Touché - <AUTHOR> http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/computing/2012/spring/touche.shtml

<comment><USER2> I always have a kind of negative reaction to these sorts of interfaces.

What I tend to see in this demo is how to make a doorknob unintuitive, how to make music player functionality undiscoverable, how to accidentally lock yourself out, how to frustrate a user whose mental model of the sensor is incorrect.

I realize you have to approach new technology and interaction paradigms optimistically, but all I can think of is my own frustration when an ill- considered neato-feature is foisted on me when I least want it.

Like blue LEDs and touch sensitive buttons that lack a physical button (eg atmel q-touch).

<comment><USER3> I once got a recommendation for "The design of everyday things" ([http://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald- Norman...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald- Norman/dp/0262640376)) with a warning: It will break the world for you, because you'll go around noticing how things are designed counter-intuitively, requiring large signs to explain what should be obvious. A good example: "Push"/"pull" signs on doors. Multiple branches of humanity independently developed the ability to design doors that any other human that understands the concept of a door can figure out how to open. Then, suddenly, around 50 years ago, that knowledge apparently vanished, and we started to have to put big "how to use" instruction stickers on one of the simplest and most intuitive objects ever invented.

<comment><USER4> It may be that many things are counter intuitive, but it seems calling out doors as something that has ever been intuitive is fallacious. Perhaps they used to be more consistent, but it doesn't take a lot of effort to find horrific accidents that happened years ago because doors weren't designed well.

Not to mention, watching my kids learn different doors has been amusing. I would think intuitive is the wrong word, so much as simple determination will get you through most any door.

It seems more likely that around 50 years ago the technology and literacy rates had finally advanced enough that push/pull signs could be easily attached to commonly used doors.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I exaggerated on artistic license, maybe a bit more than the anecdote could carry. That doesn't change the fact that a door that adults in a civilized country needs written instructions to operate is completely and utterly broken.

<comment><USER4> I still disagree that this is at all a new found thing. There is a reason building codes had to be drafted requiring exits to open out on buildings, after all. (So, really, the design of the door shouldn't even matter. Adults can remember that the main doors open out, right? :) )

I mainly question if it is truly a sign of a problem, as seems implicated by it being brought up. Still seems to me that it just happens because the cost for doing so is essentially nil.

<comment><USER3> The fire exit issue is a separate one: The reason emergency exits need to open out is that you can't count on being able to take a step back and open the door in a panic. In non-panic situations (practically all of them), doors work equally well opening in or out.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, but my point is two fold. First: Exterior doors to a building open out, pretty much period.* So, the handle is moot. If people really gave much thought to doors, they would be able to remember that, regardless of the handle.

Second: The reason for the exterior doors to open out is rather obvious (once you've considered the reason). Yet it was not originally in building code. This implicates that many places do it "wrong." Or, at least, they did years ago.

The first claim really just leads to "most people do not pay attention to such every day things." Even if you get it wrong, you only lose a second at a door. The penalty just isn't high.

The second is to say that it isn't like people were making flawless doors in the past. (Though, I particularly dislike "pocket" doors. I think those have fallen out of favour, thankfully.)

* Of course, I look at my house door and remember that residence entrances open in. Maybe that fundamental inconsistency is the true culprit here... :) I realize there is a good reason to keep the hinges internal to a house. So... not sure what to say about that.

<comment><USER3> Emergency doors ( _not_ "exterior doors" as a whole) are to open out because there might be a barrage on them in an emergency. Your house door isn't likely to experience a barrage (or rather, the fire code forbids you from having too many people in your house, partly _because_ it isn't fitted with proper emergency exits for crowds).

This has nothing, what so ever, to do with whether or not a door is intuitively designed. Also, whether or not you lose a second opening a door is irrelevant (and you've just given the excuse for 1990's enterprise software UX - as long as it's _possible_ to complete a task, who cares if it's easy or intuitive. Everyone, it turns out, but it took a while to hammer that point int).

The point is that "we" have the knowledge to design a door that is clearly and immediately usable ( _without_ losing a second) by anyone who's ever used a door - but sometimes "we" apparently chose not to use it. _That_ is the conundrum outlined.

<comment><USER4> I know it isn't exterior doors as a whole. But the vast majority of doors you will encounter on a public building have to be usable in an emergency. So, I think you'll be hard pressed to find one that doesn't open out. (Again, unless you drop into residential doors.)

Your point that we have the knowledge to make doors that are immediately usable is just something I don't believe. I've seen people use doors incorrectly that fit the guidelines of that book. Hell, I think I've done so myself. And, I argue that this is almost completely related to the consistency of how a door opens. Not the handle. (e.g., after years of living in a high rise where the entrance opened out and all I did was go to public buildings where all doors open out, not too shockingly, I was more prone to opening house doors incorrectly.)

My argument was never that "so long as it is possible..." The argument I put forth was more that the cost for getting a door wrong is ridiculously low, so people don't put that much thought into it. On either side of the isle. (Well, designers want doors to be pretty.) Your 90s example is attacking things where the cost was actually high, but the designers didn't care.

I think you can basically sum up my viewpoint with the common attack on intuitive designs that nothing is truly intuitive in and of itself. Pretty much everything is leveraged on something you have previously learned. If it seems intuitive, it is really just familiar. In the case of doors, the familiar behaviour trumps any design decisions. (If you have some good studies against this, by all means I'm game to read them. More than just the book that started this thread, though.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is too cool. I cannot wait to try how a manipulatable material and holographic interface feels.

Glad to see Bret Victor's important rant[1] resonating as well.

Does anyone have any tips about getting involved with this area of work? Any good forums or open source projects?

[1] [http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign)

<comment><USER6> There is little "open source" research on hardware for novel user interfaces. Most of this stuff is published at scientific conferences like CHI, UIST, ITS, TEI. As "novelty" is quite important for publishing one's work at these conferences, there is little incentive for doing open research.

Some nice stuff and communities can be found at <http://nuigroup.com/forums> or <http://hackaday.com/>

(btw: Bret Victor apparently pulished his rant _after_ Touché had been submitted to CHI.)

<comment><USER5> I figured. Thanks for the links though, lots of interesting stuff there.

(I remember seeing this video when it was posted months ago as well, but thanks for clarifying the timing as to which event came first.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These guys did a killer demo at NYTM. Very cool demo of turning a plant into an instrument (they played an orchid on stage). There was a good question about detection of differing touches of the doorknob, this could totally replace the key some day!

<comment><USER8> How can this differentiate between users though? Can the frequency be replicated?

<comment><USER9> Some of that may depend on precision - how precise is the sensor? Can it pull a fingerprint, so it will basically do a fingerprint scan to authorize door unlocking?

I'm reminded of #66 on the Evil Overlord list - _My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system._

<http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html>

<comment><USER10> #99 Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.

Ah, sign of the times. This list was compiled in 1996.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I might be going on a tangent here, but I can't help thinking there's something wrong with product names for the past few years. We're now naming things with incredibly common words, changing their very meaning into something else. Facebook, Touché, Bonjour, Spaces, Windows...

For some reason, it's creeping me out. I'm afraid to see one of those next big thing named Lundi, Ball, Tisch or Hora. It's like we're robbing our languages of their meaning, bit by bit, for commercial purpose.

We can do better than that, can't we?

<comment><USER12> With some exceptions, I don't think brand names are eclipsing the common definitions of the words, but just appending new definitions to them, which can easily be distinguished based on context - not unlike any other non- branded word with multiple definitions.

And we also gain new common words from brands that become generic, like Tabloid or Bikini.

<comment><USER13> _And we also gain new common words from brands that become generic, like Tabloid or Bikini._

Bikini isn't a brand that became a generic word. It is a loan word from the native Marshall Islanders(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll>), that was stolen for a brand then became generic. Which ironically proves his point.

<comment><USER12> _Bikini isn't a brand that became a generic word_

It is. The fact that the brand name itself was derived from an existing proper noun doesn't change that fact.

And speaking of language abuse, I feel that some day the verb 'steal' will be synonymous with every possible offense. How does one _steal_ an island name?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Go CMU! We might not start as many startups as MIT but our research is some of the best in the world. #proud

<comment><USER15> Always HCI (or Robotics) too. It's like, you never actually see what they're doing but it's always awesome (except for that large robot in some room on NS second floor right near the Wean bridge, but that might not be HCI). Also #proud :)

<comment><USER16> I think (?) the room on NS 2 you're thinking of is part of the Quality of Life Technology Center. <3 CMU and #proud. Can we all agree that the robot in the Gates 3 lounge area is somewhat creepy-looking though? His avatar looks like a cross between Julian Assange and Andy Warhol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Google must be all-over this for their Glasses. Seems like it would be a great solution to the input problem with them.

</comment><comment><USER18> I really liked the demo controlling the music player; it struck me as the one I'd be most likely to actually see in the near future (The door with the different signs was neat, but requires a bit more hardware).

I'm curious where the sensors were placed for that one (I couldn't see them on the guy's arms) and if say, getting caught in the rain or a really dry day, would throw it on the fritz.

<comment><USER19> Aren't the sensors placed within the door? Or am I missing something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I believe Avatar Land at Walt Disney World will include this technology for interacting with the Tree of Souls and other plant and wildlife.

</comment><comment><USER20> Medicine and military applications would be great!

Dentist: How dentist grips the tool indicates how it behaves. Eg. control speed of a rotary tool like a drill based on a grip.

Doctor: Patient giving doctor feedback with their hand.

Military: For some guns, one finger on the trigger does a single shot for precision, two fingers does bursts for rapid fire.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think this tech could give robots much more data from physical human contact.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is forecasting baby urination possible with sensing electrical signals?

<comment><USER23> What would you do with that information? The diaper gets wet, sometime today.

<comment><USER24> Potty training; put baby on the toilet before the diaper gets wet. Babies can be "trained" a remarkably young age, if the parents can predict urination.

<comment><USER25> Sounds more like training the parents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "recognition rates approaching 100%" - how many times do we hear this? Basically it doesn't work, except for a set of carefully constructed circumstances.

</comment><comment><USER27> This could be used to give robots a sense of touch over their entire bodies.

</comment><comment><USER28> Considering that autistics and empaths tend to have remarkably rich gestural languages for communicating a wide array of non-verbal units of meaning, or even propositions, and further that allocentric language may present scoped indexicals (and not to mention Ame. Sign Language), we may have an opportunity to develop interestingly rich gestural/touch APIs from the mechanics of neurologically rooted gestures which describe or underpin norms of highly complex, spontaneously emergent non-verbal communication.

For instance, would finger-flipping or self-stimulation be considered "noise" to such a system, or would the system be configurable or adaptive or "fuzzy" enough to make successful interpretations of various deviant forms of model human behaviors? (I'm wondering the intersection between these types of interfaces and the training (or, say, auto-designing) of them via neural networks.)

</comment><comment><USER29> Whenever I want to feel excited about the future I just look at this video; seriously is really magic stuff. Changing your bathtub temperature with one gesture of your hand in the water; changing the channel by a simple gesture in the couch, the use-cases are virtually unlimited. Also if one day it becomes even more sensitive it could transform any object into a fingerprint detector!

<comment><USER30> You might want to watch <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm5TdgQj7vg> then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is kinda old, I saw a video about this on the verge a couple months ago...

<comment><USER32> Yes. We must hide it away and never speak of it again.</comment></comment>


Far From Gulf, a Spill Scourge 5 Decades Old - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/africa/17nigeria.html?hp

<comment><AUTHOR> In the US, when an oil company screws up, they are liable for billions of dollars and then end up on the hot seat in front of the US Congress. But, much of the oil we use in the US comes from places where there is little if any regulation and oversight. You could just as easily exchange Nigeria with Ecuador, Peru or Indonesia. It's a little frustrating how our concern for the environment sometimes seems to end at the US border.

</comment><comment><USER2> How are the plants not dead in the first photo? Small bushes like that would die immediately in such oily muck I'd expect.

</comment><comment><USER3> Obviously fisheries are not important. If such things mattered to anyone, competition would have forced the oil company to be safer and cleaner. Or at least thats how people claim pure capitalism works.

<comment><USER4> False. Capitalism features property rights. Unless the oil company owns all the polluted property, they are liable for the damage to the property of others (at least under a capitalist system).

The problem: Nigeria is a corrupt third world country. It has nothing to do with capitalism.

<comment><USER5> _The problem: Nigeria is a corrupt third world country. It has nothing to do with capitalism._

Hah. On an internet filled with naive, uninformed assertions, this is a true standout. Virtually every defining moment in the history of that unfortunate country can be traced back to the meddling of Western capitalists looking to make a buck. It starts with slavery and ends with oil, with a healthy dose of British colonialism in the middle. Their dysfunctional system of government, permanent underclass, environmental destruction--it has _everything_ to do with capitalism. Put down the Milton Friedman koolaid and dig deeper.

<comment><USER4> So corruption doesn't happen in communist countries? And communist countries never attempt to meddle in the affairs of others?

There was nothing naive about my comment, as much as you made naive assumptions about my comment.

My point is:

Capitalism != mercantilism. Capitalism != corruption.

I would never dispute that much of the underdevelopment of the middle east and africa isn't due to meddling by foreign counties (though, not just western). However, corruption has more to do with culture than economic structure.

Why do people pervert what capitalism is just so they can tear it down?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Unmanned surveillance blimp breaks tether, floats over Pennsylvania - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/10/28/the-army-lost-control-of-a-giant-unmanned-surveillance-blimp/ <comment><USER2> I've been enjoying Edward Snowden's comments about this on Twitter. One great retweet by him from @droosien:

"Runaway surveillance blimp" is the perfect metaphor for the military/intelligence industrial complex. And the perfect mascot.

<comment><USER3> It is suspicious circumstances to say the least.

Every image of these JLENS blimps show them anchored with a great many anchor ties, not just one (or a few). However, every report says it just "came loose" or "escaped it's tethering".

Conspiracy theory would probably speculate on some new tech being demoed or tested over Baltimore. These things are supposed to be for detecting missiles and high altitude planes, which would beg the question what one was doing blown up and ready to fly in Baltimore.

<comment><USER4> >Conspiracy theory would probably speculate on some new tech being demoed or tested over Baltimore.

It says it right in the article:

"It's currently on a three-year test run to see if it can help detect cruise missiles or enemy aircraft from 10,000 feet above ground."

<comment><USER3> > It says it right in the article

No, the article says the JLENS program is on a three-year test run to see if it can help detect cruise missiles or enemy aircraft from 10,000 feet above ground.

That three years is up this year (started program in 2012)... so perhaps they will be decommissioned, or re-purposed.

My statement was more along the conspiracy theory line of domestic surveillance tech being tested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cue Weird Al Yankovich with the tune "Blimps just wanna have fun." :-)

I've wondered about the failure mode of aerostats like this one. I found the threat to power lines particularly interesting. If one floated across southern Nevada it could easily catch the lines from Hoover dam to LA. One wonders if the blimp should drop its tether if its GPS detects it has moved more than a mile off station. Or better yet fire up the helium compressor and bring itself down to earth. Both options seem like they could be supported by an modest on board battery (I presume these things are powered through their tether normally).

<comment><USER6> This one has knocked out power. Its cable hit some power lines.

[https://twitter.com/iduncan/status/659451147955150848](https://twitter.com/iduncan/status/659451147955150848)

<comment><USER5> it was mentioned in the article as well. My thinking was this; these aerostats have been proposed as part of the southern border program, the powerlines between Hoover Dam and LA typically are carrying 1,100 MW of power. Shorting them out is one of the events which can bring down the western US grid (so a pretty big deal). The distance between the Arizona/Mexico border to Lake Mead is further of course (230 miles, Mexicali => Las Vegas, 80 miles from Aberdeen to Cook County). So probably not a huge threat directly but one of those wierd things I think about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Baltimorean here. Most days these blimps can be seen aloft. They appear less distant than I know they must be (given they are tethered at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds). They are very,,, present. It is unsettling. I lived in NYC for five years where I'm certain I was often under "surveillance" (cameras and what not in public spaces). And during the Baltimore Uprising, we now know there was a FBI/DoJ surveillance plane in the sky. It's just different, in a very bad way, to be able too look up, at any time, and see billion dollar military blimps. Kinda sad.

</comment><comment><USER8> An aerostat is literally two things, a balloon and a rope. If they can't keep a rope tied, they should use two ropes.

<comment><USER9> It's trailing 6,700 feet of cable. That's some rope.

<comment><USER3> This thing is stationary, always. Why not use a couple of ropes for the "just- in-case" scenario (aka. "Just plain good engineering"). Imagine this happened during a deployment in an unfriendly country.

<comment><USER8> Over unfriendly territory I would expect the rope to be the least of this device's problems. While it seems that normal operating altitude would be out of reach of most rifles [0], every time the aerostat was lowered for maintenance it would be completely destroyed by potshots. b^)

[0] [http://www.closefocusresearch.com/maximum-altitude- bullets-f...](http://www.closefocusresearch.com/maximum-altitude-bullets- fired-vertically)

<comment><USER10> It can 'see' up to 340 miles away - these could be deployed dozens to hundreds of miles away from a target area, which would make it a lot harder to take 'potshots' at it. Plus, a bullet doesn't exactly make a big hole (relatively speaking) in something that's 75 meters long - the thing probably leaks more from it's seams than a handful of .30 holes...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thought experiment: _private individual_ exercises negligence and permits a 75-metre-long aerostat to break free and drift through controlled airspace.

How long before the FAA would have him / her in court?

This sort of dual-class system is why the drone registration initiative annoys me. Truly one law for us and another for Them.

<comment><USER12> This is a pointless strawman. This is like saying an F-15 on a training exercise crashed and that it's unfair the pilot/crew/USAF wouldn't be treated the same as some random who flew a drone with a gopro over an airport.

<comment><USER13> I don't think you know what a strawman is - parent was making a (perfectly legitimate, IMO) point about how misconduct/negligence/accidents on the part of the government result in few to no penalties (worst case: someone _may_ lose their job), while same behavior on the part of citizens can result in life-ruining, throw-the-book-at-him consequences.

It's pretty hard to misrepresent an opponent's argument when there have been no opposing arguments made yet!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466518) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466507).

</comment><comment><USER15> Radar blimps are useful. One gave the first warning of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. It wasn't even in service yet; the contractor saw columns of tanks approaching on radar and called it in. It makes good sense to have a good aerial view of the Washington DC area.

It's possible that, instead of ordering a remote deflation or shooting it down, the operators decided to let it float until it reached an unpopulated area before bringing it down. It's bad that it dragged its steel tether across power lines, though.

<comment><USER9> It's supposedly a synthetic fiber, Vectran [pdf]:

[http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/rtnwcm/groups/gallery/d...](http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/rtnwcm/groups/gallery/documents/digitalasset/rtn_175001.pdf)

<comment><USER16> Otherwise known as the stuff in puncture resistant bicycle tires.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Blimp down, tore up in some trees :(

</comment><comment><USER18> $2.7 billion blimp on the lose.

</comment><comment><USER19> Of course it's JLENS...

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://twitter.com/bcrypt/status/659448608362663937](https://twitter.com/bcrypt/status/659448608362663937)

I find bcrypt's response and selection in hashtag (#BlimpinAintEasy) is the most appropriate.

<comment><USER21> The Aerostat has a couple of choice memes as well: [https://twitter.com/AberdeenBlimp](https://twitter.com/AberdeenBlimp) [https://twitter.com/search?f=images&vertical=news&q=%40Aberd...](https://twitter.com/search?f=images&vertical=news&q=%40AberdeenBlimp&src=typd)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good piece in the Baltimore Sun from a few months ago about what a boondoggle this project has turned out to be: [http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/federal-workplace/bs- md...](http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/federal-workplace/bs-md- blimps-20150924-story.html)

"But after 17 years of research and $2.7 billion spent by the Pentagon, the system known as JLENS doesn't work as envisioned. The 240-foot-long, milk- white blimps, visible for miles around, have been hobbled by defective software, vulnerability to bad weather and poor reliability."

<comment><USER23> It's a test and a research project, as stated in that article. They found 10,000 ways that don't work. Edison would be proud.

<comment><USER22> Yes, but there are an infinite number of ways it could possibly not work. How long will they go on discovering them? Edison could say something like that because he actually was able to successfully build and market a lightbulb.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I worry about having a job offer retracted? - <AUTHOR>

At my school, many students are about to receive offers for summer co-op terms within the next two weeks. However, none of them have ever even considered negotiating their offers, and when I try to show them how easy it could be for them to make a couple thousand dollars extra they immediately start protesting:
"If I try to play hardball they'll just offer it to the next highest ranked student" "In the contract it says the company can just fire you provided 2 weeks notification, especially if you start trying to change the offer" "Most companies have large HR departments that scope out other companies' intern salaries, so it's no use negotiating anyways" etc, etc.
So my question is: Is the fear of having a job offer retracted at all reasonable?
I'd love to hear any experiences from either side of the negotiating table! <comment><USER2> Always negotiate your salary. I have gotten 10% higher starting salaries a half dozen times in my career simply by asking. My first full time junior programming job offered $50k, I countered with $60k and we met in the middle at $55k, a 10% increase. The next job I negotiated $58k to $70k. The hardest part is just being ballsy enough to ask.

</comment><comment><USER3> I worked as a recruiter for a number of years and never saw an offer retracted because someone tried to negotiate.

They will either say no, sorry or they may ask you why.

It's harder to have a good reason when just starting out.

You can always say "If I didn't push for better it wouldn't show much initiative would it"

Increases early in your career really help you when moving up/on.

</comment><comment><USER4> Bear in mind that they already spent lots of money one way or another on you before they made you the offer - at the very least, interviewing cost them in developers time. The worse that can happen if you ask more money than they offer is that they tell you "We are sorry, but we offered you the maximum our budget allows, but we will consider something in 6 months - 1 year", in which case will still be able to accept it.

It's not in their interest to dismiss someone they judge competent just because he asks for more money.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think there's an issue with negotiating per se. The question here is what would you negotiate about, and what are your arguments for that negotiation? If you have demonstrated abilities that warrants a salary raise, I think in some places where employee performance is valued, you won't even have to ask about it. Otherwise, you better work out your line of reasoning before attempting such negotiation.

<comment><USER6> This models the hiring manager like he is a professor or judge of a competition. He isn't. He does not care about truth or light or merit or beauty, to a first approximation. He is just a corporate officer with a mandate to buy certain industrial inputs while staying within a budget.

He wants to purchase your services and makes a bid. That bid will virtually never consume the entire budget, because he has the rational expectation that he does not need to spend the entire budget to acquire your services.

You say "I will offer you my services, but the bid was too low." If he is still willing to purchase your services at the higher number, he accepts. Otherwise, a few words are exchanged, and he re-offers the original bid.

People make salary negotiation feel like it is a Greek tragedy. It is not. It is a routine financial transaction. The really big "but!" attached to that is that it is the routine financial transaction which will have the largest impact on your personal finances, by several orders of magnitude, at least until you decide to purchase property.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I feel like earlier on in your career, you have less of an ability to negotiate unless you bring something special to the table.

However, it doesn't hurt to test the waters if you have multiple offers I think - you probably don't really want to be at a company that plays hardball with you anyway, but that may be my own personal views showing here.</comment>


Become a Firefox Personas Reviewer - <AUTHOR> http://mozillalabs.com/personas/2010/03/01/the-life-of-a-personas-approver/

<comment><USER2> Try Reddit - I'm pretty confident a very small percentage of HN's user base finds work like this interesting.

However, I'm curious: does anyone on HN use Personas? I'm not particularly interested in it categorically - Firefox is already such a monster when it comes to memory management...</comment>


Google's New Bookmarking Service, Previously Called Stars, Has Gone Live - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/30/googles-new-bookmarking-service-previously-called-stars-has-gone-live/ <comment><USER2> Bookmarks seems like an outdated technology. With the resources Google have, it would be cool if they could create a site where you can follow other sites as they update. Perhaps this site could then even differentiate between different 'streams' or 'feeds' from sites. And in this workflow you could add the 'stars' to articles and updates you would find interesting.

I hope someday they will create or have this system evolve into something like that, which would be a lot more useful.

<comment><USER3> > Bookmarks seems like an outdated technology.

I agree. I made [http://fetching.io](http://fetching.io) because I hate having to remember to save something just to easily find it later. Everything you see should be indexed and easily searchable.

<comment><USER4> Cool! I was just thinking about building something like this myself, after reaching the point where I save almost everything I read to Diigo, just to get searchability.

<comment><USER5> There are lots of services like this. I made [https://historio.us/](https://historio.us/) back in 2009, when no full-text service existed (as far as I recall).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used to use Google Notebook and Google Reader. I saved many notes and tagged many articles. Google suddenly discontinued both. I am not going to invest any effort into learning/using any Google service without some assurance that it is going to be supported at least 5 years.

<comment><USER7> Yep and I used Google Bookmarks too, so that I could get to them from everywhere, but it was dreadful if you had more than a few tags (massive load of HTML loaded for each tag which made a huge tall page) and was clunky.

I've moved to pinboard.in (of course).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is no point in betting on something that has a 50/50 chance of disappearing in a few years to store your valuable bookmarks — especially when (I assume) cross-platform support will be lacking.

Use Pinboard instead.

<comment><USER9> I feel that this "it will disappear" notion right behind every Google announcement slowly tends to get some witty meme. We all know every service will end.

<comment><USER10> Really so you expect Google Search or GMail to just wrap up at some point ? Be serious.

It is those services from Google that don't contribute to revenue to be wary of.

<comment><USER9> I'm with you. I should've written: We all know every service will end, therefore this notion is useless.

I doubt that the average google product lifetime undercuts the average overall product lifetime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The eager user in me is delighted there's a place to save my bookmarks.

The paranoid user is worried Google will have access to my saved sites and sell my usage stats.

The nostalgic user is still irritated that Google Reader could have still been saved and this feature appended.

<comment><USER12> Google sells targeted ads, not usage data.

<comment><USER13> Where's the difference?

<comment><USER14> In selling usage data:

Someone pays Google, gets your usage data (and can do with it whatever they want).

In selling targetted ads:

Someone pays Google and gives them a specification of what kind of people they'd like to see the ads, and Google uses the usage data they already have to select who to show the ad to.

At the end:

In the former case, Google and the third party both have your data.

In the latter case, Google has the data, and the third party does not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> FYI, there is a [https://www.google.com/bookmarks/](https://www.google.com/bookmarks/) which is a completely different service.

<comment><USER16> Why wouldn't they merge that with the Chrome bookmark sync? Many years back there used to be a section in Google Docs (I think that's what it was called at the time, well before the switch to Drive) where I could see all of my bookmarks; if I was away from my personal computers, I could still see the links without syncing chrome. I switched to Xmarks just for that feature.

Granted, now I always have my phone with me which has the sync. But it still seems odd that they wouldn't give us web access to that data.

<comment><USER17> The old Google Bookmarks can't be merged with Chrome bookmark sync because Bookmarks uses tags while Chrome uses folders. The same URLs would end up getting duplicated in several folders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If any members of the Google Data Liberation Front are reading HN today, is this on your radar to support? Failing that, any word on an API into the service behind it?

</comment><comment><USER19> Idlewords should budget for a couple new servers in about... 2 years or so?

</comment><comment><USER20> Tangentially related.For long tail queries, Why is there no "research mode" on search engines?

Often times, I find myself searching for some term like "Commute Home Traffic app" on app store (For market research purposes). Google, Apple, Bing, all give a huge list of results but I cannot go through them in a single sitting. So, I should keep the window open and keep clicking next occasionally (Spread over multiple days).

If I do the same search again, these search engines return same order of results I am unhappy with. Is there no solution to this problem? Can't they remember which results I am not interested in and stop showing them? Can't they let me continue my "research" where I left off from?

<comment><USER21> I can count on my fingers how many times I've found useful results past the first page of any search engine.

<comment><USER20> I often do market research queries. For example, I would like to see if there is an app that focuses on "real estate or home buying simulation"...If you search for this in google, first few pages of results are for training agents. I frequently go beyond first page in the hope of finding a long tail result that fits my needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> While this is nice I'd like really like something that will not only save a bookmark to a particular page but a snapshot of it as well - maybe an HTML version but a screenshot or PDF would also be great. That seems to be the kind of problem Google could solve.

<comment><USER23> Pinboard does this IIRC.

<comment><USER24> It does and I really like that feature, well worth the money. It's kind of sad if you see the stats on how many of your bookmarked sites are not available any more after a few years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What about the ability to collaborate with other users on a shared bookmark folder? It would be useful if multiple users could add bookmarks to the same shared folder.

Also how do I access my bookmarks if I am at a friends house and don't have my computer or phone on me. Do I have to login to my chrome account on their chrome browser? What if they don't have chrome installed? It would be nice if they had a basic website I could access from anyones device, where I could login and view all my bookmarks.

I think the auto folders is the most innovative part of the app. I will have to use it more but I feel like I would stop creating folders and just add links.

<comment><USER26> My company is making precisely this product. We have a fair amount of work todo, but we have a usable private beta right now. You can't collaborate quite yet, but it's on the horizon.

If you'd be interested you can find my contact details in my profile!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Finally a place to store my 50,000 unsorted bookmarks from the last 20 years :/

As others have said bookmarks seem to have outlived their usefulness, the idea makes sense but managing them is tedious.

<comment><USER28> > the idea (bookmarks) makes sense but managing them is tedious

What sort of bookmark management tasks do you find yourself spending lots of time or effort on?

<comment><USER27> Primarily categorization and then searching.

Trying to make folders to categorize websites but I end up with multiple folders for the same website and the mess grows.

The fewer folder categories the better. For my files I try to keep it simple and have just Media, Applications, Documents as the top level folder. Media would break down in to pictures and video then video into TV, movies. Documents and Applications would also break down a bit more.

The other problem is the websites I gather tend to get added faster than I can categorize them which is compounded by the multiple category problem.

Searching do I search by time or category? Sometimes time is easier if it was recent but then later on, years later, it's easier to search by category.

In the end I get frustrated and dump it all into one giant pile probably never to be viewed ever again.

<comment><USER28> Oh that's interesting, why not just use tags though? One bookmark gets any number of tags, and then you just have to be somewhat consistent about your tag choices. The first few hundred bookmarks are usually tagged poorly, and then after that you get into a consistent naming pattern.

[https://github.com/davidlazar/jotmuch](https://github.com/davidlazar/jotmuch)

<comment><USER27> I think I've tried tags maybe on bookmarks maybe it was some things else.

I am a fan of them maybe I drifted away from them for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've used a variety of services similar to this over the years; delicious, spurl and currently diigo.

My use case works like this:

1) find an interesting website / article 2) highlight a paragraph 3) click the magic button (ie: diigo's chrome extension button) 4) save the url along with the high lighted text and a tag 5) my blog then pulls in this info from my diigo user's rss feed and displays it to visitors

I'll be checking out google's effort, but I can't see me moving away from diigo unless I have to.

<comment><USER30> would love to get your comments on our efforts at Surfmark (now focused on education but still open for everyone) required disclaimer: founder, surfmark

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Will this break my xmarks collection and, after I've added content, can I revert the new stuff back into xmarks later? I have been shepherding my collection since before del.icio.us had a bookmarklet, indeed since Netscape. Xmarks, despite its warts, at least it has cleanup tools I can us now and again, and I can take it with me to Firefox or Safari if needs be.

</comment><comment><USER32> there was a need for this? yet somehow reader had to die?

</comment><comment><USER33> This is the perfect opportunity for someone to build a comparable service to swoop in & save the day when this gets shut down.

</comment><comment><USER34> It doesn't seem to even index the bookmarked pages, what is the point ?

</comment><comment><USER35> Don't feel very enticed to move away from Pocket at the moment...

</comment><comment><USER36> People, just use Pinboard.

</comment><comment><USER37> It looks like Pocket

<comment><USER38> It looks like a Flat UI version of the chrome web store to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Dead pool? Or maybe we should call it a fewer-arrows more-wood pool. Or even "haha you gave us your data" pool. If I were cynical, a "do you dumbasses _ever_ learn" pool.

I've got $10 on Oct 2016. A nice round 2 years.</comment>


BlogNoon: semantic search engine - <AUTHOR> http://blognoon.com

<comment><USER2> blognoon.com is busted, www.blognoon.com seems to work</comment>


How to Swap Ctrl and Caps Lock Keys in Linux - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/article/18/11/how-swap-ctrl-and-caps-lock-your-keyboard <comment><USER2> Having done this myself (ctrl key permanent failure) the article and it's comments are listing several ways to achieve that swap.</comment>


Spidermonkey JM+TI JIT patches for PPC/OSX - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=731110

<comment><AUTHOR> Cameron has done an awesome job getting PPC JIT working. Any hackers out there who want to see Firefox/Spidermonkey JIT working on older PPC Mac hardware are welcome to help test/contribute!</comment>


Sixteen Languages: a journey through 16 programming languages in 361 days - <AUTHOR> http://16languages.blogspot.com/

<comment><USER2> Obligatory contrarian links:

Peter Norvig: "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years"

      http://norvig.com/21-days.html

Joel Spolsky: "Lord Palmerston on Programming"

      http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LordPalmerston.html

Which is not to say that you can't learn enough about (e.g.) FORTRAN in 16 days to say _something_ about it. But I could probably learn almost as much in 16 minutes by reading a couple of Wikipedia articles and an essay or two.

I don't know FORTRAN myself, but I'm pretty sure the advantages of the language are hard to appreciate unless you're the kind of person who has not only _read_ "Numerical Recipes" cover to cover, but also knows exactly which pages are dead wrong. In other words, you have to be a mathematical physicist whose entire career depends on the quality of your machine's math library. I don't think you can really get into that mindset in 16 days.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> He's spending 16 days on each language: Smalltalk, FP, Ada, Python, OCaml, BrainF __*, i86 assembly, Prolog, Erlang, Forth, D, Lazy K, Haskell, FORTRAN, Lua, and Scheme.

Everything he writes is in a subversion repository: <http://16languages.googlecode.com/svn/>

More information on the format: <http://16languages.blogspot.com/2007/09/rules.html></comment>


A Rise in Wealth for the Wealthy; Declines for the Lower 93% - <AUTHOR> http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-wealthydeclines-for-the-lower-93/

<comment><USER2> Not surprising but always worth highlighting.

In my opinion this is the meritocracy Michael Young described.</comment>


Uber Slayer: How China's Didi Beat the Ride-Hailing Superpower - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-didi-cheng-wei/ <comment><USER2> This is just a Bloomberg PR piece. China has a plan for the internet: Don't let outsiders control critical IT infrastructure / personal data.

> It was widely suggested in press accounts that the Chinese government helped > Didi in its battle against Uber. Cheng rejects that, noting that as the > largest ride-hailing company, Didi had to shoulder most of the regulatory > burden and paid tens of millions of yuan to cover driver traffic citations > and other fines.

Here in 2015 is the president of Didi talking about the strong government support they received:

[http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000395252](http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000395252)

I'm not criticizing them, if I were China I wouldn't want the USA in charge of that either, but let's not pretend this was a level playing field.

<comment><USER3> A thought that occurred to me recently, is that the main purpose of China's "Great Firewall" isn't so much silencing dissent[0], as it is protectionism.

By making it effectively impossible for foreign (i.e. American) internet companies to operate in China, they've ensured that the spaces occupied by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Uber, and even to some extent Microsoft have been filled by Chinese-owned and China-based companies.

[0] Although that too, of course.

<comment><USER4> Oh definitely.

The interesting trade-off though (as with all protectionism) is where the boundary between promoting and hindering innovation is.

VPN blocking Facebook probably has good ROI for generating internal social networks (which in turn can be monitored).

Blocking Google, even more so GitHub, seems far more dangerous economically as you impair innovators' abilities to obtain research done abroad. (Google is especially bad since a large percent of English language sites have Google dependencies (css/js hosting) -- effectively most of the English internet has become unusable in China without a VPN since the complete *google.com block went in).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article is rather light on details on what Didi actually did better, but from using Uber as a foreigner in China, I could see significant problems in Uber's product execution:

1\. The Android app continues to use Google Maps which is Great Firewall blocked, meaning I had to use a VPN to load uncached tiles.

2\. Uber in turn IP blocks EC2, preventing me from using my main VPN while in app.

3\. Entities on the map are shifted by the GCJ-02 offset ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China)), meaning entities on the map are shifted by 0.5 miles (look at those cars driving on parkland: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/hhkrjyka5uq0pfb/PeopleUber.png?dl=...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/hhkrjyka5uq0pfb/PeopleUber.png?dl=0))

4\. User support was absolutely non-existent. After I responded to an automatic email from the local community manager inviting me to ask any questions, I only received an automated emails telling me I won't be helped.

5\. Help pages in the app on Uber China tell me to see the Chinese translation, with no actual link to said translation.

While the foreigner use-case in China is niche, the sheer amount of obvious (and easily resolvable) problems I ran into suggests that Uber has organizational problems ensuring both drivers and customers have good experiences in foreign countries.

One blog from Jan 2014 highlights how bad the execution was at launch: [https://www.larrysalibra.com/5-problems-with-uber-in- china-a...](https://www.larrysalibra.com/5-problems-with-uber-in-china-and- why-i-love-it/) \- the most absurd being that Uber (at that time) only accepted US-branded credit cards which few Chinese nationals hold.

<comment><USER5> For 1 & 2: when was that as for the last 1.5 years at least they use Baidu and it works fine. 3 yes indeed, very annoying. 4. In the west support is good: from China they just do not respond unless a driver screwed me on purpose (doing the ride without me in the car which happened a few time): I would receive no mail but the amount paid would be set to 0 rmb. 5. Even most car brand names are in Chinese now it seems.

What we find most annoying that I always set pick up as an intersection of two streets (fuxing/wulumuqi but in Chinese) and then stand on the corner and yet they always call to ask where we are. We are on the f*cking corner I entered and we do not speak Chinese very well so a mumbling guy does not work well. They stopped allowing you to send sms to the driver, like you can in other countries which would allow to send google offline translated details... so often they just cancel the ride because we cannot explain. Uber Black still do their best so usually that is the easiest.

Last year things were definitely easier. Drivers were doing their best more for foreigners, you could sms and they would not call before, they would just pick you up.

A big pet peeve is with Google and maybe someone here knows how to fix it; I use Google Translate with offline translations but when you are online, even though Google cannot be reached, it will try to do it online. It is beyond annoying when you quickly want to translate something, you have offline installed and yet it will just hang trying to reach the mothership...

Edit: now that I have access to Google to search for my Translate issue, I will give Netguard a go.

<comment><USER4> 1/2: Are you on iPhone or Android? I was there a month ago and my Google Playstore downloaded variant only used Google Maps.

Great point on the driver calling being an issue for non-Mandarin speakers. I also experienced this. I actually asked drivers why they do this and apparently riders seem to put incorrect location information in -- this in itself indicates there is _some_ problem.

Regardless, I don't begrudge Uber much here; the driver call culture is hard to fix (even in America, I'm called sometimes) and it's not unreasonable to require your customer base speak the local language. (It is unreasonable though for the phone app to assume your locale matches the local language [help screen problem] or to assume that you've downloaded the app from a completely local source [Google maps source issue])

<comment><USER5> > 1/2: Are you on iPhone or Android? I was there a month ago and my Google > Playstore downloaded variant only used Google Maps.

Android. But my wife has iOS and that works as well?

> egardless, I don't begrudge Uber much here; the driver call culture is hard > to fix (even in America, I'm called sometimes) and it's not unreasonable to > require your customer base speak the local language. (It is unreasonable > though for the phone app to assume your locale matches the local language > [help screen problem] or to assume that you've downloaded the app from a > completely local source [Google maps source issue])

Agree, but not being able to SMS while you can in every other country IS something to begrudge Uber for. If I could immediately SMS with a perfect Chinese sentence explaining where I am, which is how I always do it in countries I don't speak the language (well), then this saves all the hassle. They should put that back immediately. In Hongkong it has it (as it has it everywhere else) and the driver never calls...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Uber's problems extend far beyond China. While the app is nice, its the cheap fares that bring the vast majority of users to Uber, vs competitors or plain ol' taxis.

Those cheap fares are artificially low, funded by SV money and ignoring regulatory issues. But money does run out (or investors want a real return eventually), and regulators either change the law (nullifying their advantage) or crackdown completely.

Uber's network effects are almost non-existant. Every small geographic market has to be fought and won the hard, and expensive way. And when the money runs out and the fares go up, there is no market lock-in. Barriers to entry are _low_ , potential competitors include anyone with a car, Uber just doesn't have a way to lock in market dominance.

Which is probably why they're rushing toward driverless vehicles as fast as they possibly can. Their own staff are an existential threat so they have to remove them as soon as possible. Except that puts them in direct competition with a whole range of extremely well funded, and well connected industry players.

So. Good luck Uber, this is just an example writ large of where Uber is heading in the not to distant future.

</comment><comment><USER7> For those crying wolf about protectionism...

In general, I think most nations should have more closed door policies like China. My country (which won't be named) does not have a startup ecosystem anymore and we have become a consumption ground for one silicon valley startup after another. Instead of fostering local startups and paying some money (since many bootstrap and do not have big pockets), all the companies just take the freebies of silicon valley startups. We had a local chat start up but slack ate their lunch. Everyone here just uses the slack free tier. How do you compete against free?

Eventually, this has led to all the data of individuals and companies on US soil (or wherever those startups feel like stashing the data). We have no control or say over it. If we are to look for alternatives, there is none in our own country.

And for those who think the world is one giant land where everyone can roam freely, it's impossible for me to move to any of the western world because of visa restrictions. And US has the harshest work visas on the plante.

<comment><USER8> > We had a local chat start up but slack ate their lunch. Everyone here just > uses the slack free tier. How do you compete against free?

The point of division of labor (aka how civilization got built) is that it's not _necessary_ to spend time re-doing the same thing others are doing. Slack is giving you something for free that you don't _have_ to spend time or money building now.

Now you have X engineers free to work on something actually innovative, not just a clone of X, and getting a cheap/free service from slack.

The point of economic policy should not be to produce pointless jobs.

<comment><USER9> Nations, communities, individuals: they value autonomy. Building their own networks rather than submitting to whatever is being fed by silicon valley is not a pointless job.

<comment><USER10> Apparently not, otherwise they would have used the locally produced. But they didn't, they chose the freebie SV tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I completely understand Chinese (or any other country) entrepreneurs, why let some foreign company come in and take all the money (ultimately a lot of it outside the country) when you can do the same internally. The idea is not a rocket science, all about execution. And locals know the specifics of China more than a bunch of silicon valley grads.

Cheers to these guys for making it work in China. And Good luck to Uber fighting strengthening competition all around the world.

<comment><USER12> > why let some foreign company come in and take all the money (ultimately a > lot of it outside the country) when you can do the same internally.

Because those engineers and entrepreneurs could have spent their time producing something globally new and innovative instead of creating an Uber clone. Then they could have sold that new thing to the world and everyone (global consumers _and_ the aforementioned Chinese) would be better off than the status quo.

<comment><USER13> Or - considerably more likely - they could have created a significantly less successful Uber clone, like many engineers and entrepreneurs have managed in other countries where Uber operates. I mean, if it were that easy to come up with revolutionary new business models that the entire world needs, we wouldn't see quite so many cookie cutter startups in Silicon Valley either...

Actually, the more plausible arguments against protectionism and state aid for favoured corporations are the precise opposite to the one you're making: _it 's good for consumers to have a wider choice of ride-booking apps_, and not a choice guided by the government. If the ridesharing apps are likely to tend towards being a monopoly anyway then there certainly are advantages to having it a locally owned and run one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Giving an American company where your people are, where they are going and with whom they are likely meeting and traveling was a non-starter _before_ we confirmed every Tom, Dick and Harry at a three-letter agency has the ability to stalk their - and anybody else's - kids and ex girlfriends.

</comment><comment><USER15> through anti-competitive policies?

<comment><USER16> What kind of anti-competitive policies?

Dumping their product below-cost?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> china is a difficult market. if it wasn't for the perpetual carrot of 1 billion consumers i doubt many would bother.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wait, so we're supposed to believe this was some kind of merit or business acumen thing? Is anyone really that gullible?

</comment><comment><USER19> [http://](http://)</comment>


Australia's quantum capabilities - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-bar.com.au/blog/2017/3/1/quantum-schwantum-in-australia <comment><USER2> _" The reason for this strong focus on quantum physics and quantum technology in Australia is due to a range of factors including historical precedent, governmental policy and playing to the Australian psyche. Since at least the 1980s, Australian and New Zealand have an exceptionally strong representation in the field of quantum optics."_

Is there any attempt to go beyond the basic science and start new industries? All that basic science and competitive advantage will go off-shore if products are not built.

<comment><USER3> Australia recognises it does poorly in this regard: [https://industry.gov.au/industry/IndustryInitiatives/Pages/B...](https://industry.gov.au/industry/IndustryInitiatives/Pages/Boosting- the-Commercial-Returns-from-Research.aspx)</comment></comment>


Obama is likely to appoint a Chief Technology Officer to the White House.  - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10084006-38.html <comment><USER2> There was a whole discussion about this on HN yesterday. Well, more specifically it was about John Doerr's suggestion that Obama choose Bill Joy as national CTO. Anyway, can we give the political stuff a rest? Take it over to Reddit or Digg.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the minds of many, I guess, CTO usually relates to business.

Since this is government, though, I wonder what he will do to protect civil rights in cyberspace. Should he appoint a Chief Cyber-rights Officer, too?

<comment><USER4> Give Lessig the job.</comment></comment>


Rongorongo: The Ancient Easter Island Alphabet That Has Never Been Deciphered - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rongorongo <comment><AUTHOR> I think this alphabet (or proto-alphabet) is exceptionally beautiful, with its representations of sea creatures, flora, and objects.</comment>


Crypt: Free, Anonymous AES256 file encryption - <AUTHOR> http://wesh.gift/crypt/

<comment><USER2> Virtually everyone on the Internet is using an OS that has the built-in capability to encrypt files with AES. Why would anyone delegate that to a server?

<comment><USER3> Only thing I could think of is that you can transfer it from one computer to another quickly. And you don't need to create an account (like say if I transferred it through DropBox), just type in a password.

<comment><USER2> Right, so you encrypt locally, upload to Dropbox, pass the link to your friend, and they decrypt locally. Still not seeing why you'd opt to trust this doohickey.

<comment><USER3> I always found DropBox a pain, you have to email them the link, which is a bit more effort than saying going to a short URL and typing in a password. So I could see this being somewhat useful :)

<comment><USER2> If you've invented the most convenient file transfer tool on the whole Internet, you've buried the lede here; forget about the encryption, and get your Dropbox-competitor funded.

If you haven't, well, people should use that other service instead of this one.

Either way: I'm still totally unclear on why anyone would allow a server to encrypt files for them. I don't even reach the question of whether it's possible to do it securely, because it seems like such a weird thing to want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well, there goes the server. If you're having issues, wait. I'm about to switch servers.

</comment><comment><USER4> The actual encryption of the file is secure, but everything else about the site is insecure. Plus using a free web host to encrypt files with 256 aes is kinda silly. The fact you use md5 for password hashing isn't very secure either.

Edit: The idea of this is nice though. Maybe instead of focusing on encrypting the files, focus on providing a very secure environment to store the files in. Plus sort out the ssl and remove plain text transmission. This could turn into a good site

</comment><comment><USER5> I assume that you're doing client side encryption here right?

To try and guarantee that the Javascript you are delivering is from your server and not MITMed 'by the man', doesn't everything need to be over TLS/SSL and certificate pinning needs to be in place?

I'm no security expert, but there are plenty around who can confirm or deny that.

Edit: The password is being sent in a POST without any encryption to protect that request, or am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Encryption is server side. Your file is uploaded, encrypted, then deleted.

<comment><USER5> But the password and file are sent over the wire without any protection?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is it that the site does not have the password do the encryption server side?

Unclear that claims match the reality.</comment>


Flock, fast and free team messenger - <AUTHOR> https://www.flock.co <comment><USER2> This post got a huge number of bogus upvotes. We ban accounts and sites that do that, so please don't do it again.

<comment><USER3> We're sorry about this. It wasn't our intention to promote bogus upvotes. We're guessing as word spread throughout our group of companies, people got excited and up-voted. We're definitely going to be more careful about this in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you want this to be a good Slack competitor, please make a native mac client which doesn't perpetually take 15% of my CPU the way Slack does - i'd convince our team to switch on that basis alone (all else being equal).

<comment><USER3> I get why you are saying that, and we are working hard to ensure that our CPU/memory usage stays low. We aren't there yet, but hopefully we should soon be at a point where this is no longer a concern. (Not denying that Webkit based apps have some overhead already, but we are trying to keep the remaining overhead low).

That said, there's a significant advantage to using this approach -- you don't need to build different apps for different desktop platforms, plus it also helps to have same UI across platforms, which is why we went for this.

<comment><USER5> This reasoning is essentially "it's easier for us". I have to use slack for work and it is extraordinarily frustrating to have to use such a ridiculously slow and resource intensive application for sending text messages in _2016_. Coupled with the non-native UI (can I right click on that message? Oh no - it's a web page, let's find the cog to click on). Saying that it allows the UI to be the same on every platform to me means that it is not _good_ on any platform. I would take IRC over slack any day at this point.

<comment><USER5> Oops, also read your message as being from Slack!

<comment><USER3> No issues, your criticism is still valid. We are working hard towards fixing these issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recognize several of the people in your front page screenshot [1]. They are well-known in the design community.

Did you get permission to use their photographs?

[1] [http://imgur.com/a/nWbtt](http://imgur.com/a/nWbtt)

<comment><USER7> we use [http://uifaces.com/](http://uifaces.com/) for our mocks and screenshots, and these are all pre-authorised images. However, if anyone from the community doesn't want their pic up, we'll be happy to take it down.

(I manage the marketing at Flock, and happy to answer any more questions you may have)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is Accenture really a customer? Whirlpool?

These are absolutely huge names -- how have I not heard of this before?

<comment><USER9> > 25000+ COMPANIES AROUND THE WORLD USE FLOCK

A lot of Show HN apps/websites using big companies logo, not sure why it is legal to do so, when I believe all is for marketing.

And I hope they will response to your comment.

<comment><USER10> it happens, and the legalities really vary from company to company. a few years ago there was the "startup logo generator" or something like that here on HN it got so bad.

also, let's say I work for Staples in customer support. Me and my 3 buddies use Flock to communicate at work using Flock, and send files back and forth...now "Staples uses Flock."

<comment><USER11> Yes, and? When you build a product hoping for bottom-up user adoption (as opposed to getting the CtO to make a company wide mandate) then its totally fair to do this. Half the hosting companies on earth have Disney and NewsCorp and Nike and Starbucks logos on their client pages because an employee used his work email to buy a $5 shared hosting account for his mom's blog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> tl;dr of difference to Slack: a) 2.5x faster to load initially than Slack, b) UI that will "sweep you of your feet", c) seamless app integration

(according to them)

<comment><USER13> Also apps are a lot more powerful in flock. In slack you can only interact with apps using slash commands. In flock, an app can declare UI buttons in multiple places which can trigger actions like opening a widget or sending events to app backend. You can also include widgets inside your messages (e.g. checkout our polls app). Read our API docs for more: [https://docs.flock.co/](https://docs.flock.co/)

(PS: I work in the Flock android team)

<comment><USER14> You may want to rethink how you differentiate Flock from Slack

[https://api.slack.com/docs/message- buttons](https://api.slack.com/docs/message-buttons)

<comment><USER13> Flock supports message buttons too. And also buttons for apps across the UI, more on that here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zQfbeh_gKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zQfbeh_gKk) \-- Not just that, you can craft your own custom UI in an inline attachment widget which can do whatever you want (for e.g. take a look at polls app)

And finally, apps are first class citizens in Flock, which means they have much deeper integration with UI widgets. You can have an app show its own UI right inside Flock, Our To-DO app for instance, is an app anyone could build to extent what Flock can do.

More on our platform here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zQfbeh_gKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zQfbeh_gKk)

( P.S : I work in the flock android team )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Proudly built in India - [http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/flock- the...](http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/flock-the-indian- competition-for-slack-2784044/)

Good going @chaitanya - can you talk about the technology stack choices ? Clojure ?

Quick question - how does one _migrate_ ? can you pull all data out of hipchat/slack ?

<comment><USER3> Sorry no Lisp or Clojure here ;-)

Our backend is mostly Java, the desktop app is based on HTML/CSS/Javascript while the mobile apps are native.

We are working on a migration tool from Slack (and others) to Flock, we will release it soon.

<comment><USER15> java 8 + lambda by any chance ? we have been considering kotlin + vertx for some time now... so it would be interesting to hear about your experience in the vanilla java world.

<comment><USER3> Our core infra doesn't use lambda (we can't really, its not a good fit). However, I think for some of our ancillary services and especially for a lot of FlockOS apps ([https://apps.flock.co](https://apps.flock.co)), it makes a lot of sense.

Just yesterday in fact, I was at AWS dev day in Pune where I explained how easy it is to build a FlockOS app using lambda and node.js. We will put up a blog post on it soon.

<comment><USER15> Actually I was not talking about AWS Lambda...but Java 8 "lambdas" (streams,lombok,lambdas...the whole shebang)

<comment><USER3> Arghh.. yes of course we do make use of lambda expressions in Java!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks neat. Small UI comment on the landing page: the header of the columns looks exactly like the links so I initially clicked on Flock OS wondering what it was before realising it wasn't a link.

What's the stack behind it (frontend/backend)?

PS: tried to open the FlockOS blog to see what it was and all I see is an empty Medium page?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback, we will fix the styling. Also, I think someone was a little too eager to link to the FlockOS blog, we will remove it.

Our backend is mostly Java, the desktop app is based on HTML/CSS/Javascript while the mobile apps are native.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> as a developer, I was curious to read about building apps for flock. let me tell you about my experience: first, I had to create an account. I just wanted to get some information, but ok. after entering an email (in firefox), getting a pin via email, entering the pin, I got redirected to a page that said: "No account set yet." I tried to sign in via [https://web.flock.co/](https://web.flock.co/), where it told me that firefox wasn't supported. So I tried the same steps with chrome, where it told me "Access Denied", and I need to contact developer support.

Maybe you guys are not ready yet? Or where can a developer get some information about creating apps for your platform?

<comment><USER3> I am sorry you had to face this, we are aware of this issue and are fixing it. We have only just opened up our API platform (FlockOS) for external developers, and we are mostly reaching out to them via hackathons, where we make the steps required very clear. I hadn't imagined us getting HNed right now :-|

So the issue is that you need to sign up before you can access the developer dashboard, and you can only do that through a Flock client as of now. Unfortunately, as you found out, our web client doesn't support Firefox and that's basically hit our worst case scenario with this issue.

If you want to try it out, you can sign up using web.flock.co on Chrome or Safari, or download one of our clients. Once you do that you will be able to sign in to [https://dev.flock.co](https://dev.flock.co). The documentation for building apps is on [https://docs.flock.co](https://docs.flock.co).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you are curious about how Flock compares to Slack (we get that a lot), we made a short video about it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDDapdpgCd8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDDapdpgCd8)

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this a native app or Electron? Electron is super slow and was a mistake.

<comment><USER19> I thought so too until I used VScode and no I'm not sure anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Invalid email: [http://imgur.com/a/Xo2mS](http://imgur.com/a/Xo2mS)

Wondering why people still check for 'valid' email addresses.

<comment><USER3> Whoops! We have a very permissive email regex, your address should have passed. Can you tell me where exactly this check failed? (edit: I got it, we will get this fixed quickly)

<comment><USER20> Check... Thanks. Saw the new verification email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is really great! It has all the features I need. Going to get my team to start using this right away. EVERY team should be using this product.

Thank you sir!

</comment><comment><USER22> Are there any plans to add video calls or screen sharing as a feature? Having those work cross platform would be a huge advantage over other existing messaging applications.

<comment><USER13> Flock supports video calling and screen sharing via appear.in and Google Hangouts integration. And it works cross platform too. We don't have anything native yet.

(PS: I work in the Flock android team)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> You have some copy duplication at the bottom of the page in the press area, PCWorld and ComputerWorld both have the same "Meet flock [...] productivity gains" text.

</comment><comment><USER3> This was a little unexpected, but glad to see Flock featured on HN's front page!

(I am the CTO of Flock, and will be happy to answer any of your queries).

<comment><USER24> Congrats! Flock vs Slack reminds me of Zendesk vs Freshdesk. Any thought on fundraising? Investors would beg to get in :)

<comment><USER25> Thank you for your kind words. We are currently flush with funds, however we are certainly open to raising future rounds externally and will be doing so.

(Founder and CEO, Flock)

<comment><USER24> Awesome! When you raise your next round keep me posted - zillionize at gmail dot com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hi, congratulations on your release! Where can I find the source code to inspect?

<comment><USER27> Maybe try Mattermost if you want something similar that's open Free.

[https://www.mattermost.org](https://www.mattermost.org)

<comment><USER28> does anyone know why people do not use mattermost instead of slack&co? it seems to have everything in place, and it's free and opensource.. is it beacuse you need to deploy by yourself?

<comment><USER27> We use it along with the GitLab omnibus package so install and setup was very straightforward. It's great and has handled everything we've thrown at it; no complaints whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm rather curious, what's preventing you from supporting Firefox?

<comment><USER3> Nothing actually, we just want to make sure the Firefox build is fully tested before releasing it. We will be launching it soon.

<comment><USER29> Awesome. Best of luck with the product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Like the ui. The mobile app is nice. Works seamlessly on ubuntu with chrome extension. Have not seen a situation where I have ran out of cpu cycles. I have an i5. Its nice. I have faced one challenge though a few times, that is, it takes a little while to reconnect when u bring the laptop out of suspend. It connects eventually but u wait like for 15 seconds before u can start. It is not a deal breaker though :) good job. Keep going.</comment>


DoogiePIM – The only All-in-One Personal Knowledge Manager you'll ever need - <AUTHOR> https://bitespire.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Not my creation but I'm a believer and an active user. Been seeking such a product since this post ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8806950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8806950)) a few years back.</comment>


Locally Developing Micro-Services with Docker Compose - <AUTHOR> http://www.opencredo.com/2015/03/11/locally-developing-micro-services-with-docker-compose/

<comment><USER2> Nice article, thanks for sharing your experience.</comment>


Show HN: OpenAgain – UK hospitality sector tool to support NHS Test and Trace - <AUTHOR> https://www.openagain.co.uk <comment><AUTHOR> OpenAgain launched the first phase of a national campaign to get the British hospitality sector re-open safely.

The 100% free of charge solution enables pubs and restaurants solve the daunting challenge of collecting and storing customer contact data in accordance with government guidelines. At table ordering will also be provided free of charge in the near future.

Unlike other offerings, the OpenAgain solution does not require pub and restaurant customers to download an app; thereby ensuring that anybody in possession of a smartphone can easily go out for a drink or meal without having the hassle of downloading a different app for each establishment that they wish to visit.

Therefore, even larger pub and restaurant chains that may already have their own advanced smartphone apps in place, will benefit greatly from this solution in addition to their own, to enable them to cater for potential customers that have not downloaded their apps.

<comment><USER2> Looks like it's set to solve a good problem, congrats on the launch. Would be more enticing if I saw a glimpse into the product(s) through screenshots etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion, kulor. We're aiming to get some real world example pictures up on the site from our current user base. Screenshots are also doable now we've got the product off the ground. Hopefully over the coming days we should be in a position to share an update.</comment></comment></comment>


How Facebook Authentication For Apps Simplifies Secure User Login - <AUTHOR> http://www.kinvey.com/blog/item/213-simplifying-secure-user-login-facebook-authentication-for-your-apps <comment><USER2> Cool post, and nice to see code/visuals for different mobile/web platforms. Can I use the same mechanism to connect to other OAuth services?</comment>


Show HN: I just finished my landing page for my Data Analysis with Rust book - <AUTHOR> https://store.shahinrostami.com/product/data-analysis-with-rust-notebooks/ <comment><USER2> From [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

> _Show HN is for something you 've made that other people can play with. HN > users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread._

> _Blog posts, sign-up pages, curated lists, and other reading material can 't > be tried out, so can't be Show HNs._

This doesn't look like something we can try. It's not clear how this rule applies to books, but in an old thread, dang said that a sample chapter may be enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea - I'll get a sample chapter on there!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best SAAS options to set up an online store? - <AUTHOR> A friend of mine has a designer garment & jwellary business and she wants to setup an online store. I think instead of using a custom made or open source option it is better to use a SAAS provider for a couple of years to see how it goes.<p>So, who are the best SAAS e-commerce providers right now in terms of features & quality of service? <comment><USER2> I cannot speak for the backend of setting up but from a consumer and checkout process perspective I like Shopify. They have really simple streamlined checkout process that will remember your details if you have previously checked out on another shopify store. I would think this would help with conversion rates.

</comment><comment><USER3> Shopify is totally worth it. However i sometimes opt for woocommerce when I see it as long term project without direct profits. However nothing beats shopify especially when you are willing to pay for extras.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have used many options but for you i would definitely recommend cs-cart. It has good features and easy to use GUI. Take a look at it here [https://www.cs- cart.com/compare.html](https://www.cs-cart.com/compare.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> If your target audience is in Europe and you care about multi-language support then Shoperb might be an option (I'm the founder). While it is a SaaS, we work rather closely with our merchants and help them often to get their store going, do custom integrations etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> If she already has a Squarespace site or wants one, you can set up a store there [https://www.squarespace.com/ecommerce- website/](https://www.squarespace.com/ecommerce-website/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Since nobody has mentioned BigCommerce, I wanted to throw it out there. I'm not sure what your specific needs are, but you could use the free template or one of the paid templates.

</comment><comment><USER8> A related question:

How does one handle International Shipping, Import restriction, custom packacing etc?

To me setting up a shop online is the easy part. Getting the rest running is the most difficult bit.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's also [https://www.bigcartel.com](https://www.bigcartel.com), which is a bit cheaper than shopify.

</comment><comment><USER10> Go to is shopify for sure

</comment><comment><USER11> look at bigcartel as well</comment>


A Machine Learning cheatsheet focusing on the most popular algorithms - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/remicnrd/ml_cheatsheet <comment><USER2> Misleading right off the bat. "Linear" and "parametric" are orthogonal concepts. A parametric model can be linear or non-linear (I.e you can fit the parameters of a model f(x) = A * sin(w*x)). A non-parametric model can also be a linear combination of examples, or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nothing included about cross-validation which is probably the most important concept in modern machine learning. Not sure what to think about that.

<comment><USER4> Could you elaborate? Any good resources on that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the Ordinary Least Squares section, this sheet says the vector of residuals is equal to the sum of the squared elements of that vector.

</comment><comment><USER6> Since this will become obsolete in 5 years of sooner, it's just a great introduction. Not something hanging in my room/office.

<comment><USER7> Machine Learning is merely a bunch of statistical algorithms that have been around for centuries. So although the name/branding may indeed change in a few years, the content will be the same.

<comment><USER8> "Centuries" is a bit of a stretch, right? Or am I misunderstanding your comment?

Some of the most widely used algorithms in machine learning, for training or prediction, are much younger than that: \- backpropagation (1970s) \- Viterbi algorithm (1960s) \- Markov Chain Monte Carlo (1940s) (Though, the Buffon's needle problem is from the 18th century.)

And things like conditional random fields, LDA, and LSTMs, were introduced after 2000.

edit: removed lone parenthesis

<comment><USER9> LSTM 1997

[https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1246450](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1246450)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


As WhatsApp becomes latest victim, are any messaging apps truly secure? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/14/whatsapp-vulnerability-secure-messaging-apps <comment><USER2> XMPP + OTR + OMEMO

<comment><USER2> I forgot to mention the Conversations app achieves this.</comment></comment>


Why Your Home Wi-Fi Is Lousy - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-your-home-wi-fi-is-lousy-1458532861?mod=trending_now_4 <comment><AUTHOR> Lousy home wi-fi actually isn't a big deal for me, because I have an iMac that's wired with Cat6. Ethernet cables have somehow become an underrated technology.

<comment><USER2> If wifi had come first, everyone would be excited about deploying copper waveguides that give 20x the bandwidth with almost no attenuation or interference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could we get a tag or something to indicate when an article is pay-walled?

From my experience, there are 2 major factors to lousy home wifi. 1\. Over populated spectrum. 2\. Consumer gear.

I gave up on using consumer grade gear long ago, and that cut back on the majority of issues I experienced.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite paid app on iphone? - <AUTHOR> Since I spent a lot of time on my phone, I figured it's worthy to buy paid apps to improve experience/productivity. What's your favorite paid app that you use daily? <comment><USER2> Radarscope: [https://www.radarscope.app/](https://www.radarscope.app/) I find this app very useful to track rain or other adverse weather events. It provides extra information such as VIL: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertically_integrated_liquid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertically_integrated_liquid)

Drawback: It won't tell me the temperature, humidity or rain.

I am not sure if there are other weather apps that provide this information but this complements the inbuilt weather app well.

</comment><comment><USER3> instapaper. Whenever I find an interesting (long) article at work I save it. Then open instapaper on down time, e.g. waiting room at the dentist, train ride.</comment>


Puns for Devs - <AUTHOR> https://puns.dev/ <comment><USER2> Why didn't the programmer finish his class work?

      He was Test Driven...

Wife tells her programmer husband to buy a gallon of milk and if they have eggs, buy a dozen...

      He comes home with 12 gallons of milk

</comment><comment><USER3> #ifdef GetAHearingAid

(Credit where due: That was from the C/C++ User's Journal's Bad C Pun contest, 1992.)

</comment><comment><USER4> This one made my day</comment>


Florida mosquitoes: 750M genetically modified insects to be released - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53856776 <comment><USER2> It's so funny people are against the idea without realizing the mosquito species they're trying to eradicate is an invasive species and shouldn't be there anyway.

Number 1 killer animal of Humans in the world: Mosquitoes, by far.</comment>


The Fixation of Belief - <AUTHOR> http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html <comment><USER2> Great to see something by Peirce linked on here.

I do think some of the intellectual history in this piece is wildly off the mark. The schoolmen (at least those of an Aristotelean bent) certainly thought that you could know things via experience as well as via authority. For example, you could know that there was a desk in front of you because you could see it. The development of science during the enlightenment was partly enabled by a much greater _skepticism_ about experience than was characteristic of the schoolmen. You can "see", for example, that the desk is a solid object with no holes in it, but you have to develop the habit of doubting such experiences to make progress beyond a certain point in physics and chemistry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad it's well received. I was unsure 'cause I've not notice much else here, on HN, of the like.

I got caught up on the same bit when I read it.

Given your remark about the accuracy of some of the info, what reads would you recommend as being more accurate?

Any thoughts on other, related thinkers —past _and_ present— worth checking out for those who find this compelling?</comment></comment>