Selling Juicer - <AUTHOR> https://www.goddamnyouryan.com/blog/selling-juicer/ <comment><USER2> Entertaining anecdote that didn't make it into the blog post: people sometimes mistook us (juicer.io) for Juicero, you know, the infamous $400 machine that squeezed a juice packet. The day the Juicero news blew up, we got some especially hateful posts on our Facebook page.

<comment><USER3> That's what I thought I was going to read about before clicking through to the article! (I didn't quite remember the thing's name.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is much higher quality than most of the stuff that gets to the front page. Awesome stuff.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Being employed by someone is by its very definition, an exploitative > relationship, even if your job is great. Your employer can only afford to > hire you if you make more money than you cost [] so no matter what, you are > getting paid less than your true value.

Weird fallacy. If I am paid to dig ditches in Haiti, is my true value different from digging ditches in Monaco?

The amount someone brings in depends on their context: what organisation, what country, what city.

We don't have a "true value".

<comment><USER6> It's a hoot when you hear someone say something like that. I mean, nobody works in a vacuum. The boss used her capital and labor to put in place all the resources that enable you to work, and has to use his capital and labor to maintain a going concern, and deserves to earn something for their labor as well as a return on risked capital which is a risk you as the worker don't take. I'm pretty happy to take a salary and go home at the end of the day without having to worry about losing my entire investment due to the vagaries of business or an employee's bad attitude.

<comment><USER7> > The boss used her capital and labor to put in place all the resources that > enable you to work

Capital accrued through the exploitation (yes, that's the legal and technical term) of labour.

There is 0 evidence that we wouldn't have a more productive society overall, if capital was more uniformly distributed across society; enabling more individuals to work for themselves or in co-ops.

Capitalist organisation structures are a pyramid with a very small few at the top collecting the vast majority of generated value. I don't think even the staunchest capitalism proponents can argue that a CEO no matter how good, is generating millions of times more value than a line worker at any org. Yet that's the kind of income deltas we see.

And we already know what happens when capitalist orgs reach a certain size. Rent seeking. They direct their resources towards preventing anyone else from competing in their niche through regulation and other barriers to entry. 'Why don't you go off and do your own thing?' Because it takes several million dollars to overcome the barrier to entry and even take a shot in any profitable industry. Exactly the kind of capital that average people don't have with the currently massively skewed wealth distribution curve.

If everyone suddenly had 5m in their bank accounts, you can bet your ass of millions of people would quit their jobs and go off to start their own things.

tl;dr: your employer isn't doing you any favours by hiring you and exploiting your labour. The fact that they happen to possess the capital necessary to profitably exploit you while you don't, doesn't turn them into a charity.

<comment><USER8> So can we equeate the term 'offering employment' to 'offering exploitation'?

Unless exploited by force (slavery). The employed/expolited are free to find their true value by alternavtive means? Find another job - less exploitive, or make your own job.

There are many problems with capitalism, I would argue taxation, or more appropriately lack of taxation is a greater concern.

As for the scenario if everyone had 5m in their accounts in the morning, only the most foolish would quit their jobs as inflation would render the windfall as null and void.

We all cannot be equally well-off. Value will always flow, and eventually concentrate.

<comment><USER7> 57% of all americans have less than 1 paycheck worth of savings in their bank. They don't have the option to shop around for other work or invest in personal growth to attain their 'true value'. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery)

> We all cannot be equally well-off. Value will always flow, and eventually > concentrate.

And eventually revolutions topple the structures where value has concentrated when wealth disparity gets too big, and the cycle begins again. After several risen and fallen civilisations/empires, maybe its time to try something other than the one strategy that we for sure know the outcome of.

We don't need to be all equally well off, but we do need to compress the top and bottom 10% of the income disparity curve. No one on this planet should have billions of dollars in personal wealth, and no one on this planet should be too poor to afford shelter healthcare and food.

<comment><USER8> You've changed your comment while I was typing: youu mentioned a delta between CEOs and average workers. But we're likely to share common ground. Your new comment regarding revolutions. Not so fast!

The Chinese sufffered the same problems of inequallity and the plebs made the same comparisons - for centuries.

So a delta is to be expected, the magnatude I'm not sure if that matters as CEOs are outliers. I think the point you are leaning to is:

despite working full time, the average US resident cannot afford what we perceive to be a 'good quality of life' (many people from developing countries will find that statement hard to believe). This is subjective, and not likely an issue of labour being exploitative.

It is a question on what type of a society Americans want (and vote for), which is an entirely different discussion covering taxation, education, health care, corpotate political donations/lobbying etc.

From a market perspective the delta represents supply and demand.

<comment><USER7> I didn't change my comment. The only edit I made was to separate a para for formatting. Maybe you were reading something else.

From a market perspective the delta has nothing to do with supply/demand. Microeconomics and supply/demand theory doesn't really have any answers to the fact that wealth and power tends to acrete. The textbook answer will be along the lines of 'but then smaller more agile entities will arise that displace the incumbents' but the incumbents have long ago figured out strategoes such as rent seeking to prevent that.

Capitalism is fundamentally broken in several clear ways:

* It assumes that individuals are rational actors who are sufficiently informed to make generally optimal self-interest decisions

* It assumes that there's a force or mechanism to modulate or prevent acretion of wealth. So far the only such mechanism historically has been bloody revolutions

* It assumes that we know the 'true value' of things including externalities. The climate crisis is a huge example of how utterly wrong that is. If car and fossil fuel costs accounted for externalities, they'd cost somewhere in the vicinity of 10-100x more than they currently do. Would that have prevented the boom that led to current quality of life in the developed world? Probably. Would it also have prevented an existential threat to us? Certainly.

The pursuit of continuous growth has become clearly a self-terminal strategy that not only failed multiple times in history before, but is threatening our entire species via anthropogenic climate change now.

I'm advocating that we stop pursuing continuous growth and focus on collapsing the insane wealth disparity and dismantling the structures that have acreted unprecedented wealth and power into the hands of <100 people worldwide.

Someone who acreted sufficient wealth to extract profit from your labour more effectively than you can alone, is not doing you favours, is not being charitable, but merely exploiting you to acrete more wealth to exploit more people ad infinitum.

<comment><USER9> It's only threatening our species coz space research was quite purposefully stalled while old world global political tensions were simmering at their hottest.

Once there is an off-planet colony i expect the resource pressure that is starting to show will ease up considerably. Capturing asteroid/mining other planets for resources - there are a lot of ways for things to course correct. Everything we're facing right now is coz of an artifical bottleneck in our species expansion

It will also render existential threats moot coz there will be off planet resources to rebuild a civilization in case things do go catastrophically wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if there are common best practices on throttling growth for a lifestyle company or bootstrapped startup? I guess it can be as simple as turning off new registrations for periods of time or only allowing invitations at arbitrary times. Has this worked well for any SaaS businesses? Once you hit your financial goals, it could help forestall burnout, but I suppose there's a lot of risk there too - if there's enough unmet demand, someone could replace you.

<comment><USER11> 1) Turn off any explicit advertising/marketing/drip/promotion systems, even if they're automated and profitable — they're hacks that distort your view of the product. Let people sign up, but organic word-of-mouth only.

2) Consider a more relaxed pace of life. Travel widely. The startup world is a microcosm, and if you haven't personally experienced and understood _how people live_ outside of it for several months or years, it's easy to overwork yourself and think it's completely normal. There's a reason "digital nomad" is a thing — a recurring story is that people try it out on a whim or by chance and then get absolutely hooked.

3) If you still want to invest time, what are _you_ personally interested in building into the product?

I think the traditional "talk to your customers" is great for staying grounded and understanding pain points, but you can get stuck in a local maximum. As an engineer/product person, you have a unique insight into what is technically possible in your space, which new technological capabilities will become relevant as time progresses, and the general direction of the market over longer time spans. This is an opportunity to be a long-term thinker and focus on building features or related products that are specifically targeted at highly technical early adopters, so that by the time the idea becomes mainstream, you'll have a substantial head-start.

Be a craftsman and use your skill to more deeply address the problem space.

If you've hit sustainability, are as lean as most bootstrapped lifestyle companies, and churn is not a major issue in general, I think the risk of being replaced by new contenders is actually a very slow-motion risk — people are not so good at changing their habits. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would love to have some reference to selling amount.

It sounds like it was easily over $1m but was it 2-4? 5-10? Very curious.

<comment><USER13> 5x revenue is very good going in this sort of scenario

<comment><USER12> Right, that is in the article, but there is no mention of their revenue unless I missed something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thanks for the writeup - it is great to hear stories of getting bootstrapped from zero - one customer at time.

We do live in wondrous times when this doable for many more people that previously was possible.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great article.

Important takeaways for me -

`Being employed by someone is by its very definition, an exploitative relationship, even if your job is great. Your employer can only afford to hire you if you make more money than you cost (again, with a few exceptions of course) so no matter what you are getting paid less than your true value.`

`It's much, much easier to get to the top, or near the top of the wordpress plugin directory than it is google (essentially it's making sure the description of your plugin has the right keywords, and then you'll be there essentially instantly).`

<comment><USER16> >Your employer can only afford to hire you if you make more money than you cost (again, with a few exceptions of course) so no matter what you are getting paid less than your true value.

This seems like a somewhat simplistic way to view a company. The amount you "make" for the company isn't the same thing as your "true value," because that isn't a real concept. The value you are able to provide changes based on context and objectives. It's leverage in the moment, not "value" in some inherent sense. Do you think every employee in the world should be able to just quit their job and suddenly realize the same return without changing their costs at all?

<comment><USER17> I code, and probably get paid less than I output in value; but what I output would not be nearly as valuable if not for the others that contribute to the company. My boss, having created the initial value, and other investors and shareholders take the overage.

<comment><USER18> This is so important. I used to actually hate the sales team at my very first 'real job'...so much that any time I had to go to the bathroom I would walk down two flights of stairs to pollute the air on their floor. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, this dislike came from their tendency to stretch everything and over- commit to get a sale. It ended up souring my opinion of the entire profession and I had zero respect for it...until I tried it myself. I went through this process a few times until I really came to an understanding of how many different personalities and proclivities it takes to successfully run any company of appreciable size.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As somebody thinking of starting a SaaS soon, this was a great and insightful read. The one thing this does confirm for me, is that the best ideas are those that solve problems you already have (or create tools or services you wish you had, etc.) Well done!

</comment><comment><USER20> Really interesting post, thanks for highlighting all of the inflection points in your journey to sale. Inspired me to think really hard about what pain points I have when I freelance.

</comment><comment><USER21> I seriously read the url as "God Damn Your Yan"

<comment><USER22> Is that not it? Now I feel dumb because I can't see what else it could possibly be.

<comment><USER23> I believe the end is "you Ryan"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> what no numbers? come on</comment>


Serial Port Communication in C#  - <AUTHOR> http://dev.emcelettronica.com/serial-port-communication-c <comment><USER2> I'll never understand the mindset behind windows developers that says: "When starting a project to do some simple low-level task, first throw up a uselessly simple GUI application and put a button on it." I mean, half of this article is about how to use the GUI wizard, just to show off about 10 lines of code.

Beyond that, it's reasonably instructive. I'm happy to know that RS-232 isn't forgotten in the .NET world; there is lots of legacy hardware out with important things to say.

Although I was amused by this bit of hubris in the API design:

      serialPort1.StopBits= StopBits.One;

I'd be curious to hear why the designer felt that the concept of a "stop bit" was so important or complicated that it deserved its own abstraction for the number one. :)

<comment><USER3> It looks like the StopBits enumeration is in place for type-safety. It has the values None, One, Two, and OnePointFive. With just those four values, any representation other than an enumeration would be either inefficient or confusing.

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/system.io.ports.stop...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/system.io.ports.stopbits.aspx)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_start-stop>

<comment><USER2> Not really, no. The "stop bit" is an _asynchronous_ delay inserted between the transition edge of the final bit of a byte and the rising edge of the next start bit. It's a fundamentally analog unit of time that just happens to be measured in "bits". In principle, there could be hardware that wants three stop bits, or 0.7. To the extent that there are only four values, that's purely because of historical convention (and maybe limitations of early PC UARTs, I don't have datasheets handy).

All of which could have been easily and more robustly encapsulated by the use of a float instead of the bizzaro-world enum that they chose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For any low-lever hardware engineers, I can highly recommend using Python. The struct module is by far the easiest way to send and interpret exact bits along a wire.

</comment><comment><USER5> Before you criticize this article as simplistic or unnecessary (arguments about interest to this audience aside), consider that .NET 1.1 didn't have built-in serial port communication. Having spent many hours hacking serial comm in C#, I can say that this would have been a welcome resource, even given its brevity.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The serial port is a serial communication interface through which information transfers in or out one bit at a time.

<comment><USER6> C# is a Java-like language that uses the .NET runtime. Unlike Java, it has first-class functions.

A dog is a four-legged animal that goes woof.

A cow is like a dog, but it's larger, and goes moooooo.</comment></comment>


Organize your Bacon - <AUTHOR> http://www.builtforteams.com

<comment><USER2> Nice little hr app I see. I hope it's everything it's cracked up to be</comment>


Subsonic is no longer opensource - <AUTHOR> http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16604#p71128 <comment><USER2> See also:

[https://github.com/sindremehus/subsonic/issues/1](https://github.com/sindremehus/subsonic/issues/1) and [https://github.com/EugeneKay/subsonic/issues/36](https://github.com/EugeneKay/subsonic/issues/36)</comment>


This Robot Intentionally Hurts People – And Makes Them Bleed - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3059484/mind-and-machine/this-robot-intentionally-hurts-people-and-makes-them-bleed <comment><AUTHOR> From [http://areben.com/project/the-first-law/](http://areben.com/project/the- first-law/) : The first robot to autonomously and intentionally break Asimov's first law, which states: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. The robot decides for each person it detects if it should injure them not in a way the creator can not predict. While there currently are "killer" drones and sentry guns, there is either always some person in the loop to make decisions or the system is a glorified tripwire. The way this robot differs in what exists is the decision making process it makes. A land mine for instance is made to always go off when stepped on, so no decision. A drone has a person in the loop, so no machine process. A radar operated gun again is basically the same as a land mine. Sticking your hand into a running blender is your decision, with a certain outcome. The fact that sometimes the robot decides not to hurt a person (in a way that is not predictable) is actually what brings about the important questions and sets it apart. The past systems also are made to kill when tripped or when a trigger is pulled, hurting and injuring for no purpose is usually seen as a moral wrong. Obviously, a needle is a minimum amount of injury, however – now that this class of robot exists, it will have to be confronted.

<comment><USER2> You have to stick your finger into the machine in order for it to work, which makes it a triggered device. Russian roulette meets the same criteria for "this class of robot" as this machine does.

The machine needs to be able to initiate the interaction between itself and it's potential victim to take the choice out of the human's hands. A roomba with a hat pin taped to it would be a better example than this machine.</comment></comment>


A New, Life-Or-Death Approach to Funding Heart Research - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/health/a-new-life-or-death-approach-to-funding-heart-research.html <comment><USER2> This reads similarly to the arguments in Ben Goldacre's book, _Bad Pharma_ ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma)) - worth a read. The book tackles a number of issues with clinical trials, not just in heart disease, and led to the [http://alltrials.net](http://alltrials.net) campaign:

        Thousands of clinical trials have not reported their
        results; some have not even been registered.
        Information on what was done and what was found in
        these trials could be lost forever to doctors and
        researchers, leading to bad treatment decisions,
        missed opportunities for good medicine, and trials
        being repeated.
        All trials past and present should be registered, and
        the full methods and the results reported.
        We call on governments, regulators and research bodies
        to implement measures to achieve this.</comment>


Azure Digital Twins - <AUTHOR> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/digital-twins/about-digital-twins <comment><USER2> I work in IoT and I have no idea how Azure Digital Twins can be helpful. This is too much advertising talk and not technical enough.</comment>


Big government is the new West Coast craze - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/05/big-government-is-the-new-west-coast-craze/ <comment><USER2> One of the big problems with higher taxes on the rich is that it can create a situation where over 50% of the tax revenue (and sometimes more than this) comes from a handful of wealthy individuals and businesses.

When they leave or there is a downturn in the economy in their industry, there is a massive drop in tax income and the state suffers.

It also puts the wealthy into a much bigger position of power because they can now demand favors in return.

Ikea, a Swedish company, barely pays any Swedish taxes and moved their HQ to the Netherlands. Although the government knows they are getting around the tax laws, they won't do anything about it because a large portion of the Swedish economy (IE: jobs) is reliant on them.

It would be much more beneficial to society if taxes were more evenly distributed, so the majority of the money isn't coming from any one source.

California isn't prospering because of big government, it's prospering in spite of it. If it had a smaller government with less regulations, we would probably see even more prosperity and jobs.

"is a two-pronged attempt to boost growth through more regulation and, yes, higher taxes. It is already winning and already spreading."

Most business owners I know in California are leaving to other states because of both regulations and higher taxes. Regulations have created a situation where housing costs are exploding and $150,000/year is considered barely making it.

The middle class is slowly being squeezed and we will soon have only the very rich and the poor. I don't really want the entire United States in the same situation.</comment>


Show HN: Overview of top cryptocurrencies - <AUTHOR> http://coingenius.io/coins <comment><USER2> Not bad. Do you plan to add more coins in the future? Also, I wouldn't mind seeing HTTPS/Let's Encrypt.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I will be gradually adding more coins. Sure, will add SSL.

<comment><USER2> By the way, I think Stratis also has a partnership with Microsoft now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes but I do not think they have launched anything yet.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Collection of mathematics blogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.mathblogging.org/bytype

<comment><USER2> There's also a good list here:

[http://wiki.henryfarrell.net/wiki/index.php/Mathematics/Stat...](http://wiki.henryfarrell.net/wiki/index.php/Mathematics/Statistics#Number_Theory_.28math.NT.29)

<comment><USER3> That is a very good source, I have had it in my bookmarks for some time. For this site, I have no idea how good it is, all I get is: "Over Quota

"This Google App Engine application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later. "

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm somewhat surprised there's zero articles about the latest supposed P?=NP proof by Romanov. Not that I believe it to be correct, but I would expect some people to at least casually review it.

<comment><USER5> Not really. Why should you 'casually' review it? It still takes about as much time and effort to 'casually' review something and come to a conclusion about it that you're willing to write about and stamp your name on, as it does to do it 'properly'.

Here's a post by Scott Aaronson from the last time something like this happened.

<http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=456>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there something like this for physics ?

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, that's interesting.</comment>


Now: Obama Live Sony Hack - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/president-obama-holds-news-conference

<comment><USER2> 18.5 million consumers in California had their personal info hacked. The population of the state is 38 million. This 38 million figure is allotting for children and other non-internet users like elderly.

Source: [http://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general- kamal...](http://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-kamala-d- harris-releases-data-breach-report-185-million)

Yet, a voluntarily removed movie and yet another hack on company that has historically shown itself not to give one single damn about network security, demands White house attention.</comment>


Ask HN: Quarterly result info of startup after quitting in SV? - <AUTHOR> For an ex-employee with some exercised equity at a SV startup, are they eligible by law to get quarterly results? <comment><USER2> Hahhahahahhahahahahahha.

Yeah, not going to happen.

You probably have common stock with no "information rights."

Buut... if you want to be a bastard, and if it's a CA company, as a shareholder you have the right to "inspect the books and records" of the company. If you call up the CFO and suggest you want to do this, he might give you some reports to keep you satisfied.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Do you happen to know if there is a formal process to do so or just an email would suffice?

<comment><USER2> Where is the co. incorporated?

No formal process.

If CA, write a letter and reference the statute: [http://www.jerryburleson.com/shareholder-demand-for- inspecti...](http://www.jerryburleson.com/shareholder-demand-for-inspection- of-records-in-california-under-corporation-code-%c2%a71601/)

If DE: [http://www.startupblog.com/blog/shareholder-inspection- right...](http://www.startupblog.com/blog/shareholder-inspection-rights-in- delaware)

Obviously DE is more company friendly than CA.

Your best bet is to: 1st) request nicely from the CFO some updates 2) if that doesn't work, flex some inspection rights to get him to give you the updates.

You don't actually want the inspection, and for me it'd take a court order before I allowed it, so your best bet is to play nice and be less of a pain in the ass to get what you want then litigating it.

Let me stress this again, you are a supplicant in this, you are far better off begging and cajoling and politicking with the CFO to get what you want if it's important to you. You have zero leverage.

If I got a request from some random ex-employee shareholder requesting info, I'd say to them "see you in court" guessing that you don't have the $100k's in legal expenses needed to actually force the issue</comment></comment></comment>


Wars, Part 6: The Unraveling - <AUTHOR> https://www.filfre.net/2020/03/the-68000-wars-part-6-the-unraveling/ <comment><AUTHOR> DM admins: please let me edit and repost this</comment>


Running cross-cloud/multi-region serverless functions at half the cost - <AUTHOR> https://serverless.com/blog/running-multi-cloud-functions-at-spot-instance-prices/ <comment><USER2> looking good, no lock-in to a specific cloud provider. does it support python?

<comment><USER3> yes it does: [https://help.spotinst.com/hc/en- us/articles/115004157529](https://help.spotinst.com/hc/en- us/articles/115004157529)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting approach

</comment><comment><USER5> very easy to use compared to other solutions...

</comment><comment><USER3> Looking great.

<comment><USER6> indeed

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting!</comment>


Oh my god, this is the source code review for a certified voting machine - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/802148854875439104 <comment><USER2> As outrageous as this is, it's missing the forest for the trees.

For voting machines to be "secure", not only would there have to be a serious software audit, but also a serious hardware audit (as hardware could otherwise override software). Then you'd have to somehow make sure that it was the said software and no other that was actually running on the hardware. Then you'd have to make sure that the machines were tamper-proof. All of this would have to be done by multiple auditors from each political party.

You'd have to do this for each of the thousand or tens of thousands of voting machines out there. Then you'd have to do the same for the vote counting machines, which are as if not more important than the individual voting machines.

All of this complexity is ridiculous, and taken together I'm sure there'll still be plenty of zero-day vulnerabilities after even serious audits of all of the above.

Just use pen and paper instead.

<comment><USER3> I just focused on the software side of the certification process in this discussion. The hardware analysis is actually not horrible. But there's no discussion about physical break-ins to alter ballots, whereas there's plenty of discussion about hacking and malfeasance.

Agree with paper ballots. Validation should be default part of process.

</comment></comment><comment> marten-de-vries The workings of voting computers are opaque to a large part of the voting population. The sad thing here is that this certification process actually sounds quite good if you do not understand the technical details. In my opinion, voting machines are more trouble than they are worth, simply because of the loss of understanding of the workings of the voting process.

That said, it is always interesting to read analyses like this.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know why people insist on capitalizing words that shouldn't be capitalized, like JAVA.

</comment><comment><USER5> If this skeeves you out, wait until you see the verification process that (US) aerospace and industrial programs have to go through. talk to one in a bar and they'll bluff and bluster about the "verification" and "intense testing" their systems go through but as far as the software goes, at the end of the day, it comes down to basically this.

</comment><comment><USER6> This brings me memories [https://xkcd.com/463/](https://xkcd.com/463/)

</comment><comment><USER7> They turned what should be a build step into a multi-million business. Kudos to them.</comment>


SF is not shrinking - <AUTHOR> https://sf.curbed.com/2018/3/26/17165370/san-francisco-population-2017-census-increase <comment><USER2> Actual title: "San Francisco population swells to more than 884,000"</comment>


Ask HN: Convenient European PaaS out there? - <AUTHOR> For a little bootstrapped project I am searching for a convenient PaaS services for ruby and / or node.js applications. It should support classic web and worker processes. In addition a database service should be included. MySQL or PostgreSQL are fine.
Additional services like logging, easy SSL support, scheduler and others are a nice to have, but could also be solved different.
To meet the local law requirements (no personal data transfer outside europe), it needs to be a service only processing and saving data in Europe. Thats why heroku (non private spaces) is out unfortunately.
Any ideas? <comment><USER2> Check out [https://www.clever-cloud.com/](https://www.clever-cloud.com/)

It's pretty much like a heroku, but significantly higher performance.

The only thing I don't like about it, is the logging system sucks :(

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, will have a look on this one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This looks promising: [https://flow.ch/appengine/](https://flow.ch/appengine/)</comment>


Vegetables in NYC gardens are 'toxic' - <AUTHOR> http://nypost.com/2014/11/16/toxic-veggies-found-in-nycs-community-gardens/ <comment><USER2> > A 55-year-old shopper said she leaves it up to the jolly green giant in the > sky.

> "I buy from the community garden," she said. "I pray before I eat it that > anything in there won't kill me."

These people vote

<comment><USER3> 'best he in the glass house not cast stones'

<comment><USER2> I'm short sighted, I am not welcome in church

(Leviticus 21:18-21)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any, any, permaculture meetup in NY will tell you _emphatically_ not to use the soil in the ground and to build raised beds which is what all sensible gardeners (not farmer) do. Community Gardens get extremely highly quality soil from our composting problems.

There are a few bad actors here, and the NY Post is blowing it out of proportion and creating a scare.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not surprising. Urban gardens are awesome for making a city feel like home, and providing a relaxing escape from stressful city life.

But eating vegetables grown in NYC soil, breathing NYC air? Lets keep the food producing to farming lands outside of dense cities.</comment>


Microsoft Playwright: Automate Chromium, WebKit and Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/microsoft/playwright <comment><USER2> As the FAQ says, this is written by largely the same team as who worked on Puppeteer, who largely moved to MS last year.

That said, I have severe reservations about their claims that it's cross- browser:

They mention WebDriver, and how they hope to "steer it towards the bi- directional communication channel", but they've not at any point tried to engage with the working group, and they've historically actively pushed back against any attempt to standardise CDP or anything very similar to it before (despite CDP already having an ecosystem around it). They were the owners of the CDP protocol within the Chrome team and it was their lack of support for any standardisation that is the reason why there is no standardised protocol today.

They say they support Firefox, but this is support in the same sense as puppeteer-firefox: it relies on a large patch to Firefox, which looks similar to the one written for puppeteer-firefox, and which has no chance of getting landed. It seems like they haven't taken the feedback on-board from when they tried this with puppeteer-firefox: springing a large patch onto the Mozilla community is unlikely going to get accepted, especially when they haven't addressed the architectural concerns raised previously.

They could've engaged with the work that has been happening around Firefox with a duplex testing protocol over the past year, but they haven't, and they've written their own thing in isolation. The fact that Firefox now already has another protocol partly implemented makes it even less likely that their patch and their new protocol will get accepted.

The group now maintaining Puppeteer at Google is actively engaging with those working on WebDriver and actively engaging with the work happening around Firefox which makes it far more likely that Puppeteer in the future will support an unmodified Firefox binary.

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks like an amazing next-step for Puppeteer, and it addresses some of the annoyances too. I generally use a loop that will wait-and-retry when commands fail as it seems like virtually anything can crash in the right circumstances.

> click waits for the element to be available and visible by default

> With Playwright, we encourage setTimeout-free automation

</comment><comment><USER4> How is the performance compared to Cypress (which is limited to Chromium)?</comment>


UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article71659992.html <comment><USER2> I'm surprised the chancellor hasn't been forced to resign yet. Beyond authorizing the pepper spray incident, she's made many more questionable decisions.

1\. Serving on the DeVry board without permission from the UC President, and receiving a generous paycheck. All while DeVry is under federal investigation.

2\. Serving on the board of a company selling textbooks to students and receiving stock-based compensation totaling half a million.

3\. Apparently now spending tens of thousands of dollars to scrub her previous mistakes from the Internet.

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised that the chancellor wasn't forced to resign after the release of the Kroll and Reynoso reports about the pepper spray incident. The police action against the protestors was illegal and the police department knew it. They only went forward because of Katehi's mistaken insistence that the occupiers were not members of the campus community and needed to be removed before the weekend lest these outsiders rape students. Had the police department handled the situation the way they wanted to, they would have removed the tents at night (when the laws against camping were clearly being violated) and when there weren't large crowds around.

<comment><USER4> There's only one reason they ever remove a UC Chancellor: they stop raising money for the University. Donor cash is job one. Obviously, she's good at her job if she makes money, even if she moonlights in jobs that actively harm students.

The only solution is to stop donating to UC Davis -- and UC in general. If the Annual Fund calls you, ask them "Has Katehi resigned yet?" That's what I do. If you really want to help students at UCD, give to ASUCD or CalPIRG or something, not to a slush fund of a Chancellor who spends student fees on her own image.

Disclaimer: UCD alumnus here.

Edit: Although five lawmakers calling for her resignation might also decrease donations to the UC: [http://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/the-public- eye/art...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/the-public- eye/article71848252.html)

<comment><USER5> This might sound silly but why would an alumnus, who spent thousands for tuition already, donate money to his university in the first place?

<comment><USER4> Because University was the best time in your life, and every day now is a dreary slog of mediocrity. By giving money, you can reclaim a part of your glory days that won't come again. You can feel like giving to other students will help their lives, as a pale imitation of what it would be like to be with that group again, having fun and chasing girls instead of supporting a dead- end marriage with a mind-numbing job. If you have enough money, you can even inject your name into student life by getting a building named after you -- you can prove to everyone that you are a success, even if you're still unhappy and growing older by the day.

Or maybe you just believe in supporting higher education. Either way.

<comment><USER6> If you believed in "supporting higher education", there are probably better ways than supporting the one exclusive blue-blood institution you happened to attend ...

<comment><USER7> Your self interest lies in it making your resume better. If you and all your class gave say 10% of your income to your school, maybe new students would graduate knowing more and make you look good. Or maybe the school gets bigger TVs and a better football coach.

<comment><USER8> Or maybe the administrators give themselves a raise.

<comment><USER4> That's not how academia works, at least at a public school. Administrators rarely get raises, and get pay cuts whenever the economy gets bad. This is why administrators are frequently overpaid when first hired, because they know that it's close to their earnings ceiling. If you want to get more income as an administrator, you have to move to a new job.

No, that money is going to athletics for bigger telescreens and not for student athletes. Ever since the Larry Vanderhoef chancellery, Davis has been spending more and more on athletics, with little to show for it.

I just wish Emil Mrak was still around as chancellor -- that guy was awesome. He managed to keep students from massive protests at UCD during the free speech movement era by shipping them in free buses to protest at UCSB, and he introduced all of the bicycle infrastructure in Davis. Instead, we have a profiteer running the campus, in cahoots with the nation's former top cop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well, few things give more attention to something than attempts to bury it.

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

<comment><USER10> A search with bing for 'uc davis' highlights three recent articles written about their coverup. Streisand's effect indeed!

<comment><USER11> why would you mention a specific search engine?

<comment><USER12> If a tester entered a bug and you can't repro because the bug doesn't specify the environment, you'd rip 'em a new one. But someone uses two measly words to describe their test environment in this case, and now you question them about their eloquence?

Or maybe I have you wrong, so I'll ask: why would you ask why someone mentioned a specific search engine?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _White did not respond to messages left for her last month or Wednesday, but a résumé posted for her on LinkedIn cites her experience handling "a successful 6 month long strategic SEO (search engine optimization) and online reputation management campaign for the University of California, Davis, and Chancellor Linda Katehi."_

Culminating with a lengthy feature in the Sacramento Bee. Mission accomplished.

<comment><USER6> So ... do they get a refund? I'm guessing the consultants' contract covered them here, as they can't do much about a legit info request.

<comment><USER14> Right. They probably executed the original contract well enough, but you can't game Google to prevent _future_ news stories from appearing.

That's the nature of the game. These companies just flood the internet with innocuous data about the client in a way that's carefully aimed at pushing "bad stuff" down in the rankings. This works for a number of reasons, but a major one is that search engines prefer recency. Searching "Kobe Bryant" today is going to find way more articles about him scoring 60 in his final game than about him being accused of sexual assault in 2003.

If you keep making the news for doing bad things, that same tendency works against you. It's not like these firms can make Google ignore all the articles about you that haven't been written yet. Success is predicated on the idea that you'll stop doing stupid shit after whatever initial event required the service.

<comment><USER6> Right, but it's also kind of a special case in that your "future stupid stuff" _must_ include the hiring of the very service that's going to clean up your previous stupid stuff -- so long as the public regards such hiring as stupid.

I guess this is one case where it's especially true that "if you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself" :-p

<comment><USER14> Yes, this is why this kind of thing probably only really works for individuals. There's too much public interest in a university or a large corporation, and so the act of covering your tracks is itself noteworthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's been a while since I've looked into these "reputation" services. Do they actually work, when not hit by the Streisand effect, or is it just snake oil?

<comment><USER16> The reputation services are actually rather entertaining to watch. I write a lot online, and a couple years ago, my older posts started attracting dozens of comments from a couple people who seemed to be in a frenzied hurry to get visible.

At first I couldn't figure out what was going on. Why would someone be writing "Great post!" on 20 of my stories at 11:30 p.m.? Then I did a little checking on the names of the posters. Turns out they all had some "incident" in their pasts. Now they or their consultants were pumping out huge amounts of bland, benign content from all sorts of accounts (news sites, Tumblr, etc.) in their real names. The net result: these new accounts and the resulting content swamped Google, becoming the top 50 or so search results. The bad stuff didn't totally vanish, but it now was relegated to much lower placement.

In terms of whether this stuff works, that's a tricky call. I think it all depends on what the nature of the client's problems are ... and how much the world can/should care about some past mistake as life plays out. Sometimes it's hard to argue with the desire for a fresh start. In other case, it's hopeless.

<comment><USER17> > Why would someone be writing "Great post!" on 20 of my stories at 11:30 p.m?

I always thought these were linkspam bots, hoping to get a little pagerank from the url they submit with their name

<comment><USER16> Them, too. The amount of false flattery in the world is really getting out of control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Doesn't seem to be working - top google results are about them trying to erase it now...

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how they decided spending money on this would be a good investment.

They must know how the internet works.

What specifically were they paying for that made it worth it? Keeping references to the incident away from their Facebook page?

Who HASN'T seen that image by now?

What a misguided allocation of funds.

<comment><USER20> >I wonder how they decided spending money on this would be a good investment.

Its not their money and they have no shareholders. They don't care if works or not. These PR people cashing the checks are probably friends of friends of the Chancellor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Things like this is why I consider the PR people to be the worst of the worst scum.

</comment><comment> awinter-py Hmm, should have paid that money directly to US News & World Report. Not sure how tear-gassing sophomores affects the ranking but I'm guessing low six figures can get you spot #3 on the liberal arts list.

</comment><comment><USER22> Comment I saw on Reddit:

"Right before these conflicts of interest came out, the Sac Bee did a fluff piece about Katehi without any mention of the pepper spray incident. It was a female writer talking about how wonderful it was for Katehi to break the glass ceiling."

It seems there is some conflict of interest here, as the article seems to attempt to shift blame from the Chancellor to the university. Would it be unreasonable to assume there is a special relationship between her and someone at the newspaper?

</comment><comment><USER23> "Have you tried just... _not_ pepper spraying peaceful people in the face?"

<comment><USER24> No sir, I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.

<comment><USER25> The reference is narrowly escaping me. Help?

 _edit in reply:_ Haha, no, not Green Eggs & Ham

 _another edit:_ I thought the parent & grandparent posts might belong together, but apparently not. I think GP is simply using this trope: [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HaveYouTriedNotBe...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HaveYouTriedNotBeingAMonster) — or perhaps this recent Dilbert strip [http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-03-08](http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-03-08)

<comment><USER26> Mister Horse from Ren and Stimpy.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGlN6mluGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGlN6mluGA)

<comment><USER24> Mister Horse is correct!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is one of the few areas where the EU is better in protecting the rich and/or corporations. In the EU you can force Google to remove stuff like this from the index. I always wondered why the US is lagging behind on this.

</comment><comment><USER28> Am I evil if I vote up this post so it counteracts the consultant job of hiding the pepper spray event from the internet?

<comment><USER24> No, you're a good citizen. When I saw the story hit facebook, it got reshared faster than anything else today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "UC Davis spent thousands...". Shades of Dr Evil.

</comment><comment> atom-morgan If you've got nothing to hide..</comment>


Ask HN: Making money from a JavaScript library? - <AUTHOR> Is it possible to make money by making a quality JS library and monetizing it either through direct sales (preferably) or some other way?<p>Are the IP risks too big or can they be mitigated by using obfuscation? <comment><USER2> Of course, it is possible. There are many companies which sell JavaScript libraries and related services. In my own field (of JS-based rich-text editors) there are at least a couple of companies which produce their own products and live from that. I'm not sure if you'd still consider them as libraries, but I'll come to that.

As in any business, the most important aspect is finding customers. First of all, you need to have an idea and then a product. It needs to be really good unless you have some exceptional marketing and sales skills ;).

Then, you'll need to find potential customers. You can do that directly or promote yourself in various ways. Many companies open source their products or parts of their products. This may attract a lot of attention and makes you and your software more recognizable. If you open source a big part of your product you also won't have a problem with obfuscating the code – it's available out there anyway.

But how to make money if you open sourced everything? That's why I'm talking about a product, not a library. Source code is not everything (unless it's a really simple thing, but then you wouldn't sell it anyway). You can propose additional support, commercial licenses, knowledge and experience (in various ways such as custom development or your assistance). Some developers also try to crowd fund their projects on services like [https://www.patreon.com/](https://www.patreon.com/) or [https://gratipay.com/](https://gratipay.com/) but you need a really big community to live from that.

So, if you want to make money, then in most cases you should start thinking about a product, not a library itself. You need to be prepared that a big fraction of your time will be spent on things other than coding. This is tough for many developers.

Good luck! :)

<comment><USER3> I'd add that obfuscation mentioned in the question won't solve the finding customers problem. It is attractive because obfuscating JavaScript is a much much easier problem than finding customers. The primary problem is not people stealing software. The primary problem is people not buying it.</comment></comment>


EFF Statement on Assange Indictment and Arrest - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/eff-statement-assange-indictment-and-arrest-f <comment><USER2> It's good to see EFF taking a principled stance on Assange. Too many organizations have chosen to throw WikiLeaks under the bus after their 2016 election leak harmed the "wrong" American political team.

It's a shame that the American political machine is so good at character assassination (of both Assange and WikiLeaks), despite the sorely-needed transparency they've offered to many modern democracies. The world needs more organizations like WikiLeaks, not fewer.

<comment><USER3> I very much approve of the 'idea' of WikiLeaks. I am not particularly fond of WikiLeaks as an organization. I don't like the way they hold on to material until they think it will make the biggest impact. It makes me wonder how much they've held on to for _other_ reasons, e.g., because it might harm someone _they_ support. To me, WikiLeaks withholding information for political reasons is no better than the originator of the information keeping it secret for political reasons.

I politely called them out on this once, in a comment on one of their early Facebook posts. The comment was deleted quickly. Apparently they are not fans of criticism either.

In spite of my misgivings, and my general disdain for Assange as an individual, I too am glad to see the EFF taking a principled stance.

<comment><USER4> >It makes me wonder how much they've held on to for other reasons, e.g., because it might harm someone they support.

Has anyone ever tried to call them out on this by releasing a leak that wikileaks refused to publish?

I don't remember ever hearing such a claim.

<comment><USER5> This has definitely happened. Wikileaks refused to release info on Russia during the 2016 election. Wikileaks may have started out with good intentions, but it seems to be making some explicitly political actions.

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned- down-l...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks- on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/world/europe/russian- docu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/world/europe/russian-documents- leaked-ddosecrets.html)

<comment><USER6> There's plenty of legitimate reasons to not release information. Verifying the informations accuracy, that it hasn't been tampered with, and the source is credible is a really high bar to meet. Just because someone dumps data doesn't mean WikiLeaks is going to publish it

<comment><USER7> So selectively Open Democracy but not Open Truth?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > While the indictment of Julian Assange centers on an alleged attempt to > break a password—an attempt that was not apparently successful—it is still, > at root, an attack on the publication of leaked material[.]

So if a reporter goes to a Congressman's house, tries to pick the lock, and fails, and later manages to get the same documents based on a leak from the Congressman's office, should the reporter be free from liability for the attempted break-in?

The law correctly gives reporters a lot of leeway, so long as they stay on the right side of the line. _To give reporters so much freedom, society must be able to clearly distinguish protected reporting activity from unprotected criminal activity._ For that reason it is incumbent on people claiming the shield of press freedom to avoid conduct that crosses the line, and for organizations like EFF to avoid trying to blur that line.

<comment><USER9> The trouble in this case is that the behavior being prosecuted is not the sort of thing that would result in prosecution under many other circumstances. There is a law against it, but enforcing it in this context gives the impression of selective prosecution.

They haven't discovered a crime, investigated it to determine who was behind it and arrested them; they've discovered a man they wish to charge and went around looking for something to charge him with.

<comment><USER10> Or maybe they discovered that some one had leaked classified information (a crime) and during the investigation of that crime, discovered that Assange had conspired with that individual (also a crime)? That explanation makes sense to me. Maybe it isn't what happened, we will have to let the courts decide on the facts of the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The indictment is embarrassingly weak and I am no fan of Assange to say the least. I'm surprised there's nothing on the dnc hacks.

<comment><USER12> Why would there be anything on the dnc leaks? They just published the leaks, they did not participate in hacking. Publishing leaks is done all the times by journalists, if we're going to start banning this, then free press is literally dead in the US.

<comment><USER13> The difference seems to be that most journalists report on the leaked documents, whereas Wikileaks essentially data dumps it.

Not saying them releasing Podesta's emails was bad, just I don't think that's what journalists typically do.

<comment><USER14> >The difference seems to be that most journalists report on the leaked documents, whereas Wikileaks essentially data dumps it.

Would anyone have taken them seriously if they just made claims about what were on the emails? You see the same thing going on with the Democrats regarding the summary of the Mueller report: "we don't believe you, show us the raw data!"

<comment><USER13> I've personally never went to wikileaks looking at information gathered, but consumed it second hand from journalists reporting on it. As such, I didn't have a problem taking Snowden's leaks seriously yet wasn't eyeballing raw data (nor did the vast majority of people who read about it), so I'll have to disagree.

What you have with the Democrats and the Mueller report is that the "journalist" in this case is the Attorney General who was put into the position by the guy the Mueller report is about. As such, it is a case of not trusting the messenger due to bias so they want to see the actual report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I support press freedom, but there is a clear line that was allegedly crossed here. The indictment alleges that Assange encouraged Manning to commit a crime and helped or tried to help gain access to a government computer system that he had no right to access. This is not a grey area at all. If they were charging him for publishing documents it would be a different story. If the case is as weak as many folks seem to be saying it is, then he will have a chance to make that case in court.

<comment> gator-io The key word is 'allegedly'. We'll see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The timing of Manning's subpoena and the questioning of her on Assange seems to show that the U.S. government knew Assange was to be going expelled from the embassy, and maybe played a role in making it happen. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.

<comment><USER17> Very possible, but Ecuador was also becoming increasingly annoyed by Assange / I suspect regretted their initial decision all on their own it seemed.

Like a lot of things around Wikileaks I think some were hopeful that it was a thing that (myself included) ... it just didn't turn out to be as an organization.

Like most folks would be fine protecting a journalist on principal even if he bothers other nations. Maybe less so if you realize that they're not behaving like one and then you start to wonder who you're protecting and what you're enabling.

<comment><USER7> there was warning signs in the last couple of weeks.

I suspect that he was really pushing the boundaries of hospitality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's talk that these charges may simply be a tool to get Assange extradited to the US to get him to testify about the source of the DNC leaks, which some think was an inside job.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have to ask myself a question: has Wikileaks been "fair" when it comes to obtaining sensitive documents from other state governments vs. the United States? For example, is there any leaks from China or Russia?

<comment><USER5> Wikileaks refused to release a giant dump of stolen Russian documents.

<comment><USER20> Can you provide information on this? I see it all over, but what information did they supposedly have and who is making this claim?</comment></comment></comment>


My open source API client was taken down by a phony DMCA complaint - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/9863d528780c193cd2aead22264318aaa73ea418 <comment><USER2> Most people who are first interacting with the DMCA law are unfamiliar with the fact it has protections against people files false notifications.

Without knowing details about this (and not providing legal advice) this may be how it would work:

If the claim is in fact BS, go lawyer up. File a counter notification, wait 10 days and your content will be put back online (unless they file an injunction to keep it offline), then you file suit against the alleged infringer for the statutory damages of $150,000 per false alleged infringement claim. Likely they'll settle out of court for some number less than their legal costs/time.

Pay your lawyer, use the rest to fund your project.

Go out for a pint, and tell the story to tell on how your project was funded by out witting a scammer.

<comment><USER3> That sounds really great, but the courts have been very lenient to those who file false DMCA notices and the burden of proof falls on you to prove that it was filed falsely _intentionally_.

So, I'd say, don't lawyer up yet. File the counter-notice and if they come after you, then get a lawyer and publicity.

<comment><USER4> Yep, there is no penalty whatsoever for gross negligence, it sucks.

<comment><USER5> So basically it is in the best interest of any company that is interested in filing these claims without regard for publicity to hire a complete imbecile to do it.

No wonder we see so many idiotic claims.

<comment><USER6> Who do you think wrote this law?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

I understand that you want to extend professional courtesy to the lawyers and programmers involved, and by all measures, I think you should do so. However you must understand that the DMCA takedown procedure is not a human; it is a legal robot. By invoking DMCATakedownBot, they have not extended _you_ proper courtesy, and probably the correct action is to file the counter-notification.

Your counter-notification can point out that the original legal letter to GitHub was largely not a 'notification of claimed infringement' under 17 USC § 512 (c) (3) (A) [the "safe harbor"/"takedown" requirement of GitHub] -- because it claimed that the injury was a violation of 17 USC § 1201, which is not about copyright infringement. You should point out that there _is_ a claimed infringement in this notice -- "He has taken proprietary source code from inside of our application" -- but that this claimed infringement is outright false, you have not copied any source code from inside of their application. So the 'safe harbor' DMCA takedown notice (§ 512) is probably not a proper venue for the legal discussion to occur. Rather, the proper venue is described in § 1203; they should bring a civil action against you in a US district court for the actual damages and any additional profits of the violator, or statutory damages per violation.

You can then add to this notice something about how you'd much rather attempt to sort this out in a one-to-one discussion with the aggrieved programmers at the company, rather than in court. You can also tell them that section 1203 (c) (5) allows a court to remit the total award of damages if you can prove to the court's satisfaction that you were not aware and had no reason to believe that your acts constituted a violation.

Since this is not legal advice so much as "advice on what you can say to lawyers to get them off your back", I will recommend that you read the relevant laws here:

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17>

I also recommend that if they do sue you under section 1203, you contact a lawyer. You might also consider contacting a copyright lawyer right now, if it's not too much hassle.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is literally the funniest thing I have seen in weeks. Grooveshark is a company that is only able to operate because of DMCA safe harbors.

<comment><USER9> And not for long at that :(

[http://torrentfreak.com/groovesharks-future-in-doubt- after-s...](http://torrentfreak.com/groovesharks-future-in-doubt-after- settlements-with-big-music-130517/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The interesting thing is that they say the library used proprietary code. From talking to Contra, they are just using a REST API which is not documented (Undocumented API !== Proprietary). If you publish a publicly accessible API then expect it to be used by everyone and everything.

<comment><USER11> By that reasoning, can't one make the argument that what weev did was use an undocumented API though? The endpoints were publicly accessible but obfuscated (and quite poorly at that).

<comment><USER4> That access route was unintentional, which is rather different from intentional but undocumented.

<comment><USER12> Absolutely.

I wonder if by that token you could find a security exploit in an API that causes undesired behaviour (e.g. elevated privileges) and claim you're simply accessing an undocumented API?

Or another way of looking at it - does accessing an undocumented API constitute hacking/unauthorized access? (which is probably an even more serious violation than copyright infringement in most countries)

(disclaimer: I don't even know what this particular API is doing, or what's the alleged infringement, I'm just wondering about the principles in general)

<comment><USER13> I had this philosophy for every single crack.

Computers do what they're programmed to do, they do what you told them to do, if you didn't want your computer to respond to a buffer overflow by writing over the stack and executing a sequence of commands that escalated the defendant to an administrator, you shouldn't of programmed that feature in.

When you inserted that string directly into that SQL command, you gave your users access to a wide range of features. Now all of a sudden you don't like that feature any more because someone used it? You gave the users the ability to ask for arbitrary tables in your database, why should a hacker go to court for asking for a "user table"? Shouldn't you be the one in court?

That's how I saw things when I was ~15, anyway. I still kinda think that way... Though I've figured out that just because someone left their safe open, doesn't mean you get to steal the gold.

<comment><USER5> > _Though I've figured out that just because someone left their safe open, > doesn't mean you get to steal the gold._

True. Though on the other hand, if somebody figures out they they get free sodas when they hold down both the coke and sprite buttons, as far as I am concerned they get to have their free soda.

<comment><USER14> There is surely some cognitive dissonance here.

> > Though I've figured out that just because someone left their safe open, > doesn't mean you get to steal the gold.

> True. Though on the other hand, if somebody figures out they they get free > sodas when they hold down both the coke and sprite buttons, as far as I am > concerned they get to have their free soda.

So, if the safe is left open, you don't get to take it, but if you press buttons that unintentionally make it open up, you get you have your free gold? uh.

<comment><USER5> If the teller gives you free money, that is on the teller, not you. Whether that teller is human or an automated machine doesn't particularly matter to me.

Just don't take money that the teller, automated or otherwise, does not volunteer. Regular safes and vaults, with no teller, have no agency and are not capable of giving you money.

<comment><USER15> Does 'inserting a coat hanger into a vending machine' count as 'pressing the coke and sprite buttons together' or 'they left their safe open'?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you read the notice carefully, you'll see they do not claim the target of the takedown was infringing their copyright, but only claim that it is an illegal circumvention method. Which is interesting because I've never seen a DMCA takedown that didn't claim infringment.

Looking through wikipedia's description, it looks like anti-circumvention isn't even in the same section of the act as the the rules for taking down infringing content.

<comment><USER17> According to one grooveshark software engineer on twitter "@jameshartig: @fernando_takai Groovr was abusing our internal API to provide download links. We have a public API for developers that is free to use."[1]

[1]<http://twitter.com/jameshartig/status/337307876890648576>

<comment><USER18> >>According to one grooveshark software engineer on twitter "@jameshartig: @fernando_takai Groovr was abusing our internal API to provide download links.

Its not an "internal API" if it is publicly accessible and doesn't require credentials other than the user's own. Did this API client have stolen creds embedded?

<comment><AUTHOR> No - it loaded grooveshark.com with the node module "request" and used cheerio to get the session id from the page source. Then API calls are made with the session id and client info. The APIs don't require a login or any authentication

<comment><USER19> In other words it simulates browsing the grooveshark website, instead of using their public API. I think it's this that they are upset about, but it makes little sense because if people can see something on their browser then that user should just as well be allowed to see it through a script.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hey guys, I'm an Engineer at Grooveshark and I handle developer relations.

Unfortunately, groovr appears to circumvent internal copyright protections for content hosted at Grooveshark. The groovr library offered a way to get, and subsequently allow you to easily download, song mp3s via a call (groovr.getSongFile). It was able to provide these services by using our internal authentication methods and internal API.

Grooveshark offers a public API (<http://developers.grooveshark.com/>) which allows you to search for content, authenticate users, view popular music, and more, all for free. Developers are encouraged to register for a key and use our content for their applications.

<comment><USER21> OK, so what about the allegation that the developer in question "has taken proprietary source code from inside of our application and posted it as a GitHub project"? Was there any of GrooveShark's actual code that was distributed without permission? Because that's what your lawyer told GitHub in order to get it taken down.

<comment><USER22> You'll find that fastest963 is posting that boilerplate reply across the web, and then failing to reply to the very question that you ask, which everyone else is asking too.

Grooveshark PR clearly thought that by rolling out a "one of us" developer to make a "shucks, it sucks, but what choice did we have?" type statement, the wider dev community would be pacified and wouldn't keep asking the hard questions.

One day they will learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just created a mirror of the repo from Google Cache.

Link: <https://github.com/joshryandavis/groovr>

</comment><comment><USER24> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:s43ODsn...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:s43ODsntyuMJ:https://github.com/wearefractal/groovr+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER25> The package.json is still up in the cache too, but I couldn't reach the index.js.

I tried Google, Yahoo, Bing, the Coral CDN, Gigablast and WebCite).

package.json: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&#...</a>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm going to use this api when it gets put back up. Anyone have a snapshot of the code before it was taken down? Streisand Effect.

<comment><USER27> There are several similar projects linked in the comments if you just want to get started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It appears Groveshark has some poor coding practices.

It appears that Groveshark innacuraltley filed a DMCA.

However it appears that the orriginal poster is in violation of DMCA, for DRM Violations. The DMCA provides groveshark protection against your "API" which is actually a way to circumvent grovesharks DRM.

While Groveshark didn't state this in the orriginal DMCA, they can file another and have you taken down for correct issues.

Your "API" does violate copyright law.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't know much about law and I'm not qualified to speak on behalf of Grooveshark. Having said that, I interned as a developer for the company for over a year. During that time I got to know its true culture and learned a a bit how it operates.

All of the folks I worked with saw it as their mission to support both independent music and independent software development. Everyone in the office brainstormed ways to help broaden their fan bases. (For example, giving artists Flattr accounts & letting them live-broadcast their music as they chatted with fans.) At the same time, many of the Grooveshark engineers I know contributed to open-source projects in their free time.

The API has never allowed users to download songs, and it seems clear to me (by browsing the comments in the code on Github) that one element of the project in question performed that function. That seems to be the crux of this problem.

Again, I'm not qualified to speak on behalf of Grooveshark, but I know from experience that its engineers are extremely supportive of these kind of open- source projects.

<comment><USER30> From the repository copy:

      groovr.getSongFile songs[0].SongID, (err, file) ->
         ###
         file.url is an mp3 url you can download
         the file object also contains some meta info like song length
         ###

That indeed confirms what the Grooveshark developer was saying on the DCMA notice comments. Even though the API doesn't provide the MP3 file directly, it's trivial to get it through this function call.

<comment><USER31> file.url (a property of the file object) is an MP3 url _YOU_ can download.

Could that be any clearer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is why you don't use GitHub (or, more generally, American companies.) The prospect that someone can arbitrarily take down your repository until you go out of your way to provide a counternotice is beyond absurd.

<comment><USER33> If you care about this, also keep your hosting provider and domain name provider in mind as well, since they can simply cut off access to your entire site in response to a DMCA complaint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> What did your API provide ( downloads or just search?)

<comment><AUTHOR> The API client just let you search, get popular songs, and get individual song info. There was no downloading included in the API client - if you wanted to download a song based on the info from their APIs you would have to write your own code to do that

<comment><USER35> Do you know about the tinysong API?

<http://tinysong.com/api>

It provides only basic search functions of course, but it is publicly documented and I'm sure Grooveshark can't complain if you use it. I wrote a Go package for it years ago (literally, 2010 I think) and it still works fine. You get tinysong.com shortlinks, which lead to the song on Grooveshark.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is pretty neat! Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Why does Github not have a workflow to file a counter-notice?

<comment><USER37> It has both workflows described - claim and counter-claim: [https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown#b-counter- not...](https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown#b-counter-notification- policy)

<comment><AUTHOR> Counter-claim is for after you have removed the content. I am not going to remove the content just because a fuzzy DMCA was issued. Apparently there are no options besides taking it offline or going into a legal battle

<comment><USER38> By filing a counter claim you aren't really starting a legal battle, you're giving them 10 days to start a real legal battle by going to a court. Your content is already offline. File a counter claim and it will be back up in a week and a half.

<comment><USER39>
      | you're giving them 10 days to start a real
      | legal battle by going to a court

To be clear, that's 10 days _before the content goes back up_ to take you to court to prevent it from going back up. Nothing stops them from suing you over it after the content is restored.

<comment><USER40> Just out of curiosity. Is there a time limit of how long they can sue for after it's restored? Could they wait for you to get a huge user base or revenue and then strike to get the most out of you or is there protection against that?

I don't see myself ever creating anything that would get taken down but I imagine most people don't when it happens to them.

Any time I hear about DMCA it seems so very one sided that there is just about no recourse.

<comment><USER39> Well, they can sue you at any time. They don't really need to issue a DMCA notice first. The issue is that:

1) Most of the time they don't know your real identity from your (e.g.) YouTube username. IIRC, you have to use your real name or contact information when filing a counter-notice.

2) If they sue you, the content stays up until they can convince the judge to order it to be taken down.

The point of the DMCA was to allow for things to be taken down quickly, and then sorted out in court later if need be. The content is taken down quickly. If you push back (counter-notice), then the (claimed) content owner has 10-14 days to start court proceedings to keep it down; otherwise, it goes back up. None of this precludes a suit being filed at any point.

The real issue with this process is that there is little relief for negligence in filing DMCA notices. All you have to do is have a good-faith belief that you are the content owner, and this violates your rights. So acting like you're ignorant of the law is actually a defence against being held accountable for filing a bogus notice.

If bogus DMCA notices were punished more often, and people were required to consult a lawyer before firing at the hip (e.g. people that don't understand copyright law, and just say, "I don't like X take it down! DMCA!"), then maybe it would be working better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Grooveshark filing a DMCA notice? The irony is palpable.

</comment><comment><USER41> Good thing I never released the source code to my project. (<http://spiffyshark.com>)

</comment><comment><USER42> Textbook irony.

</comment><comment><USER43> Isn't it interesting that the internet is severely misinformed about a law that they love to hate?

<comment><USER19> How so? I think it's quite clear that this notice is mistaken, or in any case not specific enough to have merit. Is it infringing on their source code? Which code, then? Is it circumvention of their DRM? That doesn't fall under DMCA takedowns. Is it a TOS violation for not using the public API? Again, doesn't fall under DMCA.</comment></comment>


Paypal froze our funds, then offered us a business loan - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@casey_rosengren/paypal-froze-our-funds-then-offered-us-a-business-loan-49a078310fb <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859502](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859502)</comment>


3 Surprising Social Design and Engineering Challenges in Enterprise Software - <AUTHOR> http://blog.yesgraph.com/post/61528017534/3-surprising-social-design-and-engineering-challenges

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks, YesGraph cofounder here. If you're working on an enterprise product, I'd love to hear what you think.</comment>


DC cancels tax lien sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/2013/09/13/a0933688-1cc0-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html?wpisrc=al_locmisc <comment><USER2> Witness, if you will, a perfect example of the fourth estate performing its function. The article that brought about this result was a modern masterpiece of journalism.

Now ask yourself what would have happened if those in power had a bunch of warrantless "dirt" on these particular journalists and decided that they'd really rather just keep the gravy train rolling.

We _all_ have something to hide _and_ something to fear.

<comment><USER3> Can we _please_ not bring the NSA into every single comment thread on HN? It is completely unrelated to this story. Let's just agree that the journalism is great.

<comment><USER2> We kind of have to. Journalism is under siege(1). The rise of the unashamed surveillance state makes it much worse. There's been a sort of "journalism is dead, who cares" kind of attitude floating around. It isn't. I do.

We need to think about what we're about to lose.

(1) [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/world/europe/britain- detai...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/world/europe/britain-detains- partner-of-reporter-tied-to-leaks.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER4> Perfect... bring up the NSA every thirty seconds, until everyone is utterly sick of hearing it and automatically ignores anything related to the NSA... we can't thank you enough noonespecial, you are doing God's work.

<comment><USER5> What a shit attitude. Try taking into consideration that people feel helpless. People are desperate to try and change things. People may be acting - not in concert mind you - to affect some change. Try to respect that these people you lament are at least fucking trying.

If all else fails, stfu.

<comment><USER4> _If all else fails, stfu._

Who was it who has the shit attitude?

<comment><USER5> Touche. It appears I have a shit attitude towards stifling expression on such an important issue.

<comment><USER4> Though I should not be surprised, you misrepresent me. There's nothing wrong with covering the issue. It's just not helpful at best, and actively harmful at worst, to try to inject the issue into _every possible place_. We are intelligent adults; we are more than capable of thinking about more than just one issue.

It isn't like there are many people left who haven't heard about it, and even if there were, the front page of HN has consistently contained several articles covering the NSA _specifically_ for a number of weeks now.

<comment><USER6> People want to talk about, you'll have to deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Prior thread on _Left With Nothing_ (the article which spurred this reform) for reference:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349476)

DC should also do a thorough analysis as to why the government failed and how to prevent such failures in the future.

They should follow the 5 Why's process:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys)

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, my experience is that with government they just paper over the first why without ever getting to the fifth because the first why is visible to voters and will help them get re-elected. Fixing the fifth why would be so far removed that voters wouldn't notice and the effects probably wouldn't even be felt until the next person was in office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It needs to go farther than that. Nation-wide.

In the US it is a myth that you own your home or land. This is true even if you've labored for thirty years and paid off your mortgage in full wothout ever being late even one day in the span of those thirty years.

How is that possible? Simple: Property and other taxes.

How is it ever right that the govenrment can take away your property? Property taxes in particular almost ensure that you are always on the edge of a precipice that can lead to the loss of your home. If, for any reason whatsoever, you can't pay your property taxes your home is gone. Poof!

It is my opinion that property taxes in the US ought to be eliminated. The obvious issue of how to pay for whatever is supported through property taxes is immaterial to the central argument here, that is: a person ought to be able to own their home and truly be "free and clear". If a property is encumbered with taxes you never really own it. It's an illusion.

Property taxes also have other ugly effects. For example, during the real estate boom cities found themselves with vastly more revenue than in the past. As often happens in these situations governments spent the money and made deals predicated upon the idea that the ride would never end. This, of course, was not true and whole cities have gone bankrupt as the result of their transgressions. With revenue locked to a stabilized metric (some kind of a ten year average of something, for example) this would not have happened.

Property taxes are the devil.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is an example of why I fear the disappearance of _news_.

Investigative reporting is expensive. As newspapers wither, who will do this important work? This investigation lasted 10 months. It was speculative. It might not yield any worthwhile information.

Who will do this risky reporting in 5 years. HuffPo will just sit back and wait to regurgitate the fair use.

</comment><comment><USER11> I bought my house 10 years ago, and moved out of my house 4 years ago and kept it as a rental. One day 2 years ago, I received a notice that a homestead lien was placed on the house.

Apparently the city had decided that I had never lived in the house at all. They placed a lien, with no explanation, no warning, and no avenue for appeal or even discussion. The lien, with interest and penalties, was about $10,000.

The first thing I did was to contact an attorney. Of the 6 attorneys I found in the area who dealt with such matters, 4 of them agreed to speak to me but all 4 had represented the county in the past, and therefore could not represent me. The other two simply refused to make an appointment with me. Presumably they have bigger fish to fry and are not interested in my case.

The lien still sits on the house, accumulating interest daily. I'm just thankful that they have not foreclosed yet and that it's a rental and not my main house. It's an impossible situation even for people with reasonable means but the poor and elderly are completely at their mercy.

</comment><comment><USER12> the creation of an ombudsperson is a well-intentioned idea, but the words of the mayor are still troubling: "from this point forward, no District residents whose property has been sold at a tax-lien sale will be at risk of losing their homes through this process _if they have extraordinary circumstances that warrant a re-examination of their cases._ "

So, now we have to trust the city to be able to decide if your situation is "extraordinary"?? Isn't this backwards, this process should not be the default, it should be the extraordinary. There's also very little admission that there's anything questionable with the way they were doing things, and that everything is (for the most part) going to continue, move on along, nothing to see here.

Even if you were to concede that there is nothing wrong with the _idea_ of taking someone's home for tax truancy, the question remains, why weren't the homeowners at least compensated for the value of their place less the value of the lien?

Radio static on the other end.</comment>


Ask 37signals: Does "Getting Real" work in this economy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1398-ask-37signals-does-getting-real-work-in-this-economy <comment><USER2> Focusing on income and controlling burn rate sounds like a generally sound approach in any economy. I wouldn't have bothered with the article, except I enjoyed the section about how 37Signals is doing so far in the slow down.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. For other "i read the comments first" people like me, here is the useful part (do not upmod me:)

Our growth has slowed a bit this year, but business is better than ever. We've been doubling revenues every year since 2004, so even a little slowdown still means big growth. We're still profitable, still debt free, have no need to make any staff cuts, have no need to make any development cuts, and have no need to cancel any new projects.

Each one of our products has grown nicely since last year. Backpack's monthly revenues have doubled this year thanks to the multi-user version launch in February. The newly launched Deals feature in Highrise has had a real positive impact on sales as well. Campfire continues to grow modestly and Basecamp continues its healthy climb towards its fifth birthday on February 4, 2009.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 37Signals blog always sounds very defensive.

<comment><USER5> You should read their old book: Defensive Design.</comment></comment>


What's Really Scary About Heartbleed - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/04/10/whats-really-scary-about-heartbleed/

<comment><AUTHOR> _The OpenSSL code library on which so many companies rely for their Web security only has one dude working on the project full-time.

[...]

Steve Marquess, president of the OpenSSL Software Foundation, a separate entity that solicits funding for the team that manages the code, said its 2013 budget was less than $1 million.

That's despite the fact that up to two-thirds of the Web relies on it.

[...]

"Large portions of the software infrastructure of the Internet are built and maintained by volunteers, who get little reward when their code works well but are blamed, and sometimes savagely derided, when it fails," writes Foster in the New Yorker.

[...]_

[!!! ->] _Anyone who gave OpenSSL $20,000 or more got its logo on their website according to their donation page. There are no logos on their website. This week, its most famous week ever, the organization has received a paltry $841.70 in donations._</comment>


NSA PRISM puts "public" cloud in a new light - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/nsa-prism-puts-public-cloud-in-a-new-light-7000017160/

<comment><USER2>
        "If your data is on the net, the potential is there for it to be spied on. Deal with it."

The most important lesson of all this, IMO. Add NSA to the list of people and organizations in your Mallory set that you're already defending against and move on with your life.

Everyone is worried about the government but they are the figurative "plane accident" compared to all of the other online threats we face every day (which would be the "car crash"). These are threats we already should have been protecting ourselves against, especially because they are still more likely to actually happen.

Even if you think you got rid of the NSA (and you never will) there's still all the other black hats automatically penetrating systems all over the Internet, and they have no reason to limit themselves to nation-states or military organizations.

<comment><USER3> _Everyone is worried about the government but they are the figurative "plane accident" compared to all of the other online threats we face_

The difference is one is an accident or an action by third parties, the other is done by people who derive their authority from the populace, aka in your name. It's essentially the difference between how the wind blows and what your hand is doing.

 _Even if you think you got rid of the NSA (and you never will)_

Not if your advice to "just move on" is followed, no.

No wait, actually: remember how nobody could ever touch the mob, and how everybody would have spoken German for at least 1000 years, if the Roman Empire didn't still exist which it will always do? Yeah, me neither.

 _there 's still all the other black hats_

There is a difference between the wheel of crime being reinvented all the time by individuals, and letting it fester into huge organizations for which you are much more directly responsible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd be absolutely amazed if this _isn 't_ happening.

It's such an obvious target (and not just for the usual reasons, commercial intelligence collection does and has happened).

I can see large non-American companies becoming very wary about using American hosted clouds going forwards.</comment>