Introducing App Engine for Business  - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/appengine/business/

<comment><USER2> _App Engine for Business allows you to use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) on your own domain for all your App Engine applications, not just on the x.appspot.com domain._

FINALLY!

</comment><comment><USER3> This certainly doesn't seem like AppEngine for small businesses - $8 per user (capped at $1k) per month seems like a heck of a lot if your service doesn't require much in the way of processor/storage.

<comment><USER4> The $8/user does seem a lot for startups/small businesses. Maybe they are focusing internal apps for enterprises.

If a company has more than 125 users, then per-user cost will be less than $8, which probably is acceptable I suppose compare with all the infrastructure, upgrade, vendor hassles.

<comment> X-Istence From the page it sure sounds like they are just targeting internal apps for now. They made a specific note about customer facing websites:

"You will also use App Engine for Business to run publicly accessible apps, such as your company's website or service. We're still working out the details on pricing for that, so stay tuned."

So stay tuned!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"SQL database support on App Engine gives enterprise developers access to the full capabilities of a dedicated relational database, without the headache of managing it."_

Wonder which RDBMS they will offer, MySQL?

</comment><comment><USER6> So... I'm not sure I get this. We built a webapp on AppEngine and would like premium support/sla. Is this meant for developers like us too?

<comment><USER7> If you can pay the $1000/m for it: <http://code.google.com/premiumsupport/>

It's currently tied to the per-user program, but there's no innate reason why it has to be just for internal apps: _"you can get these features by migrating your app to Google App Engine for Business. We will have a method of migrating existing applications to App Engine for Business when it launches. (Stay tuned for App Engine for Business pricing for publicly accessible Internet apps as well.)"_</comment></comment>


Mike Bloomberg files federal paperwork to run for president in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/mike-bloomberg-files-federal-paperwork-to-run-for-president-in-2020.html <comment><USER2> Not super enthusiastic about his chances (or him in particular) he's got baggage like the mess that was stop and frisk from his time as NYC mayor (similar justice issues aren't helping Kamala Harris), is occupying a lane similar to Joe Biden (moderate and 'electable' with a less high profile former position), and is a New York finance (kinda) billionaire (which wins you few friends on the more liberal side of the party, plus there's already another billionaire in the race trying the same kind of thing).

</comment><comment><USER3> Might be good insurance policy to spend $50 million or more and fail to become president - and damage the prospects of anyone from the progressive wing of the Democratic party while doing so- than having Warren or Sanders become president and take a real haircut in taxes.

<comment><USER4> Or, he might split the vote with moderates, and ensure the choice of a more progressive candidate.

Game theory is funny that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's bad for dems. "Stop and frisk" Mike Bloomberg isn't even liked by New Yorkers let alone everyone else. This means he thinks that the dem field is so weak, he considers himself an _improvement_. I disagree. I think this only weakens the already weak roster of candidates.

<comment><USER6> I'd take him back in a heartbeat over De Blasio. Bloomberg strikes me as a man that can learn from mistakes.

<comment><USER5> Well, let's see if he learns from this one. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Schawad?</comment>


Show HN: Refjar.com – find online discussions for your Pocket articles - <AUTHOR> https://refjar.com/?ref=hn <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm creator of Refjar.

Three months ago I submitted it to HN as a bookmarking tool with feature of finding online discussions for bookmarked items. It was on a HN homepage for a while, I got some feedback, but at the end people didn't use it. Neither did I, as I prefer saving articles to my Pocket account.

I decided to rewrite it just to be a simple tool. You connect it with your Pocket account and any time you add a link to Pocket, it tries to find discussions for it (on HN and Reddit). If it finds any, it sends them to your Pocket account with "Discussions" tag.

Let me know what do you think about it.

If you're interested here is my first Show HN post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16984532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16984532)</comment>


Why I stopped wearing a bike helmet - <AUTHOR> https://cyclingtips.com/2018/11/commentary-why-i-stopped-wearing-a-bike-helmet/ <comment><USER2> The disclaimer at the beginning of the article, and the tone of the article itself, reveal how _religious_ — as opposed to evidence-based — the helmet issue is. People who advocate them firmly believe themselves to be on the side of righteousness, no matter what the numbers might say.

I'm reminded of suburbanites who think that safety is assured by keeping pedestrians out of their neighbourhoods, when it fact it's the exact opposite: every pedestrian is another set of eyes that criminals don't want to be seen by. But facts and figured can't persuade when emotion rules.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best open-source ecommerce platform? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> "Best" is a bit subjective :)

What's your use case? Preferred language/stack?

Are you selling physical or digital products? Anticipated order volume? Need to integrate with 3rd party systems for inventory management, shipping, marketing, accounting, etc.?

It seems there are more than you can shake a stick at (listing these off the top of my head in no particular order, on my phone):

* Woocommerce (plugin for WordPress - PHP) [1] * Magento (PHP) [2] * Spree Commerce (Ruby on Rails) [3] * Saleor (Django/Python) [4] * Oscar (Django/Python) [5]

I know I'm forgetting others...

If you're into Django, you can find even more solutions listed here: [https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/ecommerce/](https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/ecommerce/)

1 - [https://woocommerce.com](https://woocommerce.com) 2 - [https://magento.com](https://magento.com) 3 - [https://spreecommerce.org](https://spreecommerce.org) 4 - [http://getsaleor.com](http://getsaleor.com) 5 - [http://oscarcommerce.com](http://oscarcommerce.com)

<comment><USER2> Just stumbled across the following site, which might help you evaluate platforms:

[https://www.ecommwar.com](https://www.ecommwar.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Using a PHP based stack, Magento and WooCommerce are my go to solutions depending on requirements and size.

If there as a huge range of products then Magento, if not WooCommerce which is easier for me to work with and allows easier customisation and extending the website in general.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if it's the best but I'm currently digging into a middleman tutorial, that I'm almost positive that I read from hacker news at one point about building an ecommerce sites.

Middleman Tutorial (v4): Enable Static E-Commerce on a Ruby Site Generator > [https://snipcart.com/blog/static-site-e-commerce- integrating...](https://snipcart.com/blog/static-site-e-commerce-integrating- snipcart-with-middleman)

</comment><comment><USER5> WooCommerce! But I may have some bias.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone have any thoughts on Opencart?</comment>


"I could have built that in 2 weeks" - <AUTHOR> http://anishgodha.com/2016/04/26/i-could-have-built-that-in-2-weeks! <comment><USER2> Friendster Myspace were social networks before facebook.

there's a whole lot more to execution than just building an app or website and being first.</comment>


Amazon delivery driver shares his experience - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-delivery-driver-like-work-tech-giants-citizen-package-brigade/ <comment><USER2> I'd like to see his report after he gets injured in a crash while driving for Amazon.

Exploiting information asymmetry and offloading risk onto contractors are what drives the gig economy.</comment>


Google Chrome on the Mac: what's the holdup? - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/04/google-chrome-mac-alpha <comment><USER2> They should give it up. Safari 4 beat them to it.

<comment><USER3> Beat them to what? Safari doesn't have the per-tab process separation that Chrome does.</comment></comment>


LinkedIn is the ultimate phishing site - <AUTHOR> http://blog.danielgrzelak.com/post/49254434399/linkedin-is-the-ultimate-phishing-site

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here - As an information security manager at a large organisation, this scares me. As much as we train our users and put governance structures in place to help them do the right thing, they don't always make the right decisions and we can't expect them to. LinkedIn is encouraging some really poor behaviour here and putting both itself and other organisations at risk.</comment>


Casey Neistat's Viral Marketing Strategy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-set-list/viral-marketing-77aa2fc94b95 <comment><USER2> I think there's another aspect here that the author is missing: break expectations, but do it in a way that confirms existing biases.

It's not just "this thing people believe is wrong", but "this thing people believe is wrong, _but you were never one of those people, were you? you and me, we 're more clever than that_". breaking expectations in a way that makes people feel stupid for having those expectations in the first place isn't going to win you an audience.

\- snowboarding with the NYPD: haven't you always wanted the roads to be shut down for everybody else, and you were the only one allowed on them?

\- Bike Lanes: authority figure doing something stupid, gets called out for it. everybody's got a bit of an anti-authority streak and can sympathise with this

\- Make it Count. spend a big company's money on your personal travel? who wouldn't want to do that.

\- Bike thief: it's easy to see how viewers would like to feel they'd be better than all the people who ignored the "bike theives"

\- iPod's Dirty Secret: doesn't everybody wish their electronics lasted longer, and harbor a suspicion that the big rich tech companies are ripping them off?

<comment><USER3> I was just going to say the same thing.

It works even better when you play up to a small group's beliefs. Or even better when you confirm something a larger group aspires to, but wants an excuse to get out of.

The bike lanes video is the perfect example.

\- It plays to the belief of bikers that the city doesn't care about them and keeps ruining bike lanes. "SEE?! How difficult it is to be a biker in NYC? This is what we deal with everyday!"

\- It plays to the belief of people who _want_ to be bikers (it is a healthy hobby after all), but want a convenient excuse for it. "SEE!?! This is why I don't bike - there are obstacles everywhere!"

There's something of the hero/martyr complex in there as well ("I'm a hero because I bike to work despite all the obstacles")

Same with the iPod video. It confirms the biases of the Apple haters (and there are plenty of them) as the company being closed and anti-consumer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is another thing Neistat likes to portray in his video that I think makes him even more popular: The illusion of amateur.

His videos seems like they can be shot by anyone. But try skateboarding in the middle of a busy New York street with cars going in both directions while holding a heavy tripod camera on one hand, a remote on the other, and talking to the camera and saying hi to fans on the street, and finishing that narrative you started two miles ago all at the same time.

<comment><USER5> I have probably only seen 4-5 videos of his in my life but I did once see a man that look like him flying a drown around the beaches of Santa Monica. I cam back an hour later and he was still there flying a drone.

I was pretty sure it was him and followed his videos for a couple more weeks until a video of him in Santa Monica came out.

I am not into vloggers and agree most play up their amateur status but I was still impressed by the hands-on dedication he was putting into getting one shot.

<comment><USER6> It's especially impressive when you consider that for all the shots in his video where you see him come into a building or ride up and pick up the camera, he has to first go there and set up the camera. Repeating everything like that takes a lot of dedication.

<comment><USER7> It is his job. I'm not an expert on the latest tech for cameras but surely they have remote activation tech now (wifi?)? He could just set it up before he leaves and activate it when he is about to arrive?

<comment><USER8> have you ever tried leaving an expensive camera anywhere in new york? that thing would be gone in an hour

<comment><USER7> Even in his studio?

<comment><USER8> seeing as how he uses a different shot everytime of him entering his studio - your point is still moot

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the author and commenters here are missing something. To make something viral, you have to make it addictive. To make it addictive, you have to make it rewarding. To make it more rewarding than the rest of the competition, you have to make it unique.

The fact that he's "breaking expectations" is what makes his content unique. What makes it REWARDING to watch is that it allows viewers to live vicariously in situations that they would never have the guts (for lack of a better word) to do themselves. Defying the NYPD. Proving the cops wrong. Sticking it to a big corporation like Nike. Being a thief and getting away with it. Again...sticking it to big corporations - Apple. Have you noticed that every one of these gets one over on the entities that most people feel keep them down? Nothing is more rewarding than winning, and his content lets people vicariously feel what it's like to win over the thing that they really hate. They thing that they subconsciously blame for all of their problems. The authority. The man.

This is what the author has completely missed. I could make a video where I turn on a light switch but instead the radio turns on. That breaks expectation, but it is not rewarding. If you want the viewer's reward system to fire, you need to engage their mirror neurons. You have the let them see you doing something they wish they could do. You have to get them to feel reward that they find missing in their lives. THAT is the real key to viral videos.

<comment><USER10> the living vicarious value is huge. it's not just "wouldn't have the guts to do" though. it is about not having the wealth, time, energy, or ability to do. his video portrays a life of a wealthy man who gets to have fun and behave like a kid. a dream that appeals to many people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "How to Casey Neistadt a VLOG" by Sara Dietschy. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVC6WO_SEmw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVC6WO_SEmw)

<comment><USER12> Which, put her on the map as a Vlogger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The strategy is simple to put into words, but it is still extremely difficult to implement into practice. If it were simple to put into practice, then Neistat would not be distinguishing himself from others.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely! I tried to convey that in the article: "And though it is still hard, and potentially risky, if you filter your ideas through this lens, you'll get much more impact from your own ideas."

I totally agree. I was just telling someone else on Twitter about this topic but I have many more marketing campaign ideas that pass the smell test of "will this break expectations" but they make me stressed to pull off. They risk life, property or reputation. So yeah, they can be super difficult. And they don't just come to me overnight. The campaign I mentioned in the article took me months to execute on the way I wanted to.

Edit: And one more thing I'd add. Putting more work of ours through the filter "will this break expectations" doesn't have to have as lofty of a goal as Neistat level virality. I think most of us asking this of our blog posts, videos, apps, etc. would vastly improve the success of our work to a degree still plenty big enough for us.

<comment><USER14> You did a comedian's in cars getting coffee for tech with the npm creator right? Please do more of those with other tech people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not only that but Casey is also a great story teller, filmmaker and editor, they way he makes his videos are incredible. He makes mundane things look cool.

<comment><USER16> Yes, exactly. The article points out one aspect of Casey's videos, but I think it's a minor one. Casey is probably as talented as the most talented directors in Hollywood. So asking what makes them viral is like asking why a director's movies are successful. (It's a useful thing to study, but it's a difficult endeavor.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A while back I would run affiliate offers of different variety on Facebook and I discovered something interesting. A lot of times it wasn't about a particular spin on the subject you are trying to promote, and more about how many people like and share your comment at a continuous rate. My suspicion is that it takes a few special accounts to share content with a few more special accounts and do this just enough times for things to go viral. What do I mean by special? Accounts which have friends/followers with the same mindset who are likely to also share the content. It's like going out in the forest and walking into 5 spider webs in a row to get really pissed. It takes a consecutive successful event chain to trigger a viral reaction.

I put this theory to the test by promoting the same exact affiliate message under the guise of some fun content several times over the course of the week, at different times of the day. Results were almost predictable. One message might go viral if shared at a time when more people were sharing as initial "seeders" (basically your content is shared quickly at first). Another exactly the same message would not take off when the seed rate was too slow (likely due to uninterested people who were shared to from likeminded people). I could get 2 out of 5 identical messages to go viral given a fast seed rate with some luck.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's a great deal of luck involved. Casey is a curious case of someone who is not interesting, deep, gifted or talented at anything, and yet has a massive audience.

With Casey, he was doing online video, when so few people were, that anything could become a smash hit. His other hits have to do with him already being an established name.

It is not unlike Dan Bilzerian - except Dan openly admits he got very lucky to end up where he is at, and so there aren't articles being written on how to become the next Dan or use his 'poker strategy', or maybe there are, I wouldn't be surprised :)

<comment><USER19> Disagree strongly that Casey is "not interesting, deep, gifted or talented at anything". He's a professional filmmaker who did plenty of TV and commercial work (including selling an 8-episode TV series to HBO) before ever getting into YouTube.

His "secret" was bringing his experience with professional cinematography and production values and applying them to a medium (vlogging) that had historically been very much an amateur game.

<comment><USER20> I have watched a few of his videos through my partner being a bit lonely without a job since we started living in a new country without knowing anyone.

He does a great job of being conversational and mostly positive. It definitely gives lonely people a boost.

Plus he took a chance at the right time and to paraphrase Peter Thiel "why compete with the herd and try to squeeze through a tiny window? Just walk around and go through the large gate no one has noticed or thought glamorous enough".

The world is littered with pretty good videographers, Casey is a pretty good one that walked through the big YouTube gate instead. Now their are countless sheep following suit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > We as a company should always grow. How about instead we start firing > customers?

Joking aside, I actually do this...

We will sometimes have irrational customers and they DO impact our bottom line.

If you have customers that constantly waste your time, ask for refunds for insane reasons, complain about features you don't have and never promised to implement - just fire them.

This is one of the reasons Terms of Service exist as well. Sometimes you have a customer who tries to do something evil and you just have to fire them.

</comment><comment><USER22> Virality seems to be correlated with things that evoke emotions. Breaking expectations can trigger emotions such as awe, shock, curiosity and anger. Other things go viral too, such as things that make us laugh or make us feel happy. To focus on just breaking expectations is missing the point.

</comment><comment><USER23> Are people so obsessed with monetary success that they'll sacrifice the joy of programming and computer science to watch Casey Neistat's vlog four times in a row? I guess my priorities are totally out of order.

I personally loathe sleazy marketing and the burlesque tonic people like Neistat feed to the public. It's an embarrassment that his name makes it to the front page of HN, when the post about XDP I was reading early today still has half the points. We're completely obsessed with the wrong things.

<comment><USER24> > Are people so obsessed with monetary success that they'll sacrifice the joy > of programming and computer science to watch Casey Neistat's vlog four times > in a row? I guess my priorities are totally out of order.

Alternative take:

Programming is a job, and an often frustrating one at that. I could be be programming all day, and every bit could help push my career (and financial success) forward... but I'd rather not be obsessed with monetary success, and instead choose to relax to video or two of whimsical goofball doing his thing.

And I say this as someone who has contributed an awful lot to open source.

<comment><USER23> I'm personally motivated by computer science for its own sake. I don't understand the viewpoint that it's a path to a monetary reward. I am incredibly lucky that someone pays me for it, gives me free snacks, and does my dry cleaning, but before that I was just as happy in grad school eating ramen, uncovering the mysteries of computation.

I see Neistat as junk food, empty calories designed to keep us addicted to that which gives us no nourishment. What relaxes me is getting to code on my own time, without deadlines. I don't care if anyone uses my code, I do it for myself.</comment></comment></comment>


A Chat/IM client within chrome browser - <AUTHOR> http://psankar.blogspot.com/2011/10/telepathic-flirt-with-chromium.html A chat/IM client within by integrating with the Telepathy library, used by GNOME and KDE. <comment><USER2> I like this idea, but could someone explain how to set this up without a server for two people over a WAN connection? Is this possible even with NATs?

</comment><comment><USER3> Its a nice project and great effort no doubt. But I am not convinced bundling an IM client into a browser is necessary or even a good idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

I agree it may not be a brilliant idea. But it was more as an experimental thing and has helped my programming skills :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "I believe having IM support may be important for Chromium as IM is one of > the important activities that could not be performed yet on the browser."

FWIW, ebuddy and meebo amongst others, have been around for years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure meebo and ebuddy are there. But I do not like a Man in the middle. I mean, we have no guarantee that meebo will not record our conversations or passwords. Yes, I am being just paranoid. Also, we do not know how long these services may exist. May be a web interface for telepathy which can be hosted on apache will be good.

BTW, I did this as an experiment :-) Thanks for your comments.

<comment><USER4> Sorry if my comment came across as dismissive. Always cool to see new things being tried.</comment></comment></comment>


Insynchq : A Google Docs-Loving Dropbox Rival - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/12/30/forget-dropbox-insync-is-your-google-docs-loving-alternative-and-its-free/

<comment><USER2> I second the recommendation of Insync. I use it on three Macs, and so far it has worked flawlessly as far as I can tell. I haven't beat on it mercilessly, but I did use it for all the course material for the two free Stanford classes I took, along with the Octave code I wrote.

Re how they are going to make money: They used to charge $20 a year if you wanted to sync more than the free 1GB that Google Docs gives you. This apparently was very confusing for customers, so now they will sync any amount for free and plan to offer some additional extra-cost features, but they haven't announced these yet. So at the moment, Insync is completely free.

I've lobbied them to support opaque syncing of symbolic links and to have a mechanism specifying files to ignore (a la .gitignore) as an extra-cost feature, so that I can use Insync for syncing code that I am working on between my work computer and my home computer. (I currently use Unison for this purpose, but I find Unison to be something of a chore to use.) Whether they will ultimately support these features, I don't know, but they _did_ show some interest. At the moment, neither Dropbox nor Windows Live Mesh nor Insync are no good for this purpose, as none of them support ignores and both Dropbox and Insync treats symlinks transparently rather than opaquely. Live Mesh is a bit better than Dropbox and Insync with regard to symlinks: it just ignores them completely. This means that I could conceivably sync them out of band, but since it doesn't support ignores, the issue is moot.

<comment><USER2> Boy, what did I say to offend people?

I provide useful feedback on some services that I am actually using for real work, and I get downvoted?

<comment><USER3> I don't usually vote, but when I see that a useful comment has been downvoted, I upvote, as I did just now. The reason I am pointing this out is because I strongly suggest that the system be somehow changed so as not to alienate people who create useful comments. Also, we should be able to buy and sell points.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Yeah, it's rather unsettling to spend some time to writing up my experiences only to have my post end up in the negative numbers and all grayed out for no apparent reason. I'm not sure what's up with that -- it makes you feel like you're back on Slashdot. All's well that ends well, though. The post is well into the positives now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Insynchq is cool... Nicely done. However it seems like Dropbx is still the best client software which works well on all platforms.

Shameless plug: So if you want to sync in the cloud (Dropbox <-> GoogleDocs) try <https://cloudhq.net> (Dropbox does excellent sync with your PC and then cloudHQ ensure that GDoc is sync'd with Dropbox).

</comment><comment><USER5> The competition looks stiff, but I'm rooting for them. Terence Pua, Insync's co-founder, is a seasoned internet entrepreneur -- one of the guys behind Friendster (Philippines) back in the day, before getting killed by Facebook.

I had the opportunity to join Insync's team back when I was living in Manila; but I came across Payguard ( <http://www.younoodle.com/startups/payguard> ) and decided to try to revolutionize online payments instead.

<comment><USER6> Dude, I looked you up & you're coconuter. I've been following your adventures in the Philippines for a while. I didn't know you worked with Terence.

I met Terence here in the Bay Area and I had lunch with Terence when I was in Manila last May.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is cool, but what the cloud needs to truly work is a standard for communicating between any two services. Optimally, I should be able to use any Dropbox-type service with any web app, by setting "file opener" URLs. There would be some authentication method between the servers, and the file would be transferred over to the app for editing, and back to Dropbox when I press "save".

Is this feasible?

<comment><USER4> Yes. There seems to be a need to connect cloud services so that, for example, service A and talk with service B without involving your PC into that connection. Something like DCE/RCP or DCOM for public cloud.

BTW, we started doing this with the following Chrome extension which allows you to edit Dropbox/Basecamp/Sugarsync files inside GoogleDocs: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iobcbdgacfkninlcbp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iobcbdgacfkninlcbphihhdlkobkehia)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How are they monetizing? Google Docs doesn't give them money for referrals, does it?

<comment><USER9> Sounds like they're going to charge for premium features but not for storage:

 _"Everyone is stuck on the "more GBs as 100% of the value" model. We want to change that. It should be about personalized features you want."_

<comment><USER10> Translation: very few people's stash of word and excel documents will ever exceed 2GB.

<comment><USER11> You can store any kind of files now on Google Docs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anyone know what happend to Google Drive? Was really looking forward to it...

<comment><USER13> It was killed by Google Docs:

[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-google-docs- kil...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-google-docs-killed- gdrive.html)

short version: google engineers have fast wifi everywhere they go, synchronizing to the hd looks pointless to them.

<comment><USER14> Mashable would disagree: <http://mashable.com/2011/12/22/google-drive- predictions/> \- and Google would be wise to follow. Google's arch enemies - Amazon, Apple and Microsoft - all have their clouds to dance on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have been looking for a way to sync to (and from) Google Docs conveniently for a while. Insynchq looks nice, unfortunately "Linux Coming Soon".

<comment><USER16> In my opinion, it can't come soon enough. If this service gets significant uptake, it should finally push Dropbox to lower their long-stagnant prices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does it do encryption? I would love a Dropbox with client side encryption. I don't care about web access.

</comment><comment><USER18> Perhaps this will encourage Dropbox to up the ante and release an official sync with Google Docs. Please?

<comment><USER4> There is unofficial Google Docs <-> Dropbox sync: <https://cloudHQ.net/dropbox> Please let me know what you think about it.</comment></comment>


The future of movie downloads is ultraviolet - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100720/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_ultraviolet_movies

<comment><USER2> It sounds like UltraViolet is nothing more than a unified standard for video on demand. In this case, multiple providers (e.g. Comcast to your TV, Verizon to your phone) all know about your purchase and can deliver your movie in a variety of formats. This is a win only if UltraViolet is accepted: not only by the movie studios (the typical challenge), but by all of the content providers as well.

Personally, I'd rather see the TV deprecated completely and handle all of my media through the Internet. If this has to happen via many different content providers, that's fine, and it may be better in terms of competition, but I'm not convinced it's all that necessary. It seems to me that the actual delivery of the video is nothing something that matters a whole lot to the average consumer, as long as they are getting their video now. Thus, it's more important to focus efforts on getting all of the content creators (movie and tv studios) to cooperate. Once you have the content, it's a simple matter to create different streams for different purposes and provide the movie on demand to any device. If all of the streams are essentially coming over the Internet, this is easy to do through one channel.

</comment><comment><USER3> FTA: "a system that will let you watch the movies you buy wherever you are, regardless of formats and other technical hurdles"

The track record for things like this isn't encouraging. Case in point: Microsoft didn't even bother to make their own Zune media player compatible with "plays4sure" certified content. Plays for sure, indeed.

I predict a massive fail.

<comment><USER4> > The track record for things like this isn't encouraging.

I hope to be extremely surprised but I'm not counting on it. I won't predict massive fail though. I simply predict it won't get passed the vaporware stage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's about time. Purchasing content should be totally disconnected from the physical medium. Eventually there should be a big database of all content (movies, books, music) and a listing of which ones you've ever paid for. Then, by providing your account details you can access those media from anywhere to download or stream. I've long suspected that this sort of system is unpopular among media companies because they can currently rely on customers re- purchasing all their favorites every ~10-15 years when CDs replace tapes, or MP3s replace CDs, or whatever.

<comment><USER6> > _" Purchasing content should be totally disconnected from the physical > medium."_

And that is where I disagree. Something like UltraViolet for rentals, or all- you-can-eat plans, sounds perfectly fine.

But for _purchased_ content? No. A thousand times: NO.

If I'm renting it, it's reasonable to have restrictions on it. If I'm _buying_ it, I'll take just the bits, thank you.

No burden. No cruft. No phone-home or provider-based device support decisions. No fine print that the service may disappear one day, taking my library with it. No fine print that _any_ terms may change post-sale. Because it's a _sale_. Not a _license_.

Just the bits, thanks; in a standard format.

<comment><USER7> Part of the problem is that the movie industry has proven time and time again that they can't be trusted in this area. You'd have to be an incredible optimist or on the industry's dime to really believe their claims.

Steam is an example of a service that has done this exact thing incredibly well, and it would absolutely not have worked without Valve building up a reputation for integrity and professionalism.

If Valve came out with UltraViolet, I'd be chomping at the bit for it because I trust them to honor their agreements and plan accordingly to do so into the distant future.

I wouldn't trust the movie industry at all, let alone enough to sign onto a service like this. They may never be able to regain the potential for consumer trust, and it's their own damn fault.

<comment><USER8> Heh... Somewhere there's a movie exec reading this article and thinking, "Hey, with this new system, we can update the ads that we force them to watch at the beginning of DVDs!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What a horrible name choice. I think they likely picked it to be sure it's difficult to search for.

</comment><comment><USER10> > One hurdle facing the digital locker concept is that the retailer collecting > money on the sale may not be the one that bears the cost of delivering the > movie over set-top boxes or the Internet. > So far, the necessary web of > deals allowing for that complex transaction has not been set up.

That's the major problem with the whole system. If I buy all my content via, say, Amazon, why would Comcast want to deliver it to me for free? Ubiquitous connected DRM has never truly been a technical hurdle. It has always been a business hurdle. Without addressing the rev share issues, UltraViolet appears to be dead in the water.

Not to mention the lack of Apple and their massive installed base of content playback devices.

</comment><comment><USER11> That Kurt Wimmer movie sucked. And Milla Jovovich looked like a skank in it. She's fallen a long way since _The Fifth Element_...</comment>


The art of Virtual Analog filter design [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.native-instruments.com/fileadmin/ni_media/downloads/pdf/VAFilterDesign_2.1.0.pdf <comment><USER2> This is great stuff. I've also done some work in the space, and did a writeup called "A matrix approach to the Moog ladder filter", which is a pretty different perspective from Vadim's, but the concepts and principles are pretty much the same under the hood. That's the filter in music-synthesizer-for- android, and I think it holds its own, both in audio quality and (SIMD- optimized) CPU efficiency.

[1] PDF: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8fba/b35e5235fa2f6006c0f889...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8fba/b35e5235fa2f6006c0f88975a2d528f7e9ba.pdf)

[2] Discussion on KVR Audio: [https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=385262](https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=385262)

</comment><comment><USER3> Was this written under the auspices of Native Instruments? If so, I'm extremely impressed - they're doing some very cool work over there.

</comment><comment><USER4> Really really useful - good to see NI making this level of detail open and easy to access.

<comment><USER5> I think you might want to disambiguate a bit. When people say NI, they are almost always referring to National Instruments, not Native Instruments. Especially considering that both deal in virtual filter implementations.

<comment><USER6> In audio circles, NI has always been Native first. If I search for "NI Native" in google there is not a single mention of National Instruments in the first page.

<comment><USER5> Sure in music circles, but National is pretty big in DSP circles and if I just search NI in google, National Instruments is the first 5 results followed by a news story followed by Native Instruments. If you go to NI.com, that's National Instrument's website. If I search for NI DSP, NI analog, or NI filters all return National Instruments top billing.

I think it's reasonable that someone might get confused especially since the PDF (About DSP implementations of Analog Filters) doesn't mention Native.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> looks great, see also Julius O. Smith's awesome DSP tutorials: [https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/filters/](https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/filters/)</comment>


Google Allo a Success or a Failure: Analysis of Data By Region - <AUTHOR> http://www.valuepenguin.sg/google-allo-success-or-failure-analysis-data-region <comment><USER2> I'm still puzzled and annoyed by Google's random abandonment of so many of their projects, even ones that are heavily used (Reader), often without warning or stated rationale. Honestly I just avoid new Google products because I never know when they'll get randomly abandoned or axed.

The scatterbrain landscape of Google's messaging offerings is just one example of this. GChat, Talk, Hangouts, Messenger, Allo, Duo, Google+ Chat, etc. Can someone explain to me why TF they have so many messaging apps? It's confusing, annoying, and requires too much onramp effort to install _yet another messaging app_ just to talk to friends.

At this point people always retort "Well, Google is a fast-moving development environment! Throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks! Fail fast!" Yeah, sure, that's great and everything, but if they never actually commit to maintaining the things they build, it doesn't matter how cool or innovative $LatestProduct is, because it won't be around long enough for anybody to find out.

Google engineer Barry Schwartz once said:

"In prospect, capability seems way more important than useability. In PRACTICE, the reverse is true."

In Google's case I would extend that to say "reliability and consistency is more important than capability." I don't care what Allo does if I can't trust Google to maintain it for more than few months before unceremoniously dumping it to the side of the road like so many of their other offerings.

At this point everyone I know just uses WhatsApp and is done with it.

edit: Geostyx made a great comment: "Whenever I hear 'Google' my mind goes straight to "thing that will be gone in 18 months""

<comment><USER3> in retrospect, killing reader was probably the right decision. It seems like RSS was on the way out, anyway.

<comment><USER4> Conversely, killing off Reader _could_ have been the reason RSS fell away.

<comment><USER5> Fell away? RSS is an essential part of my life online. It didn't fell anywhere. It works just fine like it always did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It really is an analysis of the various regions e.g. Asia, Europe, USA, where Allo was released, and it really is interesting data. It bombed in Asia save for India, and had a lukewarm reception in most other places except parts of the middle east (UAE, Qatar), the USA, and Argentina.

I speculate that it bombed in Asia because Google doesn't understand that market really well; Korea, Japan, and Taiwan already have useful messaging applications that are significantly more popular than any other way of communicating. For example, many people in Korea communicate with their family and friends using Kakao, and in Japan LINE accomplishes the same thing. Why would you switch if you already have a way to message everyone you know?

I would guess actually that is the real reason for lukewarm reception in general: there's no reason to switch if what you have now is good. I have no reason to switch from Messenger, from texting, from Hangouts, to this new offering that _may_ be better but isn't good enough to make me want to switch. I am curious why it is so popular in India and the middle east though.

<comment><USER7> Being #1 in India seems like a success in and of itself, considering Allo is entering such a crowded market.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not anymore. Check out our new data. Just updated the article in the same link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The lack of unified SMS integration was a HUGE mistake IMO. As much as these messaging apps want SMS to go away, its not. It is the only common "language" across all devices and providers - not to mention the older generation has no idea WTF all these messaging apps are.

My hope was that Allo was going to fix the disaster of a decision by google to split SMS and Messages apart in Hangouts.

I want one app that supports SMS and messages and I want it web enabled so I can use it from my computer. iMessage has this nailed.

I was a Google Fi customer. Before hangouts separated function I had an awesome cross platform unified messaging experience. I'm switching to iPhone after 7+ yrs on android partially due to this android messaging mess.

<comment><USER9> SMS was a huge mistake, but by far the least of such mistakes. The BIGGEST, IMO, was not allowing you to sign on from multiple devices, and not having a desktop app. If I can only use messaging on one device, it's just about useless to me in this day and age.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. iMessage handles this great. I was hoping Allo was the iMessage killer. I'm a google fanboy, and this next gen messaging direction by G is really disappointing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think it's a little early to tell whether or not it's a _complete_ failure, it's only been out a couple of weeks.

It certainly hasn't gained traction. In terms of anecdata, I haven't downloaded it for the same reason I don't use G+: no one I know is on it, so why bother? Everyone I know already uses Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp or sometimes Hangouts for IM.

It's also unclear what Allo does that the three mentioned apps above don't do.

<comment><USER11> And Facebook Messenger provides a nice text messaging interface as well, so it was an obvious switch to unify some of my streams of messaging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I won't even bother trying it until it has desktop/browser support. Until then, Telegram works amazing and everyone I talk to uses it.

<comment><USER13> I'm hoping it gets that option soon as well...Currently you aren't even able to set it as your default SMS application either.

<comment><USER12> You can't use it for SMS because it's not like other SMS apps. When you send an SMS on Allo, it goes through a random relay number controlled by Google, not your number.

<comment><USER13> Ah I see - I was just looking for a hangouts replacement is all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks like yet another product that Google will abandon quickly due to lackluster interest.

There is absolutely no indication that the people behind Allo will make any effort to mitigate the clear and present problems.

Sure, it has a couple features that stand out, but the shortcomings stick out sharply, notably the pathetic SMS "integration."

<comment><USER12> It's a chicken and egg problem I think. I'm not going to latch on to Google products because I expect them to just kill it in a couple years anyway.

Google kills products because not enough people use them.

If Google keeps Allo/Duo at the front of their messaging apps, adds desktop support to Allo, and keep improving performance/features for the next 5+ years, then it might actually gain a decent userbase.

I use Telegram right now. It Just Works™ for me and the people I talk to. It's fast, stable, and they keep adding features without it feeling like bloat. I also don't feel like I have to worry about it getting abandoned in the next couple years.

<comment><USER15> They should really just stop branding the apps as Google, and only come out from behind the curtain if there's traction so as to avoid damaging their brand like this.

<comment><USER12> This. Whenever I hear "Google" my mind goes straight to "thing that will be gone in 18 months"

<comment><USER16> I feel the same way. I just don't trust Google anymore, they have an awful track record.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What exactly was the end-user problem in the messaging space that Google was attempting to solve with Allo?

<comment><USER18> Google assistant. It's designed to streamline the problem of 5 friends trying to decide where to eat brunch on a sunday morning over sms, or anything kind of on the fly logistical problem like that. They do make this pretty apparent in their presentations.

I don't know, man. I've been waiting since I was a kid to see AI, and finally some rough approximation of sci-fi grade AI is starting to materialize. But everywhere in the internet all I hear is 'It's dumb... Who cares... Google doesn't know what they're doing'

I don't know, is me being continually amazed by the services Google offers some kind of character flaw or something? I don't understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> While this will probably end up being true, it's way too early to call. The Google Assistant in Allo was a pre-release version, the full version is supposed to be released soon as announced yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER20> i don't understand why allo and duo are separate apps and not just part of the hangouts app. I can't believe that no one at google said, "Isn't it weird that we are releasing two more messaging apps?" so there must be some logic behind it but I can't see it.

<comment><USER21> My best guess, just from observing Google from the outside, is that they have a real problem doing _boring_ stuff. Maintain something? Boring, won't do it. Fix developer-facing bugs in Android? Boring, won't do it (instead, let it sit ignored for 2 years then inaccurately mark the bug obsolete). Document anything beyond some surface-level relatively-fun-to-write stuff? Boring, won't do it. _Update_ docs? Boring, maybe half-ass it and leave the rest outdated, but don't bother to mark it as such. Nitty-gritty work to really support _e.g._ Material Design? OMG so boring. Port existing library/SDK to one of our other platforms (I'm looking at you Android Maps API)? Ugh, no, I guess I'll do the minimum possible so I can move on to something more fun. Improve performance on any of our many poorly-performing products? BORING BORING BORING, no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > By incorporating AI, Google Allo attempts to provide a "superior" chatting > experience. It features automated "Smart Replies", integrated Google > Assistant that will answer your questions, and easier ways to express one's > feelings with emojis and pictures.

Is it just me? It seems every time Google and others incorporate "AI" into a product it makes it more awkward to work with. It feels like adding AI these days is only slightly better than "we added a Clippy module". Search seems less direct, more map fails, and asking "ok Google" is a mess.

Has anyone tried Allo and are you able to comment on that "predictive response" or ability to ask the Google AI? Is it well integrated and useful or Clippy-like annoying?

</comment><comment><USER23> Network Effect? I have another theory.

Allo is #1 in India because a Jared paid people to download it ;)

</comment><comment><USER24> I appreciate Google not forced all Google customers to install Allo ala Facebook but it's hard not to acknowledge Facebook forcing Messenger on Facebook users didn't achieve their goal of widespread adoption of Messenger.

<comment><USER25> Facebook Forced you to install messenger? Not only have I not installed facebook messenger, I removed the facebook app and just use the mobile web interface. In chrome for android if I select "Request Desktop Site" I can still get to the messaging part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Isn't this the standard with large companies, you just can't innovate. Too many MBAs want to tell you how it should be done.

I also like how AI is now used to describe algorithms, thanks ad wizards.

</comment><comment><USER25> There is an assertion in the article that I'm not sure about.

"This is most likely because Android in developed markets in Americas and Europe are more updated and are pushing the Google Allo app through automatic downloads."

I really don't think that Allo was automatically pushed to anyone, or maybe only nexus devices which is a really small share of the market.

I'd like to see the author of the article back up the claim.

</comment><comment><USER27> Isn't this basically the same story we've seen with Google and social ten times now? They really want to be a part of this space.

<comment><USER28> Maybe if they worked to improve what they have instead of constantly scrapping everything and restarting, it would help.

Just add Google Assistant and easier searching/inserting to Hangouts. Add phone number sign-up too. Or, hell, just make Allo Hangout-compatible so people can switch to the "new" app still talk to their friends that are on the other network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So it's the Google+ of chat. It has one or two neat things, but there's no killer feature that will drive adoption. In the end, the things it does right are far outweighed by the features it's missing that people expect (multiple devices, a desktop app, etc).

</comment><comment><USER29> Odd that the article suggests Allo is a competitor to Facebook. Messenger perhaps, but Facebook overall?

Either way, I use Google accounts for almost everything but I still haven't downloaded Allo, because I still don't see any reason why I should.

<comment><USER30> I think "Facebook" here means "Whatsapp", which is owned by Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We actually just updated our article with latest data in October. It looks WAY worse for every single country.

<comment><USER31> As predicted. There already are WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger. All these apps combine chat and video chat in one. And Google wants us to install two apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is it just me or has Google done basically no advertising for Allo?

<comment><AUTHOR> they've done so much pr for this tho

<comment><USER33> They have a weird way to introduce new products.

1) they make some PR event, to create hype.

2) Then, they will say, that the product will be released later (in the case of Allo, they didn't even provide a specific date).

3) Then, the product is released, but in the staged way. You may or may not be able to download, as it will be fully available 'in the coming weeks'.

4) During these few weeks, you will forget, that there is a such product and when it is finally available to you, you won't bother.

So after all, the outlined steps are a good way to kill any hype the PR event from step 1 was able to create.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I actually updated our article with new data from October. It looks WAY worse for every single country.</comment>


Scamalot: More than ever, shoppers need to be wary online - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14996833

<comment><USER2> For being written in November 2009, this is comedy:

 _Of the various marketing ploys used in business to promote websites, the most controversial is a technique known as search-engine optimisation. Several years ago, web developers found they could boost search-engine results for their clients by stuffing their web pages with all sorts of popular keywords and phrases, many of which bore no relationship to the actual content.

Now Google, Yahoo! and others are wise to such marketing gambits, the riggers have started stuffing a web page's metatags (hidden attributes of a web page that describe its content) with words that score highly on search engines. As a further refinement, they bury phoney keywords in the web page's actual programming where they cannot be filtered out but can still boost the page's ranking. Such tricks are now being adopted widely by cybercriminals._

EDIT: It gets even better:

 _How do you protect yourself? It is difficult to say. But there are a few obvious things you can do to practice safe surfing. First, never click on links to unfamiliar websites—especially those that promise unbelievable deals. If you must visit them, type the web address manually into the browser's address bar yourself._

What? How does that help? Are spammers infecting Google now so that the URL listed isn't the one that the link goes to? :)

 _Second, know the retailer. Even if an unfamiliar site looks legitimate, if the company appears to be based in America or Canada, check it out on Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org) before visiting it._

Umm...how am I supposed to know if it looks legitimate before I visit it?

Journalists who write from the economist should have to consult a security expert before publishing stuff like this.</comment>


How British satellite company Inmarsat tracked down MH370 - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10719304/How-British-satellite-company-Inmarsat-tracked-down-MH370.html <comment><USER2> The Doppler stuff is new (as of the 24th).

What I had understood before was that the airplane carried an Inmarsat satellite transceiver which remained active, even though certain subsystems that use it (notably ACARS) were disabled. While active, the transceiver communicates with the satellite once an hour (the "pings" at 11 minutes past), even if it has no traffic to send. Failing to disable the transceiver in addition to the other systems would have been an oversight on the part of the plane's hijackers, assuming it was hijacked.

Apparently, Inmarsat had available accurate ping timing data. Combined with knowledge of turnaround delays, this would enable them to calculate the plane's distance from the satellite during each ping. That defines an imaginary sphere in space, which intersects with the earth's surface to form a circular locus of where the plane could have been at the time. Presumably, there were eight such ping interactions, ending with the one at 0811 Kuala Lumpur time. There was no 0911 ping, meaning the plane had either crashed or landed and powered off before that time.

And so we had the northern and southern arcs. These were obtained by cropping the circle based on factors such as how far the plane could have flown in the available time, whether or not military radars, if any, had detected the plane, etc.

Now comes the Doppler data. Apparently, Inmarsat also has an accurate read of the plane's transmit frequency. The extent to which this frequency differs from the nominal frequency would indicate the plane's velocity towards or away from the satellite at the time of the ping.

Today, Chris McLaughlin revealed that Inmarsat had studied the Doppler patterns of normal flights in the same region and concluded that the Doppler data for MH370 indicated that the southern arc was the right one. Hopefully, Inmarsat has it right, and the black boxes will be found before their beacon batteries run out.

<comment><USER3> Is the data on the black boxes dependent on continual power? That seems strange.

<comment><USER4> the second biggest issue with the data is that it will have written over some of the information that would have occurred at the time the flight deviated from the assigned course.

It used to be that voice recorders with 30 minute loops, I am not sure if that is still the case.

<comment><USER5> Depends on the model (and how much you pay for it). Honeywell's SSVCR[0] is available in 30 minutes and 120 minutes.

[0] [http://www.sea- avionics.com/lc/cart.php?target=productDetail...](http://www.sea- avionics.com/lc/cart.php?target=productDetails&model=SSCVR&substring=sscvr)

<comment><USER6> That's odd with today's technology we should be able to record hours of voice on to an a usb stick.

Granted that is a lot more fragile then a plane black box but still. There should be a way to record a lot more then 120 minutes.

<comment><USER7> I suspect the answer is similar to "why don't they stream FDR-data, live, for all flights?".

That being: the airlines feel the cases in which extra measures matter are only a small subset (flights with problems in incredibly remote areas) of a small subset (flights that have any problems at all) and thus not worth the extra cost/complexity/risk to all the other flights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A pretty detailed explanation from Reddit user XenonOfArcticus.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/218i36/how_the_satell...](http://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/218i36/how_the_satellite_company_inmarsat_tracked_down/cgapbao?context=1)

<comment><USER9> A better one: [http://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/218i36/how_the_satell...](http://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/218i36/how_the_satellite_company_inmarsat_tracked_down/cgb7b6j)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10>
      engineers were able to narrow the location of the plane down
      with an initial analysis of the Doppler effect on the signal
      from the flight's pings and the plane's approximate altitude.

How and why would they have a record of this to be able to study it?

<comment><USER11> I'm curious about that too, it seems very unlikely that the actual digitized RF waveform was available for analysis. My guess, based on working with somewhat similar systems in the past, is that the ping packet content was also tagged by the satellite with the measured carrier frequency (or offset from nominal) and this value had enough precision that it let them calculate the Doppler effect. The reason I would say this is because I've done similar things in the past for telemetry applications, it can be really handy for debugging when things aren't working right.

<comment><USER12> Inmarsat is a "bent pipe" system, meaning that the satellite just amplifies and sends down to the base station everything that it receives. So the operator's RF fanciness is limited only by the noise factor in the satellite's amplifiers.

<comment><USER13> Ah, that makes a lot more sense, though nevertheless impressive precision on the part of the base station.

However, given the corridors, it still seems like the suggestion is that the Doppler measurements said it was moving rightward or leftward, when it should only say how much the aircraft was getting closer or getting further away. Looking at the map alone, it doesn't seem like that information would help distinguish which corridor it was in.

<comment> Tuna-Fish The satellite was also moving (south or north), and the measured redshift/blueshift could be used to determine if the plane was north or south of the satellite.

<comment><USER13> I thought it was geostationary rather than polar orbiting.

<comment> Tuna-Fish Geostationary satellites don't actually stay completely stationary for any length of time without active stationkeeping. They very quickly develop a north-south motion which makes them trace out an analemma, a sort of figure eight on the ground.

<comment><USER13> I first wrote geosynchronous and approximately geostationary, then decided it was too cumbersome. What sort of magnitude does the analemma have? Also is the effect amplified by it being a "bent pipe"?

Even if it isn't intentional, in scenarios such as measuring a Doppler shift I can see how it can be a useful tool. Almost analogous to microsaccades we make with our eyes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the actual video he seems to have misunderstood what the Doppler effect actually is. He gives the example of a train whistle "getting louder as it comes towards you and fainter as it moves away" but he should have said something along the lines of "the same way that a train whistle has a higher pitch as it moves towards you and a lower pitch as it moves away from you". The intensity of the signal is much harder to measure/calibrate than the _frequency_ of the signal.

<comment><USER15> Chris McLaughlin (the guy in the video) is a PR guy, not a scientist.

<comment><USER16> We learned what the doppler effect was in Grade 11 physics - it's literally high school material.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17>
        ** is thought to have tracked down.

They still haven't actually found the plane, they've just got a very well reasoned assumption of the area the plane should be in.

</comment><comment><USER18> ...and by the way, we offer a service that only costs $1/h/plane and we'd like governments to force everyone to pay us. Now, I have no idea whether $1/h/plane is reasonable (is that to cover the satellite comms, or is that on top of them?) but it is kind of stunning that planes aren't tracked automatically and as a matter of course the way, say, most people with cell phones are.

</comment><comment><USER19> As an interesting aside, Inmarsat are based on the Old Street roundabout in London. This is reputedly the centre of the startup scene.

</comment><comment><USER20> Call me a conspiracy nut, but here's what I believe may have happened:

It's almost a certainty that the US government has spy satellites video recording the entire planet at all times, at a level good enough to distinguish individual aircraft. The US spy agencies probably knew where the plane was right away, but they can't just tell everybody or the jig is up.

So they may have just contacted this satellite company, told them where the plane is, and came up with a technical explanation of how it was located.

<comment><USER21> The US certainly has a bloated defense budget, but I strongly doubt that we have satellites constantly trained on the typically empty oceans that cover 70% of the Earth.

<comment><USER22> While I don't subscribe to GP's view that satellites have bandwidth for "video recording the entire planet at all times", it seems plausible that SIGINT satellites would have a relatively constant bandwidth available for observation. As a (non-geostationary) satellite passes over relatively unpopulated areas (e.g., the southern Indian Ocean), it will be "bored" and thus far more likely to notice a single low-power transmission.

On the other hand, if it is storage and downlink bandwidth that is limited, sats would probably be programmed to ignore or discard uninteresting signals. This seems likely to me.

So the question may be whether commercial airliner pings from the southern Indian Ocean area were considered 'interesting' at the time and, if not, did anyone realize there was a rogue 777 in time to re-task the satellites?

Regardless, I'd bet those signals are considered interesting going forward.

<comment><USER23> The other complication is that Inmarsat up-link is a steered spot-beam ( the antenna on the aircraft is stabilsed and driven, or phased-array in recent implemenations ). So the SIGINT sat would have to be passing through the up- link 'beam' precisely as it was transmitting.

Down-links are ( depending on generation and usage ) either from one of an array of narrow-beam antennae on the Inmarsat or from the wide-area general broadast antenna; much easier to intercept, you and I can do it with a sat-TV dish and an RTL dongle.

<comment><USER24> With the right equipment it may be feasible for an eavesdropper to try to listen to information from one of the satellite antenna's sidelobes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What people write in the article's comment section is certainly an interesting read. Irrational at best.</comment>


The Navy SEALs Might Have Selected a New Pistol of Choice - <AUTHOR> http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-navy-seals-may-have-selected-a-new-pistol-of-choice-1749620057 <comment><USER2> The author writes as if the Glock 19 had a greater capacity vs the Sig: "Additionally, the Glock had about half the parts of its auto-loader counterparts and three times the firepower of revolvers, holding 17+1 rounds instead of just six."

In fact, both have the same capacity in standard, flush magazines (15 rounds). It's the _Glock 17_ that has a 17-round standard magazine.</comment>


"Facebook turned me down" (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383 <comment><USER3> Turned me down in 07' after a handful of phone interviews, flying me across the country, and 8 hours of in person interviews with 3 separate departments... but not before I got their CTO so shitfaced drunk he botched a 2AM code push to production and helped convince Zuckerbergs little sister into riding a mechanical bull.

I regret nothing.

edit: Worth noting I was a 22 year old self taught programmer that hadn't experienced addressing O(log n) in a CS course, working with massive amounts of data, or large scale Linux sysadmin stuff. I wasn't fit for the ranks when compared against ex Yahoo! and Google people running for the same positions. So at least I made the most of it.

edit2: I got the interview after finding a bug in their authentication system that would allow a password hash collision to spit out the e-mail of the user that the collision occurred with. Meaning I type in a bogus email, and a password, after the post the login form would come back with the email pre- populated of the user that the hash collision had happened on, I type in the password again, and I was logged in as said user. It was a small bug I found by accident and then afterwards asked if they were hiring...

edit3: [http://i.imgur.com/sePVdgI.png](http://i.imgur.com/sePVdgI.png)

<comment><USER4> They won't hire you but are begging to get more H1b workers...

<comment><USER5> Yeah, how awful it would be for America if the world's brightest become citizens.

<comment><USER6> I'm all for the best and brightest becoming citizens, but we should offer visas for the most in-demand, high salary professions first. We can tell from salaries that the shortage of CEOs, lawyers and hedge fund managers is much more acute than the shortage of programmers and engineers.

<comment><USER7> Since when do CEOs, lawyers, and hedge fund managers ever have visa problems?

Certain categories of US visas can basically be bought, but it is not cheap.

<comment><USER8> I think michaelt was being ironic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Twitter passed on him also.

[https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/1895942068](https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/1895942068)

<comment><USER10> This is pretty hilarious. It's as if he knew what would happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's interesting how neither of the founders fit any of the stereotypical valley founder profiles. They don't look like Mark Zuckerberg, they are older, Brian Acton barely used twitter, and his tech background is more traditional (C, C++, Perl, etc).

<comment><USER12> Any word on if either were married?

<comment><USER13> And if they were, I hope they were also smart enough to have prenups.

This brings up a question: Is it even possible to make a prenup that covers _future_ windfills? E.g., a prenup that protects your wealth in a company that hasn't yet been founded.

<comment><USER14> By definition, a prenuptial agreement only covers entering into the marriage. Future assets, especially in community property states, usually have to be specifically disclaimed by the other party in the marriage before they can be considered separate property. For example: A prenup can't specify that a house bought after marriage is separate property, but the non-owning spouse can voluntarily sign away rights to that property as a recorded instrument. This is why some deeds say "John A. Doe, Grantee, a married man as his sole and separate property." (Some states allow for property purchased with separate assets to remain separate inside the marriage but the paper trail on this better be meticulous if a divorce ever happens.)

Editorializing: Why would a spouse be no less entitled to reap the rewards generated by the other spouse's start-up? A relationship, especially a marriage, is inherently two people acting as a unit, so just because one spouse didn't sling PHP and research lambdas all night doesn't mean that either spouse's contribution is more or less valuable. If my spouse accomplished something like this, I'd be thrilled at the success and genuinely looking forward to our life together with much less time and stress investment from both of us, since that means that I was also picking up a lot more of the "home life."

<comment><USER15> >Why would a spouse be no less entitled to reap the rewards generated by the other spouse's start-up?

Because just sitting around giving emotional support to someone doesn't entitle you to half of everything they get. It doesn't work that way with any other relationship (parent, friend, etc), so why should a marriage? This is especially true if both partners are working.

<comment><USER16> Because that's what marriage is. If you don't like it, there's an easy solution - don't marry. You can do practically everything - from sex to going to movies together to emotionally supporting - without being married. If the concept of sharing your life with another person sounds weird - just don't do it. It's not mandatory, you know.

<comment><USER17> No, there are different kinds of marriages. One can have an agreement that past and future assets are not divided. If you don't like it, don't get such an agreement.

>If the concept of sharing your life with another person sounds weird - <USER2> don't do it.

Sharing your life with another person doesn't imply sharing property.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Note that per Forbes [1], Brian Acton was Yahoo employee #44.

So it's not like Facebook (or Twitter) was overlooking a diamond-in-the-rough. More likely, it was some other key-role/compensation/fit mismatch.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive- inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Turns out false negatives can be pretty costly too, it seems.

<comment><USER20> If he was hired by Facebook, he wouldn't have (co)developed WhatsApp. If Facebook hired him, he would most likely be worth (to Facebook) as much as any other random Facebook programmer.

Unless he's the one who started WhatsApp, it would have been developed and successful anyway and Facebook would have to buy it for the same amount of money.

The reality is that product/market fit is much more powerful force than programming capabilities of any single engineer.

<comment><USER21> I think the real issue is that when Facebook didn't hire him, he went on to found a competing company which Facebook felt compelled to pay 16 billion for. That's a big cost.

<comment><USER22> If FB hired him, then one of the other N messaging apps would have become the biggest one, and Facebook would have bought that company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In this case, he was probably rejected more for fit/pay/cultural reasons but this should be a reminder for candidates to never be dejected when they're turned down by these companies. I have a friend who tried to kill himself because he failed the Google interview. Rejection by the "smartest" engineers at this companies is by no means an invalidation of your abilities. At the end of the day, none of them are solving the grand unified theory.

<comment><USER24> [ have a friend who tried to kill himself because he failed the Google interview.]

WHOA, talk about extremes

<comment><USER25> "Google turned me down" (2008)

(have been calling me back in since 2012. Haven't gone (yet). Currently laughing all the way to the bank NOT rendering ads in every place imaginable).

<comment><USER25> I should add that I would love to work there (but I'm sure I'd fail the interview (again)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just goes to show, on paper, founders aren't always the most appealing employees.

<comment><USER27> I think in many cases great founders would make terrible employees. Imagine trying to tell Steve Jobs what to do.

<comment><USER19> So if you're a giant company, hire them and _don 't_ tell them what to do. Let them run free on your dime. Own whatever they make.

(Not that Twitter was a giant company in 2009, and Facebook was just getting there)

<comment><USER28> Too high of a risk for companies.

Better to let the market sift out the successful founders than to payroll a hundred of them, hoping for a big win. Think of how many unsuccessful founder types that Facebook didn't hire too.

Also if this guy was working for Facebook, odds are he would have ended up on messenger, and someone else would have filled the SMS market need for Whatsapp in India. Then Facebook would be acquiring that company instead.

<comment><USER29> > Too high of a risk for companies.

The problem with PARC and AT&T labs wasn't that having a bunch of really smart people doing interesting stuff failed to produce brilliant, world changing ideas, it was that the companies in question weren't always good at capitalising on them (arguably for the better, in the case of Unix).

<comment><USER30> > it was that the companies in question weren't always good at capitalising on > them

There's lots of fun evidence for this - AT&T had an answering machine 1934 but shelved it for 60 years.

>AT&T firmly believed that the answering machine, and its magnetic tapes, would lead the public to abandon the telephone.

[http://thinkofthat.net/2010/12/03/no-answer-how-and-why- att-...](http://thinkofthat.net/2010/12/03/no-answer-how-and-why-att-killed- the-first-answering-machine/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> So, in the movie The Social Messenger I hope we see a scene in which Facebook made a Final and Best offer to acquire and this guy said "No. One more billion. Because you turned me down." :-)

</comment><comment><USER32> "We only hire the best engineers"

<comment><USER33> He only had a BSCS from Stanford and had been a VP of Engineering at Yahoo leading over 300 engineers. Facebook turned him away, and as someone else mentioned here, Twitter.

It kind of puts in perspective that blog post from yesterday that claimed companies in Silicon Valley can't find rock star ninja engineers ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7259845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7259845) ).

<comment><USER34> This isn't all that unusual. Most people realize that hiring processes are really random. In some ways just hiring anyone who applies, firing them after 90 days if they don't work out, and keeping track of who has been through once is probably a better system overall.

The recent work on how SAT scores don't predict college success is similar. There is a huge amount of influence around 'fit' and environment. Some people just "click" and some people don't. Genius rock star programmers that don't click are poor employees, and some times former washouts that do click are your key hires. Hard to predict.

<comment><USER35> > This isn't all that unusual. Most people realize that hiring processes are > really random. In some ways just hiring anyone who applies, firing them > after 90 days if they don't work out, and keeping track of who has been > through once is probably a better system overall.

"EMPLOYERS: avoid employing unlucky people by immediately tossing half the CVs in the bin" \- Viz top tip.

<comment><USER34> I'll have to remember that one :-) But on a more serious note, its been interesting to see the different sort of talent location ideas that have emerged. So I person I met a long time a go as a production assistant for the TV series Robotica was trying to come up with a new series and I suggested "American Hacker" where folks would go on the show and compete for a spot at Facebook or something. His comment though was pretty funny which was "That won't work Chuck because too many people are like you and they don't care about being on TV, you really need people who will cut off their own leg if you promise to put them on during prime time." Which was a sad sad commentary.

Things like the Stripe CTF contests are good recruiting tools, hackathons kinda sorta, resume scanning and the 5 - 10 person interview panel? Hard to get repeatable results.

<comment><USER36> > I'll have to remember that one :-)

Also hilarialously wortwhile is the C. Northcotte Parkinson take "The Short List, or Principles of Selection" (e.g. [https://www.google.com/search?q=c.+northcote+parkinson+candi...](https://www.google.com/search?q=c.+northcote+parkinson+candidate+selection) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Coincidental hindsight aside, just given his background as it stood in the 2009 timeframe I'd love to be a time traveling fly on the wall to see his interviews and/or the decision making process that had both Facebook and Twitter passing on him.

</comment><comment><USER38> Looks like he won't have to worry about working for a living anymore...

</comment><comment><USER39> Ask Threaders:

What code does Zuckerberg write? I've seen the film and googled "mark zuckerberg". From what I gather, he did some programming in Atari BASIC, and he's just another perl hacker. Common sense would conclude that he is multi- lingual (yeah, I'm aware he was rusty a year or two ago), but does anyone know any specifics?

<comment><USER40> PHP...

<comment><USER39> _So no, I don't think it is deliberate that PHP gets very little press. PHP is about as exciting as your toothbrush. You use it every day, it does the job, it is a simple tool, so what? Who would want to read about toothbrushes?_

Rasmus Lerdorf, [http://www.sitepoint.com/phps-creator-rasmus- lerdorf/2/](http://www.sitepoint.com/phps-creator-rasmus-lerdorf/2/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Seems like a pretty smart way to get a job at Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think this post now is rather appropriate [http://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html) Imagine a world where he would of given up.

</comment><comment><USER43> NYTimes actually pointed out another curiously-related Tweet [0] from the other co-founder, Jan Koum:

"totally agree with Vinod Khosla. people starting companies for a quick sale are a disgrace to the valley... 3:47 AM - 17 Jul 2012"

[0] [https://twitter.com/jankoum/statuses/225134737285578752](https://twitter.com/jankoum/statuses/225134737285578752)

 _edit_ : I am not criticizing Jan at all and would gladly do the same given the same position.

<comment><USER44> Whatsapp may be many things, but one thing it isn't is a "quick sale" \- it's something of lasting and useful value. I'm willing to wager 5 years from now, Whatsapp will still have a significant portion of the world's messaging traffic.

<comment><USER43> Wasn't criticizing the sale at all (edited to clarify tone), just found it interestingly related.

I use it myself, but not sure about the 5 years wager. One of the main reasons quite a few people I know use it is precisely because it wasn't Facebook. My bet is FB guts it and tries to {force, gently-push} everyone to switch to their well-designed app. But the FB app is probably too bandwidth-hungry for most WhatsApp users.

<comment><USER22> > My bet is FB guts it and tries to {force, gently-push} everyone to switch to > their well-designed app.

[http://instagram.com](http://instagram.com) Ctrl-F Facebook

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Well he turned Surfmark down and decided to follow his gut :) (Some 'gut' that was!) [https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/1997180708](https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/1997180708)

And I have 'immortalized' this using...surfmark [http://www.surfmark.com/viewsm/GzFRmNKFeUqCGZBiZRzChw#page1](http://www.surfmark.com/viewsm/GzFRmNKFeUqCGZBiZRzChw#page1)

</comment><comment><USER46> Sweet victory. They didn't hire so he built it anyways.

</comment><comment><USER47> And yet in both cases of being denied by Twitter and Facebook he aired the negative news and kept a positive outlook.

That's the sign of a smart person in my book.

</comment><comment><USER48> If success is the best revenge, this guy is god-tier.

</comment><comment><USER49> Fine! If you guys won't hire me I'll go out and start my own world dominating business you'll want to buy and then you'll have to.

See you in a few years suckers!

</comment><comment><USER50> Just goes to show that the skills required to get a job are different than the skills required to start a company

</comment><comment><USER51> They still hired him. The only difference is they payed him a small signing bonus.

</comment><comment><USER52> What's that latest tweet of him? Probably a misspelling ;)

</comment><comment><USER53> He was too expensive.

</comment><comment><USER54> Cool! Haha!</comment>


Show HN: Am I Haiku or Not? - <AUTHOR> http://daghlian.com/haiku I've been goofing around creating this silly webapp since seeing two of my favorite sites (who will remain nameless) publishing cute haiku that did not have the correct number of syllables.  Have fun. <comment><USER2> 5-7-5 is a meter that comes from Japanese where the 5-7-5 is onji (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onji>) not English syllables. Insisting on a 5-7-5 standard for English haiku is generally considered to be something that is only taught by high school english teachers who aren't familiar with haiku. Check out the Haiku Society of America (<http://www.hsa-haiku.org/>) for more information. While the bot was probably fun to write, it has very little to do with modern English haiku.</comment>


Andrew Mason's album "Hardly Workin'" now available - <AUTHOR> http://smandrew.com/blog/2013/7/1/hardly-workin-now-available-on-itunes <comment><USER2> This is awesome. I don't care if the actual music sounds terrible, but the fact that there's a dude out there with millions of dollars and what he wants to do is record a educational business CD makes me happy.

This is the kind of eccentricity I think we should be lauding.

<comment><USER3> Okay, so what's your favorite track?

"Risin' Above the Pack" and K.I.S.S stand out for me so far.

(I love this kind of eccentricity.)

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I fat-fingered my upvote from my phone and accidentally downvoted you. :(

<comment><USER5> This happens all to often. Off topic but isn't it time for a better ux for this site? A little bit of space between up/down, a mobile view? I use [http://cheeaun.github.com/hackerweb/](http://cheeaun.github.com/hackerweb/) and it's great but not for voting...

<comment><USER6> I use this site for free and have gained way, way more from it than I have put in so I definitely don't care if improvements are made, but if one were to improve anything it would be great to be able to vote more easily with my fingers on a mobile device and to edit text more easily on a mobile device.

Editing text on my android becomes tough because the small box doesn't let me easily navigate around. My new S4 has a setting which allows me to use the volume keys to move the cursor which is a huge improvement, but there has to be a better way.

Editing text in Reddit is also challenging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"...I spent a week in LA earlier this month recording Hardly Workin', a seven song album of motivational business music targeted at people newly entering the workforce"_

So _this_ is what happens when you are "unemployed" with $200 million in the bank.

</comment><comment><USER8> " I've probably listened to the album over a dozen times now, and with each spin I feel like I learn something."

That's sort of an awkward statement to make as the creator.

<comment><USER9> He's channeling David Brent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'll be the first to say it: what the fuck?

I've actually listened to this album and, uhh, yeah. This took some chutzpah. I'll give him that.

</comment><comment><USER11> So yeah, its a rich guy doing goofy stuff with _his_ money. Outstanding! I think its way less socially awkward and certainly less environmentally damaging than another giant boat or an Everest expedition. Good for him.

</comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me a lot of this classic scene from the TV show "Arrested Development":

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xinzdo_it-ain-t-easy- being-...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xinzdo_it-ain-t-easy-being-white- it-ain-t-easy-bein-brown_shortfilms#.UdJ7pz4sUqk)

<comment><USER13> Haha. It does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where can I get a discount coupon for the purchase of this?

<comment><USER14> Buy all songs individually for ~7, or buy them together as an album for ~10...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How is no one here understanding that it's a joke?

<comment><USER16> Communities with anonymous internet posters are biased towards 'hatin' on everything they see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For the record, as someone who has read a few articles about the guy, seen a couple pictures, and in all honesty was leaning more towards not liking him more than I do, this news has excavated a nice, temporary soft spot in my heart for the guy. Funny stuff.

</comment><comment><USER18> The music isn't actually bad. It is much better than I expected from some of the 'hating'. Production wise, it's stellar. He can sing well in the rock/pop style.

Is this Zepplin, Pink Floyd or Beatles? No but it's not trying to be. Would I want to buy it and listen to it? No, but I'm not in the target market and this music style bores me but musically, I cannot fault it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow, Jim Allchin, that is pretty funny. Who would have thought?

(Here's a shameless plug for my new record, FWIW. [http://music.lukehoward.com](http://music.lukehoward.com). I have also worked as a coffee-making intern in a studio. And written some software. Perhaps this isn't that uncommon...)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is this a joke?

<comment><USER21> I honestly don't know.

<comment><USER22> you guys really don't know?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If anyone finds a Spotify link, please post it.

<comment><USER23> [https://play.spotify.com/album/3HXowkOX2qi5WmK1nb65A0](https://play.spotify.com/album/3HXowkOX2qi5WmK1nb65A0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Finally, a song with lyrics about Jack Welch! I've been waiting for another one ever since the classic Wu-Tang track "Six Sigma Ain't Nuthing ta Fuck Wit."

</comment><comment><USER25> I give him credit for doing awesome stuff after being ousted at Groupon. Takes strength to brush your shoulders off after a hard fall and do something like this.

<comment><USER26> It's not a hard fall when it's cushioned with millions of dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Given the average level of morale and motivation of Groupon's employees right now, I'm not sure why I would want to follow Mason's advice...

<comment><USER4> Any latest news on their current average morale? I mean, many people were balking at groupon as much as two years ago... How are people still wanting to work there?

<comment><USER28> They do pay their employees you know ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can understand his reasons behind taking a break from all this and understandably so. However bad it turns out, this is the kind of behaviour we should be promoting. The 'bounce-back-ability', if I may, is what makes being an entrepreneur worth all the blood, sweat and tears.

<comment><USER29> This is not "bounce-back ability." It's more like "hit at an awkward angle at carom into left field" ability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If people are looking for other motivational songs, I can heartily recommend Poor Jack from nightmare before christmas. It seems like it was scientifically designed to pick up spirits, and Jacks role is quite entrepreneurial. It encapsulates recovering from failure.

</comment><comment><USER31> Pure Andy Kaufman.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wow. I'm really not sure if this in jest or if it's completely straight faced. Either way, I have literally never heard anything like it, so... Great job! That's a really rare thing to do something truly original.

</comment><comment><USER32> For everyone else wondering who that guy is: It's the ex-CEO of Groupon.

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

</comment><comment><USER33> Now when people say no one in music makes money anymore we can simply point to Andrew Mason.

</comment><comment><USER34> Is there any mention on who wrote/composed the songs?

</comment><comment><USER34> He's actually not a bad singer, I must admit. :)

</comment><comment><USER35> R.I.P., Jim Nayder:(

</comment><comment><USER36> Why not bandcamp + "name your price"?

</comment><comment><USER37> Oh boy...

</comment><comment><USER38> Oh, okay. Um. Yeah.</comment>


Has Apple ever hired one of its fans? - <AUTHOR> So I always see these absurdly elaborated almost pro-grade concepts for apple products made by big fans of the brand but I always wondered if any of those fans were actually contacted by apple for a position at the company due to their work.<p>Any cases like that? or apple mostly ignores this stuff? <comment><USER2> At least one: [https://www.quora.com/Has-anyone-who-has-posted-an-Apple- des...](https://www.quora.com/Has-anyone-who-has-posted-an-Apple-design- concept-for-fun-ever-been-hired-by-Apple)

And security researcher last November [http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/02/03/apple...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/02/03/apple_hires_two_hackers_who_created_an_undetectable_virus.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I can see why they hired those ITsec experts but the designer one I'm actually surprised. The demos on his channels don't look that well made tbh and the concept themselves are mere tweaks, its funny that of all the concepts for apple products out there apple hired this guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> i don't think apple hires its fans. for all its innovative culture and centricity on technology, steve jobs was pretty clear that it is humans who come together to create extraordinary stuff. i haven't known of a case in which a fan was hired by apple and it was able to function like a human. at most, it may have rotated around itself at a very fast speed to discharge cool air on humans, helping them build great stuff. but this makes the fan a mere depreciable asset belonging to the company, just like tables and chairs, rather than an employee.

as for big fans, i don't think apple takes the size of a candidate into consideration while hiring. i can't imagine apple refusing a capable MIT and Stanford graduate simply because he was 7 feet tall. so if apple did hire fans, it would extend the same courtesy to big fans as well.

further, california's climate makes it unnecessary to have fans on the premises. even though i'm doubtful that apple hired fans, even if they owned one, it would be in one of the hotter countries such as the arab world, singapore, india, etc.

just my 2 cents.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can picture people avoiding you your entire life.

Go to r/dadjokes and stay there.</comment></comment>


'Chaos' at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/wikileaks-reels/

<comment><USER2> Pure speculation. The anonymous source may be real, but we have no means of validating it. So, this article may as well be disregarded. Considering they have a set of cables to release and a protocol to manage it, somehow I doubt it's 'chaos'. Uncertainty is inevitable, but I feel this is an over-statement.</comment>


Ask HN: If you have nothing to hide will you use "Hemlis"? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Possibly. What would deter me is having to convince the people I communicate often to use it as well.

If it was something as simple as adding an extension to a text messaging system (much like an extension for Chrome) then I would be extremely likely to use it but I have a feeling that it would be really complicated to do that. Hope this helps!

<comment><AUTHOR> Adding an extension is an excellent idea hoping they do that. But they are working on a total messaging system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If I have nothing to hide, I'll use whatever the people I want to communicate with are using.

If that's Hemlis, I'll use Hemlis. If it's not, I won't.</comment>


Give Your Ideas A Chance, Or You'll Probably Rupture Your Spleen - <AUTHOR> http://blog.elevatr.com/

<comment><USER2> Promising company, but this "fate" mindset doesn't really jive with the whole testing business models against reality thing.</comment>