Securing a travel iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://blog.filippo.io/securing-a-travel-iphone/ <comment><USER2> Hey, author here. Happy to answer questions. There's also a big Twitter thread here [https://twitter.com/FiloSottile/status/750273921568485377](https://twitter.com/FiloSottile/status/750273921568485377)

To frame the post and the conversation, I am targeting a loose but not universal threat model. If threat of deadly force is higher up in your risk scale than shoulder-surfing, or Apple cooperation is a given, then you might want to make very different choices, but more importantly, you probably need better advice than a blog post.

The only things I want to add are pair-locking, maybe a forced VPN profile, and a correction on how to check the Whatsapp fingerprint. You can find all these things in the Twitter thread.

<comment><USER3> I'd avoid using TouchID to unlock your phone for legal reasons.

Once the phone is unlocked, you can use TouchID as the phone is already open and you would not gain/lose anything from using TouchID in that scenario. But until the courts rule that you cannot be compelled to TouchID unlock your phone like a PIN, I think that is the safer route to take for now.

<comment><USER4> If you expect you can reliably turn off your phone (7 seconds) before you get in a search situation, then use a full password instead of a numeric pin, then touch ID is a great balance of convenience and security. TouchID also prevents shoulder surfing of your code.

It's all about the threat model.

<comment><USER5> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it also possible to just use one of your fingers that you didn't register with touch ID for 5 or so consecutive unlock attempts and it will have the same effect as rebooting your phone?

<comment><USER6> There is a slight difference.

Keychain and NSFileManager have possible modes of "kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlock" [0] and "NSFileProtectionCompleteUntilFirstUserAuthentication" [1] respectively that are (fittingly) in an open state within your app after you've unlocked the device.

[0]: [https://developer.apple.com/reference/security/ksecattracces...](https://developer.apple.com/reference/security/ksecattraccessibleafterfirstunlock)

[1]: [https://developer.apple.com/reference/foundation/nsfilemanag...](https://developer.apple.com/reference/foundation/nsfilemanager/1653059-file_protection_values)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone in a country with a serious mugging problem and having lost an iPhone already, one of the biggest security flaws I see is being able to power it off without providing any authentication.

What is even the point of Find my Phone and all that if anyone can just instantly switch off all the tracking?? You can't even ring your own number after that, and even law enforcement cannot look up the cell tower logs to see where it's been.

There should be an option to require a passcode for power-off, and another option to periodically send Find my Phone tracking even when "powered off," via any available network, until the battery dies.

EDIT: I agree they can just take out the SIM and we need to be able to force- power-off anyway.. but what can be done to increase the recoverability of these expensive items?

<comment><USER8> Even if Apple added that, it's trivially easy to pop the SIM. A phone without a network connection won't ping, so that won't help.

You have to think about it from the attacker's point of view. Anyone they sell it to is going to power it on to test it. Once it's powered on, it'll ping back.

Any black-market buyer knows to pop the SIM anyway before powering it on, and turn on the phone without any publicly-accessible Wifi access points available. But then they still have to restore it in order to see if it's iCloud locked, and the restore pings, too (it requires an Internet connection to Apple's servers to download a signed OS.)

What it comes down to is that stolen iPhones just aren't worth that much, since there's no easy way to remove an iCloud lock and the parts themselves aren't worth a lot. The good news is that far fewer iPhones are stolen these days (source: [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iphone-thefts-down-thanks-to- app...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iphone-thefts-down-thanks-to-apple-kill- switch/) ), and thieves are pretty quickly learning that.

<comment><USER9> Going by eBay, a lot of people are still managing to sell stolen iPhones for $100-$300: [http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=icl0ud%20locked&LH_Compl...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=icl0ud%20locked&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1)

<comment><USER10> What do you do with a iCould locked phone? It seems like a completely worthless device if it is locked.

<comment><USER11> Perfect for parts. New screens aren't cheap. Battery, camera modules, etc.

<comment><USER10> New screens are a lot cheaper than $200, which appears to be the price of iCloud locked phone.

<comment><USER12> "genuine Apple screen" vs. cheap aftermarket knockoff? I have no idea if there's much of a difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What I miss in this article in using MDM to harden an iOS devices in the first place. Eg. you can prevent the ability to make backups [0] diminishing that as a route to exfiltrate information. Secondly an always-on VPN [1] to a fixed IP address prevents network information leakage from the moment the device is turned on the first time. A quick search resulted in these two links but I didn't hit a comprehensive guide, other than Apples MDM docs, combining this travel guide combined with iOS MDM hardening.

[0] [https://community.rapid7.com/community/infosec/blog/2015/11/...](https://community.rapid7.com/community/infosec/blog/2015/11/26/reduced- annoyances-and-increased-security-on-ios-9-a-win-win)

[1] [http://www.howtogeek.com/218851/how-to-enable-always-on- vpn-...](http://www.howtogeek.com/218851/how-to-enable-always-on-vpn-on-an- iphone-or-ipad/)

</comment><comment><USER14> A key step missing is to set up the iOS device as Supervised in Apple Configurator and _prevent pairing with non-Configurator hosts_. Additionally, you can install your own non-removable profile via Configurator on the device disabling a bunch of privacy-damaging features there.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think two security related changes could be made to iOS that would benefit many people.

1) PIN/TouchID locking of contacts, like you can do with notes. Don't allow messages and emails to and from the contact to be decrypted from the encrypted store without authenticating, like you can now do with notes. Would help with securing communications with legal counsel or other privileged parties from being captured.

2) A "duress" PIN/TouchID registration; if I unlock my phone with a duress code or imprint my duress-coded fingerprint, reboot the phone (to look like it was a glitch-induced reboot) and present the PIN prompt again. Auto-wipe the phone if the duress code is given again this second time.

<comment><USER16> _if I unlock my phone with a duress code or imprint my duress-coded fingerprint, reboot the phone (to look like it was a glitch-induced reboot) and present the PIN prompt again. Auto-wipe the phone if the duress code is given again this second time._

If such a feature was commonplace, criminals would know about it and wouldn't be happy when they saw you activate it with your middle finger (I mean, who wouldn't use their middle finger to activate such a function!?) after they just threatened you enough to make you attempt to unlock your phone.

<comment><USER15> So you'd use the PIN. Then they get the metaphorical middle finger without seeing you use the real one.

Besides, no criminal cares about your phone being unlocked. They just want the phone. Well, I guess there are circumstances where a criminal wants information, but if they're the ones compelling you, you have other pressing issues that go beyond protecting information from unauthorized parties.

I'm talking about being compelled to unlock your phone by someone seeking information on it, either depriving you of due process or your civil liberties.

<comment><USER17> A criminal who is motivated to steal your phone under threat if violence is motivated to have you unlock the phone and disable 'Find my Phone' or whatever the Android equivalent is. It _considerably_ increases the resale value since the phone can then be wiped and used by a new Apple ID.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought I once read that, since Touch ID relies on fingerprints, a US court order can compel you to provide those, thus forcing you to unlock an iPhone in question.

This, as opposed to a passcode-only configuration, which a court order cannot compel you to give (I believe since this would fall in the category of 'forcing you to testify against yourself').

If that is indeed the case, I imagine it would make better sense to leave Touch ID disabled, unlike what this article suggests.

<comment><USER19> I leave it enabled, then power the phone off before interacting with The Man, like when going through customs. Touch ID is disabled on a fresh boot until you enter your passcode, so that basically turns it off temporarily. This is briefly mentioned in the article.

Another thing you could do is set it up with an unusual finger, like the middle-finger of your non-dominant hand. After five failed tries, Touch ID is disabled until you enter your passcode, so you can use the wrong finger five times when they ask you, and disable it that way. Say you're sweating too much or something (a common cause for real Touch ID failures for me).

It all depends on just how paranoid you are and what you want to defend against.

<comment><USER20> Having got sick of damp fingers blocking Touch ID I added my nose as one of the options. No more lockout during dish washing.

<comment><USER21> Can a US court order compel you to provide your nose print?

<comment><USER22> Someone needs to be the first to make the news for refusing to do so!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Related, are there any guides for securing a laptop for travel?

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice guide. Just some other OPSEC stuff we have done for occasional problems in the field training human rights defenders and journalists (who needed specific solutions)...

You can always use a call relay. So you can give people one phone number that relays to your own real number (for voice calls) - although an voice call is obviously more vulnerable than Signal call etc.

Ditto, AFAIK there is the ability to setup a relay for SMS through an Android. I can't remember the app but basically people could SMS that number and it relays to you real number.

Before people jump on me, yes I am aware of the weaknesses of both of the above but sometimes a specific type of threat model requires these two tricks. I recommend it unless you are aware of the trade offs.

</comment><comment><USER25> The OP has responded to questions on Twitter, including TouchID criticism, [https://twitter.com/FiloSottile/status/750273921568485377](https://twitter.com/FiloSottile/status/750273921568485377)

</comment><comment><USER26> I was once mugged for a crappy Nokia feature phone. I had a prepaid sim for a long time. Very hard to replace (in Hungary) without loosing the phone number. I managed to convince my muggers to let me take the SIM.

Ironically they got caught and I got the phone back.

</comment><comment><USER27> [https://xkcd.com/538/](https://xkcd.com/538/)

Well, at least it prevents the thieves from doing more damage if it's stolen.

</comment><comment><USER28> About turning off iCloud backup: You say that messages are being stored unencrypted. That may be true as we do not know what happens on Apple servers. But this is about securing the phone for traveling i.e. you would have to worry about the transport. And I would strongly guess that backup traffic would happen with http, probably with pinned certificates.

</comment><comment><USER29> If I may ask, in what circumstances would one want to go this far in securing their travel phone? Is this meant to be for a "general trip somewhere", or something more specific?

</comment><comment><USER30> I also like to power off/on my phone at airports. So that it will be on (which you have to show sometimes) but requires the passcode to unlock.

</comment><comment><USER31> I would put extra emphasis on don't use wifi. Preferably ever.

<comment><USER32> I think it's acceptable to trust the cryptography used in a well-used VPN, such as OpenVPN.

<comment><USER33> I wonder how many people don't bother preloading CA/certs onto the .ovpn config and just allow whatever though..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Does any of this avoid the pitfall of a stingray device[1]? Is there any way to prevent 2G?

[1] [https://epic.org/foia/fbi/stingray/](https://epic.org/foia/fbi/stingray/)

<comment><USER32> You can mitigate a downgrade to 2G by using a VPN and a VOIP app like Whatsapp or Viber. Call quality would be abysmal on EDGE. I haven't seen any stock configuration of iOS that permits you to disable 2G.

Using 3G or LTE wouldn't help someone trying to evade a state or higher law enforcement organization, since all they need to do is use the cellular provider's Lawful Intercept capability somewhere in the packet core, such as the GGSN (for metadata) or at a tower's next IP router (for call content).

I think the purpose of this guide was primarily for border crossings. Filippo almost certainly gets hassled at borders, as many security professionals do. His comment about the Great Firewall was more likely about accessing an unrestricted internet, and less as an phone call anti-surveillance measure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> No VPN? I'm using Freedome and I like it.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's also an ultimate checklist of potential vector attacks.

</comment><comment><USER37> I would have thought a rooted Android or Ubuntu phone would more secure (done right).

<comment><USER38> Given that rooting an Android phone frequently involves turning _off_ security features (for example, rooting a Nexus device entails unlocking the bootloader to accept an unsigned boot image), you're probably better off running a stock, unrooted firmware to make it easier to tell if things have been modified.

That's in addition to the added attack surface that the root itself provides once the phone's up and running. Yes, the SU app on the phone (whatever that is nowadays) is supposed to prompt for permission before granting an app root access, but are you sure that code's bug free? Or free of intentional backdoors?

<comment><USER39> You are correct, but you can still get around some of the warts involved if you want.

You can always lock the bootloader again after installing your ROM. Unlocking it will wipe the device again which is inconvenient for ROM updates etc, but if you're a trooper, you can do it. This inconvenience was pretty easily fixed with the open source bootunlocker[0] apk which allowed to you unlock and relock the bootloader once in rooted userspace, but sadly it doesn't work on anything newer than the original Nexus 5 due to security features in newer Android hardware. Manual unlocking, re-installation and boot re-locking is still possible.

The decryption password can be beefed up with adb from the terminal as well. There isn't a pretty gui for it, but that way you can get a strong safe encryption password and a short screen unlock pin. Unfortunately the two are tied iirc normally. Some would argue that having an organically strong password is safer than allowing the hardware to help beef up weak pins.

I'm sure there are other problems, sadly Google seems to look at privacy and security on Android as issues for later. And running anything besides a nexus device is entirely less safe due to the toxic OEM/Google update environment.

[0] [https://code.google.com/p/boot-unlocker- gnex/](https://code.google.com/p/boot-unlocker-gnex/)</comment></comment></comment>


Poker Theory and Analytics - <AUTHOR> http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-s50-poker-theory-and-analytics-january-iap-2015/index.htm <comment><USER2> There's a book called Theory of Poker that covers all of this. Gets into all of the math involved, how it changes throughout the game, how it changes in different games, etc.

Basically it boils down to a solid system in limit poker where raises are controlled. One huge raise in a no limit game skews the pot odds so badly that mathematically it almost always means you should fold and that makes no limit a great game for the WSOP.

<comment><USER3> If you're only taking into account direct pot odds for NLHE in 2015, you're missing out on a lot.

I like the book "The Mathematics of Poker" by Chen.

<comment><USER4> > If you're only taking into account direct pot odds for NLHE in 2015, you're > missing out on a lot.

I'd like to understand that sentence better. Got any links?

<comment><USER5> In NL, you should also consider future betting and implied pot odds, especially when playing deep stacked (say both of your stacks have 200+ big bets)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_odds#Implied_pot_odds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_odds#Implied_pot_odds)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What would be the best way to learn this content. Would you take notes while watching the lectures or try and pay close attention to the videos and read the class notes later, or something else?

What are other poker books, classes or tutorials that are high quality?

<comment><USER7> Harrington on Hold'em is a good starting place for (tournament) poker. It's an old book but it teaches solid fundamentals.

<comment><USER8> Harrington wrote a cash book as well, fwiw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone comment on why poker is illegal in most of the U.S.?

I'm in the UK, and the government leans on the side of restricting freedom, yet poker-for-money is _totally_ legal here.

<comment><USER10> Actually, a part of me wishes all gambling was illegial in the U.S., including the lottery. I have seen the damage it does to poor, and middle class families. The cards are stacked against us here; it's real easy to end up homeless.

It's fine when your young, and single, but I have know families that lost everything, and as I said before; we don't have much of a safety net.

(I haven't traveled much in the U.S., but every town I been in has had legal poker tables. I think poker is legal here?)

<comment><USER11> In the long run, poker is a skill game. It's played against random opponents, not the house. As such, the cards aren't "stacked against you." To bucket it with all gambling games, especially the lottery, demonstrates a lack of understanding.

<comment><USER12> I disagree that it demonstrates a lack of understanding:

\- In poker, the house takes a cut that typically overwhelms the benefit of being a skilled player. An unskilled player is losing to the house and their competitors.

\- An unskilled player may not be playing against random opponents. Part of the skill you are talking about is the skill of picking vulnerable opponents and milking them.

\- Gambler's ruin still takes effect: you have a finite bankroll so you can only ride out a finite amount of bad luck before you're bankrupt. Fine, if you're rich or the house.

\- Many of the best poker players in the world have bankrupted or have had to take deep loans to continue playing.

<comment><USER13> > _\- Many of the best poker players in the world have bankrupted or have had > to take deep loans to continue playing._ '

That's because it turned out that those players weren't actually the best players in the world. Poker saw a huge birth of statistical analysis from 2002-2008 when Online Poker was legal/legal enough in the US. People who only played live (in person at a casino) their entire career might only play 50k-200k hands. When online poker came about you could play 200k hands in a month. It turns out these so called "best in the world players" were just on a really good run. It also turns out it takes millions upon millions of hands to really find out if you're truly a winner or just benefitting from the good side of variance.

This affect gets even worse because the so-called "Best players in the world" were MTT players and MTTs have the highest statistical variance of all. I have friends who are still poker pros. Next to Asian businessman, the only other player they would rather have at their tables are "Television Pros."

<comment><USER14> What is an MTT player?

<comment><USER13> Multi-table Tournaments. World Series of Poker, World Poker Tour, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Has anyone taken this course that can speak to its content and usefulness?

Is this aimed at those completely new to Poker Theory?

<comment><USER16> Also, are there real-world applications outside gambling, or as improved negotiations in politics/business?

<comment><USER17> Poker math is great for quick estimation of whether an investment (time, money, or otherwise) is worthwhile. Poker is all about risk vs. reward, and puts you into the mindset of approaching risk statistically instead of using an all-or-nothing approach. Considering investments in that way allows you to get a better sense of whether or not something is worth your time, even if there's a non-zero chance of failure (or sometimes a near 100% chance of failure for an appropriately large payoff).</comment></comment></comment>


Ghost Browser - <AUTHOR> http://ghostbrowser.com/ <comment><USER2> Just out of curiousity: how many people here use Google Chrome's multiple-user feature? Non-techie people generally don't know about it, but I'm surprised I don't see it being used by the (few) webdevs I know personally.

I have a Chrome user account attached to my main Gmail account. I've created another Chrome user account that's tied to my school email, so that I can keep school-related things isolated to that account. But I can operate both Chrome account simulataneously without issue or conflict; I just set the theme of my school-focused browser to match the school colors. It takes very little effort and so I wonder what's the point of using a separate niche browser?

The multiple Chrome user system is especially useful for web development. I'm not a fan of having 20 webdevs plugins (such as React's special debugger) running on everything that I visit. So I make a new Chrome user just for dev plugins, with the devtools configured exactly as I need them. Sometimes when I'm debugging a live site, I need a stock browser experience (I.e. No Adblock)...so that gets its own Chrome user. You don't have to set up a new Google account to create a Chrome user; that's only necessary if you want your plugins/settings to be stored in the cloud. Otherwise it's literally a 3-click process to create new users and switch between them.

<comment><USER3> Or you could just do 1 click on the Chrome plugin that disables all other plugins. 1 click re-enables them all later.

Sorry, I don't remember what it's called and I'm not at my computer at the moment.

And thank you for bringing this up. I never thought of doing it your way. I might just start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google cache view [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://ghostbrowser.com/)

edit: Not sure why this got a down vote. Site is offline. Cache view will help.

</comment><comment><USER5> Firefox Nightly has Container Tabs [1] which have different sessions even though they are a part of the same widow. Also the tabs are colour coded to show that they are different containers.

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/tanvi/2016/06/16/contextual- identit...](https://blog.mozilla.org/tanvi/2016/06/16/contextual-identities- on-the-web/)

<comment><USER6> Would it be possible to create a container for every site I start at in a fresh tab.

E.g. I open a tab, go to example.com and that stores all cookies and cached images and so on from that point on in a container that get's opened every time I start at example.com. So you have one container for every start point.

<comment><USER7> Possible in principle? Sure. Possible with the current state of the implementation? Definitely no. It's currently not even possible to create your own containers, and instead there's 4 pre-defined ones.

But the Tor Browser has something which comes kind of close to / goes beyond what you what you want.

Basically, what they do, is that they have a separate container per domain. So, if you are on www.example.com, and the Facebook-Like-Button on that page sets its Tracking Cookie, then this Tracking Cookie is tied to both facebook.com and example.com. So, if you then browse to www.yetanotherexample.org, then the Facebook-Like-button on www.yetanotherexample.org won't be able to see that Tracking Cookie, because the Cookie is only in the example.com-container.

I figure that this doesn't solve what you want solved, but it shows that it's definitely possible from a technical viewpoint, and then having a small script which instead creates a container in the way that you described, that should be trivial and easily doable from an extension.

More information to Tor Browser's implementation can be found here: [https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser/design/#ident...](https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser/design/#identifier- linkability)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In 2016, a browser that needs not only an account registration, but a registration disguised as a "beta invite" (i.e. will send you download links to your email) is nothing but a bad joke and a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER9> A chromium derivative whose key selling point is that it makes something a bit easier which the base version can already do, but you need to sign up for one of their "limited beta invites"? Hmm ... totally doesn't sound like snake oil.

<comment><USER10> How do you do this with Chrome?

At least the impression I got from the cached copy of the site is that you can basically have multiple windows which each have a different... something that is similar to a profile in Chrome.

That sounds handy. Chrome really ought to support it imo.

<comment><USER9> On the settings tab there's a "people" section where you can add different people (profiles), each one gets its own cookie jar and extensions. You can give each one a separate icon and browser theme and on windows, you can create desktop/start icons that link to specific profiles (or use the --profile- directory command line switch).

My set-up is a main profile for regular browsing with uBlock on and ALL social trackers removed and a separate facebook profile with very permissive adblocking (you can force ads to show if you like, but you can't see the rest of the pages I visit).

Different profile tabs cannot live in the same window, but on the plus side you can set a different theme for each window so you don't accidentally try and open facebook in the wrong one.

Also once you have two profiles set up, you can right-click a link in any browser window and there'll be an "open as" option to open it with a different profile which is very convenient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nicely done but claims like this:

> Increase productivity 200% or more

are dodgy. Where did they get this number from?

<comment><USER12> They obviously got the number from nowhere.

Their marketing seems to be targeted towards informercial/low information people.

Not the HN crowd who demand 'authenticity' ... 'authenticity' in quotes :)

<comment><USER13> Pesky accuracy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Ghost Browser is built on Chromium so it already works like your favorite browser_

I wonder how they got a Firefox compatibility mode into Chromium?

</comment><comment><USER15> The sites dead but I hope this isn't just another javascript application based on another browser.

Edit: got to it via google cache, looks like it's just based on chromium, didn't check to see if it had more JavaScript in it though as it didn't do anything to interest me.

I'd love to see a completely newly written browser in Go, C or Swift that is written from the ground up with security and privacy as it's key concern followed by speed. It'd need to be quite modular by design so that security components could easily be upgraded over time and so that new web technologies could be added as they appear. Multi-process, addon (if any) sand boxing and local to-a-directory synchronisation would be wonderful.

<comment><USER16> Like servo ? [https://servo.org/](https://servo.org/)

<comment><USER15> sorry for delayed reply - yes, just like servo aims to be, obviously at present servo is _very_ _very_ alpha and doesn't really work for most things, but I think the foundation is sensible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can get the same functionality in Firefox by setting privacy.userContext.enabled to true in about:config. Enjoy.

(More information: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers.))

</comment><comment><USER18> RE: "Error establishing a database connection", oh jolly - I did a whole talk on this. [http://video.webcamp.si/wc2016_nadal_the_frontend_backend_wi...](http://video.webcamp.si/wc2016_nadal_the_frontend_backend_without_devops/)

RE: Ghost. The landing page looks gorgeous, great job! Not being able to download the browser is kind of silly - especially when it is an app (not a service) that is built ontop of Chromium.

</comment><comment><USER19> But... can't Chrome can already do this?

<comment><USER20> I guess no? You can open one normal window and another incognito window with their own session stores.

I can see how this browser can be useful in few scenarios and jobs but pretty much niche for most.

<comment><USER19> You can also create an arbitrary number of "User" windows, that also have their own session stores.

<comment><USER21> Much more cumbersome, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there a way, using something like the virtualization api on OS X, to have a fully separate browser with no write access to the file system? Looking for something like incognito mode, but with stronger sandboxing, but without some of the flash api restrictions that it has.

<comment><USER12> Chrome in incogneto mode generally does not write to disk.

It's in memory only cache as far as Im aware.

And of course, apps in the browser definintely cannot access the disk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> June 3, 2016 archive:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160603220849/http://ghostbrows...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160603220849/http://ghostbrowser.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> >> "Stop wrestling with multiple browsers."

Is this a problem many people actually have? Genuinely curious, don't mean to belittle their efforts.

Although, do we need a brand new browser? How does it compare in terms of performance?

</comment><comment><USER25> This seems like quite a niche feature to build and market a browser around.

</comment><comment><USER26> With the name I thought this was going to be a browser focused on privacy and removing digital fingerprints.

What a disappointing waste of good name and trademark.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is this a different browser (fork?) or is it a chrome extension?</comment>


Boaty McBoatface 'unlikely' to be name of Britain's new polar research vessel - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boaty-mcboatface-unlikely-to-be-name-of-britain-s-new-polar-research-vessel-a6988936.html <comment><USER2> It was funny that the second place was for a long time for Blas de Lezo ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cartagena_de_Indias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cartagena_de_Indias))</comment>


Surface Tension - <AUTHOR> http://www.damninteresting.com/surface-tension/ <comment><USER2> Am I the only person who immediately thought of the Half-Life chapter?</comment>


The only two ways to build a $100m business - <AUTHOR> http://versiononeventures.com/the-only-2-ways-to-build-a-100-million-business/ <comment><USER2> > Too often I have seen entrepreneurs believe that customers will > automatically flock to their cool new service, completely underestimating > how tough it is to cut through the noise and build an audience.

I usually think the opposite. Most of the time when I come up with an idea for a start-up I think "How the _hell_ am I going to get users on this thing?"

<comment><USER3> How do you go about to answer that question?

<comment><USER4> By making sure you're building something that is intuitive and that people are interested in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I could be missing something but I find this article a little ridiculous and devoid of any useful information.

I work for Atlassian. It's a $100M business. It wouldn't fall into either category. We've gotten there by selling a lot of software over the internet. We spend hardly anything on customer acquisition. There is no viral effect to our products.

Another successful business I can think of off the top of my head is ZenDesk. They have to be approaching $100M. Their main sales channel is the internet (low customer acquisition). They have zero viral effect. You either have X support staff or you don't therefore you will need an X-user ZenDesk license.

<comment><USER6> _There is no viral effect to our products._

You certainly know your market better than I do, but it seems to me that you are taking advantage of a viral effect. As people use Jira (for instance) and they move around from one company to another, they're likely to recommend using Jira at their new places when they get sick of Rational, Remedy, Bugzilla, etc.

People using Jira and realizing that there is a bug tracker that doesn't stink are very likely to bring that message to their next company. The word about a great product spreads... like a virus, albeit a slower moving one than pet rocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I should just mention that there's yet another way to build a $100M company, but it involves starting with a $1B company.

<comment><USER8> the original line, from Warren Buffet (probably a misattribution), is:

"How do you become a millionaire? Make a billion dollars and then buy an airline"

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure that was Richard Branson.

<comment><USER10> Yes, it was specifically about Virgin Atlantic, which at one point stretched his finances to the point where he was forced to sell Virgin Records to free up the cash to keep it afloat.

<comment><USER4> Which is sad, because he won a lawsuit the next year for the exact amount he sold that company for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So $100M is the new $50M? I used to hear VCs talk about "We don't want to invest in something that isn't going to be at least a $50M business."

The other question is this, "Valuation or revenue?" If I can build a business with $30M/yr in revenue and 16% net income I shouldn't bother talking to a VC? I don't know, seems like you leave too much money on the table with this world view of $100M or nothing.

<comment><USER12> If so its a side effect of two things. One, is fund sizes have gonve from $100-200m to $500M+. So, the partners need to put more money to work. Second, early stage valuation inflation. $10-$20MM cap notes. And all that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Generally speaking, there are two ways (and only two ways) to scale a business to hit that $100 million threshold."

Actually, there's another way to hit >= $100M.

Be a strategic acquisition target. (Route two: The viral effect can overlap with this.)

I forget who blogged this (Dixon?), but the idea is that that to hit a >= $100M valuation, you should not be thinking of the standalone value of your business, but instead the value it provides to potential acquirers.

Sitting on crucial patents is one approach, but extraordinarily tricky.

More importantly, if your existence presents a strategic challenge to a larger player (e.g. Instagram), then your business is worth a lot of money.

<comment><USER12> Best rationale for why Twitter is @ $6-$7B.

\-- They have the potenital to _destroy_ N-times more value than they can create.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm more inclined to build a stable business that makes me enough passive income to continue to work on it. Building a $100M company sounds exhausting. 37signals has definitely influenced me in going in the direction of small and lean instead of big and greedy. However, I find the insight into the way VCs think fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER15> I know this is HN and we can assume certain things about the businesses being profile but I wish that the headlines reflect the narrow niche the articles talk about. There are certainly other ways to grow a business outside of the software/online space.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, but we are talking tech / software on HN

<comment><USER16> Not all tech ventures rely on bits alone. There are a fair number of tech products that are physical, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In consumer space sure, but not in B2B or enterprise.

<comment><USER18> B2B/enterprise would likely be covered in his first point about having a high LTV so you can invest in user acquisition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm surprised he doesn't mention TAM (total addressable market) at all. A high LTV doesn't matter if you're just selling things to _male cat breeders in the Northwest between the ages of 27 and 33_.

For the high LTV option, can one put a specific number on this (i.e. $1,000)? Or is it simply having the ratio of LTV to Acquisition Cost is greater than X?

<comment><AUTHOR> a large addressable market is always a pre-requisite for building a big business

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are these two ways really that different?

Essentially all the article states is that a profitable business needs to have profits per user that scale according the cost per user acquisition. Viral is cheap acquisition, so profits can be less. Non-viral costs more per user and typically has a smaller market, so profits per user need to scale accordingly.

<comment><USER2> Completely different.

To put the article another way, there are two ways to make big money:

* Make lots of money per user

* Have lots of users and have low expenses.

No-man's land is having a £1 app that you will never realistically get more than 5,000 users on.

<comment><USER21> Does method 1 even exist for consumers? Small businesses, sure. But apart from a few gold mines like TurboTax its hard to get consumers to spend any money on SaaS.

<comment><USER22> Dropbox, Flickr, Apple, etc-- all sell to consumers with a high ARPU. Also, cell providers, insurance companies, car companies, etc.

Good rule of thumb-- anyone who advertises heavily to consumers has a high ARPU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow, this doesn't cover models that have worked for companies like Microsoft or Apple. Were they viral, or did they depend on big LTV? Not completely. LTV helps (people buying iPhone again and again), but they are not subscription- based companies. I think this model falls short to describe business.

<comment><USER24> MSFT and AAPL both benefit from immense network effects, which translate into high LTVs (Windows/Office platform, iOS ecosystem). The presence of a strong network effect can often be a strong driver of virality, if not a prerequisite for viral acquisition for a lot of businesses because the incentive to share is directly correlated with the value delivered to the user/customer.

<comment><USER25> ...and even more impressive, they did it before the terms 'LTV', 'network effect' and 'virality' had even been coined.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As he mentions in passing, marketplaces seem to be a good solution to both of these options. Once you reach a critical mass you potentially have a large viral effect, user lock-in, and a high lifetime value as users get used to purchasing on a regular basis.

The only trick is conquering that chicken-and-egg issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> agreed - marketplaces are probably the most attractive business models once you get through the initial traction challenge

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Or number 3, leave the boring B2C world and go enterprise

<comment><USER28> That just means the customer acquisition cost is even higher. You're not paying for Google ads, you're you paying salespeople to go out, wine and dine, and get new customers. As a result, the margins on products needs to be higher to support the sales process.

<comment><USER29> This used to be a lot more true, but it's hard to apply it as a blanket statement anymore. Some counterexamples come to mind:

\- 37 Signals

(because you're going to object that they're the only ones, here are some more)

\- Fog Creek

\- Atlassian

\- Rackspace

\- SoftLayer

\- Amazon EC2

\- Balsamiq

\- Heroku

\- ZenDesk

\- Visual Website Optimizer

To my knowledge, none of them have travelling salespeople. Acquisition cost is likely higher than with consumers, but likely nothing like the costs associated with an outside sales force (or their prices would have to be higher).

Everyone says 37 Signals is an exception, but I think that's just lazy thinking. There are lots of enterprise businesses that don't do expensive outside sales.

There are different risks selling to businesses, but B2B businesses don't need massive scale to be able to pay their rent. So if you're bootstrapping, B2B is likely to have a higher probability of non-failure.

<comment><USER30> Vast majority of the companies above make products for developers/designers, and that is not a coincidence. Developers/designers live on the web, seek and find solutions themselves. Rest of the enterprise market is quite different and much harder to reach, hence drastically higher customer acquisition costs.

<comment><USER29> I posted products I know, and I happen to be a developer. If you google (space) SaaS, you'll find bootstrapped companies serving many other parts of the enterprise.

<comment><USER30> Agreed. I am working on one :) I just meant that if you are addressing developer market, sales costs are lower as developers live on the web and there are many mediums to share information such as hacker news.

I find that other parts of the enterprise market are surprisingly harder to reach. In enterprise companies information sharing is often discouraged, many folks working in the enterprise are hesitant to mention what products they use let alone promoting (or criticizing) them. Successful SaaS companies addressing the enterprise seem to either gain traction elsewhere and then try to penetrate enterprise or spend tons of money for marketing and sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Anything that claims there are only X ways of doing something will always have somebody come along and +1 it with a new approach.

I'd also say that anybody setting out to make a 100m company is somebody who has already made a sucessful company already. But software is the new music thesedays as how whats the most a single application has sold for compared to what the best single song has made and I'm thinking Instagram even compared to tbe beatles on a app compared to one of there great songs will still win.

I will also correct the title for programmers and say: "There are only 10 ways to build a $100m business, FF if you include exceptions"

</comment><comment><USER32> "Error establishing a database connection"

<comment><USER20> Refresh worked for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Let me summarize. The 2 methods.

1\. Have customers who come back frequently and spend money. 2\. Have a lot of new customers who spend money. They tell there friends to come, and spend money. Rinse. Repeat.

<comment><USER34> Another brief takeaway for me was that businesses that grow quickly either

1\. see an __extremely __reliable 4x return on advertising expenditure

Or

2\. do not have advertising expenditures at all.

One caveat to the article is that it is not in every business's long term interest to grow quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting article and insights. I'm wondering if there's a hybrid model where you can enjoy both - high LTV AND high viral co-efficient. Or if that's unrealistic. Maybe Ebay?

<comment><USER35> Amazon probably qualifies. eBay, sure. iTunes (sort of; arguably, the hardware drove everyone to iTunes originally, and the hardware was not cheap to produce or bring to market; but once the install base became stable, it grew VERY quickly through word of mouth).

Also: a high viral coefficient does not necessary = social, even though that's what people assume these days. I think the world has seen way too many businesses in recent years that are "social" for no other reason than that social is supposed to have magical network effects. The reality is that not every product, experience, or piece of content is truly social by nature. Trying to tack social onto a use case that doesn't support it is not going to yield a viral coefficient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> what about having a 5 million/yr revenue run rate. With "valuation" multiples of 20s, you can get to a value of $100 million.

<comment><USER37> In my experience of being part of the acquiree, you can get acquired for a gross earnings multiple of between 30 and 40. So as long you're only spending 2.5m per year to get your 5 mil run rate then yep, find the right acquirer and you can get that 100m valuation but there's a lot luck involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> more broadly, i've often said that there are two ways to build a massively successful business (e.g. $100m business, or one worth a billion or billions):

1\. don't fail.

2\. don't fail to massively succeed.

bootstrapping is all about completing mission number one. not going bankrupt. not falling apart. not having a bubble pop from under you when you need it for your business plan.

but people all too often forget about #2, and think they will just magically be a $100m company. It doesn't work like that. If you want to be a $100m company, do two things: don't fail; don't fail to be a $100m company.

this is genuine advice and I can give more details if anyone is unclear about anything.</comment>


"I want to respond to Marc Andreessen's comments about India" - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102645335962321 <comment><USER2> Good damage control by Zuckerberg, but notice that his comment says nothing substantial about why Free Basics _isn't_ similar to colonialism.

It is absolutely about growth and user acquisition. They are using their capital to subsidize and lock in a monstrous market. Is that bad? There are reasonable arguments on both sides.

But Facebook is not a charity. Facebook is not a social cause.

If it were, Zuckerberg would have sold his shares and reinvested the cash back into Facebook when announcing his plan to donate $45bn. There's a reason billionaires invest their money in charitable funds, and not all of it for tax reasons. There are some things markets just aren't great at solving.

<comment><USER3> lock in a monstrous market so that they can what? advertise to poor people who can barely afford clean water and food? yeah, great strategy...

<comment><USER4> And why exactly do you think Facebook is offering this service? (And, furthermore, why exactly do you think they are offering this service with access only to Facebook and Facebook approved sites, rather than to the Internet at large)?

[On edit: I seem to be getting a lot of downvotes on this post, yet no actual answers to the question]

<comment><USER5> Are people who use free basics required to create a Facebook account or can they simply just use Wikipedia and other apps/websites?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Context: [http://www.fastcompany.com/3056581/fast-feed/marc- andreessen...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3056581/fast-feed/marc-andreessen- riles-up-twitter-after-defending-colonialism-in-india)

</comment><comment><USER7> > Early on in my thinking about our mission, I traveled to India and was > inspired by the humanity, spirit and values of the people. It solidified my > understanding that when all people have the power to share their > experiences, the entire world will make progress.

This is a great example of how virtue signalling can be a great way of promoting your brand to young progressives.

In 2016, what better example of 'humanity', 'spirit' and the 'values of people' is there than the inspirational social network, Facebook?

<comment><USER8> > This is a great example of how virtue signalling can be a great way of > promoting your brand to young progressives.

I'm not up on, ah, promoting one's brand by way of _virtue signaling_ , but _is_ this a great example? It reads like something out of a bad college application essay.

<comment><USER7> 'Great example' as in representative, not as in exemplary.

I find attempts to financially capitalise on looking Good gross and wanted to draw attention to it. Zuckerberg does it quite often but he's not the only one.

<comment><USER8> Ah, OK. That's a relief. Thanks for the clarification. Given the kinds of to- me-awful marketing/ad copy I've seen praised before I really wasn't sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whats flabbergasting is that Benedict Evans completely got away even though the things he said were waaaaaaaay more offensive than Andreessen (Using a derogatory phrase and being utterly aware of the context behind it). This kind of ignorance is dangerous coming from kingmakers of the valley

</comment><comment><USER10> Andreessen's apology earlier today:

[https://twitter.com/pngmarca/status/697490886037368832](https://twitter.com/pngmarca/status/697490886037368832)

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone else find these "Sorry for badmouthing _x_ , I'm a huge fan of _x_ " apologies offensively artificial? Is there any reason to effuse about the people you insulted beyond trying to look like you care about them? Both Zuck and pmarca went on about how amazing India is, and both of them came across as bullshitting.

<comment><USER12> Genuine question: Did Zuckerberg badmouth India? If so, I missed it. I thought he was just trying to distance himself from Andreessen's tweet. If so, I don't see how this is an instance of a ""Sorry for badmouthing x, I'm a huge fan of x" apology.

<comment><USER11> Zuck didn't, but his post is FB firefighting. When a company's most high- profile investor and board member starts a fire, the CEO puts it out. Whether or not you want to call it an apology is immaterial to the substance of my point: that kind of language comes across as incredibly insincere and patronizing.

<comment><USER12> Hmm. I think I see what you're getting at. It sounds like you're saying that you're put off by the tone of the apology itself, and not so much the quick reversal, which is what I had thought you were focusing on. Is that right? If so, how do you think it could have been improved? I personally found the comment (or apology, or whatever we should be calling it) pretty sincere sounding.

(By the way: I had forgotten that Andreessen was a board member and large investor. Thanks for reminding me.)

<comment><USER11> Just ditch the "I'm such a fan of India's amazing culture and people" bit. No you bloody well aren't. Has Mark Zuckerberg ever publicly written or said _anything_ praising India's culture or people that wasn't part of facebook PR? He might like India, he might admire its culture and its people, but it's ever so slightly suspicious that the only time he mentions this fact is when he's doing damage control.

It reads like it was written by a crisis management team, and it probably was. Apologies are most effective when they both are and are perceived as being sincere. It's fine to say pmarca stuck his foot in his mouth, it's fine to say that his expressed views are not those of facebook, and it's fine to say that facebook sincerely believes that offering a limited version of the Internet to poor people, for free, will be a great emancipator. But I think it would be a more effective apology if it came across as heartfelt, and that means leaving out what really sounds like self-serving praise for India.

I think what really bugged me is that it came across as something a politician would say. It was insincere and designed to offend as few people as possible. Which I find offensive, because it's not how real people talk. It's like the audience is being talked down to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Marc Andreessen's comments showed the true color of the Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER14> I found it flabbergasting when I first saw marca's tweet yesterday.

Ill-informed tweet indeed from someone that should have known better or better yet not said anything.

</comment><comment><USER15> There is utterly no content in this reponse.

( edit: s/this/there/ )

</comment><comment><USER16> Marc was ill informed just like many in west. A lot of people think that India was economically better off under an oppressive colonial rule.

Facts: \- India's rate of growth under Britain was 1% and basically stagnant. \- India's rate of growth under Socialist policies was 3% (Racists people often refer to his a Hindu rate of growth implying Hinduism is responsible for the poverty though the term was not coined initially for that purpose) \- India's rate of growth post half hearted economic liberalization has been around 6% or more.

<comment><USER17> This post would do better to provide citations for these facts (is this 1% growth for nearly 200 years?), and what was the original purpose for the term 'Hindu' rate of growth?

Also, why brand 'many in the west' as ill informed - was that nessisary?

<comment><USER16> You can always look this information yourself by couple of google searches.

Many in west is a perfectly valid use of phrase. Deep Hinduphobia causes a lot of (even liberal) westerners to look down on Hindus and India in general.

For example Benedict Evans displayed his ignorance using the phrase "Hindu Rate" of growth in reply to that infamous tweet. This is both Hinduphobic and racist in my opinion.

Original background of "Hindu rate of growth".

Independent India followed Soviet Styled socialist policies (should I say Bernie Sander styled). India could not grow under such policies not matter what government did. An economist Prof. Raj Krishna concluded that this was India's destiny to remain poor linking it with Hindu concept of Karma. He was not joking. Marx and Weber have serious influence on India's leftist academia (which is almost all academia). Marx dismissed Hindus as barberic because they worshiped trees and monkeys. Where as Weber argued that Hindus and Buddhists can not achieve prosperity through industrialization and capitalism because according to him they lacked individualism. Prof. Raj Krishna's phrase originated there.

Research by a Belgian Paul Bairoch has collected data about India and China's economy since 1700s. Both China and India contributed to world GDP 24% and 33% respectively which fell to 20% in 1800.

Here is the link with details : [http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/s_gurumurthy/Boss- re...](http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/s_gurumurthy/Boss-read-the- true-history-before-speaking/2013/04/06/article1532597.ece)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there a technical reason to limit the content provided, or is it all for commercial exploitation?

<comment><USER19> Its to create an impression within India that the internet == Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Zuckerberg could easily dispel any doubts by simply not including Facebook in the free basics offering.

The fact that he doesn't tells me more about his motives than anything he says.

</comment><comment><USER21> I liked that Marc took responsibility for what he said. I don't like that his apology included that he spoke about something he was not properly educated about. In the long run it's not going to do anything to diminish his career, but it will cause others to second guess things he speaks about in the future and there will be a cloud that hangs over him as a result. Hope he bounces back. Sucks when you put your foot in your mouth.

</comment><comment><USER22> Whether or not there are darker reasons for Andreessen's statement, it really confuses me why people in such prominent positions don't stop and spend some time considering how comments like his might be interpreted. Zuckerberg's response is not surprising in any way and also conspicuously lacks any direct comments about Free Basics.

<comment><USER2> Because "people in such prominent positions" are people too. They make mistakes. They say stupid things about subjects they don't understand. They sometimes don't empathize or realize how something might sound to someone in a position that they (the speaker) has never been in.

Remember, these Valley idols share almost all of their DNA with the rest of us.

<comment><USER22> Yes, but I, an average nobody, know that basically no one will notice the things I say in most cases. Therefore, I feel a lot less cautious about spouting off online (whether or not this is wise). Someone in his situation has to be thinking differently and, if they're not, maybe they need a reality check like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Power will go to the hands of rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low caliber and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles" \--Winston Churchill

Andreessen repeated the above quote in his lingo.

</comment><comment><USER24> If I wanted to give Marc Andreessen the benefit of the doubt he may have been referring to the time in the 80's when India was closed off to foreign investment (and not British anti-colonialism).

Even as an Indian though, I don't know if the closing of investments was due to "anti-colonialism" or just a general socialist, USSR-like policy?

<comment><USER9> His later tweets seemed to suggest that he was going for the latter, so it might have been a wrong choice of words for him BUT his partner in crime Benedict Evans said something even worse and then seemed to be justifying his comments for the rest of the evening

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why does it say "Kevin Rose and n others like this."

I don't have FB so I'm not logged in. Does FB have a list of "celebrity" users that it highlights when they like a post?

</comment><comment><USER16> Happy to MZ coming forward to apologize and clarify, I would have imagined he would have stayed out of it.

Those ill informed comments from Marc who is otherwise libertarian were disparaging.

<comment><USER26> Yup, must be a LOT of money at stake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> India, under the Raj was being plundered. PLUNDERED. Here, watch this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4)

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder what Marc Andreessen thinks about blacks and slavery.</comment>


Minimum Viable Journaling - <AUTHOR> https://ilostmypage.com/posts/minimum-viable-journaling/ <comment><USER2> I like this idea a lot, I may try scripting some of this into vim to automate the saving process as well

<comment><AUTHOR> Vim would make that totally doable, now I'm kind of regretting never investing the time for it to become my go-to editor.</comment></comment>


Qantas wants to fly from Sydney to New York or London nonstop - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/qantas-wants-to-fly-sydney-to-new-york-or-london-nonstop <comment><USER2> As a kid I used to take the 36-hour QF 1 from Melbourne to London (70s/80s). Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, Bombay (as it was at the time), Bahrain, Frankfurt, London. The only in flight entertainment was a few channels you heard through a pair of plastic tubes you stuck in your ears (no joke). Each channel was only an hour or so long so it got repetitive, but you did manage to read a lot of books. Oh yeah and of course there was smoking on the plane.

Currently it's a 24 hour flight with only a single stopover, in Bangkok.

<comment><USER3> Currently, the stopover is in Dubai, not Bangkok (on Qantas anyway).

<comment><USER4> IFEs are going away so it wont look too dissimilar shortly, aside from smaller seats. One day you will refer back to 70/80s as luxury economy.

<comment><USER5> One thing I've begun to dislike is that traditional IFE had polarising or directional filters so you couldn't see the screens of seats around you. iPads being used on some flights now don't so you see a sea of screens and in some cases some movies could flash quite some bright light from long away.

But now a resent plane I was on (I forget with who) the inbuilt IFE also didn't have these directional filters which was really annoying as you could see basically every seat beaming into the dark cabin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really wonder how much of a demand there is for this.

So usually once a year (maybe twice) I fly from New York to Perth. By distance this is one of the longest journeys. Perth is a few hundred miles from the antipode of NYC. I have the "advantage" that I can fly in pretty much any direction. The two major options for a single stop are via the Middle East or over the _Arctic_ to Hong Kong. There might be other options through say South Korea or Japan but I don't think any airlines fly direct from Perth to these. Oh and I think China Southern can do it via China.

Anyway. this amounts to roughly 24 hours (total) in aircraft time. I'm 6'2" and wider than a coach seat so this would be torture. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford a premium cabin so it's one of the things I choose to spend money on. This might mean paying 3x as much for a flight. I don't care.

Anyway, a big problem with even longer haul flights is the added cost of carrying the fuel you need for those last few thousand miles. I think Qantas estimated the per passenger cost of LHR to PER is about 30-40% higher than making a stop.

SYD-JFK is ~10% longer than LHR-PER, which will make the cost what? 60-70% more than going via LAX or DFW.

The problem of course too is if your final destination from Sydney isn't London or New York then you need to make a connection anyway.

So this is where say the ME3 carriers shine: ultra long routes with a single stop and a lot of options for city pairings.

Anyway, I'm sure someone will want these flights. I don't expect any direct NYC to PER flights anytime soon however. :)

<comment><USER7> I believe they manage the fuel costs by flying slightly slower (20% maybe from memory?) than normal. I read about the plans a couple of years ago.

That still gets there quicker than with a stop.

I'd do it. I'm in Adelaide, and I don't like the stop overs to Europe.

<comment><USER8> I wouldn't think it would be 20% slower; that would be going from 850km/h down to 680km/h. The big problem isn't so much that it is much slower but in fact the slower speed meaning a higher angle of attack which leads to more drag. At altitude commercial jet liners fly at a set angle of attack to reduce drag, so maybe flying a few percent slower might lead to less fuel usage, but more than that and the increased drag eats away at the savings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Deep vein thrombosis is already a problem on 10+ hour flights.

They really should have small gyms with bookable time (just a exercise bicycle maybe)

I've done the Sydney/Europe route quite a few times. The break in Asia does help; just to have a one hour walk around. As does first class! (did it once)

<comment><USER10> Each row could have a turn to do a few push-ups and sit-ups in the aisles, and then a quick jog around the jail yard...err cabin.

<comment><USER11> I flew with China Eastern from SYD to FRA with stop in Shanghai. They did exercise programs for the whole cabin twice on each flight. I've never seen that before but it was certainly helpful!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder why inflight refueling hasn't taken off in the civilian market. Risk, cost, other reasons?

<comment><USER13> Its very expensive and very risky for civilian flights. Either of those factors alone would be a no-go zone for airlines, put them together and its worse.

<comment><USER14> "Ladies and gentlemen, we are almost out of fuel. In a few minutes, the refueling aircraft will be making its way toward us. To enjoy the benefits of in-flight refueling at low, low prices, please have your credit card ready."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> Pretty much everyone prefers a nonstop flight—business people, especially.

Is this true? I find it so hard to sit in the plane for such a long time. I don't think flying in business class would make too much of a difference because it is still way more constrained than outside a flight.

<comment><USER16> Modern business class is a different world. There's space to stretch out, kick back, sleep, food is often served on demand, etc. On more than one occasion I've found myself at the tail end of a 14-hour flight and wishing we weren't landing just yet.

Having flown Sydney to New York and back just last week, I would _much_ prefer a single non-stop flight. Especially since on the way back I missed my connection in SFO due to bad weather and was stuck for a full day: all US West-Australia flights leave late at night, so if you miss one wave, it's 24 hours until the next batch.

Also, 20 hours seems like a lot, but it's only an incremental increase on the current longest flight (17:40 for Doha to Auckland, NZ on Qatar) or the previous longest flight (18h+ for Singapore to NY). The problem is really the economics and the rocket problem: to fly further nonstop, you need to carry lots of fuel, which increases the weight, which requires more fuel... The 18 hour flight was business class only with seats going for north of $10k return and Singapore Airlines still couldn't make it pay off.

<comment><USER17> _Modern business class is a different world_

While boarding a flight this week, I was told to wait (just entered the plane) because they wanted to serve orange juice to someone in business class. So me and some 10 people behind me waited until the air hostess served the juice and came back few mins later, because orange juice couldn't wait for another 15 mins. It felt very weird. I guess rich people do really experience life on a different level.

<comment><USER18> Most people are either spending miles or company money. And if they're spending miles, it's still usually miles from company money.

<comment><USER19> Or from credit card churning, manufactured spending, or, in the most extreme case, pudding.

<comment><USER20> I'd like to hear more about pudding.

<comment><USER21> Reference to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Phillips_(entrepreneur)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Phillips_\(entrepreneur\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've flown SYD,BNE<->SFO,LAX,LAS,YYZ an uncountable number of times. I want Boom or some other supersonic flight much more than this. I'd happily pay the extra $$ for it, even if it's twice as dangerous as standard jets. That's still way safer than travelling by car. I hope they can get certified by the mid 2020s.

<comment><USER19> Let's get realistic, shall we? Any new jet costs billion plus USD to develop. This was even true for the Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100, even more so for the Bombardier C Series. And these were relatively minor adjustments over existing tech, not an entirely new design for faster-than-sound travel. If you consider groundbreaking planes, like the 787 program, that was 32 billion.

Boom, according to Crunchbase has raised $35.24M in 3 Rounds from 13 Investors. That's ... nothing. A rounding error in the budget to develop something like this. The CIA reportedly spent 3.7 billion to develop the SR-71 engine. And that was really long ago. What do you want to do with 35 million? 35 _billion_ would be a much, much realistic number.

This is not an industry to disrupt. If you intend to fly in the UK, EU, USA, Australia then you need to certify with the FAA/EASA/CASA etc and you can't pull a fast one with those.

<comment><USER23> That sounds precisely the kind of industry that needs to get disrupted.

<comment><USER19> I would guess that's what HN says. I am, however, an ancient -- by the measures of HN anyways -- frequent flier who really likes the current safety record of commercial flight.

With Uber, it is understandable venture capitalists funded a fantastic trick shamelessly called "sharing economy", rolling back most advances labor achieved in a century. But with flying safety is too important for a similarly illegal company to get anywhere.

Or in other words, breaking the law gets somewhere with the taxi industry because they are relatively small and weak but good luck trying to break the federal regulations set by the FAA. Many tried to be creative already but they didn't get anywhere and that was just getting creative with existing planes. I will get the popcorn as you people try to disrupt the freakin' FAA -- and even if Thiel and the like can get Trump / GOP led Congress to intervene, there's the EASA as well.

For that's the really expensive part. You can build an app and release it (probably full of bugs) for real cheap and disrupt an industry (spits) but building a plane to such exacting standard as these authorities demand is a different world that techbros will find impenetrable, and, again, thanks God for that. And don't tell me they are not, here's the photo: [https://boomsupersonic.com/assets/team-page-hero-photo- cdf15...](https://boomsupersonic.com/assets/team-page-hero-photo- cdf1527228921f4dfca7c9f59786a4fc.jpg) there's a grand total of two women and one black man on the pic among, I didn't bother to count how many white techbros.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> An interesting tidbit, Qantas already set a record flying non-stop from LHR to SYD in 1989 when taking delivery of a 747-400 [http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Qantas%201st%20England- Aust%20n...](http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Qantas%201st%20England-Aust%20non- stop%201989.htm)

<comment><USER25> Qantas also holds the record for the longest _duration_ commercial flights: the 27-33 hour Double Sunrise service between Perth and Ceylon during WW2. At the time they were also the longest _distance_ non-stop flights.

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

[http://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/history- catalinas/glob...](http://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/history- catalinas/global/en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Some years ago I travelled from Melbourne to Frankfurt a couple of times in a year. I took flights with stops at Singapore and actually liked the 2-4 hours break.

<comment><USER27> Similar here, I used to do Perth to Copenhagen via Singapore. I actually stopped flying Qantas & switched to Singapore Airlines when they stopped flying via Singapore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One must ask whether there are health concerns when hundreds of people sit in economy for 20+ hours. Is saving four or five hours really worth the risk of catching something?

<comment><USER29> I would be more worried about blood clots and other physical complications from the terrible seats.

<comment><USER30> The new Qantas fitouts are pretty comfy on the long distance routes.

<comment><USER3> Not in economy. They're putting 9 across in the 787, which was designed for 8 across. Same as most airlines, but wouldn't call it comfy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I did Sydney to London and it was around 20 hours in flight. I don't think anyone should wish for that trip without a stop in economy class.

<comment><USER32> I moved from London to Sydney last year, and have flown the route via Dubai (on Emirates) three times now. Takes about 24 hours if you have a short layover in Dubai.

I'd gladly pay extra for a direct flight, because...

\- 4 hours quicker

\- An aircraft issue at Dubai can add a day to your journey (as happened to a friend who visited at Christmas)

\- Changing at Dubai always seems to involve twenty minutes of walking, ten minutes on a train to go between terminals and then ages on a bus to get from the gate to the actual aircraft. Total PITA.

<comment><USER33> Stopping for refueling is Ok-ish, such as Quantas QF1 LHR-SYD which stopped in Bangkok last time I took it (heard that changed to Dubai?). Just walked into a gate and waited a little while the plane filled up fuel and beer. Then back to the same seat. Adding 3-4h is obviously not ideal but I wouldn't pay a large premium to fly direct compared to that. If I did it on a regular basis and was in business class it would be another matter, but can they really find enough such passengers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "The World's Longest Flight Is Coming"

I would have thought it has always been here.

</comment><comment><USER35> By a perhaps unusual confluence of events, I live in London and work remotely for a Sydney- based company. I'd love a direct flight for my quarterly visits.

<comment><USER36> Good pun if you work for Atlassian

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Kind of wish we'd get news that we could make the trip fundamentally faster instead.

</comment><comment><USER38> Always wondered why would anyone fly such a long distance without a relax day or two in stopover city. 10 hr flight than another 10. Even for few million salary i wouldnt want to be made to fly like this.

<comment><USER39> Because you're going somewhere and want to get there. Nothing _wrong_ with a stopover day but there's a fair bit of overhead associated with clearing immigration/customs and heading into a stopover city for a day. If it's somewhere I really want to go, sure. But it's certainly not worth it just to break a flight up.

<comment><USER38> That's what makes me wonder. I feel so bad after 10hr flight that I'd rather spend a day in a city like Doha (unfortunately most stopover cities are also most boring middle-eastern cities). I mean I'm jealous - it's the reason I avoid long distance flights at all cost. Maybe business class is more bearable or there are special tricks like sleeping pills, dunno.

<comment><USER39> Certainly it's better in business though I don't fly that routinely.

If I have the time and the opportunity presents itself to visit a city I want to spend time in, I'm more than happy to. But turning a 20-hour flight into a two+ day journey with additional airport transfers, etc. isn't an improvement in my book. I can usually sleep a bit even in coach. And I just read and watch movies the rest of the time. I don't like it but I don't see the advantage of stretching it out.

<comment><USER38> Ok I see your point, good for you. I never can sleep neither in coach or business - when I fly I'm super anxious though I dont have aerofobia anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> About time. I will happily pay money to avoid Dubai.

</comment><comment><USER41> For those in SF, in the past I tried finding the longest possible flight from SFO using an "opposite side of the world" website. It landed in the ocean, in the vicinity of Madagascar.

</comment><comment><USER42> Or just buy two DC-10s and refuel in flight. We do it literally everyday in the Air Force.

<comment><USER43> Every day, and at great expense and increased risk. The motivations of the U. S. Air Force differ just a tad from commercial airlines.

<comment><USER14> Yep. One strikes fear into the hearts of innocent civilians, the other is military.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> >> But right now, all the money in the world won't get you from Sydney to the Big Apple or U.K. without a pit stop, because commercial planes just don't have that kind of range.

This makes it sound like this long a flight is a physical impossibility today. However three minutes of searching leads me to believe a few commercial aircraft have indeed made a similar or longer trip. Not to mention any military aircraft that might do this as well, I'm sure there exists an amount of money that would get you on such an aircraft today :)

<comment><USER5> Not currently possible economically partially because of the weight restrictions you end up with and in some cases due to taking slightly longer routes to stay in range of other airports for an emergency (ETOPS). But it's changing fast, because PER-LHR which is about to start seemed crazy not that long ago.</comment></comment>


Why Starting a Business as a Software Developer Is a Good Idea - <AUTHOR> https://www.zeroequalsfalse.press/2019/02/08/developer-business-startup/ <comment><USER2> I didn't find this article very thought-provoking or useful. A developer with an interest in entrepreneurship would have come to the same conclusion - "Should I use my skills to build a business? Yes"

Instead, the article seems to be a vehicle to collect affiliate commissions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone interested in a Company-as-a-Service (CaaS) to help them to get started? A lot of things can be automated away (including cognitive load) these days and when you think about it, there are repetitive patterns in almost all businesses one has to do (but often doesn't want to) - for a modest fee e.g. $20-50/month?

<comment><USER4> Isn't that what Stripe Altas does?

[https://stripe.com/atlas](https://stripe.com/atlas)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It says twice that it's ok to start without a good idea. I'd like an example of how starting a business without an idea works in practice. You log onto Amazon and buy a new desk with your business discount... and then what?

<comment><USER2> And then he collects his affiliate commission and doesn't care what you do!

<comment><USER6> I can tell you how get got all these affiliates! Just buy this book: $8.99

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a quick, short read. For me it doesn't really cover enough though. Having run a business I feel it doesn't really go into enough detail about the fact you'll have to actually run the business. Even if you don't really do anything with it you'll have to file tax returns, make sure you meet filing dates etc.

There is a little (or a lot?) to learn, which will add "more things to do" to the list of already increasing stuff-to-get-done.

</comment><comment><USER8> No-content article with a glaring Amazon affiliate link... blah.

</comment><comment><USER9> There is no real substance to this article, i feel.</comment>


Panic Grips World Credit Markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8058d308-84d3-11dd-b148-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

<comment><USER2> ctkrohn, ready for you to come back and tell us it's all fine. Any time now, would be great. Thanks! =)</comment>


Ask HN: Server-side Language Reccomendations - <AUTHOR>

I'm a seasoned PHP developer and I'm looking to drift into another language. Python, Node.JS, Ruby and Java I currently have in mind.
I want a language that offers more than just Website Development. Web Development is still important, but I also want to write programs that do a lot of processing, and some other lower level networking stuff.
Python seems like a diverse language, as appose to Ruby (on Rails) that seems very Web focused. Node.JS seems somewhere in between, and Java.. I'm not sure about.
I've already dabbled in pretty much all of these languages at some point. I'm not really concerned about syntax, but the packages, frameworks that are available, the community and where each language is heading.
I'm interested to see what people have to say. At the moment Python and Node.JS are my top choices. <comment><USER2> 1) Check out Go, search for golang 2) Check out lua</comment>


Daring Fireball en Español - <AUTHOR> http://www.daringfireball.es

<comment><USER2> Muchas gracias por esto. Puedo practicar mi español mientras leyendo uno de mis blogs favoritos.

Pero, yo espero que Ángel no se traduce los posts sobre los Yankees. Puedo vivir sin ellos. :-P

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi guys, this is Ángel Domínguez, the translator behind Daring Fireball en Español.

I'm glad to learn of your interest in the site, and in reply to gr366, I won't be translating John Gruber's posts about the Yankees and baseball in general, since here in Spain that sport has practically no presence.

So, thanks for your comments and I hope you enjoy the Spanish version.

</comment><comment><USER3> Merece mucho la pena, Daring Fireball es uno de los blogs en inglés más seguidos. Estupendo poder leerlo en español.

</comment><comment><USER4> Footer:

 _Copyright © 2002–2009 John Gruber

Copyright © de la traducción: Ángel Domínguez

Daring Fireball en Español es un proyecto personal no asociado con la versión original de Daring Fireball, si bien es una versión autorizada por el autor, John Gruber._

Is this el legaloso?

<comment><USER5> You should be able to understand that, even if you don't speak Spanish.

"Daring Fireball in Spanish is a personal project unassociated with the original version of Daring Fireball, but it's version authorized by the author, John Gruber"

Instead of trying to understand the idioms or exact meaning of each word, try to read the whole thing for "global comprehension".

I routinely read Lisp papers in French without French education or experience, mainly because I grok the domain vocabulary, and the rest I try to synthesize from my Portuguese and brief exposure to Latin.</comment></comment>


Tron Legacy (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://jtnimoy.net/?q=178&utm_source=buffer&buffer_share=254f1 this is courtesy of Hilary Mason's twitter feed, @hmason. <comment><USER3> (2010)

See also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5088722> 3 comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2404976> 80 comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3212825> 0 comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3107258> 0 comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598197> 0 comments

<comment><AUTHOR> Well that's embarrassing. Looks like I need to revamp my searching skills. I did do a search before posting, but evidently it was a poor one.

My bad!

<comment><USER4> If it makes you feel any better, this is the first time I've ever seen this before, so reposting isn't always a bad thing. Was an interesting read, love the effects in Tron and it's good to see some insight into it (especially those not on HN in 2010).

<comment><USER5> Of course if you really cared you might do a search.

<https://www.google.com/search?q=emacs+tron>

<comment><USER4> Why on Earth would I ever think of searching for that? I didn't even know the terminal screen was an Emacs terminal because guess what, I don't use Emacs. No need to be an asshole buddy.

<comment><USER5> Sure, the post was useful as passive entertainment. I get it.

<comment><USER6> Please calm down, you guys. This is a reposted article we're talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From a slightly different perspective here are the detailed and technical case studies from the movie's VFX designer Bradley "GMUNK" Munkowitz:

\- <http://work.gmunk.com/TRON-Opening-Titles>

\- <http://work.gmunk.com/TRON-Solar-Sailor>

\- <http://work.gmunk.com/TRON-Rectifier-Globe>

\- <http://work.gmunk.com/TRON-Throne-Room>

\- <http://work.gmunk.com/TRON-Fireworks>

\- <http://work.gmunk.com/TRON-Portal-Climax>

\- <http://work.gmunk.com/TRON-Board-Room>

\- <http://work.gmunk.com/TRON-Disc-Game>

<comment><USER8> Thanks. I was wondering what tools they were using to create those effects (openframeworks, cinema4d).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In Tron and The Social Network it was very obvious that a real hacker had been involved in designing the terminal scenes. It makes a big difference to how seriously I take the rest of the movie - Kudos to them!

<comment><USER10> I was also impressed with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (also by TSN's David Fincher), there was Ubuntu on Lisbeth's Macbook, SQL queries for searching through a crime database, and some other small touches. Really impressed with Fincher's commitment to detail even in the world of programming.

<comment><USER11> Ironically, Josh (the author) references The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo when criticizing Hollywood's choice of using nmap almost ubiquitously.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, but he also criticized _Jurassic Park_ despite the fact that most of Jurassic Park's OS views were genuinely Unix (SGI's IRIX, to be precise):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y12_WrlPaw>

In that clip, you can see _fsn_ , which is a genuinely real 3D file manager for IRIX:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaRHU1XxMJQ>

Granted it's fair to say that the average theme park wouldn't be running IRIX, but _Jurassic Park_ wasn't the average theme park (movie quote: "no expense spared"). So I think some of his criticisms are completely misplaced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting read, nice to see a movie making this kind of effort.

On a side note: I watched this movie on a streaming site... (i.e., I watched it in poor quality).

That was a bad choice.

The plot, storyline, and dialogue is kind of weak. The visuals certainly are not. Watch this in high-res quality, and think of it as an over-budgeted Daft Punk music video instead of a movie, and you'll have a great time watching it.

<comment><USER14> >think of it as an over-budgeted Daft Punk music video instead of a movie

Check out the Disney cartoon Tron Uprising -- it has a similar but different visual style, a dash of Aeon Flux, and gorgoeus sound deisgn that builds directly off the Daft Punk soundtrack. The story is okay too especially as it gets much darker towards the end of the season.

The show is 5 seconds from being cancelled but the first episode is still free on youtube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjbwVzJR8w4>

Rest on iTunes/Amazon/Xbox/whatever

<comment><USER15> Sadly, it has been canceled. Disney will let the season play out, but no more episodes after this season.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A few weeks ago I watched the pilot episode of Lewis, a British TV detective/crime drama that is set in the surroundings of Oxford university, UK. One of the characters in the episode was a PhD student in mathematics and the key to the mystery could be found in one of the papers for his PhD dissertation. The detectives found the paper in question on the character's computer and opened it up for the viewers to see. Lo and behold, the paper was clearly typeset in LaTeX. Someone apparently went out of their way to make this little detail look just right!

Maybe its just me, but it seems like movies are getting better and better in getting those tiny but ever so important technical details right.

<comment><USER17> It's probably cheaper to pay a PhD candidate to create realistic visuals than to pay a graphic designer to create bombastic claptrap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Question for any graphics programmers or CG people: As a graphics programmer, how appealing is the CG industry? Based on this, the picture I got was that a lot of the programming he did was driven by shortcomings in the preexisting CG software that artists in the field use.

I'm a Computer Engineering student interested in the field and I haven't entirely decided if I'm interested in the applications of graphics programming yet, although I don't have much to go on because I have limited graphics programming experience.

<comment><USER19> My personal opinion is, it depends (how's that for a cop-out)

My take is as follows. You can have a restaurant with just a chef. You can have a trading company with just a trader. You can have a tech company with just a program. And you have have a CG animation company with just an animation.

That means that at each of those types of companies, the rest of the people are support staff for the company's main line of work.

At a trading company everyone not a trader is support staff for the traders. At an animation company everyone is support staff for the animators. etc...

That's reflected in your position at the company.

Now for the "it depends" part. If it doesn't bother you to be support staff because the stuff you do you enjoy or because being part of the team of someone making that kind of entertainment is enough reward then fine.

There's also always exceptions. For example there are programmers who have advanced the state of the art of CG while at those companies (the hair in Monsters Ink, The water in The Perfect Storm, the crowds in Lord of the Rings) etc.. so if you fancy yourself someone who can advance that state of the art you might find that appealing. On the other hand I suspect it's getting harder and harder to have a big contribution there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The emacs part is cool, but this article mostly just illustrated how little I understand about the effects in movies. Each thing he talked about making seemed simple, but then the effect in the movie was mindblowing and overwhelming. Great read (also, the font is so big and beautiful, love that).

<comment><USER21> If found the font pretty hard to read, being so big. Evernote Clearly made quick work of it: <http://evernote.com/clearly/>

<comment><USER12> Just tried _Clearly_ and it worked brilliantly.

Thank you so much for the recommendation. I have a feeling it's going to be used heavily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How does he use Emacs without Ctrl, or Alt?

edit: For that matter, how did he type "ps -ef | grep -i os12" with no "|" key?

<comment><USER23> Alt (assuming you actually mean Meta ;) is completely unnecessary for emacs. Meta-<Key> can always be produced by pressing ESC <Key>

I guess technically ctrl is also unnecessary since you could type out whole commands with M-x (ESC x command). It wouldn't be fun, but you could do it.

<comment><USER24> Although most keyboards nowadays use Alt for Meta, they were distinct keys on some older keyboards. I personally never used an MIT Lisp machine, but I have used Sun keyboards with a Meta key.

It's also fun to note that EMACS is an acronym for Escape Meta Alt Control Shift, which generally describes the experience of using it.

<comment><USER23> As joke acronyms go, I preferred "Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping" back when Eight Megs was a lot of memory. "Eighty Megs" worked for a while after that. These days you'd have to rename it EGACS to use that joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I just discovered Alias and my wife and I have been watching episodes back to back. The show does a good job of making the contents of various displays legitimate. In one scene, the 'tech guy' (Marshall) has to build some source code - and I saw various familiar libtool/autoconf symbols scroll by.

<comment><USER26> It's been years since I've seen it, but I remember a hilarious scene where Jack Bristow is talking to someone in an IM-like window; his choice of text is giant red Comic Sans and his messages are devoid of grammar and punctuation.

You could argue that this is typical of the average IM user in the early 2000s, but it seemed incongruous for the character.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The text on this site hurts my eyes.

<comment><USER28> It borders on unreadable. I feel like I'm in the first row of a movie theater.

<comment><USER29> I arrived late to the opening of Tron:Legacy (+IMAX/3D) and had to sit in the front row. _THAT_ was a hurt on the eyes. This, I can deal with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm always suprised by the inflexibility of window managers. I would imagine we should be able to have something similar to this by now.

</comment><comment><USER31> I always dreamed how much fun a job making these computer "GUI" scenes would be. You would go apeshit adding all sorts of dashboards and widgets and things that look pretty but not work.

See: CSI, NCIS, Bones, etc.

<comment><USER32> Why don't you have fun making functional dashboards that look like they belong in Hollywood?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> More importantly than emacs, design orientated people use wxWidgets? Frankly that's far more surprising!

</comment><comment><USER34> This is pretty incredible stuff on the terminal. Aside, if you'd like to code up tron bots (AI), you can try them here: <https://www.hackerrank.com/challenges/tron>

</comment><comment><USER35> Why does he have an issue with Jurassic Park? Lex was using fsn, which would have been available at the time for IRIX - although not used in any serious production environments that I'm aware of.

<comment><USER36> I suspect it was more the "I know UNIX!" child hacking that threw him off. :)

<comment><USER37> Exactly, I cringed at that scene.

<comment><USER35> I'd be surprised if there weren't more than a few HN users who'd installed a Linux distribution by age 12.

<comment><USER38> Probably not when the movie came out in '93 tho. The easiest Linux install was a sad chore until at least '95 or '96.

<comment><USER39> But...her grandfather clones dinosaurs. Why is so beyond belief that she'd have used Unix at some point?

<comment><USER40> Because it's a click-and-point graphical 3D maze-like diagram thing.

If she'd piped ps through grep into kill then nobody would have ever mentioned it again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> How can someone who is a designer choose such a poor font for their won website? Specially given that he is talking about designing text graphics

<comment><USER42> I thought I was the only one who suddenly felt like I needed glasses. Very blurry/out of focus looking

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It seems like movies are going to some trouble to get "real" computing into movies. I mean, real computers aren't dramatic so they don't get much screen time, but still. Another recent example: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4047807>

</comment><comment><USER44> "So we went with posix kill and also had him pipe ps into grep"

[http://devopsreactions.tumblr.com/post/39827269109/when- one-...](http://devopsreactions.tumblr.com/post/39827269109/when-one-uses-ps- grep-instead-of-pgrep-in-scripts)

Hehehe

<comment><USER38> I'm horrible about remembering specialized commands, so I "ps | grep" all the time. Sometimes grep shows up in the output, sometimes it doesn't, and yet life goes on... :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> For more of this sort of thing: <http://www.reddit.com/r/FUI> _(that's short for Fantasy/Fake User Interface)_

</comment><comment><USER46> I think it would be interesting to see an open source OS for mobile touch devices that worked like that.

</comment><comment><USER47> Holy cripes, I cannot actually read the copy at all. It does look like an interesting read though.

</comment><comment><USER48> I wish there was an OS for a tablet with this UI. I would be in heaven.

<comment><USER10> Same, maybe someone can make a good Android skin, but I doubt it would have the commitment to detail the movie showed. I was thinking it would also be cool to have a table-computer like Dilinger Jr. was using (sort of like the original MS Surface), but then I wondered whether looking down all the time would be bad posture...

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Battle Royale used nmap before The Matrix trilogy did…

</comment><comment><USER50> Fascinating read.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder why he used eshell not term.

<comment><USER46> The article doesn't say but it has piqued my interest in it. Is eshell of any usefulness? Can it be used to create scripts?

<comment><USER51> You can think of Eshell as a Unix shell that is 100% customizable, and those customizations are done in a very high level language like Elisp, not in C. Sometimes it's great to use macros in a shell script.

Yes, it can be used for running scripts: <https://github.com/emk/eshell/blob/master/em-script.el>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> incredible. simply incredible.

</comment><comment><USER53> One more Tron movie please.

</comment><comment><USER54> First thing I did was go into the Chrome inspector and change the font.

</comment><comment><USER55> Often when there's some coding stuff like a terminal inside movies, it's not only the programmers paying attention anymore. Very often because I'm the "computer guy" my entourage ask me: "Is it realistic?" or "Do you really use stuff like that?".

So it's not just to please "us" that they pay a little attention to being "correct". People like it when you answer "yes, we do this kind of stuff" and hate it when you say "no, it's complete utter rubbish bullshit". It's like if the movie creators where making fun of them by showing them bullshit and that they didn't like that.

In a way I care less than them: because I _know_ when a movie is bullshitting me on a computer-related scene. Non programmers don't.

<comment><USER56> The problem is that if you notice that they are bullshitting you on computers, it makes you wonder how much other stuff is bullshit too, that you might not have the expertise to recognize.

<comment><USER57> Most things - eg: practically every "destructive" explosion in a movie is BS - "real" explosions lack flames and tend to make objects (like cars) cease to exist.

<comment><USER58> Some do, some don't. I've had a car bomb go off near me and there were plenty of flames to go around.

<comment><USER59> A giant fireball erupting from the bomb? Or random stuff around the blast catching fire?

<comment><USER58> Sorry for the late reply, I missed this. A giant fireball from the bomb - <USER2> more accurately, from the contents of the gas tank when the bomb exploded.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>