfiles as comments, so once I get things sorted locally using docker I update the task with some copy / paste. I only update occasionally when I need to make some changes (locally do a lot more).

The one thing I'd love to get my DOCKER image sizes down - they seem way too big for what they do but it's just easier to start with full fat images. I tried alpine images and couldn't get stuff to install / compile etc.

<comment><USER27> You should look into multistage docker builds, that lets you still use a full fat image for your build but then leave all the build tools out of your final image

I liked jpetazzo's post on the subject but there are plenty to choose from [https://www.ardanlabs.com/blog/2020/02/docker-images- part1-r...](https://www.ardanlabs.com/blog/2020/02/docker-images- part1-reducing-image-size.html)

<comment><USER26> Someone else suggested the same thing actually. Easy to get lazy when it "just works" and internet is 1gig home and office - you can see how bloat just builds up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just curious - what's wrong with buying a large instance (24 cores) and running it for < 10,000 users? Kubernetes feels like an insane complexity that doesn't need to be taken on and managed. You're gonna spend more time managing Kubernetes than writing _actual_ software. Also, it feels like if something goes wrong in prod with your cluster - you're gonna need external help to get you back on the feet.

If you're not going to build the next Facebook, why would you need so much complexity?

<comment><USER29>
      If you're not going to build the next Facebook, why would you need so much complexity?

You don't. I think this is a recent point people are trying to make. Kubernetes makes sense at a certain scale, but for smaller startups it maybe shouldn't be the go to.

<comment><USER30> So if Kubernetes is too complex, then terraform is a Nono too?

I don't find them complex at all. You just tell the tools to be in a specific state and the tool applies the necessary changes. Server templates. Provisioning. Orchestration. etc.

<comment><USER29> I don't think theres a comparison there (or I'm just unsure of the point you're making with that statement). I agree, they aren't conceptually complex, but Kubernetes is a large scheduler that _definitely_ benefits from having a dedicated team managing it.

That being said, I always recommend using a tool like Terraform to back up infrastructure and the likes.

<comment><USER30> Maybe I didn't do enough with Kubernetes to need a dedicated team hmm.

The point I wanted to make is that my opinion is a bit different. Being able to declare how state should be instead of doing it imperatively/with configuration management is just something I enjoy and which I think does not cost much more in comparison.

That is why I wondered why not use it as a small startup?

<comment><USER29> You definitely still could if you feel the maintenance is manageable. This was just my experience :) I chose to go with something like Cloud Run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Will be nice to include GPUs in v2 once there is more stable support for the operators

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah -- Adding in GPUs and doing a deeper dive on how using some of the low- cost VM types (w/ small but burstable CPU, etc...) impact both cost & performance are things I hope to take a look at in the future!</comment></comment>


Should mobile developers be forced to build apps for dying operating systems? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/22/should-developers-be-forced-to-build-apps-for-dying-operating-systems-blackberrys-ceo-thinks-so/

<comment><USER2> Unless the different hardware providers agree upon a standard for their applications, so that 4 or more code bases don't have to be maintained simultaneously this is fine. However, to have to support a device in an unfamiliar language is a ridiculous assertion.</comment>


Fast pseudo random generator without state in Go. Average execution time is 6ns - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/miolini/fastrand <comment><USER2> It returns the lowest n bits of the CPU's time stamp counter. x86-64 only.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. miovid/miolini, you need to say that in the documentation. Probably even spell out some of the implications. There may be times when this is useful, but people need to go in with open eyes about what they're getting.

<comment><USER4> I've used it for multithread lock-free queues. It's working well for my case.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to know what you don't know? - <AUTHOR> <comment> turbo-t 1) Use Heartmath loads - because that will teach you to access your parasympathetic nervous system on purpose. If you have stress / fight or flight, your brain is often optimised for rapid situational action. Its only when you can feel safe and uncertain that you can zoom out from your present perceptions and explore other ways of seeing the World. 2) Then you need to get good at measuring, and anchor your rulers in other systems. Any time you can't predict something before it happens, your model has some issues. 3) Read more, faster - e.g. use RSVP method to read 4+ books a week. 4) Surround yourself with people who have enough contrast regarding what you think is true that they can point out stuff worth learning

</comment><comment><USER2> Focusing on a target delivery date instead of software quality. "We ship sh*t on schedule!". Watch out when managers' bonuses are based on hitting a ship date and not based on first year sales.

<comment><AUTHOR> I assume shipping on schedule means sacrificing the quality of the software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your customer doesnt exist

</comment><comment><USER4> If you start with the Socratic assumption that you are entirely ignorant and really don't know anything, you're much more likely to notice "new" unknowns.

As a semi-tangent, if you live your life without expectations you will never be surprised by your own ignorance.</comment>


Unemployment is low only because 'involuntary' part-time work is high - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-vs-involuntary-part-time-work-underemployment-2019-1 <comment><USER2> Unemployment is essentially meaningless as a metric because deciding the nature of "unemployment" is gameable.

What would be more interesting, is something like the percentage of adult individuals with an income lower than some amount (e.g. in the UK, 14.5K would approximate to a full time job at minimum wage, so you could use 12-13K or something).

Still not perfect (stay at home partners would be problematic, for one example, and you can game the line, though it'd be more transparent) but it'd be far more in line with what I'd call "unemployed".

I don't believe that "voluntary unemployment" is really a thing that cannot be accounted for numerically. If someone has significant unearned investment income, or are obviously attempting to start a business, sure, exclude them. A poor person who's given up looking for a job is just unemployed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Companies have found another way to break capitalism. Make employment so fluid and low commitment on their part that they always have the upper hand in negotiation. Never have to pay a fair wage and you can always tweak your payment "algorithm" to squeeze extra pennies out of your paycheck until you barely have enough people willing to work. Then create bullshit "incentives" that sound good on paper but which practically no one uses to squeeze a few more pennies.

I really don't care for this model. Hope something comes about to intervene.

<comment><USER4> Our tooling has improved rapidly in the past few years, and we're now at a point where a handful of all powerful executives can aggregate vast swaths of human activity into a single number that they then get to sit there and start fiddling with to see what happens.

What we're currently legally doing isn't even within the scope of capitalism, it's more like free form social experimentation. And the ones with their fingers on the dials doing the experiments have never taken a history class or a sociology class or a civics class.

The laws aren't just out of date, our terminology can't even keep up. It's not a free market, it's not capitalism, it's something else entirely new and different.

<comment><USER5> How is this different from other times in history?

What makes you think today's executives haven't taken enough humanities courses?

I think I need more context or background to understand what you are trying to get at.

<comment><USER6> Ancient Romans? They never had such labor saving devices and thus relied heavily on slavery for most manual labor. I imagine if they had the combustion engine things would have turned out very differently.

> What makes you think today's executives haven't taken enough humanities > courses?

Not OP but i would have to guess something along the lines of a revolution of the non-ascended. IE: when you have a country where the 0.1% live a life of luxury and extravagance while the rest are left to fight over the scraps.

It was arrogance combined with a metaphysical shift away from rulers as the divine that lead to their downfall. The difference now is nobody even pretends to believe our elites are divine in any sense of the word.

<comment><USER7> As the MASSIVE aquaducts in France and Italy clearly illustrate, as well as things like the Thermae, the Romans were keenly aware that there are things that can't be done with any amount of slave labour, and did in fact use labor saving devices.

Hell, they had the same problem we have: "automation" (massive infrastructure projects) putting people out of jobs. The solution was also similar: first, massive infrastructure projects soaking up more than all available labor for decades, followed by making the problem worse, then austerity and mass- corruption on all levels, then (let's say "todo" in our current case) revolution, followed by large scale Rome-initiated expansion wars. On the plus side: those wars resulted in the longest period of prosperity in history.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdsupply.com/design-shift/orwl <comment><USER2> Having some physical security in a OSS-hacker-compliant form factor is really quite nice. This is not going to replace a proper HSM, and almost certainly is a less secure place to store your data than an iPhone; but it's a good start for those unwilling to give up on (the performance of) PCs.

It's worth noting that QubesOS, which is supported by this system, protects against e.g. USB-based attacks by running a virtualized Linux for just the USB port (simplified.) This has its limitations, but should be pretty decent.

If at all possible, try to ensure that this device is powered down when an attacker gets it. Several attacks are easier if that's not the case (e.g. USB- based attacks, but also cold boot attacks on the encrypted disk - the security monitoring should trigger when one opens the case, but if an attacker can still extract your disk password from RAM before the RAM fades you're in trouble...)

<comment><USER3> ORWL will go in stand-by if the user is further than 10meters away from the device, if moved when away, it will shut down. If the hardware is tampered with, or chilled, the SSD encryption key is deleted within milliseconds. iPhone or any other consumer product at this point have less or no physical protection. The physical level of protection is taken from the payment industry standard and applied to the consumer device. The scanning of RAM content and possibilities of EM scanning, side channel attacks are all covered in the secure section of ORWL by the Maxim Secure controller. Nothing is impossible, but we tried to make it really really hard to get hold of the SSD encryption key and what we refer to as the Root of Trust. Qubes is really helpful with many other attack vectors.

<comment><USER4> If you guys succeed, you should think about making phones.

<comment><USER3> We are actually talking about this. Thanks for your interest.

<comment><USER5> If you made such a phone I would buy it. I hope you guys have a great success because it seems like an awesome product.

<comment><USER6> Alternatively, you could consider [http://neo900.org/](http://neo900.org/).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In a rare event, I actually like what I see here. They've clearly studied prior designs in high-security space, likely HSM and smartcard mitigations. The mesh enclosure strategy was adopted by older HSM's. There were potential bypasses that led to even more features, esp membranes and radiation sensors. The best ever made, per Ross Anderson's team of talented IC breakers, was IBM's 4758 whose protections and potential attacks are described here:

[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SEv2-c16.pdf](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SEv2-c16.pdf)

Best route is just to clone that thing somehow. IBM themselves already depreciated it in favor of a new product. Might still try to patent sue you or pull some other crap but worst case should be Chinese clones becoming available after new design is published. :) Designers of ORWL should try to copy more of the IBM thing's techniques to close gap between the two.

Far as design itself, I like that it's relatively simple, leverages a secure IC, easy to disassemble, will allow low-level modifications like firmware, and can run standard software. The next step will be a model that replaces the Intel chip with OpenSPARC, OpenPOWER, or RISC-V multicore with added components for trusted boot or I/O protections. Some are available with some coming online. Next step is using crypto to protect confidentiality & integrity of anything leaving SOC boundary so RAM is untrusted. There will be a lot of money involved for initial development and prototyping of even the first, open chip. So, I understand if they're taking it one step at a time. That's cool as long as they keep the advertising honest about risks they're keeping in for compatibility, etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> How do they deal with the intel management engine in all intel chips? [https://libreboot.org/faq/](https://libreboot.org/faq/)

<comment><USER9> Didn't know about this. They should have gone with AMD.

<comment><USER10> If you want to get away from that kind of thing, right now I think you're options are POWER8: [https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php](https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php)

AMD has something similar to the Intel Management Engine: [https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd](https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd)

<comment><USER11> If only I had ~8000 dollars to spend on a desktop I'd be waist-deep in porting Linux packages.

<comment><USER12> AFAIK IBM's spent a good amount of engineering effort on making linux stuff run on power.

<comment><USER13> Yes, in practice the only things that really need "porting" to POWER are low- level compilers, languages, runtimes, tooling, etc. that may have arch- specific code. Sometimes IBM does this (e.g. Google v8 + Node.js), sometimes not... yet? (e.g. rust).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any plans to offer a 16GB RAM version? The commentary from Qubes users in the 3.2 release thread [1] seems to indicate 8GB would be borderline for Qubes.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12604417](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12604417)

<comment><USER3> The current Intel chipset we selected does only support RAM up to a max of 8GB. We heard the Qubes users loud and clear and the request for 16GB RAM. We will only be able to offer this in a next revision though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since the monitor is external, I wonder if they've considered monitors as attack surface: [https://github.com/RedBalloonShenanigans/MonitorDarkly](https://github.com/RedBalloonShenanigans/MonitorDarkly)

<comment><USER3> Correction. The temperature monitor is INSIDE the secure shell.

<comment><USER16> He's talking about display monitors AKA the screens which can be exploited via the i2c bus over the graphical interface (e.g. HDMI).

The GP is 100% correct, if you can't trust your keyboard, mouse, and the monitor the "secure computer" concept in this case is problematic, while it does reduce the attack surface somewhat it just focuses the attention of the adversary onto a different vector.

If we take their "cleaning man/evil maid" scenario then while implanting the computer might not be possible, implanting the keyboard, mouse or screen would be very possible, and in fact somewhat easier than implanting a regular computer with decent security measures such as an encrypted drive.

Add a USB storage device with a micro-controller to the keyboard and you own the computer once it's connected, a monitor today comes with a CPU powerful enough to run custom code which can be used to exfiltrate data as well.

Additionally both the keyboard and the monitor could potentially be used to exploit software flaws on the software running on the ORWL unit also.

The concept is interesting however this is mostly "security theater" any adversary which would be sophisticated enough to require taking these measures would likely be able to circumvent them, and for the rest these measures don't really do anything; if you use this for day to day operations or on-net activity you'll get pwned via the network; if you keep secrets on this thing worthy of sending some one into your home to implant your PC then they'll implant something else which is connected to it.

Oddly enough the only "high tier" adversary that this might thwart would be law enforcement since their computer forensic SOP would pretty much melt down when encountering something which is tamper resistant.

But hey, you gotta start somewhere.

<comment><USER17> I'm a bit surprised that, in 2016, there is no standard way for a computer to authenticate its keyboard and monitor. Has anyone even thought about how that could be done?

<comment><USER18> HDCP is arguably the standard for authenticating the monitor, but it's not quite intended for this purpose. I'm not aware of a standard for authenticating input devices, but disabling USB HID and relying solely on tamper-evident PS/2 input devices goes a long way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's an interesting concept, for sure – but could someone more knowledgeable than me explain whether this leaves the system vulnerable to the potential, alleged backdoors present in Intel's chips via the Intel Management Engine?

<comment><USER3> Our long term plan is to limit ME capabilities using the BIOS configuration. We just released the SOW of the 1st BIOS with Eltan on the WiKi. [https://www.orwl.org/wiki/index.php?title=File%3ASowDESIGN-S...](https://www.orwl.org/wiki/index.php?title=File%3ASowDESIGN- SHIFTORWLPUBLIC20160902.pdf) We are planning to investigate how to further limit ME capabilities with Eltan and we will update the SOW as we make progress. We also believe that the current secure micro controller implementation severely limit the ME capability through power management and the SSD key management.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The proximity based lockdown is interesting but won't prevent the likely scenario of being grabbed while you are using the computer. Silkroad is a famous incident, but I think its the only option in any scenerio where the attacker knows you are using an encrypted disk.

I'm curious about your supply chain risk mitigation. Given that the project is open source, can you publish a list of all of your suppliers and the country of production?

Great work overall, looks like a nice design.

<comment><USER21> Thank you for the feedback! This is still a desktop so if the device is grabbed the power won't stay long. You need NFC to restart and then enter your password. We are still working on opening as much as we can of the design. Bill of Material and drawings will be detailed on www.orwl.org/wiki

<comment><USER22> If your device is grabbed by the FBI from the Glen Park library, I don't think they'll be turning it off. Wouldn't they use some sort of device[0] to maintain the power supply? I assume they would also be aware a key fob was in use, at least if you were using reasonably well-known hardware like the ORWL.

I noticed the campaign details indicated the power supply voltage is monitored. Will this protect against a hot-plug?

[0]: [http://www.cru- inc.com/products/wiebetech/hotplug_field_kit_...](http://www.cru- inc.com/products/wiebetech/hotplug_field_kit_product/)

<comment><USER23> If anyone's wondering, here's the important bit: [https://youtu.be/erq4TO_a3z8?t=259](https://youtu.be/erq4TO_a3z8?t=259)

I suppose this technique could be modified for most UK pugs too, but I've no idea how you'd manage it for a recessed EU-type socket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was very recently looking into physically secure computing solutions, and the "industry standard" seems to be the SafeNet Network HSM, formerly Luna SA Network-Attached HSM (for example, it's what Amazon uses for their CloudHSM service: [https://aws.amazon.com/cloudhsm/](https://aws.amazon.com/cloudhsm/)), which costs like $30,000. With that number in mind, the ORWL price of $700 is quite enticing!

<comment><USER3> Yes, HSMs are very expensive and after talking to a few people in this industry we got the impression, some of the ORWL features are not present in HSMs. Like the ability to Geo-lock the device using the key (mounted in the ceiling). Waling away with the device will render it useless as the keyFOB is missing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Appreciate the fully secure boot process, even if the Intel situation isn't fully secure. Wish I had an external uC with burned-in firmware on my machine that I trusted to verify my BIOS firmware and orchestrate the boot process.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. We agree with your statement fully. We are raising the threshold of entry to your personal data substantially, but we are still far from perfection. We did a number of steps up in the security ladder. We are also taking steps to minimize ME abilities in ORWL. Our long term plan is to limit ME capabilities using the BIOS configuration. We just released the SOW of the 1st BIOS with Eltan on the WiKi. [https://www.orwl.org/wiki/index.php?title=File%3ASowDESIGN-S...](https://www.orwl.org/wiki/index.php?title=File%3ASowDESIGN- SHIFTORWLPUBLIC20160902.pdf) We are planning to investigate how to further limit ME capabilities with Eltan and we will update the SOW as we make progress. We also believe that the current secure micro controller implementation severely limit the ME capability through power management and the SSD key management.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Enjoy spending the next 10k years auditing the security of the chipset with your scanning tunneling microscope.

<comment><USER27> Even if it doesn't protect yourself against some transistor level NSA backdoor, that doesn't mean it can't thwart other attackers who would usually take advantage of physical access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Now this is really cool! Though as with all things wireless I'd worry about working and somehow the key fob getting interfered with and boom computer locks up or if a sensor thinks I'm moving the computer when it's really just an Earth quake or maybe even my cat jumping on the table and then the encryption key is deleted.

So I love the idea but not sure of the practicality. Those sensors has to essentially work perfectly at all times and I'm not convinced until it's released and reviewed.

<comment><USER3> The SSD encryption key will only be deleted in case of a tamper event, NOT when the unit is moved. Tamper events are: * freezing the unit * drilling the secure enclosure or other wise breaking the traces on it * prying the enclosure off the PCB So I don't think you have to be too worried about a false trigger of a key erasing.

<comment><USER29> Is there a specific temperature about which I should be concerned? I live in a cold climate and would hate to lose data (even if it is backed up) in the event that I lose heating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > The battery itself is projected to last about six months without being > connected to power.

It seems like a lot of the security of the device depends on active scanning (e.g. the LDS clamshell mesh, the IMU, the temp sensor, etc.), which stops working after 6 months. Is the vector of a malicious actor taking the device and waiting 6 months before breaking in considered not worth protecting against?

<comment><USER31> The webpage says it zeroes the key material when the battery runs low. So it'll fail "secure" in that case, presumably.

<comment><USER30> Ah, I missed that bit! Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > If someone has physical access to your computer with secure documents > present, it's game over!

Err, why? Is AES encryption not sufficient? And the key is secure in my head - not something someone could steal.

So, why is this even a thing?

<comment><USER33> Unless you also want to perform the AES operations in your head, you have to rely on the hardware and software of your computer to perform them. An attacker could then replace the AES routine you use with one that stores a shadow copy of your key, or exfiltrates it over some covert channel.

<comment><USER34> What if the crypto side of things is remove-able and carry-able on your person? Or what if it could be subdermally implanted so you know no one can pick pocket you and replace it?

Just a thought.

<comment><USER35> > What if the crypto side of things is remove-able and carry-able on your > person?

You might as well have the entire computer removable and portable.

<comment><USER36> And that's pretty much what ORWL is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> In past I've heard about couple of cases where people had some startup idea that involved some clever application/algorithm that would have had to be deployed to customers premises but kept secret.

With slight modifications (* ) this sounds like a low cost, but easy to deploy solution to the problem. Some of the security would be lost, but you would still get a reasonably tamper proof computer that is capable of running standard software stack for <$1K.

With the same kind of changes you could also build a low cost HSM solution based on this.

(* ) Instead of controlling booting, the keyfob could be used to enable/disable console access and the device should be able to recover from short power losses.

</comment><comment><USER38> By the way, making other people secure is big business. For that reason I can see a pointy haired decision maker buying loads of these for the functionaries to use. I wouldn't really want one of these for myself though.

</comment><comment><USER39> This doesn't seem all that secure. Against an Evil Maid attack, your best mitigation is to be able to keep everything, OS and all, on a portable drive which is self-encrypting; essentially an encrypted PE.

<comment><USER25> Why not? Seems secure against evil maid to me (barring hardware backdoors like Intel).

<comment><USER36> They explicitly address several attacks here: [https://www.crowdsupply.com/design-shift/orwl#specific- attac...](https://www.crowdsupply.com/design-shift/orwl#specific-attacks-and- mitigations)

<comment><USER25> None of those are evil maid attacks.

<comment><USER3> Let me state a section of our product description here, detailing the way we are approaching the "Evil Maids" USB volume boot blocked at BIOS, BIOS access controlled by security key + PIN, Intel TPM is enabled, and we do not enter a passphrase to unlock encryption (unlike software based full disk encryption) In addition, attacks that don't rely on booting to a USB device are protected by powering off the USB interface when the user keyfob is out of range More details here: [https://www.orwl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Resources#Resource...](https://www.orwl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Resources#Resources)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> _ORWL was designed specifically to prevent undetected tampering with any of its electrical components, including the entire motherboard and storage drive. When tampering is detected, ORWL immediately and irrevocably erases all your data, even if it is unplugged at the time._

and...

 _Upon any tampering, the secure microcontroller instantly erases the encryption key, causing all data on the SSD to be irrevocably lost._

If only the key is deleted, wouldn't that leave the drive susceptible to brute force?

<comment><USER41> Uhh.. yes but enjoy brute forcing a 256 bit key.

See you in a few trillion years.

<comment><USER42> Quite a lot more than a few trillion.

<comment><USER43> You have to account for Moore's Law within the few trillions GP mentioned

<comment><USER44> Bruce Schneier and others[1] have done the math on brute forcing 256 bit keys: even with a perfectly efficient computer using the least amount of energy possible, you would have to deplete the entire energy content of the Sun to just iterate over a 225 bit keyspace once, let alone do anything meaningful with those keys.

Moore's Law doesn't really factor into it.

[1][http://security.stackexchange.com/a/6149](http://security.stackexchange.com/a/6149)

<comment><USER40> It's estimated there are 10^80 atoms [1] in the visible universe, so 2^256 is definitely a huge number. I didn't realize 256 bit brute force was nigh feasible with only a solar system.

I'm a bit surprised the quantum algorithm only gives a polynomial speedup.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Matter_con...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Matter_content)

<comment><USER45> 10^80 = (10^3)^80/3 = 1000^80/3 = 1000^26.67

2^256 = (2^10)^25.6 = 1024^25.6

These number seem very close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wonder how realistic it is to get the simplest ARM design and make "your own" chip? I mean there should be blueprints somewhere, if you could ask someone to make a small batch of these chips? It would be too small to be worth it for someone to inject a backdoor into it. Or you could make that into an FPGA... Am I talking nonsense?

<comment><USER47> If you're going to go through the process of taping out your own chips, RISC-V is probably your best bet at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This appears to be a good solution to the wrong problem. Maybe if they team with someone working on secure computer software...

<comment><USER49> Kudos to the open source design but they should not encourage users to run windows on it.

<comment><USER50> The promotional video shows someone using Linux. Do they mention Windows somewhere else on their site?

<comment><USER29> They mention Windows compatibility as an explicit and mandatory goal of the project in the Crowdsupply project page.

<comment><USER50> Thanks, I missed that bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> its great that the hardware privacy front is progressing

</comment><comment><USER52> "open source and secure", powered by a potentially backdoored Intel processor (i.e: through the Intel Management Engine).

</comment><comment><USER53> Where does the name come from? When pronouncing it I can't help but notice it's very close to "Orwell"

<comment><USER54> In their post on the Ubuntu blog [0] they say it is pronounced "or-well". Assumedly ironically.

[0] [https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/09/29/meet-orwl-the- first-o...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/09/29/meet-orwl-the-first-open- source-physically-secure-computer/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Great project! but unless the computer is used to do only offline tasks then having a physical key is as useful as locking a door and leaving the keys on (hardware level backdoors, zero-day attacks, lack of end to end cryptography etc.)

</comment><comment><USER56> made a product like this before that passed FIPS 140-3, same idea, i.e. a battery-backup-mcu + mainboard.

</comment><comment><USER57> Did you think about manufacturing or designing your own ARM CPUs and releasing HDL for the CPU?

<comment><USER3> We thought long and hard about the type of platform we want to use for this project. While the x86 platform has many shortcomings, it also provides a big ecosystem of OS and SW, as well as support. The fact that we have two subsystems, secure micro controller being in charge of supplying (and denying) power from the x86 gives us a lot of leverage and protection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'd be very interested to see this applied to phones.

</comment><comment><USER59> Remember to put glue into the USB ports.

</comment><comment><USER60> Not sure why the ubuntu.com is linked instead of the crowd supply link which has all the information including the ability to purchase one. See [https://www.crowdsupply.com/design- shift/orwl](https://www.crowdsupply.com/design-shift/orwl)

<comment><USER61> Thanks, we updated the link from [https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/09/29/meet- orwl-the-first-o...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/09/29/meet-orwl-the- first-open-source-physically-secure-computer/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> "When tampering is detected, ORWL immediately and irrevocably erases all your data"

IMHO that is beyond stupid, it's criminally irresponsible.

Well, to be fair, perhaps there are _some_ uses cases, just not many. I'd rather go with tamper-proof seals instead.

<comment><USER63> how is it "criminally" irresponsible on a personal computer? I should be able to delete my own data whenever i want to, unless ordered by a court not to. Also OpenBSD has had the ability to wipe the system on failed password attempts for many years now.

<comment><USER62> It's criminally irresponsible to sell such a computer, because it will easily result in data loss and not all users are educated enough to understand the consequences of such a flawed "security" design. Of course, you can claim that it's ultimately the customers fault in this case, and I agree, but they should nevertheless expect some lawsuits.

There is always a tradeoff between security and data integrity, something which the people who downvoted my post apparently don't understand. When even your mom can mount a 100% successful denial of service attack with a screwdriver, then you're screwed.

If you disagree, I challenge you to show me a use reasonable case that couldn't also be solved by _actual_ physical security or by locking down booting and the BIOS and using tamper-evident seals.

<comment><USER36> The same argument could be applied to nearly any product. Knowing how to use the product is the user's responsibility and helping educate users is the manufacturer's responsibility. If you don't have data back ups, regardless of the type of computer, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

<comment><USER62> True, maybe I overreacted. What worries me is that is apparently supposed to be sold as a general computing device. Tamper-resistant hardware may be used in the military to protect implementations and keys stored in hardware that will eventually get stolen. For other types of data stored? Probably not so much. As I said, reasonable uses for this kind of device are limited.

For ordinary users, deleting everything immediately when someone tampers with it is a recipe for disaster. Sure, they can backup everything in encrypted form, but then the data is not really deleted when somebody tampers with the machine, isn't it?

Regarding the security, well, apart from software-based attacks, how about installing a tiny USB keylogger inside a USB cable that is already used by the user? Or in the keyboard itself? Or a camera that records your keystrokes?

That's what the <insert agency or special interest group of your choice> would be doing in such a case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I scowled when I read about the Intel chip, and I stopped reading when they mentioned USB. Assuming for a moment that there's no hidden backdoor in the Intel chip (which seems exceedingly unlikely from all that I've read regarding IME, not to mention the un-auditable microcode), all this fancy hackery is still going to get pwned by BadUSB.

Secure computing cannot and will not move forward until we have a way to mitigate against this.

<comment><USER31> They address this a bit. Their CPU supports device virtualization and the default OS install dedicates a VM to just the USB ports, and the USB data lines are electrically disconnected from the HCIs when the machine is in locked mode.

I'd be more concerned about the wifi and bluetooth chips' firmware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Isn't the phrase Evil Maid a bit off-key? I'm sure this must have been discussed at great length elsewhere.

We could express the same idea without the power and gender relations implied.

<comment><USER7> It's the common name of the attack that people get. So it's useful whether PC types, who are a tiny minority of many audiences, like it or not. I'm not sure how "Evil Maid" label was derived. I do know from espionage reading that the most common form of the attack came from maids in hotels of business or government people passing through. Janitors and maintenance types, too, but they were in a trusted, protected building instead of a third party's. French intelligence is particularly notorious for using maids or other hotel employees. Calling it a (adjective-here) Maid attack given all the maids involved makes since for historical and current significance of that attack vector. As in, the label is also a reminder to watch your ass and never leave gear unattended in hotels. ;)

<comment><USER64> DSK conspiracy theories are a fun example of French intelligence services in hotels. Certainly, the phrase has a titillating James Bond aspect to it.

If you haven't heard the phrase before it sounds weird, I do understand it's not intended maliciously.

I don't think I'd use the term without quotes in my own writing.

<comment><USER7> I Googled it. I don't know if it's true or not but it was entertaining. :) My memory is fuzzy here but I think one of my sources on it was the leaked MOD Security Manual of UK that talked about what various countries pull the most on their agents or diplomats. I know it was in a few places way before that DSK story. The one on Russia was worse, though. It said they not only would bug your hotel when they knew you were coming but might create a way to ensure you landed in a bugged one even if you switched at last minute. Very determined professionals over there haha.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How a geek dad and his 3D printer aim to liberate Legos - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/05/how-a-geek-dad-and-his-3d-printer-aim-to-liberate-legos/

<comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: Golan Levin designed printable pieces which can be used to connect previously incompatible toy types together (LEGO, Playmobil, DUPLO, etc). As a consequence, this raised a myriad of copyright infringement questions for the future of 3D printable content.

<comment><USER2> But see the problems Thingiverse have had, having to deal with DMCA takedown notices. (Luckily the person dropped the DMCA takedown case.)

([http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/747-IP,-3D-Printing-D...](http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/747-IP,-3D-Printing- DMCA.html))</comment></comment>


Alien Signals - <AUTHOR> https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/alien-signals/ <comment><USER2> This isn't exactly the same, and isn't a new thought, but is at least tangentially related. One of my memories is around finding my dad's record collection and seeing the music he and my mom would listen to. There weren't any mind-blowing secrets, but it felt like a window into a world I didn't know about before and somehow was a slightly formative experience. I don't know what that experience looks like in a world with subscription services where there's nothing to be stumbled upon by others. There's fewer bookshelves or movie collections to leaf through at a friends house everything is guarded by a password and hidden away, there's less opportunity to stumble across that secret hidden collection and that feels like a little bit of a loss to me. Probably just me getting older and complaining about the good ole days though haha.

<comment><USER3> Great point! We stayed at an Airbnb about a year ago, and part of the fun was seeing the record collection they had, along with a record player we could use. We queued up Jolene by Dolly Parton, some live Allman Brothers Band, Meet the Beatles... it was a great reminder of the experience, and also a way to get to know the host's musical tastes.

Is there some equivalent where I could say, "Here's what I listen to the most" ? Seems like some kind of fun little utility opportunity... maybe even just a publicly-shared playlist of top-played songs / albums?

<comment><USER4> I never followed through: had the idea to make my own "TV channel" at home with various ripped DVD movies, television. Maybe "Twilight Zone" on Friday night at 9:00 PM followed by an old horror film. It would be always "serving" in real time, unable to be paused or queued up. You "tuned in" if there was something you wanted to watch. No binge-watching: wait until next Friday for the next episode.

This was my idea for raising my kids with "TV" but not TV if you know what I mean. No crap, no commercials.

Would still be fun to do. And now I am inspired to try a "radio station". You know there is a ton of "old time radio" on archive.org. CBS Radio Mystery Hour on Saturday night? (Wouldn't want to compete with Twilight Zone's Friday night spot.)

<comment><USER5> Not quite what you're describing but...

DI.FM does streaming only, no queuing or making your own ay lists.

A subscription comes with full access to their Jazz and Rock sites too. Well over 100 channels.

Not affiliated in any way, just a happy long term customer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember there used to be this old AM late night coast-to-coast radio show that had the strangest topics sometimes. I only occasionally tuned in by accident on the hours-long drive back to college from home. It was always when it was dark and the highway was empty and endless yellow highway street lights were all you could see.

It was like an x-files for radio. It was the first time I'd heard of Bob Lazar. It was mysterious and inquisitive and something you fell into unexpectedly.

Wish I remembered what it was called. I feel like that sense of mystery and discovery is hard to replicate today. Everything's at your fingertips.

<comment><USER7> Literally "Coast to Coast AM"! The host was named Art Bell. The show is still on the radio with the host George Noory.

The show is a bit different now, I don't listen to it often so I could be wrong but it seems to me that Art Bell always had a bit of a smirk or wryness, while Noory just comes across completely serious. Also with Art Bell it was simpler times, with the more entertaining aliens and cryptozoids and MiB. Now there is a lot more of the modern political deep state/Q/child trafficking stuff. Religious fundamentalism always showed up a lot in the "conspiracy theory" world. Before it would be things like how aliens are actually angels or something and signs of the rapture. Now you regularly hear guests talking about how God chose a certain person to clear out the demonic deep state, so there's a more disturbing undercurrent.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, Art Bell played it very differently. I believe one day he even mentioned that he was actually quite a skeptic about all of this stuff.

We still listen to his old Ghost to Ghost episodes on Halloween. Some of the caller's stories were pretty boring, but some were downright chilling.

<comment><USER9> I think the contemporary podcast Mysterious Universe has solidly taken the torch from Art Bell. They always seem to sincerely dance with subjects while occasionally throwing a wink your way. Their storytelling skills are phenomenal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I was a kid in the 90s we had two old walky-talkies, the kind that predated the digital FRS systems you can buy today. They were the size of a brick, took 9x AA batteries and the antenna was a solid 3 feet long when fully extended.

We used to use them to play cops and robbers, but late at night in the summer, if you fiddled with the squelch settings and the antenna length (and I assume when the ionosphere was cooperating) I could pick up what in hindsight must have been some kind of numbers station.

It was a male voice repeating a bunch of nonsensical phrases, most of which have faded from memory except for something about having Buffalo Soldiers and then the recording would end with the phrase "I just got downnnnn" where the word "down" was drawn out in some kind of strange electronic vocal fry, like a tape recorder running out of batteries. After that it would loop back to the beginning.

This was in southwestern Ontario in the summer of 1996, maybe 97, and it thoroughly creeped me out. I've always wanted to figure out what it was.

Alien signals indeed.

<comment><USER11> [https://www.numbers-stations.com/articles/numbers- stations-l...](https://www.numbers-stations.com/articles/numbers-stations- listener-starter-guide/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The internet has made so many of my youthful amazements obsolete. I don't think kids who have been exposed to high speed internet and youtube would find much interest in exploring HF radio signals or using an acoustic modem to talk to people on the other side of the world.

That said, the internet has a whole new dark underbelly. If I were young again and granted the "get out of jail with a slap on the wrist" card again, I'd be poking at open ports and using an SDR to probe security weaknesses in modern RF systems. Getting strange music at Tower Records or from anarchist collectives out of zines has given way to youtube and a thousand other outlets. The effort may be less but there is still a world to get lost in.

There was a lot of magic in the old days, but it's still there in other ways now. Maybe the biggest danger is the end of boredom and the torrent of on- demand dopamine surrounding kids of today.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure it's the end of boredom. Kids still get bored, even with all this stuff at their fingertips. I suspect the act of consumption itself becomes boring, even discovering new things can be boring, and you have to shift somewhere else. Maybe it's one reason why there are so many kids (and adults) on the internet creating content of their own. If consumption is boring... make your own stuff?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Listening to Hearts of Space as a child was my first experience with "experimental" music - definitely formative.

You can still listen to it online: [https://v4.hos.com/home](https://v4.hos.com/home)

<comment><USER15> Great link! I have a cassette of HoS I recorded off public radio in the 1990s and still listen to (perhaps an alien signal for someone down the road who can still get ahold of the alien technology required to play it). Glad to know they still have a presence online... (the announcer on my cassette suggests you look up HoS on The Well or on Gopherspace -- more obsolete(?) alien technologies...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another place to find "alien signals" back in the day were in comic book shops and card shops (those that sold various sports cards).

They'd almost always have sections of weird periodicals that were made by completely unknown people. We used to share them at school, full of inappropriate content that would probably get kids expelled these days. Also things like the Anarchist Cookbook (and similar collections) which felt extremely illegal at the time, but you can pick it up on Amazon now.

I remember one that was dedicated to gruesome crime scene photos and detailed descriptions of horrific crimes. Half the pictures looked like photocopies of photocopies, which is far less jarring than what you can find online these days.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's all kinds of things which would blow kids minds if they were exposed to it. A friend of mine who grew up and was (mis)educated in Berkeley was mind-blown by the old BBC art history documentary Civilization.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxEJn7dWY60](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxEJn7dWY60)

There's a whole lot of British material from the early era of color TV which makes most of what is watched today look like the low-IQ childish rubbish (albeit with high production values) it actually is. Compare BBC 1979 "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" with, I dunno, anything made in the last 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER17> I like to listen to foreign radio stations on [http://radio.garden](http://radio.garden). They speak languages I don't understand and (once you find a good station) play music I'll never hear again.

<comment><USER18> Thanks a lot for that link. I just browsed throug a few stations in Siberia located hundreds of kilometers away from anything and it is quite an experience to imagine these places through a radio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would say that some of the recommendation engines for media services have this feeling. Walking home late at night, sometimes it feels like Spotify recommends a supernaturally appropriate song, a little gift from the robo- gods.

Or go take a look at the comments for those beats to study and relax to streams on YouTube, young people seem to sit at home and think about how those songs connect them with each other.

</comment><comment><USER20> How to get alien signals today: browse art from a different culture. It doesn't have to be high art. I'm fond of youtube videos.

The surface impressions are available immediately. All the references and set dressings and context in the literature, however, slowly bubble up over time, as you learn more about other works and the origin culture.

Delay, distance, and mystery.

(I had a friend in school who remarked that his mother watched exclusively movies about "two people who love each other but can't marry because they have different forehead dots." I often think about that phrase while watching non- bollywood fare, asking myself how the director+team have communicated the colours of the virtual dots.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF6W1XD25Dc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF6W1XD25Dc)

e.g. 2:08 marks the switch from V- to T-pronouns. As for the band's name, it's ambiguous, and I still don't know which is the intended referent for native speakers.)

</comment><comment><USER21> I remember the magic of sending away for and then getting a stack of Ubuntu Warty Warthog install cds in the mail from Brazil. In all it's dirt brown glory.

Listening to wfmu is a great source of altmusic these days. These shows among others: \- [https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/SN](https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/SN) \- [https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/SF](https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/SF) \- [https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/PM](https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/PM)

</comment><comment><USER22> I saw John Darnielle in a coffee shop in Durham, NC a few years ago. Me and a coworker walked up to him and told him we loved the Mountain Goats. He said thanks and immediately started talking about Durham and how great it was. He talked about the vibe and the community and how weird a place it was. What a really cool guy.

</comment><comment><USER23> The radio work of Joe Frank [0][1] often had a similar surreal and captivating quality.

[0] [https://www.joefrank.com/](https://www.joefrank.com/)

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

</comment><comment><USER24> I remember discovering reruns of coast to coast AM and listening to them while driving around at two in the morning.

</comment><comment><USER25> The closest thing I can think of that emulates a similar feeling today is the "group buy". Kids (of all ages) see new/interesting things online that aren't mass produced and they can kickstart or otherwise pay for a spot on the next/only run of this item.

</comment><comment><USER26> I like the sense of seeking in the world that the author speaks to, that's how it came out to me.

</comment><comment><USER27> The radio - one of the last refuges of opaqueness - is still alive and well. I recall tuning into a random station a few months ago and hearing some insane industro-psychedelic drone-jazz (think Coil plays "Bitch's Brew").

</comment><comment><USER28> I love the very slowly changing hue of your site. It's very artistic. When I started, it was a golden brown, by the time I reached the bottom, it was a lime green. I thought I might be crazy until I spotted in in dev tools.

</comment><comment><USER29> I remember an alien signal from the Internet:

[https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.wobegon/c/1kGvHOu- hEI](https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.wobegon/c/1kGvHOu-hEI)

> The safety and serenity of Alaska provided an atmosphere conducive to > deprogramming, despite the pandemonium that ensued. Mark Phillips was the > first man who not only did not abuse us, but cared for our welfare and well > being.

rec.arts.wobegon Dec 28, 2001, 2:32:26 PM

That's a snippet of the Epilogue from "Trance-Formation of America" by Cathy O'Brien, a book about how Cathy O'Brien is either a schizophrenic or acts like one for publishers. It got spammed across Usenet right when I was into it the most, reading alt.religion.scientology and alt.fan.cecil-adams and a few others, so I got slapped across the face with it one night completely unexpected. I've since come across stranger, such as the QAnon cult, but that was my first taste of High Weirdness.

<comment><USER30> You might also enjoy "Ted the Caver"

[http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/index.html](http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/index.html)

<comment><USER31> That was great. Pity there's not more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Browsing shoutcast fm through winamp kinda gave me the experience I think the author is talking about. There was some weird stuff on there.

I remember a station that played ambient music that was mixed with voice recordings from nasa astronauts.

<comment><USER33> quite possibly this: [https://somafm.com/spacestation/](https://somafm.com/spacestation/)

<comment><USER32> Yep, you got it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So maybe the next time we all get hyped up for another Apple keynote we can reflect on that sense of excitement, anticipation and - _holy shit is this still possible?_ \- delayed gratification.</comment>


Programming language/frame work popularity at Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://www.ronyjacob.com/2013/08/29/favorite-programming-language-y-combinator/

<comment><USER2> This sort of thing doesn't really mean very much. Language choices for start- ups (well, B2C social SaaS apps really, because that's what "startup" appears to mean these days) tend to favour real-time non-blocking connections that scale easily. That essentially rules out PHP unless you augment it with something else (a small node.js server, Pusher, etc). It doesn't mean, say, that PHP is a "bad language". It just means it'd be an inappropriate choice in that instance.

If the next intake of YC hugely favoured chat apps, we'd probably see Erlang as a really popular language. That doesn't mean you should write your blog software in it.

</comment><comment><USER3> ROR, Django and J2EE are not programming languages

<comment><AUTHOR> oops!! sorry for the mistake. I corrected it.</comment></comment>


Pyramid schemes causing social harm in China – crackdowns may not be working - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/china/21736182-crackdowns-may-not-be-working-pyramid-schemes-cause-huge-social-harm-china <comment><USER2> MLM scams are massive in the Philippines right now as well. The baffling thing to me is, when I've laid out how this works to friends talking about joining up, they agree with the math but join anyway! It's like they need something to believe in subconsciously even if their logical mind knows it's bullshit.

Maybe these schemes really sell hope to those that need something to believe in, replacing religion on some level. Except in this case it's economic hope, the belief that if they work hard enough they will be rewarded.

I've noticed a trend amongst participants. The people at the top are straight up psychopaths looking to exploit human greed for their own gain. But the lower level minions are usually simply poor. They have very little to lose, so why not try it? Ultimately they usually end up poorer, but there's always the story of Bob and Betty who made a million dollars last year and came from nothing to be top sellers.

<comment><USER3> Even in the US there are large MLM scams. Just look at Herbalife. They say they stopped some of the bad practices after the FCA investigation, but how likely is it that they changed a pyramid scheme into a non-pyramid scheme overnight?

<comment><USER4> Amway is another example. It has established close ties to the US government to help ensure its survival, even though it is another parasitic multilevel marketing pyramid scam.

Like biological parasites, the long lasting ones seem to have optimized the level of damage and chaos they cause, along with maintaining protection mechanisms (lobbying, political donations, corruption) that enable them to continue to survive and be incredibly lucrative to their founders.

<comment><USER5> Amway is huge in China. Anytime I got approached in coffee shops it was 50/50 someone wanting to practice English, or an Amway rep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is very rampant in India as well, local facebook groups get at least 5-10 posts a day regarding pyramid schemes and offers. The response is equally high to these post averaging 50-100 comments whereas other posts barely receive any. Showing the promise land of instant riches without hard work via flashy ads and illogical math creates such greed amongst the low-income community here (which is the majority of the population, btw) that it is almost heartbreaking to see them lose their everything eventually. MLM/Pyramid scams cannot be stopped via government bans or awareness programmes as such, it needs an equal rival which not only makes the same promises but magically also fulfills them somehow. As much as I have observed, the amount of hard work they do for recruiting new members can well be exchanged for a handsome salary with a steady future income promise leading to a better financial gain over time.

<comment><USER7> I don't agree. Make MLM's illegal, punish people who recruit. They will dry up in no time. The problem now is that they are perfectly legal (or can be made legal by introducing sham product to make it less like a pure pyramid) so recruiters can scam others out of their life savings with impunity.

<comment><USER8> Is there any country with a working anti-mlm law? I think the line is so fuzzy, it would be really hard to define what's a scam and what isn't. What's the difference between a franchise/dealership and an MLM where some product really exists and you're expected to pay for the stock up-front? If there was a law against one of them, how close would they get?

<comment><USER9> It can work the other way too. How many people have had their savings wiped out starting s restaurant when they had no idea what they are doing, compared to people who started a McDonald's or Subway and made out ok?

The only thing you can do is force publication of accurate numbers, and audit them. I have a pretty low view of people who with IQs over 95 that join pyramid schemes. They are throwing their friends and family under the bus in hopes they personally get rich. That is extremely immoral even if you are poor.

In the US, if you do this, at best your friends will think you are an idiot, at worst you are going to get cut off. I've seen both happen more than once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The experience of Albania in 96/97 caused massive disruption and the deaths of around 2k people when the schemes collapsed.

[http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.htm](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.htm)

Id imagine this is worrying the Chinese government

<comment><USER11> That was like crack epidemic. Aka gov help. But still people enjoy the MLM dream there, though mostly young/poor/stupid combination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The same thing is happening in Iran. I didn't know it still exists but then I just learned that it is so rampant that Iranian shopping companies may very much start their pyramid section of their business officially very soon. More than anything I think we should have a proper education for the public about this. Funny thing is employees some of these companies hire have to pay the company if they wanna work in there, and the company that I am talking about had something close to 20 people working in there as far as I could see!

</comment><comment><USER13> They're also massive in South Korea and a pretty entertaining movie about them came out in South Korea in 2016 called "Master" [1]. It's highly dramatized, but has a few scenes in it of the big sales gatherings of some of these scams. They have much of the appearance and feel of a mega-church gathering (also common in the country) and seem to use many of the same "make people feel good and then exploit them along the way" techniques.

It's my understanding that the movie was made simply to help raise awareness of these predatory groups as the population they tend to target don't have the resources to do it themselves.

1 - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5735464/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5735464/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Religion gets spread the same way. Some people benefit.

<comment><USER15> That's a very specific, very broad claim. Can you explain how (apparently all) religions structure and market their pyramidal incentive schemes? I'm not currently active in any organised religion, but I have been for long periods of time and didn't really notice any pyramidal incentives. In fact there didn't seem to be much in the way of proselytising at all and I was certainly not involved in doing so. What was I missing?

<comment><USER16> You're right, relatively few adults these days convert because someone "sold" them on the religion and in my majority-catholic country the church doesn't even make any serious attempt to do this or tell their followers to do this.

But christianity and islam are still the biggest MLM schemes in the world, however they work slightly differently.

Instead of being incentivized to recruit people around you, you are incentivized to create your own recruits by having as many children as possible and it's absolutely expected that you will "recruit" them. Also they love proselytizing (religious education etc) in schools, even though they don't care about doing it to adults. They know children are softer targets, and if they don't convert them before they reach adulthood, they're _way_ less likely to succeed.

Basically it's all about proselytizing to children instead of adults. Get them while they're young!

<comment><USER17> Lumping "Christianity and Islam" reminds me of the craziness that passes as intellectualism on hacker news. "Mother Theresa and Hitler" believe in concentrations camps...come on? Maybe one more than the other?

At the very minimum, you should take a world religion class if you want to be taken seriously???

<comment><USER16> I don't need to take a "world religion class" to know how incredibly retarded the religion I grew up in is.

And your post is for sure a shining example of "intellectualism".

<comment><USER17> You grew up in both?

Or just like grouping two beliefs with about half the worlds population together?

Google says there are 2.2 Billion practicing Christians and 1.8 Billion practicing Islam.

How many Billion people are you referring to when you use the word "retarded"?

<comment><USER16> I group them together as the biggest MLM schemes in the world which sounds pretty much correct according to your own numbers

They are grouped together by size and by the fact they both prey on children as their main recruitment targets

Do you think "christanity and islam" should never be together in a sentence just because they differ in some aspects that are irrelevant to this conversation?

<comment><USER17> "to know how incredibly retarded"

Who were you referencing that's incredibly retarded?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe they will face the same fate as their eternal ally Albania

</comment><comment><USER19> I mean I've seen this here in the US everywhere... specifically skin care shit</comment>


Ask HN: outline for the development of a simple piece of software - <AUTHOR>

Suppose I have an idea for the development of a simple utility -- this could be a program which monitors input from a sensor, processes it, and outputs messages using some communication method, say email.
I know that nowadays there must be many frameworks whereby I can focus on writing the core part of the program in my favourite language, say python, and then once the basic functionality is working, I can throw it in the black box, throw in various user interfaces which the black box requires, and out pops an "app" for download on any platform, a web app, or even an embedded cpu gizmo which functions as a standalone appliance, such as a smoke alarm.
What are some of the best such frameworks, or "full stack toolsets" which are relatively future-proof and popular? In particular, are there any toolsets which accept many languages?
Basically I am asking about the most modern, useful, and fun ways to develop relatively simple programs nowadays and get them out there on several different kinds of platforms. <comment><USER2> Other than HTML/JavaScript the only one I know is <http://getmoai.com/> which uses Lua. JavaScript might still be something to look into, but even in node you'd need an api or everything.</comment>


Show HN: Automatically Backup Your Discover Weekly with Rediscover - <AUTHOR> https://rile.yt/rediscover/ <comment><AUTHOR> Rediscover is a side project that I have been running for a few years now and recently made improvements to. It's the easiest way to automatically backup each weeks Discover Weekly playlist so you never lose another great discovery.

Yes, this can be done with IFTTT. I tried that before building Rediscover and found it unreliable. Rediscover also doesn't require an IFTTT account and is faster to setup.</comment>


Surprising Way Your Neanderthal Genes May Affect You - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/garret-loporto/surprising-way-your-neand_b_568455.html

<comment><USER2> There's zero evidence that Neanderthals were "wild and relentlessly creative to a fault". They used the same toolset for almost their entire span of existance, changing only when threatened by modern humans.</comment>


The US Banking System Is Insecure - <AUTHOR> http://www.maxhodak.com/notes/2013/04/27/insecure-banking.html

<comment><USER2> FDIC insurance is not there for you if someone takes money out of your account without your permission. It's there in case of Bank failure/collapse.

Relevant: <http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/insured/basics.html></comment>


Clarkson stung after bank prank - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7174760.stm <comment><USER2> WTF... you are posting a 2008 article?</comment>


Show HN: Coding.fm - Raining.fm for coders - <AUTHOR> http://coding.fm/

<comment><USER2> Pretty nice but you should really get a mechanical keyboard, that's the real coding sound <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWPH7FAUfUY>

<comment><USER3> Kind of off topic but where can I buy a Happy Hacking Keyboard outside the US?

<comment><USER2> From here [http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards...](http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards,hhkbpro2)

<http://elitekeyboards.com/support.php#2>

<comment><USER3> Thank you! But damn, that's expensive. Better find some used one...

<comment><USER4> It's also ridiculous, you don't have to spend more than 100$ for an excellent hacking keyboard, don't buy the brand, buy the feature.

[http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=leopold,fulls...](http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=leopold,fullsize&pid=fc500rcabn) or if you really need them to be weighted for god knows what reason: [http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=topre_keyboar...](http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=topre_keyboards,realforce&pid=rf_se02c0)

<comment><USER5> (Full disclosure: I have a Happy Hacking Pro 2. I also have multiple Filco Cherry MX keyboards).

The difference with HHKB is:

1) the Topre switches over standard Cherry switches; it's personal preference, but they are more expensive. In my opinion they feel a lot nicer for long sessions. Very satisfying to type on.

2) It's made in Japan — I believe Topre Realforce are too, but they're also expensive.

3) The layout/size is (fairly) unique, and very awesome. Not having to move from the home row to hit any key at all feels great.

Anyway when you amortize the cost over how long these keyboards (any of them) last, and how much you use them, the price difference isn't such a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So I was sitting all alone in my large office at night, browsed Hacker News and as usual opened this in a new tab but did not really look at it becuase I was browsing some other article. Now suddenly I start hearing a slow coding sound coming out of nowhere, I looked around but there was none. The sounds still kept coming , I even went to look under the desks!! Thoughts of an office ghost started trembling in my mind but then I suddenly realised that those pesky sounds were originating from my Mac and I said W __!!! Ghost inside my Mac! Holy Sh __! With some courage I bothered to look around my tabs and then nailed on this monster. Great work guys! Would be hard to forget about those horrifying 10 mins!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha ha ha! Just glad you figured out it was from your computer and not some coder ghost haunting you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. Funny idea! :)

But honestly, I'm not sure if there is a less-soothing sound than someone cranking away at a keyboard. Takes me right out of my zone of concentration, and there is a reason I put on headphones :)

<comment><USER8> The guy I share a cube with has the loudest keyboard in history, or at least for me. Doesn't seem to bother anyone else. But it sets my teeth on edge.

So much so that I had to dig out my old noise cancelling, over the ear things. Now I can't hear anything else, but hey! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting, I kinda liked it. But given I am a keyboard freak, the sound of an apple keyboard makes sad. Add a mechanical keyboard in there too, there's the real programming sound :).

Anyhow, great job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers!Happy you like it. I've totally got to get the sound of a mechanical keyboard :)

<comment><USER9> Great, I am looking forward to that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi Neil from raining.fm angry dev ftw!

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers Neil! Really love raining.fm - was the inspiration for this :)

<comment><USER10> No worries at all mate, thanks for the props! We have rewritten a new version with some cool new requested functionality, just bug testing atm, planning to push live in few days ;) stay rainy and code on!

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! looking forward to checking out the new version :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Next : Airplane engine cabin-muted samples ? (can be emulated with low pass filter on laptop fan, found that to be quite calming too, like thunderstorm noise)

</comment><comment><USER12> I feel like there's not a lot of gaps between typing, even for the Monday morning coding. Either that, or I'm a really slow coder.

</comment><comment><USER13> i thought this was silly until i let it play for about 20 minutes. it's strangely calming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice to hear :) I'm assuming it was on "Monday Morning Coding" ;)

<comment><USER13> Yep. I've had it running since.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone feel like they work more productively when listening to people bash their keyboards or is this more of a novelty thing? Personally, I can understand the rain sounds, this - not so much.

<comment><USER15> I think the site was made as a joke :-)

<comment><USER14> _whoosh_ I guess I thought some people might enjoy the sound of other people at work? Rain sounds weren't exactly intuitive for me either living in Seattle. Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> More hardcore : [http://www.youtubemultiplier.com/503e2aac93368-realhackerkey...](http://www.youtubemultiplier.com/503e2aac93368-realhackerkeyboardsounds.php)

</comment><comment><USER17> Cute! You should add the sound of "Happiness & Zen coding" (someone coding Ruby) and the sound of "Despair" (someone coding PHP), etc. :)

<comment><USER18> Except that happiness and despair haven't got much to do with the language. It's the work you do and the environment you're in that make you happy or unhappy.

<comment><USER19> Have you ever used PHP before?

<comment><USER18> No, I must be a one trick pony who has only ever used one language, on one platform, in one workplace and has no experience on which to base his claims. What sense would it make to post a comment based on personal experience, right?

<comment><USER19> Sorry, didn't mean to get your knickers in a twist, I was only being tongue- in-cheek.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Burst out laughing when I clicked "Angry dev". Nice.

<comment><USER2> Agree, "Angry dev coding" could easily be "Working with XML".

<comment><USER21> "Angry dev coding" is "Arguing on the internet"

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha ha! very true

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I love this.

My office is really quiet, putting this on alongside some music with my headphones is actually making me more productive!

<comment><AUTHOR> Must try it with some music too! Glad you're enjoying it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> this is like a modern day audio boss button

</comment><comment><USER24> Really loved it !

I'm really intrigued as to how you got the sounds together ? Did you record them yourself ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Glad you loved it and,yes, recorderd right from Crossrider HQ with my iphone ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> They really need a Live Listener stat so you know who else you're coding with...

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> FYI, the link to raining.fm at the bottom of the page doesn't work :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that - will fix it right away!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I laughed. Great idea!

</comment><comment><USER28> This is freaking hilarious. Angry DEV all the way.

</comment><comment><USER29> Nice, great job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers! Glad you like it

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> how geeks sounds.. i think this is pretty cool.. maybe you can also add the sound of bits moving around ;-)

<comment><USER31>
        cat /dev/random > /dev/dsp

Not necessarily the most pleasant sound. [Linux only AFAIK]

<comment><USER32> For this exercise, /dev/urandom might be better; reading /dev/random will block after the system's entropy pool is exhausted, right?

<comment><USER31> I'd consider it unlikely most reasonably sane people would actually want to pump random data out their speakers for any significant amount of time.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


IPod touch with two cameras, Retina Display said to arrive soon - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/10/ipod_touch_with_two_cameras_retina_display_said_to_arrive_soon.html

<comment><USER2> The iPod Touch is a very strategic product for Apple. Apple is in the process of converting their vast base of 200M legacy iPod users into iPhone and iPad users.

The $199 iPod Touch probably has the tightest margin of any Apple product, creating a stepping stone at the right price point to facilitate the migration. The tight margins may explain why no other company has matched it in the three years it has been on the market.

If Apple ever sells the iPod Touch with the Retinal display for $199 I would seriously consider it a sign of the apocalypse.

<comment><USER3> If Apple ever sells the iPod Touch with the Retina display for $199 I would seriously consider buying it, which now that I think of it is pretty close to what you said.

<comment><USER4> I think a $299 point is more likely - which is what the current 3GS iPod Touch is priced at.

<comment><USER5> "3GS iPod Touch"?

<comment><USER6> iPod Touch based on iPhone 3GS hardware (faster CPU, more RAM than the iPhone 3G)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Has anyone noticed that with facetime, and now especially if facetime goes on the itouch, apple is posing themselves as a total replacement for the telco hegemony? I mean, if you and all your friends have itouches and wifi, or something that implements the "open standard" of facetime, isn't that pretty much the end-game for the telcos?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been considering switching back to a Touch from my iPhone. A 3g mifi router is much cheaper than a att's voice + dataplan and I personally would prefer not to have a phone. I'm fine with Skype now that it runs in the background on iOS 4.

<comment><USER8> Here are the downsides to the MiFi:

\- it gets really hot

\- the battery only gets about 2.5 hours, max

\- in NYC area, it is slow.

\- it's not really cheap, it's $60/m for 5GB. Plus you have to pay $150 to buy it in the first place

If that still sounds good to you, I've got one for sale... ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, nice. Of course it always _seems_ like a good idea in theory, but it's another thing in practice.

It's really too bad municipal WIFI got crushed by the telecos, they really know how to hold onto power. I give them that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is something mysterious about why Google, Microsoft, Sony or even Nokia doesn't create something similar to ipod touch. Its a big seller and platform expansion device. Its perfect for me who prefers sturdier phone and it makes me open to buying the next iphone as long as i have an ipod touch. Is it the cost/margin of making one? lack of distribution channel?

<comment><USER10> Perhaps they don't see it as a "platform expansion device" rather they see it as an iPod - just a music player. And the music player market is very tough unless you're Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I feel very conflicted about the iPod touch. On the one hand, I know that Apple doesn't really care about it, and is focused on the iPhone. I hate getting the same taste of Apple fascism via app store, etc, everything. However, it's quite compelling as a device for a lot of things, which does appeal. There is no viable competitor (at present) that fulfills the same niche; if Zune HD were updated more frequently and ran Android, that would be something a little better.

One use that really almost swayed me -- or would have, had I known before I left -- was when I was in China for some number of months last year. Touchscreen input + dictionary = WIN for character learning and study! So much better than just drawing with a mouse on nciku.

All of this is, I guess, a long winded way of saying that I am glad that they got around to updating it and if my old Zune 2.0 dies I will probably end up with something like this, bitter as I might be.

<comment><USER12> What do you mean "got around to updating it?" The iPod touch gets updated every year - just like the iPhone! Apple most certainly _does_ care about the iPod touch. It sells like crazy.

<comment><USER13> It just _seems_ like it gets less love, because the iPod touch is updated 2-3 months after the iPhone is. Really, its just because the products were announced 2-3 months apart and thats how the release cycle works out.

<comment><USER14> New iPods are traditionally announced in September, right before Christmas. That's the way it has always been, nothing to do with love or hate. It would be stupid if Apple changed that, you don't announce two high profile products at the same event.

The iPod touch has also traditionally been ahead of the current iPhone, as far as I recall the iPod touch always had a slightly higher CPU speed.

I don't know how you could even get the idea that Apple neglects the iPod touch.

<comment><USER11> From talking to iOS engineers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>