Facebook is just fine - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/how-to-use-the-internet/fb9f44469f92 <comment><USER2> I feel like people on HN just want Facebook to fail. (Or be "disrupted.")

Facebook lets me chat with my girlfriend, my grandparents, and my college roommate all at the same time. It lets me upload pictures of my new apartment for people to see. It lets me comment with a bunch of other angry misanthropes about how the Heat are gonna blow it this year. Until another service lets me do that in one browser tab, I'm fine with sticking with Facebook.

(I notice a huge correlation, too, with people's feelings about Facebook and people's level of extroversion/social aptitude in general. I think some people, website or no website, are going to want to keep to themselves -- and no app is ever going to change that.)

<comment><USER3> This is Hacker News; the audience is comprised of people who could re-write the core of Facebook in a heartbeat and they are extremely critical. They're also quite smart; they know Facebook lets you chat with your girlfriend.

What they're saying is that Facebook is not working the way it should. It's partially due to its popularity, but it has diminished its usefulness.

Try this: Open it up right now and read the first 10 to 20 status updates and then count how many you care about, then count how many are important in any way. After doing that a few times (and trying to manage what updates I see, to improve things), I closed my account. (And I'm an extrovert!)

We are Hacker News. We know that technology and its uses is in a constant dialectic. Our members include Zuckerberg and very probably his successor. It's nothing personal; it's just how this works.

<comment><USER4> "Open it up right now and read the first 10 to 20 status updates and then count how many you care about"

Repeat the experiment with a news paper, I think you will find facebook's news feed is still more interesting than other media forms.

<comment><USER5> Or repeat the experiment with gmail or any mail client or twitter. Still useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My facebook feed is mostly spam. Mostly app ads and very lame things that distant acquaintances have liked.

Facebook ignores the people who I tend to "like". It ignores the profiles I look at periodically. It ignores the people who I message with.

Facebook forgets which setting I prefer (most recent vs most popular) again and again.

Facebook shows me the same annoying ads again and again even though I don't click on them and spend no time hovering over them in the mobile app.

Facebook knows that I continue to log in at least twice a day and that rarely is there any new information for me, since my friends have all drastically curtailed their facebook usage.

I think it's too late. Soon the habit of checking facebook will disappear.

My advice. Remove the ads immediately, create different experiences for people with 100 friends vs 300 vs 500 vs 1000 vs 3000. Don't ever show the same spammy stuff twice unless the recipient likes it. The fact that my distant high school acquaintance likes Samsung is of ZERO value to me and frankly it's incredibly annoying to be told about the major corporations that distant acquaintances have clicked the like button about again and again and again.

Today I got an email with stuff I "missed" on Facebook. This makes me think that Facebook is dying. Just take the advice in the above paragraph and restore it to its previously useful state.

<comment><USER7> > My facebook feed is mostly spam. Mostly app ads and very lame things that > distant acquaintances have liked.

Do you hide any of it from your feed?

I do this periodically, and I don't have anything lame or spammy. It's just like what's said in the article.

<comment><USER6> it's not possible to hide all of the content that ends up in the feed. If I could I would.

<comment><USER8> A little hiding goes a long way. I only hide if I notice repeat offenders (happens about every other week), and signal to noise ratio hovers around 1 to 1 for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see that now we are going to have debates among different columnists who write for medium.com, which may spice up the content a bit. I agree with this author more than I agreed with the last author, who wrote decrying Facebook. Sure, I have been careful to select friends for their capacity to maintain civil, thoughtful conversation, but now that I have a circle of friends like that, living in countries around the world, Facebook is a convenient medium for all of us to have conversations on. I like Facebook because I see my friends there.

I have written before here on Hacker News, "Facebook will go the way of AOL, still being a factor in the industry years from now, but also serving as an example of a company that could never monetize up to the level of the hype surrounding it." I used to see friends on AOL. I never felt an obligation to help AOL monetize just because of that. Networks are a dime a dozen. Right now, Facebook is a very convenient network, and I like it. I do not predict that Facebook will make a lot of money because of users like me.

<comment><USER10> Talking about Facebook is the ultimate bike-shedding discussion. Everybody, and I mean literally everybody inside and outside of the tech world has an opinion. That's fine, but when people start extrapolating their opinion to predict the fate of Facebook (and this applies more to the previous article than this one) I just have to laugh. I'm sure Facebook will make a fascinating topic for anthropologists 50 years from now, but in the meantime I don't need a slew of columnists going all Nostradamus on the subject. What one likes or dislikes about FB, or tips on how to use it are all potentially good topics, but the grand predictions are just so much noise.

<comment><USER11> I agree thst predictions by themselves are noise. However, predictions that are based on analogy are fascinating. Mark Twain said, "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." We see this _all_ the time in the technology sector alone. For example, back in the 80s companies used to buy IBM servers because the thought was that nobody would be fired for buying the safe product. As a result, IBM stagnated in the very area in which it was most competitive. These days, we see Oracle in the exact same spot. Their salespeople use the exact same "fear, uncertainty and doubt" strategy and therefore it is safe to predict that they will end up just like IBM in many ways, just like Facebook will end up like AOL.

<comment><USER10> I guess my problem with Facebook predictions is that the majority of them seem to simply be someone writing about their personal experience with Facebook and then extrapolating that out. I honestly think that what blogger X or tech journalist Y thinks about using Facebook is utterly immaterial to the future of Facebook. They've crossed the chasm, it doesn't matter if the technorati think Facebook is "done", they don't need us, and our nerd rage will not affect their future in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The crux of the essay is the following:

> Facebook keeps me connected to folks I care deeply about who aren't nearby.

As soon as I saw it, I said to myself: "boy oh boy, he better give some hard evidence." The article goes on even without providing _anecdotal_ evidence, let alone anything to the extent I was expecting or hoping. In fact, the entire discussion seems to be about the hiding feature. Yeah, everyone knows about it (and more and more people are using it), but I'm not sure how using a destructive feature of a service makes the service _more_ necessary (I would argue for the opposite). If I hide 90% of my "friends" from my feed, for example, what's the point of Facebook? Apart from the ego-boosting friend- count (which I might also hide).

Now, going back to the initial (bolded!) argument: _Facebook keeps me connected to folks I care deeply about who aren't nearby._ I think that this is just simply not true. Of course, a definition of "care deeply" would be needed, but my assumption here is that we're talking about moms, dads, sisters, brothers, aunts, BFFs, and the like -- NOT ex-girlfriends/boyfriends or classmates from high school that helped us out that one time on that one biology project in freshman year. If I only contacted my mom or dad through Facebook, my parents would first of all be quite mad -- and second of all, our relationship would suffer. People that I _care deeply_ about get emails, phone calls, Skype calls, text messages, sometimes even snail-mail from me! I'm not sure how the OP expects us to connect Facebook to "caring deeply." Again, some evidence (or an actual argument) would've been nice.

I don't hate Facebook, but more often than not, I find myself just using it when I'm bored and semi-creeping around seeing what X or Y is up to and randomly clicking on that "cute girl that's a friend of a friend of a friend" (incidentally, this is what most people use it for). "Creeping on Facebook," has in fact, become a relatively common colloquialism; I wouldn't even attribute a negative quality to the idea, but I _would_ argue it's a fundamental failure of FB (and something that should capitalize on). I posted about this before, but I really believe that the next "big social thing" will be a start-up that will somehow make it easy to approach people you don't know and spark up a conversation. There are _so many_ people on FB, and yet most of us hide 90% of the people we're friends with and we don't add the ones we might find interesting but don't know. That doesn't seem "just fine" to me.

Oh yeah, go ahead and add me on Facebook.

<comment><USER13> What, exactly, do you expect in terms of hard evidence from someone who is claiming they find Facebook useful? Do you expect to get a spreadsheet of their usage activity and a split test they ran where they defriended half of their closest friends and tried using e-mail for a week? The only people who can share "hard evidence" of engagement data of the Facebook news feed are Facebook themselves, and they are not going to do that.

When it comes to understanding user satisfaction, anecdotes count a lot, particularly when those anecdotes re-enforce the thesis of a product by example.

You raise the question of what is the point of Facebook if you hide 90% of your "friends". Just asking this question shows that you don't really get what the author is saying. Putting quotes around "friends" tells me you are missing the point that the author is, in fact, leaving left un-hid people who meet two attributes: are legitimate close friends/relatives and post interesting and meaningful content. What remains is a one-of-a-kind stream of content that provides him/her with the ability to feel they are in tune with the lives of people who they are no longer nearby.

People who come to HN and rail on Facebook about privacy concerns and ethics have a point. People who come on HN and rail on Facebook The Product are missing the point. If Facebook's news feed is not engaging, it means one of two things: you have over-friended and not hidden people who post bad content, or you are not connected to any people who post content on Facebook that you enjoy. There are many, many people that do not fit in either of these categories.

<comment><USER12> I think you missed my point. I expect hard evidence (or even anecdotal evidence!) when making the following claim: "Facebook keeps me connected to folks I care deeply about who aren't nearby."

A) I think that _care deeply_ needs to be defined.

B) My opinion is that FB is too superficial to merit any kind of "deep connection." Here is where some evidence would have been nice.

B.1) Even so, considering that (just about) everything on FB is semi-public, I'm not sure how anything posted on FB would be conducive to a _personal_ and _deep_ relationship with anyone. Unless we're _only_ talking about private messages sent via FB messenger or something (but FB as a whole is a different kind of animal).

I wasn't railing on FB the Product, as you call it. But I think that the new generation is looking for something more substantive. (There have been slews of such articles [providing hard evidence, incidentally] lately.) I think I'd also be looking for something more substantive (even though I'm 27). My point is that it doesn't seem possible to maintain a personal and deep connection with just about anyone through FB (given the semi-private nature of the service); saying otherwise is begging the question: _how_ , exactly, do you maintain this relationship merely though the superficiality of FB?

<comment><USER13> I don't see how this line of argument can be productive at all. Basically what you are saying is this person should go into detail about the specifics of individual interactions with their friends and family on Facebook, and use that as some type of "evidence" that those relationships are "deep."

The result of this, of course, will be skeptics conjuring up their own litmus tests for what constitutes a "deep" relationship in a way that the author's examples fall outside of that definition. Or, they will reframe the author's examples in other media or means and explain how those interactions would somehow be more meaningful than if they were happening on Facebook. This objectification of human relationships will, of course, be incredibly shallow and offensive to many people.

When you are dealing with people's personal lives and how they value relationships, it's pretty hard to come up with some objective measure of value beyond the self-evaluation of the people in the relationships themselves. Since otherwise, you are by definition being judgmental.

<comment><USER12> So then, are claims like "Facebook keeps me connected to folks I care deeply about who aren't nearby." completely frivolous? I don't think so.

I'm not asking for the lurid details of a romantic relationship here, just some anecdotes that prove exactly how Facebook (as opposed to the myriad of other communication software: IM, email, Skype, etc.) helped foster a "deep relationship."

Someone argued that the OP and I have different definitions of _deep_. This could very well be the case. I consider _deep relationships_ to be ones that I have with my family, best friends, romantic interest, and maybe some extended family or family friends here and there. If Facebook would disappear tomorrow, my relationship with the aforementioned groups of people wouldn't suffer one bit. But I could, as always, be mistaken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A million times this. Curate your feed for content ('like' good pages) and hide those 'friends' you're not interested in.

What other place can you chat easily with friends far away, find a last minute ticket for a concert from someone who has an online identity without paying scalper prices, find out an old friend moved to your area, keep in touch with the masses who connect with you for other reasons (e.g. I run a music community and chat with users on Facebook sometimes), and the list goes on. Show me more ads, I don't care! They're not horrible popups and the News Feed ones are only somewhat intrusive.

<comment><USER15> > Curate your feed for content

Why in the world would I want to do this? I eventually gave up on Facebook because I spent more time "curating" it than using it, and the end result was awkward conversations with friends who assumed I had seen something when in fact I was no longer subscribed to their baby pictures.

> What other place can you ...

Mostly email, iMessage/SMS/BBM/WhatsApp, and Twitter.

<comment><USER14> I don't have 1000 friends on Facebook, it's pretty easy to curate 200-300 friends. It takes a few seconds to remove someone from your feed.

>iMessage/SMS/BBM/WhatsApp, and Twitter.

Very few of my friends use Twitter and I can't easily drop links and have long, fast conversations with people. Facebook chat integrates with the private messages seamlessly. It's a much better experience than texting (how can I easily send many links) or sending 140 characters or less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I must confess to giggling at the authors examples of 'signal':

> "Lots of signal. Lots of friends becoming parents.

> Getting engaged. Couples falling in love. Babies. [...]

> Friends and acquaintances off on adventures. Beautiful

> mountain photos [...] Family outings. [...] orphanage

> a good friend of mine runs in Nepal. [...] updates on

> the dog back home on the east coast"

All that stuff sounds like the expected output of a random human condition generator. Knowing those things wouldn't change my life at all. I trust that that kind of stuff is happening all on its own without having to take any of my attention.

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. However, I suspect he may be missing the mark because the audience he's addressing with his "just use hide!" may well be like me and find all that stuff inane. 'Use hide to reveal the signal under the noise' doesn't work when there is no signal.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I had a similar reaction. I guess I'm selfish: I just don't care about what's going on in others' lives if it doesn't impact me. I also don't share what's going on in my life with the Internet, unless I think it would interest or help someone else like me. (E.g. I started a blog last fall. It has 3 posts. Every post has over 700 words. Social media just isn't my bag.)

I tried using Facebook for about a month, and got overwhelmed with the amount of boring and infuriating crap that goes through the service. It felt like reading chain emails from the 90s. Why would anyone subject themselves to that level of banality?

As you say, different strokes for different folks. It just doesn't do anything for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I agree completely with this cat. Maybe it's because I use Facebook from Bolivia and ads aren't really shown down here (no market?), but almost of my timeline posts are nice to see. I also hide dumb, annoying and negative people but keep them as a friend to avoid hurting feelings.

I get to talk to my immediate family instantly from anywhere in the city, laptop or mobile phone - what other free service does that?

Facebook isn't terrible, naysayers are just hipsters wanting to hate on something popular.

<comment><USER19> _"naysayers are just hipsters wanting to hate on something popular"_

I "hate" Facebook since 2007, when a small forum I was part of and liked a lot decided to "move to facebook", where it died a really quick and really pointless death.

It got worse and more idiotic since then, and these days I "hate" facebook for leaving poop trails everywhere else, too (i.e. sites that only allow facebook to sign up, "like this" buttons everywhere, that sort of crap). If Facebook, its users and those who prey on them would refrain from shoving it into my face 10 times a day, maybe I would feel accordingly. For example, I never "hated" AOL, it was just something stupid that people do in private. Facebook, not so much. It's like I normally wouldn't comment on the size and shape of someone's penis, but if they keep rubbing it into my face, I get kinda bitey.

 _"what other free service does that?"_

What other free service doesn't? There are a million things that would work the same way, if people used them. Starting with email, IM, and all the fascinating things one can install on webservers.

See, that's exactly what I mean. The existance and use of facebook leads to me having to read crap like this, "what other free service does that?". That does hurt my brain, so I sometimes snarl. That people who don't make the cut come up with rationalizations for that is kind of expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> _> Facebook is just fine.... That's crazy, right? I mean, Facebook is just a personal data farm, isn't it? It's just a not-too-coy set of dopamine- optimized actions to trick you into dumping information about yourself into the magic Zucker Woodchipper?... I'm not denying any of this. It is an ad machine, in part. But that doesn't mean Facebook can't also provide value._

The fact that it provides value doesn't make it fine. The criticism of Facebook is not about the value it provides, but about the cost they charge for it. That cost is users' privacy.

Fine social network should serve the purpose of social interactions without ulterior motives of some hidden entities which profit on users' data. You can't practically achieve that with such centralized social networks, and decentralized design makes it more feasible.

<comment><USER21> Obligatory Eben Moglen interview: [http://betabeat.com/2011/12/in-which-eben- moglen-like-legit-...](http://betabeat.com/2011/12/in-which-eben-moglen-like- legit-yells-at-me-for-being-on-facebook/)

<comment><USER20> Great interview, thanks for the pointer :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What the heck is is he talking about?

This is facebook, 28 of 29 posts are about pages I liked or pages talking about pages I like (yeap, like I care about Lakers Nation talking about LeBron James).

I can't share anything there either because some of my friends and family get offended by my views (atheist, anarchist, pro-drugs).

I could create lists, but who has time for that? I rather just use leaser known social networks like Vine and Snapchat where the people are more open minded.

<comment> brown9-2 You must have missed the whole point of the article - hide people or pages who post content you don't care about (or never subscribe).

<comment><USER23> Hiding people will not keep them from seeing your posts. It keeps you from seeing their posts.

<comment><USER24> Using lists and sharing with lists helps you prevent certain people from seeing your posts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I really don't understand the anti-facebook nature of HN users, personally I think it's a fantastic product, it perfectly fulfills my use case.

I'm 20 years old, I feel that's somehow relevant before I give my long list of anecdotes.

When I woke up this morning, I checked my feed, 3 notifications! The first (ranked by importance of course) was that one of my cousins was pregnant. She lives in Spain, I'm the only member of my family in the UK, how would I otherwise have found out? Snail mail? Pah! Takes too long and my address isn't always static for longer than a few months. Phone? Really? Do you know how much international calls cost when you aren't on a Silly Valley wage?! _E- Mail? ... Do people actually still do the whole E-Mail thing? And isn't E-Mail completely broken anyway?_

The second was a party event my friend was throwing and had invited me too this weekend, it took one click and now I know all about it, I accepted and left a message.

So in 30 seconds on one application, I've discovered my cousin is going to have a baby, congratulated her and let her know that I "like" this outcome, told my friend I'm cool to hang out this weekend and asked him if he wants to go halves on a Pizza Saturday.

Last night I used it to talk over video with my grandma who's been ill recently (and also coincidentally lives abroad) because she doesn't know what a Skoop (Skype) is and MSN no longer exists, but Facebook is still here, she's already on it and she uses it frequently.

After this I checked up on my company feed to look at photos of my co-workers birthday party and the comments on the photo I took (and uploaded in seconds to the internet after applying filters to make him prettier) of him opening his presents.

I literally just got out of bed and I have a message already from my girlfriend (who's out of texts) asking me what we're doing tonight, I've told her it's a surprise and send her a photo to give her a clue.

 _Anyway..._

The point of this is that while you may detest Facebook for whatever privacy issues you may have (and lets face it, other companies such as our beloved Google are often much, much worse) it is a fantastic application making it easier than ever to connect to the people who I actually care about (for the record, I only keep 40 friends on there), if perhaps a little out of _your_ particular use case.

<comment><USER12> > E-Mail? ... Do people actually still do the whole E-Mail thing? And isn't > E-Mail completely broken anyway?

It's so funny when people are critical of FB critics ( _I do not_ consider myself to be a critic of FB, even though my post garnered a lot of debate), but then go on to criticize email.

Specifically, what's funny is that email is used to transfer magnitudes more information than FB on a daily basis. So, um... yes? Email is still around. And people use it. And it's not _broken_ , per se. It's a sort of analogy with Spotify and radio.. "omg is FM still around? lol!! what noobs"

<comment><USER25> I was being sarcastic with the E-Mail one - but to be honest among younger people, at least in my area, you would never meet someone and say "So, what's your E-Mail address?" - you just ask for their full name and find them on Facebook, or take their number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Facebook works for me very well because I don't quite use the news feed as a social networking feed. I have changed its push model to a pull model. That means, I have pretty much hidden all of my friends and use the news feed to only read updates from magazines and pages I am interested in. I however visit people's profile that I am reminded of every now and then to see whats going on with their lives. The closer I am to someone the more frequent her/his profile gets a visit. To make this tractable, I every few months go through a round of deleting people I don't care about (like someone I've met for a few minutes and I am sure I will not see again, or if I do I will mostly likely pretend I don't know the person).

</comment><comment><USER27> "Facebook keeps me connected to folks I care deeply about who aren't nearby."

He goes on to explain the way in which it works for him, but that's the point. I, for example, don't do anything but see my stream without much hiding and I love it. I love seeing why my friends having going on, I love the weird swath of reactions and conversations, I love it. Hell, I love that my aunt bothers me on Facebook all the time, I would never talk to her otherwise! It's not everything to everyone, but it's a REALLY important thing to a REALLY huge amount of people.

It could die. Mobile (or other things) could kill it, I don't deny that, but it's great. Long live Facebook, until something does what it does better.

</comment><comment><USER28> Of course Facebook is fine, no matter what HN readers think of it. I suspect I'm typical in minimizing my Facebook use because, if for no more serious reason, too many instances of a Facebook "app" spamming my contact list.

And yet, I almost certainly count among Facebook's monthly active users. I cross-post to Facebook. I have family that doesn't grok Google+. There are even business contacts that prefer Facebook to LinkedIn for whatever reasons.

That might make the value of many Facebook users very low, but as long as Facebook doesn't stagnate technologically, it's more than just viable.

</comment><comment><USER29> I left facebook because I was tired of continually curating their email notifications. I would clean it all up and then boom something would change and I have to wade through their settings again and turn off more stuff.

I don't _want_ to ruthlessly curate my social network feed. It killed the enjoyment for me so I left. Now I get a curated rundown from my wife so I guess in a way I still have facebook but someone else is doing the curation for me.

I wonder if there's a product idea there?

</comment><comment><USER30> I do not agree that having to hide friends so you get a curated News Feed really works. For me, this is a lot of work just to get Facebook back as a fun product again - and FB doesn't really provide great, painless tools for curating your feed. (I'd love a dashboard and power-user shortcuts)

But even if your News Feed looks great, the other side of controlling your FB experience is How You Share. Sure, we can all create lists for our families and faraway friends and acquaintances — but trust and relationships evolve, and pretty soon you're fiddling with "+Family -AuntJenny +HighSchool -Amanda" just for one little post about your relationship status.

You can deal with this by unfriending or self-censoring yourself, but it's really not fun to hold your tongue, and there's a social cost to unfriending.

The author is probably right that "Facebook is fine", if you put enough work into it. But depending on your comfort level, this can mean _a lot_ of work. So the questions are 1) is this really a user error, or a problem with the product? and 2) how can Facebook improve this area? and 3) is it even in Facebook's interest to go down this path?

</comment><comment> brown9-2 I tend to hide people whose updates are annoying yet I don't want to unfriend as well, but one thing that strikes me as weird about this arrangement is that I have essentially set up a one-way sharing relationship with this person - this person whom I've probably forgot about can see whatever I post, but I'm ignoring all signs of their existence on the news feed.

To me, that's why this strategy doesn't really seem scalable.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm really shy about sharing stuff on facebook. Maybe because of the number of highschool and college folks I have friended there.

So basically I'm a 'scroller' (I have a 20yo real life friend who called me this term offline).

I do go to facebook to scroll once every couple of days and it is interesting. I'm just happy that people aren't as shy as I when it comes to posting updates and uploading photos etc.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think the "hiding" process is a bit too heavy handed, what I'd like to see is a dislike button that __only affects your feed __. So a person would never actually see that you disliked their post, but facebook could use that data privately to help you curate you feed. If you keep disliking someone's posts (and possibly even comments) facebook would show you less and less of them until they were completely gone from your news feed ...

Not sure it would work so well in light of a recent article on here (I think) that showed that people in social networks like/upvote things and order of magnitude more than they dislike/flag things, but I think it would be interesting to try.

</comment><comment><USER33> Given that people seem not to care that much that government is spying on them to an industrial level, why would the masses care one jot about the bad side of facebook, which is broadly privacy concerns?

</comment><comment><USER34> The problem I have with the hiding strategy is that nobody in my network of friends and family is producing 100% signal and nobody is producing 100% noise. If I hide all users that ever produce noise I end up with an empty feed. I need a better way of cutting through the noise - preferably an algorithm that does it for me.

The other problem I have is that I don't feel comfortable posting all of my thoughts to all of my friends and family. I could create lists but that really is a pain.

</comment><comment><USER35> There is a proverb in Russia (actually, it's a quote): "There're someone for whom even a mare is a fine bride". So, it's not surprising that for someone Facebook is fine too.

</comment><comment><USER36> craig mod says:

> If you are overtly negative

> (which is different than

> having opinions differing from my own),

> you get hidden.

i didn't know who was writing this when i first read it.

but i still chuckled when i came across that sentence...

and when i looked and it was _craig_mod_, i laughed at loud.

because it's "just fine" if you disagree with craig mod, just as long as you kiss his ass while you're doing it.

otherwise, he will peg you as "overtly negative"...

-bowerbird

<comment><USER18> On HN you don't need to leave your signature, we can tell who wrote the post.

<comment><USER37> I think that works the same for email, we can tell who sent it by address and name, but people still sign it, most of the time with name only. I do.

Weirder here, and I really hope he doesn't have/do that on a twitter account though...

<comment><USER38> Signatures in email have merit, especially when correspondents use a client that strips the email addresses from quoted text in replies. The email address will sometimes be replaced with simply the contact name. While referencing such an email, the only way I can decipher which "Mark" or "Joe" sent reply in a thread is by his signature.

Outlook is, at times, guilty of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> _(Hiding from newsfeed, it should be noted, is different from unfriending — they'll never know.)_

Well, they will know, because you never, ever like or comment on their stuff, like ever. :-)

</comment><comment><USER40> The author should try Path. The use case is what the author wants, a more limited FB with just his close friends and quality original content.

</comment><comment><USER41> Anyone else read the post and take an immediate dislike to the guy? Maybe it's the new yorker in me, but hiding people who exude negativity? Cynicism is cherished way of life for some people sir. Also why do you like baby pictures so much, ugh.

Why the passive aggression? just unfriend people you don't like.

What else? Who honestly cares that much about inane facebook posts that they feel more connected. _shrug_

</comment><comment><USER42> Hiding what most people post on Facebook is how I spend a minimum amount of time on Facebook too..

</comment><comment><USER43> It's not an ad machine, it stores your face and personal information and that data will be sold as a service as soon as things start to look bad for them. Nobody cares about personalized ads on the internet, they care that in a few years they'll be walking down the street and with just a camera and a computer anybody who's willing to pay will know everything about them.</comment>


Subsecond full-stack acceptance tests with Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/subsecondtdd/todo-subsecond <comment><USER2> Over the last few years I've found fast full stack tests to be invaluable in facilitating a rapid rate of development. I've yet to implement this approach but it sounds like the next logical step for me.

Disappointing to see you didn't use browser-monkey in your stack though :-(

[https://github.com/featurist/browser- monkey](https://github.com/featurist/browser-monkey)

<comment><AUTHOR> Browser-monkey is awesome, and for a real project I'd consider using it. I'd also use a virtual dom UI library like Vue, React, Hyperdom or similar.

For a teaching example I think it's essential to reduce the number of external libraries, or else it's too much to take in.</comment></comment>


Scalable Web Architectures: Common Patterns and Approaches - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/iamcal/scalable-web-architectures-common-patterns-and-approaches-web-20-expo-nyc-presentation

<comment><USER3> The idea of storing sensible stuff client side is indeed powerful and very simple. The problem is the client could change this state, and in most applications this is not a cool idea, so it's just a matter of signing it.

Assuming we want to store "foobar" client side, and make sure the client can't change this, all we need is to have a server-side-secret, that is, a random string that can't be guessed from outside. Get it with this:

        dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1 count=512 | md5sum

Well now just we can set the cookie as

        "foobar|"+sha1_hmac("foobar","ServerSideSecret").

There is no way the user can alter the cookie, otherwise the signature will no longer match. But often there are other kind of attacks: for example the user can get the cookie from another user, and in the context of the wrong user id the cookie content can be dangerous.

Another common condition is that this information should only be valid for a given amount of time.

To fix both this problems just add to the string to sign the current unix time and the user id, so the final cookie will be (assuming 100 is the user id):

        "foobar|1244498681|100|"+sha1_hmac("foobar|1244498681|100","ServerSideSecret")

When you check the cookie back, make sure to compare the server unix time with the timestamp in the cookie. If it's older than N seconds just ignore it.

Another common trick is to add the user IP address to the string in order to avoid that the cookie can be reused in the context of a different IP.

This stuff are very cool to save CPU time in your servers but make sure to think about all the kind of attacks like playback attacks or sending the cookie in other contexts, users, IP, time, applications (if you share secrets), and so on.

<comment><USER4> I like to stick the hmac hash at the beginning of the cookie text, since it has a known length. I don't care about tampering on the client-side (since you could achieve the same effect with firebug), so js scripts can simply lop off the first _n_ characters and use the rest of the cookie text as-is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome overview.

I've seen the "super-slim" sessions idea discussed elsewhere in relation to Flickr, but couldn't find much about it on the web. This presentation finally explains it properly and it's a wonderful thing.

Now... about integrating it into my web apps....

</comment><comment><USER6> The idea of shoving everything into an encrypted cookie --- it seems like it should work well, and I really like not storing session state server-side. Wouldn't the cookie run afoul of some security problem or other, though? I'm having a hard time thinking up scenarios, but I am not a security expert.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=639647>

[EDIT] Also interesting that the talk did not mention nginx as either a proxy or a software load balancer.

<comment><USER7> One thing you gotta remember is that that cookie is going to get shoved up to your server with _every single request_ (images, css, ajax, everything). So if you end up putting 2k of stuff in there then it can really add up (esp. given that many clients have asymmetric connection speed). You don't want your tiny ajax requests that load 50 bytes of data sending the equivalent of 4 - <USER2> upstream because they are all sending a bunch of unnecessary stuff in your cookie. So, yes, it's good - but the key to it is keeping the cookie "slim".

(NB: couldn't see the presentation since I don't have flash, if they covered this, apologies).

<comment><USER8> Yes, this is why you load images and CSS from a CDN, and you can do JSON+callbacks instead of Ajax onto a big app server somewhere. (There's a gem for Rack, if you're on Ruby, to automatically handle the parenthesization.)

<comment><USER6> What do you mean by JSON+callbacks?

<comment><USER8> You promote data to code.

JSON is usually a data format, like {result: 42}. If you wrap that in callback({result: 42}), that's executable javascript code.

Including script tags on your pags via JS, like how the Delicious API / Flickr API / Google Translate & whatnot APIs, all rely on this. Check out <http://developer.yahoo.com/common/json.html#callbackparam>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're on EC2 they now offer Elastic Load Balancing which allows you to move away from the RR Dns setup many are using. If you have your own hardware and are looking for a Layer 4 load balancing solution take a look at <http://www.ultramonkey.org/></comment>


Spread of breast cancer linked to compound in asparagus and other foods - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/cutting-asparagus-could-prevent-spread-of-breast-cancer-study-shows <comment><USER2> "Asparagine is frequently found in various animal sources including beef, poultry, eggs, fish and seafood. It is also found in many vegetables including asparagus, potatoes, nuts, legumes and soy. Since these foods are so common, it seems that diet restriction may not be the ideal approach" I wonder what combinations of the above make this compound more pronounced</comment>


Show HN: Hinder – Tinder for HN - <AUTHOR> http://gohinder.com/

<comment><USER2> It looks like we can't actually read the article before saving it or swiping past it. It would be nice if the box with the article title also linked to the article.</comment>


Self-driving shuttle bus launches test run in Las Vegas - <AUTHOR> http://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/jan/11/self-driving-shuttle-bus-launches-test-run-along-f/ <comment><USER2> I tested one of these in Lyon, France. It's autonomous but, since it is a test run, employees inside are still operating it. The technology is impressive. Passerbys often try to cross the street and force it to emergency brake, just to see if it actually stops… Yes it does, but it's very unpleasant for the passengers.</comment>


Microsoft dethrones Apple as the most valuable US company - <AUTHOR> https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/microsoft-dethrones-apple-as-the-most-valuable-us-company-2018-11-1027756092 <comment><USER2> dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18535073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18535073)

<comment><USER3> That is a paywalled article.

<comment><USER2> Everything you need to know is in subject anyway, and 35 comments beat 4

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always used a lot of MS products, but really thought they'd be close to dying by now. Maybe they can make some money renting Azure Linux boxes, but doesn't seem like a strategic advantage any more like Windows is.

<comment><USER5> _really thought they 'd be close to dying by now._

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/26/17286900/microsoft-q3-201...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/26/17286900/microsoft-q3-2018-earnings- cloud-surface-linkedin-revenue)

> 135 million active Office 365 business users, alongside 30.6 million Office > 365 consumer subscriptions.

> a 93 percent jump in Azure revenue.

> Microsoft has once again returned Surface to the important billion dollar > business target.

> Xbox software and services revenue has grown 24 percent,

> LinkedIn has now been included in Microsoft's earnings reports for a full > year now, and the social network was responsible for $1.3 billion of revenue > this quarter.

> Pro licenses of Windows grew 11 percent this quarter

Like, which bit of this sounds like a company "close to dying"?

"Nobody uses Windows anymore, it's too common".

In a few moments googling I haven't been able to find if SQL Server is still a billion dollar business, or the other ten billion-dollar things they used to have still hold up today (Windows, Windows Server, Office, XBox, SQL, System Center, Exchange, SharePoint, Visual Studio, Dynamics, Advertising). Off the top of my head I'd guess Exchange and SharePoint income moves to Office 365 and System Center moves to inTune Cloud, but even if the rest have declined seriously, it doesn't seem likely that corporate use of Visual Studio and SQL Server and Bing Advertising would all have fallen by >75% in 8 years, does it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know folks are obsessed with market cap for some reason, but I'm curious here: what portions of either company are public vs. privately held? Is there a material difference we should be considering here as a multiple instead of basic "outstanding shares * share value" to make this apples to apples? For example, if outstanding shares are 95% of MS, but only 92% of Apple's equity, etc.

I couldn't find this information myself in a cursory search, but I'd gather it's easy enough to find out if you know where to look. Thanks for the help.

</comment><comment><USER7> Most valuable US company, or worldwide?

<comment><USER8> Both titles state "US company" so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure they should say worldwide. Can't find a company more valuable than MSFT, so I'm not sure why the title says "US Company" when it could say "worldwide".

<comment><USER9> Publicly traded, perhaps. I'm pretty sure PetroChina and Aramco are "valued" at more than Microsoft is, by the public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Clearly, Apple is undervalued.

<comment><USER11> Yes:

Apple P/E: 14,57 MS P/E: 43.82

<comment><USER12> No, Azure is growing ( money maker) at >90% yoy.

Apple's money maker is dropping and no alternative.</comment></comment></comment>


What is "brain hacking"? Tech insiders on why you should care - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/news/brain-hacking-tech-insiders-60-minutes/ <comment><USER2> The more action-oriented designers, technologists, policy makers, economists and activists we can reach, the better. Check out www.timewellspent.io It's a non-profit movement to transform the race for attention so it aligns with our best interests. It's time to design a blueprint for an attention economy that better aligns with humanity.

</comment><comment><USER2> 60 Mins with Ex-Google Design Ethicist on Hacking Users' Brains, with Anderson Cooper</comment>


We Could Have Had Cellphones Four Decades Earlier - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/archives/2017/06/11/we-could-have-had-cellphones-f <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr allocating a lot of spectrum to broadcast TV blocked cell phones</comment>


First ever pictures of single proteins thanks to graphene sheet - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28744-first-ever-pictures-of-single-proteins-thanks-to-graphene-sheet/ <comment><USER2> Graphene, applicable to pretty much every field apparently.

I guess it's not that surprising that it is so widely revolutionising things. It is at the end of the day like reaching holy grail of "thin" materials.

That said I am still amazed at some of the use-cases.</comment>


Your Pricing is Hurting Your Proposal, but Not How You Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.mimiran.com/proposals/your-pricing-is-hurting-your-proposal-but-not-how-you-think/ <comment><USER2> I had this problem with a proposal I did. I managed to use a higher price than I was really comfortable with based on the value. As I waited for the prospect to respond, all I could think of was that I messed it up with the price.

When I talked with the prospect later (they chose another path) their feedback was: price was not an issue. They hadn't blinked. Why am I hung up on pricing too high?

Anyone else?</comment>


Software-Guided Supersonic Air Blower Sweeps the Rails Clean - <AUTHOR> http://www.gereports.com/post/117523413230/this-software-guided-supersonic-air-blower-sweeps <comment><USER2> I'm surprised that hadn't been tried before.

I'm also curious how software plays into it. Is the computer and software basically just a glorified on/off switch, or is it doing something more intelligent than just blowing air?

<comment><USER3> _" software that detects when the locomotive is slipping, and automatically activates ARC to clean the rail."_

Modern heavy-duty Diesel-electric locomotives know exactly how much traction they have at each wheel, and are constantly adjusting the drive power, frequency, and phase for the AC motor in each wheelset to keep all the wheels in sync. The locomotive controller has the info needed to turn the blower on when needed. So that's the software component.

This works a lot like a sander. Locomotives have been dumping sand on the rails ahead of the driving wheels when extra traction is needed for the last century. Doing this with air has advantages - you can't run out of air, it's a better way to get rid of water and leaves, and you don't get sand-choked tracks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many ordinary shop air nozzles are supersonic; you can see they have a convergent-divergent nozzle (or are an aerospike) like a "real" rocket. That's not such a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why not just use a brush? Too much wear and tear on the rails?

<comment><USER6> Too much wear and tear on the _brush_ , it would last about 100 yards before you had to replace it.

<comment><USER5> I would think you could have a cowcatcher-type metal wedge hovering ~1mm above the rails to clear most of the mess, and then have a brush for the last 1mm.

<comment><USER7> That's going to catch every time the train hits a bump or goes up hill</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Stripe no longer returns stripe fee on a refund starting April 30th - <AUTHOR> Hello,
We wanted to give you a heads up that we're rolling out a change to how we handle refunds on Stripe: Starting Sunday, April 30th, we will no longer return Stripe fees when you refund a customer. All other pricing remains unchanged.
Currently, when you refund a customer, we return all of the Stripe fees from the original charge. But, when we refund a charge on your behalf, we still incur costs from the various payment partners we work with. Until now, we've absorbed these fees. However, as we look toward growing and investing in new features in the future, we've decided to adjust how refund fees are handled to support this. To put that into context, your business refunded 2 transactions in the last month. The cumulative Stripe fees we returned for those transactions were $4. For more details on Stripe's pricing, please visit our pricing page.
Best,
The Stripe team <comment><AUTHOR> I just received this. This could be huge for businesses who issue a lot of refunds.</comment>


Hello World Open final live stream - <AUTHOR> http://areena.yle.fi/tv/2295891

<comment><USER2> There's also a finnish version available [http://areena.yle.fi/tv/2295889](http://areena.yle.fi/tv/2295889)</comment>


Webmaker for Android - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/08/17/mozilla-webmaker-meet-the-world-2/ <comment><USER2> Hey all --

David Ascher here, from Mozilla.

Thanks for the interest. We'll put up a technical write-up of Webmaker soon, we've been busy getting the app ready.

As to some of the questions already asked:

This is an open source project (both the Android wrapper, the web app and the backends powering the APIs). Repos are here:

* [https://github.com/mozilla/webmaker-android](https://github.com/mozilla/webmaker-android)

* [https://github.com/mozilla/webmaker-core](https://github.com/mozilla/webmaker-core)

* [https://github.com/mozilla/api.webmaker.org](https://github.com/mozilla/api.webmaker.org)

When it comes to data privacy, remember that Webmaker is not a social network. It is an easy-to-use publishing platform for people whose only internet access may be from a low-end Android phone. We don't ask for or store real names to create user accounts.

All projects on the platform are publicly accessible/remixable under a CC- license (it's a free, no-ad app -- all we ask from our users is that they contribute to the commons). We currently store all user data on Amazon RDS.

You may be interested in some of the user research we did as part of this project as well:

* [http://mzl.la/india](http://mzl.la/india)

* [http://mzl.la/bangladesh](http://mzl.la/bangladesh)

* [http://mzl.la/kenya](http://mzl.la/kenya)

* [http://mzl.la/research](http://mzl.la/research)

<comment><USER3> I totally get it. This is why I am building Optik. Knowledge publishing should be as easy as posting to Twitter or Instagram. My personal concern is privacy and longevity. How do we ensure that information users rely on remains secure, and also accessible? That is why I believe the Web as designed is a poor interface for this data. We need a better way to navigate and trust the data.

I applaud your efforts and look forward to collaboration. As the internet grows and interfaces become more complex, it becomes harder to avoid creating multiple tiers or classes of knowledge/data access.

Very curious to see how Webmaker will approach spammers vs anonymity and security vs collaboration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article does suffer from assuming the reader already knows what WebMaker does.

From [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.we...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.webmaker)

> Mozilla Webmaker transforms Web users into Web makers. You can build > original content like scrapbooks, photo galleries, memes, comic strips and > more. The app's unique and flexible design makes telling your story simple > and intuitive. Webmaker is free, open-source and independent.

So, it's a mobile app that makes it easy for non-specialist consumers to create web content using only their mobile devices.

<comment><USER5> That was still vague to me so I downloaded the app and I tried it out.

Heavy emphasis on the non-specialist. So you have these cards that you can add text, buttons linking to another card, or an image to. You can add a card adjacent (up,dowm,left,right) to the card you're on and keep growing in any direction. The buttons can link to any card.

It reminds of a program I use on an old Macintosh back in the early early 90's where you would create a "page" and "buttons" that would link to other pages (HyperCard?), but much more basic.

You share your creation and it sends a link hosted on webmaker.org.

Here's a test: [https://beta.webmaker.org/#/project?user=461534&project=8976](https://beta.webmaker.org/#/project?user=461534&project=8976)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mozilla should've put videos up front. Here are some I found:

[https://vimeo.com/127446372](https://vimeo.com/127446372)

[https://vimeo.com/128600026](https://vimeo.com/128600026)

First question everyone will ask is "What about hosting?" As best as I can tell Mozilla hosts the content at a subdomain of makes.org.

<comment><USER2> Correct. (note: I believe none of our users have asked that ;-), but I appreciate that HN cares about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can someone explain where the hell the content is stored? I'm tired of chasing vapid text that explains nothing. Why can't you take 10 min before blasting the PR to setup something that explains anything at all? I mean, seriously:

[https://webmaker.org/](https://webmaker.org/)

The "Privacy" link is generic and also doesn't explain anything.

How in hell do you think you can launch a social service without answering any of these questions in this day and age? Have you learned nothing from the Hello rollout?

<comment><USER8> Maybe this could be helpful:

[https://github.com/mozilla/webmaker- android](https://github.com/mozilla/webmaker-android)

[EDIT] - Had the wrong link up before, was to the repo for the _website_

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think a quick 30 second or 2 minute video would go a long way towards clarifying the point of this app. I'm a big fan of Mozilla, but the communication here seems unclear. As far as I can tell, this app allows you to create a small hyperlinked mobile app/"site" with picture and text content to share with friends.

</comment><comment><USER10> I downloaded the app, signed up and played with it. This is from the welcome email - "Welcome to Mozilla Webmaker! Thank you for joining us to discover, create and share the Web. I'm looking forward to seeing what you create."

Still not sure what it does. :-(

<comment><USER11> digital scrapbooking.

i think the only big difference from all the other scrapbooking apps, is that this one is open source, polished, and promoted with minorities to the point of being obnoxious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It lets you design a sub-app, screen by screen. On each screen, you can put text, picture, button/links. Link destination must be within the sub-app.

Every time Mozilla gets a product out, I hope it's a privacy-aware social network, with no full-name or single-account policy, with little centralization, which doesn't require installing MongoDB (Disapora I'm looking at you), where I could share some pics. I'll have to wait for the next round ;)

<comment><USER2> Hi there. David Ascher here, from Mozilla.

* No Real Names requirement. * I think we have a single account per email address, but I don't think that's what you mean. Also, you can likely use +whatever on your email addresses if you really want to.

As to centralization -- I'm as worried about centralization of the net as Brewster Kahle, but that's as yet an unsolved problem, and not the one we're tackling with Webmaker. We're (just?) trying to make an app that makes it easy for people new to the internet to see that they can create web content, not just consume it, even if all they have is a low-end android phone and low literacy. The app storage architecture is centralized today, but I'd be happy to explore ways to federate it, once we get to the point where it we've confirmed the app is attractive to its main audience.

TLDR: Sorry, this isn't the droid you're looking for =)

<comment><USER13> Why don't you even use Persona on your own sites? :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The description of this product sounds like it was created from a buzzword startup generator, to the point that I assumed it was a parody or satire until I read the comments here. It would really benefit the article to just include a plain text description on what the app is and what it does.

</comment><comment><USER15> I can't explain why but I like this, and I've been checking the timeline a few times today.

</comment><comment><USER16> This might be freaking awesome, but I just don't quite understand what it does, even after installing.

I guess it creates web content (ie. a web page), judging from its name (and coming from Mozilla). But how can I find these web pages? What's the URL?

</comment><comment><USER17> After trying it a bit, this could be very useful for quickly prototyping mobile application workflow.

</comment><comment><USER18> Good to know that I'm not the only one that have no idea what is the problem solved by this.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't seem to understand, is this a blogging platform? Any video that explains this?

<comment><USER20> It's to help people whose main or only access to the web is (smart)phones to learn how to make web sites. There is a Webmaker program for desktop browser users already. A combination of tools, documentation, and curriculum as I understand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So is this Web Content the app helps people create accessible from a browser?

</comment><comment><USER21> Good read! Now, we have the focus somewhere shifting towards localization of portable devices and having them available to mass audience.</comment>


Craft Cocktail Mixer Curated Box - <AUTHOR>

Any craft cocktail nerds or enthusiasts out there? A friend with many years in restaurants as a bartender and chef is working on a curated craft cocktail mixer quarterly box. Wondered if we could get some feedback. <comment><AUTHOR> Its a subscription box with essentially everything you described. We're trying to keep the alcohol content as low as possible for now. Will definitely include recipes and not especially seasonal with regards to holidays but more artisanal, seasonal with regards to ingredients. The first box should be ready end of July/beginning of August (but will start taking orders next week), will include 4-5 full sized mixers (bitters, tinctures, syrups, hydrosol, waters, ginger beer). We'll be moving into liqueurs and vermouths later. If you'd like, hit me up at firstname.lastname@example.com, can give you more info.

</comment><comment><USER2> Is this a one and done thing, or a subscription? Personally I'm interesting in trying craft / small batch bitters, unusual secondary ingredient liquor / liqueurs, as well as different non alcoholic mixers. You may run into legal problems if you mail alcohol in some states. Including recipes of drinks that can be made with shipped ingredients would also be useful.

If this is more a seasonal / gift item, I would suggest including any specialized bar tools needed for the cocktail or specialty glassware.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've thought about executing something similar with friends. I think there's a market for it—but the question is how big you think it can be?

ie: Birch Box works (sort of), because they're not paying for their merch samples. Would be great to try and make that happen for yourself.

Also, I think there are _a lot_ of complications involved in shipping hard liquor across state lines. The alternative is to only be sending mixers and not liquor, which doesn't seem like as big of an idea.</comment>


Go and Save – Productivity Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.krten.com/~rk/coding/gosave.html <comment><USER2> link not working for me</comment>


Opendoor is cutting 35% of its employees - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/15/softbank-backed-opendoor-has-announced-a-massive-layoff-cutting-35-of-its-employees/ <comment><USER2> I keep seeing "SoftBank-backed ..." in TC headlines, but rarely other funds. Is it just fashionable to bash SoftBank?

<comment><USER3> Yes it is. They backed a couple hilariously bad bets in a big, public way, and people like feeling smarter than rich strangers.

I would be curious, though, if there are other funds with similar scope and track records to Vision 1 that have just managed to skate under public scrutiny thus far.

<comment><USER4> > They backed a couple hilariously bad bets in a big, public way, and people > like feeling smarter than rich strangers.

The two things are related. The public visions for these companies went beyond the standard startup platitudes about 'making the world a better place'. Regular people can see through that, because they don't live in an SV bubble where playing along with this sort of hubris is encouraged.

I don't think anyone thinks they're smarter than Softbank or Adam Neumann. They may just be enjoying the schadenfreude of this hubris come crashing back to earth once reality entered the picture.

<comment><USER5> > I don't think anyone thinks they're smarter than Softbank or Adam Neumann.

With all the armchair investing going on, you would think otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> All the ibuyer companies won't make it. Nationwide downturn in house prices and all the inventory these companies are holding are underwater. Zillow and Redfin are more than likely done. Zillow maybe holding 60,000 homes.

We never learn our lesson. GE was taken out by their financial division and high risk bets.

<comment><USER7> " Nationwide downturn in house prices" there's nothing certain about that happening. Look at 2001. It may.. but all the free money being thrown will prop up prices some. Plus supply in the tank because people aren't moving.

[https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2018/06/real-house- prices...](https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2018/06/real-house-prices-and- price-to-rent.html?m=1)

<comment><USER6> Lenders have already tightened up loan requirements which will decrease the demand part of the equation. It is the same thing that happened during the great recession. People may want to buy, but have no ability to do so. There's also the high unemployment rate and foreign investors liquidating inventory for capital because their country is also going through a downturn. All the ibuyers have stopped purchasing. If the stock market drops, 10% of buyers who use their 401k or IRA for their downpayment will probably dry up.

I don't see any situation where the housing market doesn't drop.

<comment><USER8> That said I believe the drop after 2008 should have been more significant. The massive amount of cash the government pumps into markets, it allows massive amounts of dark/shadow inventory that would cause further price drops if the market was transparent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel like the amount of subliminal shitposting within an article is increasing as this goes on. What did that sentence about Florida have to do with anything? They are on a statewide lockdown.

<comment><USER10> > They are on a statewide lockdown.

Apparently not. But I agree this remark is out of place.

<comment><USER11> What makes you think they aren't? The statewide lockdown was announced a while ago, and as far as I know, has not been lifted.

<comment><USER12> The fact that they deemed live pro wrestling an "essential business" is one thing that shows they might not be taking their statewide "lockdown" seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can I ask a stupid question?' I kind of did a Rip Van Winkle and stopped reading Techcrunch for eight years. Back in the day I would email Alexia and she would take the story tip and write a cool article. Is TC 100% pay to play nowadays? I know so many people who submit press releases to them and they get auto-deleted. What gives?

<comment><USER14> I don't know much about their readership numbers but I stopped reading them as well roughly 8 or so years ago. Maybe their readership broadened and even increased?

<comment><USER13> It's still good but it seems more like focusing on publicly traded companies. I'm not bashing them, I just don't see the "weird Internet" or "weird startup" content anymore. But then Quibi ships and you see nothing but Quibi for a few days. It's just not how I remembered TC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Companies with marginal business models are going to get slaughtered in the next year. Carvana, Opendoor are probably the most well known of these companies.

Opendoor's business model was super questionable from the get-go: who's going to sell you their home for less than market value? How can you then do something to turn that around and profit without basically turning the company into a giant high-risk flipping enterprise?

<comment><USER16> [https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth- emulat...](https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth-emulating/)

This is an amazing read, and I still think it is a worthy model, during stable times.

<comment><USER17> > As interest rates rise or housing prices fall

Well that aged like milk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Damn, this list keeps growing and growing ... [https://layoffs.fyi/tracker/](https://layoffs.fyi/tracker/)

<comment><USER19> Yes, but stocks are ripping higher on much worse jobless claims, housing starts, and Philly Fed numbers than expected, 113 unexplained cases of reinfection in South Korea, and the PPP fund being completely tapped out with three weeks to go in Congress' recess.

The market is fully convinced that everything is fixed.

<comment><USER20> That's not what the "market thinks" at all. The stock market is much more complicated than you assume it is. But if you want a really simple explication: 4t$ more in circulation chasing the same amount assets, interest rates make it non viable to hold bonds, and you don't want to buy bonds anyways if you expect a more inflationary economy. If there's expectations of inflation, you go for stocks and if there's inflation AND 0 interest rate, you RUN for stocks.

You can also think of it this way, retail investors can afford staying in cash indefinitely but make up a tiny portion of the capital. Big money NEEDS to either buy bonds or park their capital in any yielding asset. Right now treasuries offer safety but negative real yields for probably a long time. But a pension fund still needs to generate returns to pay it's beneficiaries. So what's the best and cheapest option right now, by far? Stocks. You have to keep in mind that prices are relative so if stocks are _relatively_ cheaper than bonds you buy stocks. Now add 4t$ to that and you get a stock market that stays strong _even_ if everyone in the market knows the huge economic risks we are facing right now.

Never assume that a whole entire sector that has so much incentives to price in all the available data would just ignore something because they feel like it. I don't get how people really believe that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Tech crunch snarkiness at it's worst.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised this got to the front page with a few upvotes. These days it's either the news about the Corona virus or that one of the companies that SoftBank has invested in is announcing a layoff. These days every other company is announcing layoffs or salary cuts.

</comment><comment><USER23> Another Softbank great idea.

</comment><comment><USER24> Everybody hates SoftBank nowadays, it's not even cool anymore, lol

</comment><comment><USER13> More like.. Closeddoor. (•_•) / ( •_•)>⌐■-■ / (⌐■_■)</comment>


Wikileaks' DNS service suspended - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/12/wikileaks-loses-its-dns-servic.php

<comment><USER2> Lieberman's actions are going to make things worse because he's taking something that is out-in-the-open -- which means is can be seen, understood, analyzed, and managed -- and forcing it to go underground where the government has even less control. This is going to backfire. I "get" censoring the publication of classified information, but shutting down DNS access from the USA? What is that going to solve except to make information available to everyone but us Americans? I wonder if he understands that. And I wonder if he understands the momentum he's giving to a shadow DNS service that he'll have zero control over. And if he thinks this will give him the momentum he needs to run for president in 2012, then I'm afraid he's probably right. :-(

<comment><USER3> I doubt Lieberman knows anything about DNS and don't see how any of this is related beyond WikiLeaks being involved in both. everydns.net revoked the entry because DDoS attacks were affecting their other customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is bad precedent for any site under a large-scale DDoS attack.

The DDoS attack undermines the viability of other customers so your service must be terminated?</comment>


Repeat After Me: Location is a Feature, not a Product - <AUTHOR> http://venturefizz.com/blog/repeat-after-me-%E2%80%9Clocation%E2%80%9D-feature-not-product

<comment><USER2> Repeat After Me: most people are lemmings and will believe whatever you tell them. One mans Feature is another mans Product.

The game ain't over till it's over, and right now everything is still in a discovery phase as it relates to facebook, twitter, foursquare, etc.

And lastly: Pundit early, pundit often.</comment>


Ask HN: Masters or Side Projects? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, long time lurker first time poster.
I'm struggling with the decision to pursue a masters in Information Technology Decision Science or dedicate time to working on projects and putting together a portfolio of work if you will.
I currently work at a very large company and find the culture there less than desirable. I'm looking for advice from a group I generally respect.
Thanks <comment><USER2> There isn't a reason why you can't work work/go to school while putting a portfolio together. I think if you're going back to school you need to have specific reasons i.e. it will definitely increase your salary or allow you to move up in management. In my opinion school is overrated.

</comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr: skip school, work on your portfolio at your own pace

Without getting into an anti-higher-ed rant, the cost of going to school (tuition + opportunity cost of not-working) is not offset by the benefit of knowledge + credentials.

You could also try to find work at a smaller company/start-up where you might take a relatively junior role that would enable you to get some professional experience doing "Information Technology Decision Science" (not quite sure what that means, by the way). In any case, employers place more value on real experience vs school in most cases.</comment>


LA tunnel rides at 150 mph for $1: summary of Elon Musk's Boring Company talk - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2018/l-tunnel-rides-1-six-takeaways-elon-musks-boring-company-talk/ <comment><USER2> Skid row 2.0 here we come.</comment>


Ask HN: Can I send customers items from Amazon or Ebay from my personal account? - <AUTHOR>

I had an idea that would entail visitors to my website to make a purchase using their credit card, and I would then fulfil it from Amazon or other online retailers, using my own methods of payment. (It's a little more complicated than that, but this is the aspect I'm looking for advice on.)<p>Will that work as is? Will Amazon/Ebay allow me to spend from my personal account and credit card to random addresses in many other states? Or do I need to order the items myself and ship them separately, which would make this much harder?<p>(I'm not worried about the fees. I'd rather not explain exactly what I'm referring to until I actually launch it.) <comment><USER2> A few months ago, I had to order about 130 copies of the same book from amazon.com all of them to be delivered to a different address, but paid from the same CC.

While the orders went through, Amazon didn't like this and eventually sent us an email roughly saying to stop doing this (which we did, it was a 1 time thing)

It was a PITA, having to enter in each of the addresses, going through the checkout process 130 times, etc... but was easier then having all 130 shipped to my address, then re-packing them and mailing them out individually.

I don't think I'd build any kind of business around doing it this way; they appear to not like it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you perhaps send me a copy of that email (with identifying details blocked out if you want?) It would hopefully mention which part of terms doesn't allow it.

Also, would ordering it as a gift make any difference?

<comment><USER2> I don't think ordering as a gift makes a difference. The email, below.

Hello,

We're writing to you because we have concerns regarding the ordering behavior on your Amazon.com account with an Amazon Prime membership. The shipping activity by you or your invitees is similar to patterns we've seen when Amazon Prime is used for reselling (as described in our Terms & Conditions).

This e-mail is a courtesy notice, and no action is being taken at this time. We encourage you to continue using your Amazon Prime Membership according to our Terms and Conditions, which you can view here:

www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=13819201

If future activity on your account continues to follow a pattern consistent with reselling or shipping to customers, we may terminate your membership without refund and without further warning.

If you think you received this message in error, or would like to clarify the order activity, please contact us directly at email@example.com.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding.

Best regards,

Account Specialist. Amazon.com

<comment><AUTHOR> That seems specifically Prime, which I don't have and isn't important to my idea.

The page linked says

>Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental, or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits.

I can't find similar language in the regular terms.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Artificial Intelligence Outperforms Average High School Senior - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/11/04/artificial-intelligence-outperforms-average-japanese-high-school-senior/

<comment><USER2> Which says a lot more about our zombie-like ways of measuring "performance" in human beings (and in high school students especially), than whether AI is actually catching up on us in any meaningful sense. (If a high school student bombed that one multiple-choice example, most likely it's because they were fatigued at the testing process itself -- it's hard to imagine them making any of the wrong choices given in an actual, real-life setting).

</comment><comment><USER3> Contrary to my assumption that this is about people in the USA, the title mentions "Average High School Senior" but means Japanese High School student that is applying to the "Japan's standardized college entrance test".</comment>


Confusion about GDPR and logless webservers - <AUTHOR> Hi all!
I intend to run a simple website on a VPS using an Apache web-server.
My plan is to disable logging completely. All pages on the website will be static and the website will not utilise cookies. No personal data pertaining to visitors will be stored on persistent storage under my control.
Initially I thought this would exclude me as a data controller under the GDPR, so I drafted a privacy policy explaining how I would store no personal data pertaining to visitors, etc.
After closer inspection, it seems that the act of collecting the IP address of an EU data subject to respond to HTTP requests would make me a data controller, even if I don't store that IP address in a log.
Something about my interpretation of the GDPR seems off.
If I understand correctly, I would need to provide contact details in the privacy policy and respond to requests to be forgotten, requests for access, etc.
If someone sends me an email requesting to be forgotten, they've just provided me with their email address and any other personal data they include in the content, so suddenly I'm storing their personal data and would have to respond and delete it.
Similarly, if someone sends me a request for access, their email contains personal data. It seems like I'd have to send them back an email saying "Yes! I hold your personal data. Here it is:" with a copy of their email attached.
It seems as though by providing contact details in the privacy policy of that website and receiving emails about that privacy policy, I'd be processing personal data that I would not have otherwise processed, purely for the purpose of GDPR compliance.
I am sure most will see the irony in this interpretation.
I was wondering if anybody here has dealt with situations like this or has a different interpretation of how the GDPR applies to such websites. <comment><USER2> Would GDPR cover not logging individual requests and sessions but calculating aggregated statistics without keeping per-request, user-identifiable info?

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect it would because personal data needs to be collected in order for such aggregated statistics to be made and collection seemingly counts as processing, but I'm not sure as I do not yet fully understand the GDPR. Sadly I cannot provide any advice on the topic. In the case of my planned website, I will not even be calculating aggregated statistics.</comment></comment>


Marvin Minsky's Homepage - <AUTHOR> http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/ <comment><USER2> An interesting quote from his biography page next to his Perceptrons text:

> ... Many textbooks wrongly state that these limits apply only to networks > with one or two layers, but it appears that those authors did not read or > understand our book! For it is easy to show that virtually all our > conclusions also apply to feedforward networks of any depth (with smaller, > but still-exponential rates of coefficient-growth). Therefore, the popular > rumor is wrong: that Back-Propagation remedies this, because no matter how > fast such a machine can learn, it can't find solutions that don't exist. > Another sign that technical standards in that field are too weak: I've seen > no publications at all that report any patterns that porder- or diameter- > limited networks fail to learn, although such counterexamples are easy to > make!

</comment><comment><USER3> Is Old Man Minsky the only one who still thinks that machines should do AI instead of machine learning? He certainly seemed to believe that in 2007. Who is still on his side?

[http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkives/societyculture/old_man...](http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkives/societyculture/old_man_minsky/)

<comment><USER4> Machine-learning is a kind of AI, right? Assuming you mean human-style general intelligence, it's more interesting to me since it helps us understand ourselves, and we have a working model to work from.

<comment><USER3> No, ML is basically stats when you have lots of computing power. Classical AI tackled very different kinds of problems. There used to be a "war" of ideas between connectionists (which kind of turned into ML when neural networks no longer tried to be remotely biological) and computationalists, which is where Minsky would probably be closer to. He wants us to understand how minds work in order to model them better.

With ML you don't really try to understand. You throw a dumb and simple-minded algorithm at lots of data and get back good results. You don't try to model all of the complexities of an intelligent problem.

So, no, I would not say ML is a kind of AI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone have opinions on his "The Emotion Machine"? I'd read "The Society of Mind" as a teenager and it was hugely influential on me—but I read a few pages of Emotion Machine last year, it felt very different, and I ended up not continuing.

<comment><USER6> It was designed to be more continuous, and flowy. I believe Marvin, during one lecture, mentioned that a younger audience preferred it.

I don't compare the two. They are different presentations of an idea. I find reading them to be a great way to think deeper, and ask better questions about, the ideas abstracted.

Whenever I read TSoM and EM, I always feel like I missed so much -- this feeling seems to only increase read after read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why would you put your relative's homepages and email addresses on your homepage? It strikes me as strange, but I'm sure there's a sensible reason.

<comment><USER8> You wouldn't understand because you didn't experience the web when it was new and friendly. Before we littered it with cat pictures, we had links to family and friends pages. We had our email on it too before the spam wars.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. Also there was no facebook, twitter, type services. If someone got an account some place to create a website (like say a university professor), that was rather special and they would also use it to host their family's pictures, maybe have a section for his wife's cake decorating hobby and so on.

<comment><USER10> I think it was even before Facebook, remember how everything was completely public at first (and by first I meant when it was already launched globally, just before it became a hype). I remember being utterly surprised seeing all girls (I know) phone numbers out in the clear. So I guess we were already not naive anymore about the web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The minimalist HTML style reminds me of Stallman's site

[https://stallman.org/](https://stallman.org/)

<comment><USER12> Pretty much everyone in academia does this, because they know how to make functional, timeless websites that are compatible with all devices and browsers in the present, past, and future, all while maintaining their busy schedule. (Or perhaps they just don't know beyond basic HTML.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The videos of Minsky's lectures on Society of Mind are on youtube

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pb3z2w9gDg&list=PLUl4u3cNGP...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pb3z2w9gDg&list=PLUl4u3cNGP61E-vNcDV0w5xpsIBYNJDkU)

</comment><comment><USER14> Not to complain, but I find it surprising that the web pages for such prominent academics/people are often so ugly. Why not pay some web designer to spruce it up? Or maybe have the department/school use a nice template? Seems worth it to me.

<comment><USER15> This already _is_ a nice template. Plain text that responds well to zooming by the user; default colors that are easy to read and make links obvious; a few important images that are large enough to see, but don't take up half the screen like some sites' banners. If you prefer white-on-black text and have a user stylesheet for it (which I do), the site responds well to that too, without any nested <div>s or background-image:s complicating things (unlike some). I don't think that HTML5 web fonts or a whitespace-heavy designer template would aid in conveying any of the brief and well-organized information on the page.

See also: [http://justinjackson.ca/words.html](http://justinjackson.ca/words.html) and [http://motherfuckingwebsite.com](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com).

(The only thing I would add to either of those is this bit of CSS: body{max- width:900px;margin:0 auto;} to make it easier to read on wide screens.)

<comment><USER10> Similarly Oleg Kiselyov repository of wonders:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20080303222623/http://okmij.org/f...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080303222623/http://okmij.org/ftp/)

He added a ~sidebar~ since, now it's all ugly. /s</comment></comment></comment>


A Brief History of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX3ZABCdC38 <comment><USER2> A much better video about the same topic:

[https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of- javascript)</comment>


Show HN: Best Remote XYZ jobs found in the World this week - <AUTHOR> https://blog.noicejobs.com/best-remote-jobs-found-between-sep-04-and-sep-11/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN!

Some months ago I shared ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500588)) a bot I made that finds and curates the best remote jobs and posts them on Telegram channels. More than 500 people joined and the comments were generally good

Now I've created a blog and newsletter where I'll be sharing the best jobs found every week the week for 50+ categories.

I'd love to hear your feedback on it to make it better. What's what you like the least about it?</comment>


The Free Software Foundation's Reaction to the iPad Launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsf.org/news/ibad_launch

<comment><USER2> I've not looked into the details of Steve Job's letter on DRM and the eventual droping of DRM from iTunes but this quote, "John Sullivan said, "Our Defective by Design campaign has a successful history of targeting Apple over its DRM policies. We organized actions and protests targeting iTunes music DRM outside Apple stores, and under the pressure Steve Jobs dropped DRM on music." seems like they are over stating their impact on the issue.

<comment><USER3> More on the dbd protest:

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/27/defective_by_design/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if anyone at the FSF realizes how unprofessional their iPad -> iBad conversion and other similar slogans sound. It makes it hard to take them seriously.

<comment><USER5> As a FSF member, I can tell you that their entire (print!) newsletter has the tone of a DPRK press release. Interestingly, the last actual piece that I read by RMS was considerably more reasonable -- it concerned the licensing of Javascript AJAX code running on your local machine.

<comment><USER6> This is really frustrating. I'm more-or-less idealogically aligned with the FSF, but feel like they've been doing more harm than good for a bit, especially as far as how these ideals are perceived goes.

I think they need a nice healthy dose of pragmatism, but I can't think of an effective way for them to get it.

This problem is common to groups of people aligned with more fringe or extreme ideals, and it's really annoying to deal with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Organizing the protest, Free Software Foundation (FSF) operations manager John Sullivan said, "Our Defective by Design campaign has a successful history of targeting Apple over its DRM policies. We organized actions and protests targeting iTunes music DRM outside Apple stores, and under the pressure Steve Jobs dropped DRM on music..."

Yeah, I'm sure that's why they dropped DRM from the iTunes store.

edit: formatting.

</comment><comment><USER8> This sounds incredibly snarky, but I always feel conflicted on this sort of thing. I like free software a lot and identify philosophically with the movement, but I also like high-quality software that actually works and is designed for real people.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like you're saying free software isn't quality software.

Some of the most robust, secure, and _least-surprise_ software is free.

Can't have the good without the bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> And does anyone who is actually going to buy the iPad care? Of course not.

<comment><USER11> A better question would be whether Apple's increasingly laughable control freakery puts any potential buyers off. I know it does because I am such a potential buyer.

<comment><USER12> I don't think it does. I am a potential buyer, and I could care less about the "openness" of the product.

I actually see it as a good thing more than bad however. With a PC, every time I run a new program, or get an upgrade, buy a new device, etc, I never know what to expect. With Apple, there's no question. It almost feels "safe".

<comment><USER11> I don't feel safe with Apple. They deleted all my music from my iPod without asking just because I inserted it into the wrong Mac. I guess Apple fans will be able to explain to me how this is really an ease of use feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The FSF has their own ideology they want you to follow -- Apple, specifically Steve Jobs, has an ideology he wants you to follow. As a consumer I don't see an OSS iPad alternative that has the same features & quality so my choice is pretty easy. If the FSF, and others, want to promote OSS/DRM free devices they need to step it up and offer real quality alternatives.

<comment><USER14> Steve Jobs doesn't want you to follow an ideology. He wants you to buy his products. Don't confuse the two things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> <http://i.imgur.com/nUtZK.jpg>

<comment><USER16> Wow, how wrong that picture is. There are lots of free applications for Mac and iPhone (and now iPad).

iTunes has a nice way to share your library, and you can basically drag and drop music from other computer onto yours.

"Remotely disable your apps and media" — did that happen to anyone?

In other words: FUD.

<comment><USER17> _"Remotely disable your apps and media" — did that happen to anyone?_

Users who downloaded applications which Apple later pulled from the store (e.g, NetShare) specifically reported that the app continued to work on their phone. If Apple does have the ability to remotely disable applications and/or media, they have made a point (so far) of not exercising it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Much respect for their work, but the FSF really needs to tone down the puns. "iPad is iBad"? Really?

<comment><USER19> They should stop complaining and release an UbuntuPad!

<comment><USER20> Or rather a gnuPad. (Ubuntu and the FSF don't share organizational structures.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Do we have any confirmation that you can't put non-iBookstore books on the iPad?

I'm not really sure why Apple putting DRM on media they sell is an issue as long as they also allow non-DRM'd stuff to work just as well.

<comment><USER22> There's the Stanza app that can download Project Gutenberg books... Presumably that will continue to work on the iPad...

<comment><USER23> Stanza is great, there is also GoodReader for PDF's, Wattpad, Amazon's Kindle app and the Barnes and Noble reader among others. Some of them have their own DRM, but there is definitely still choice.

<comment><USER22> (plus Amazon now actually owns Stanza).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here's where the FSF errs:

 _All media in the iTunes store (with the one exception of music) is DRM_ : well, I'd say music is one giant exception, since that's what 90% of its users buy from that store.

 _All applications must be signed by Apple, an unprecedented level of control for a general purpose computer_ : that's the point, it's not meant to be a general purpose computer, it's meant to be a device that lets you browse the web, read books and watch movies.

</comment><comment><USER25> God bless Richard Stallman!

</comment><comment><USER26> iPad = iBad? Have they been getting slogan advice from PETA or something?

</comment><comment><USER27> Let's not forget that Apple is revolutionizing the world. Even if their products are bad for consumers in that they restrict with DRM, have higher costs, use proprietary technology, etc... they are sparking a huge huge change in the world of technology. Android is a great example of this.

This is the good ol' military industrial complex but in a consumer electronics sense. Companies are competing and innovating, and we have to thank Apple for much of that. In the end we are the people who will benefit, with lower cost devies and better software. Even the carriers are attacking each other now on prices for the best 3G network (VZW & ATT).

<comment><USER28> Even though I don't own any Apple products, I'm still glad they are around for this reason. More competition in the marketplace is good for me, the consumer, which should go without saying.

However, I'm not sure Android is a good example of your point. I think Android had been in the works for many years before the iphone was released (see: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Hist...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_\(operating_system\)#History)). In fact, Apple multi-touch patents are holding it back at the moment.</comment></comment>


Row in America over gay characters in EA video games - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17661888 <comment><USER2> This is an astroturf campaign by EA.

Discussion of its debunking here: [http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/s2anx/make_sure_ever...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/s2anx/make_sure_everyone_sees_this_image_and/)

<comment><USER3> Wow, posting from North Korea. Amazing.

      "No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Absolutely false. Specifically it's about a homosexual relationship in Mass Effect 3, which is an obvious lie considering the first two games also had homosexual relationships.

They're just trying to counteract being named the worst company in America by The Consumerist: [http://consumerist.com/2012/04/congratulations-ea-you-are- th...](http://consumerist.com/2012/04/congratulations-ea-you-are-the-worst- company-in-america-for-2012.html)

</comment><comment><USER5>
      [The Florida Family Association] says there are no gay characters in the
      Star Wars films and describes the inclusion of LGBT
      (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) elements as
      "propaganda".

How can anyone possibly make the argument that allowing free choice of romantic partner in an RPG is "propaganda"? It seems very strange to me.</comment>


Would HN freelancers mind sharing your resumes? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a freelancer who's well has dried up. I'm just looking for examples of other fresslancer's resumes. Specifically, freelancers who have done a lot of internal work for companies and can't show the actual apps or code to potential companies. Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> I don't understand the request for freelancers to have resumes. I have always pushed back and attempted to provide the company with a statement of work about what I would do for them. I understand you want to make sure I am qualified, but unlike employees with a freelancer your paying for services rendered, if I am not rendering the services you need you don't pay.

<comment><AUTHOR> The phrase 'well has dried up' meant that I'm no longer looking to freelance, I'm trying to apply to salaried positions and was hoping for some examples from other freelancers who have been in a similar position.</comment></comment>