On the Timing of Apple's Map Switch - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/timing_of_apples_map_switch

<comment><USER2> Gruber essentially tiptoes around the main problem. The iOS 6 map app was released before it was polished up to what people expect from Apple. "Oh Apple had to release it now or else Apple would have to release in a non major release!" Are you kidding me?

The alternative being to release a terrible version that tarnishes their brand, that is way better alternative

<comment><USER3> His main suggestion is that Apple couldn't get enough data to make it good without launching the app, and they had to go ahead and release it at some point. The software works quite well - it's the dataset that's inferior.

<comment><USER4> Apple's been keeping logs of iPhone users' positions for ages. And they could have just sucked data out of user behaviors of the existing mapping solution if they needed something in a map context.

This smells of revisionism.

<comment><USER5> It's not position data that Apple needs, it's bug reports. Regardless of how much work you put into map data, at some point the only way to know if it's correct or not is to go there and see what things look like on the ground. Crowd sourcing is the only way to get to the quality level of Google Maps.

<comment><USER4> Okay, I can buy that.

But, that basically means that Apple has drastically regressed the user experience in order to force users to help them build a product so that one day it might be able to compete with the product that they were already using for years, and suffer through cruddy data in the meantime. And they expected people to be okay with this?

Google is so far ahead on mapping that I doubt Apple will ever catch up. You're talking about volunteer crowdsourced data versus a company that literally has a fleet of cars and employees out scouring the world and mapping it in detail. Unless Apple decides to make a major play in mapping - not just in iOS, but in building a first-class mapping product to compete with Google Maps - I doubt that they're ever going to have data that'll match peoples' friends' Android-based mapping experiences, and that's going to leave a lot of people very sour on what is supposed to be the premium-brand smartphone.

I have a number of friends and acquaintences who have either already switched or are soon switching from their iPhone 4 to some Android-flavored phone specifically because they're so disappointed with the iPhone 5 + iOS6 combination, and no longer feel like it's the best option on the market. Pissing people off and losing them as customers is a pretty terrible price to pay for wanting to gather bug reports on location data.

<comment><USER6> "Google is so far ahead on mapping that I doubt Apple will ever catch up. "

We're not talking rocket science here. If Apple wants to catch up to Google on mapping, they just have to invest time, money, and attention. We're talking at most two years for Apple to get where Google is today.

<comment><USER7> Google has far more data to enhance its maps. Does Apple have the internet lying around to analyze?

<comment><USER6> I'm not making any claims about Apple catching up to "searching" - That truly is a field in which google has demonstrated they have unique, and proprietary advantages over the competition. They have deep research and superior search algorithms, and I would say only Bing can give them competition, and I don't believe Apple will ever be able to provide similar capability when it it comes to that.

But the elements of mapping that are not related to search, that is, routing, displaying tiles, walking directions, cycling directions, turn-by-turn, aerial-view, points of interests - these are all elements that internet data is less useful, and where being able to invest billions of dollars in acquiring suitable cartographic information (as Nokia did) should be sufficient to put together a world class map environment for the customer. My perspective on the challenges is mostly informed through several hours of reading historic postings here: <http://blog.telemapics.com/?p=399>

In all likelihood, after several billions of dollars invested, Apple 2014 will equal Google 2012 in the areas I just described (mapping sans search).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Technically, they could roll such a thing out in a 6.1 or 6.2 update, but > major changes — and I think everybody can agree this has been a major > change, for users and app developers alike — should be delivered only in > major new OS updates.

Well, I personally can't wait for OS XI, since by that criteria, Apple apparently hasn't released a major OS update since OS X yet.

Version numbers schmersion numbers. Ship it when it's ready.

<comment><USER8> (I understand that you're probably being somewhat sarcastic, but for the sake of semantics…)

It's pretty clear by the amount of change (and Apple's marketing efforts) that each OS 10.#.0 release is a "major" OS update, on par with the relative significance of each iOS #.0 release.

But Gruber may have over-generalized here. Indeed, Apple _has_ added major new features in iOS .# updates, e.g. AirPlay and AirPrint in 4.2, or the Personal Hotspot feature in 4.3.

What they _haven't_ done is change key functionality in a point update, let alone introduce regressions. (In fact, before this incident, I'm struggling to recall Apple _ever_ removing/crippling existing functionality.) If they were going to perform a full Maps switch-out, maybe they felt that now would be the best time, if only because there is so much positive press out there to temper the backlash.

Edit: Regarding removed features, I was mostly thinking of Apple's record with iOS. As gurkendoktor points out, they have certainly removed ("simplified") functionality in Mac OS X, often creating great frustration.

<comment><USER4> My tongue is firmly in cheek, yes. I'm poking fun at the silliness of attaching some holy meaning to version numbers.

My point is that version numbers for end-user software are borderline meaningless; they're marketing fodder. Just look at Chrome and Firefox, for example. Firefox didn't suddenly start improving 10x faster than it was before, but they changed their versioning scheme in a marketing play to compete with Chrome's ever-inflating version, as the casual user assumes that Chrome 37 must be much better than Firefox 6 because its major version is so much bigger.

Apple could either ship a regression in a new major, or ship a less broken regression in a new minor. In either case, there's going to be a regression. Regressions are unfortunate anytime they have to happen, but the assertion that you could only replace Google Maps with an in-house solution in a major is just silly post-hoc justification. You can't avoid disappointing users except by not shipping a regression at all, but you can lessen it by shipping a less-broken product.

As an aside, I can think of at least one other major breaking change/regression in a point release - the total swap in functionality of the lock/mute switch in iOS 4.2. There are also things like dropping support for older devices in point releases (4.3 dropped support for the iPhone 3G) that make the argument look even weaker; device deprecation is generally the sort of thing that is sacredly reserved for major releases, yet Apple seems to have had no problem doing it in a point release, and we're supposed to believe that yet somehow Apple wasn't willing to replace an app in a point release just because it isn't a major?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Problem with this analysis is that if the replacing maps on iOS6 was always going to be this year then it just compounds the culpability of Apple for shipping it half baked with no fallback. ie. in trying to assuage the criticism of Apple for shipping maps too early (what I read as the main point of his piece here), Gruber only begs the question of why they weren't better prepared for it.

<comment><USER10> Maps are hard.

The original Google Maps was pretty bad. Mapquest beat it much of the time. There was one road in my hometown, and none in many countries.

Google devoted enormous resources to acquiring data (petabytes worth), processing it, correcting it, to give us the product we have today.

Even though Apple acquired some neat companies that made data look good, they obviously underestimated how much data was required to make it useful. No amount of QC could have prepared them, frankly.

The upside is that Google has been fairly closed with their map products. They're miles ahead of Apple, who will need every partner they can find to close the gap. Hopefully it will give the data providers a bit of leverage to get refinements back out so it can be used in endeavours other than showing where the nearest pizza joint is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I dont get why Maps releases are tied to OS releases. If the Maps api to other apps doesn't change, why can't maps be updated as other apps are?

<comment><USER12> Any big feature change makes for a good slide or two in the keynotes. They get once or twice a year to make a big impression on the press - dribbling out updates to core apps in the meantime would remove the buzz.

<comment><USER13> It's certainly made a big impression, though perhaps not the kind they were after. Revealing something in a keynote talk leads to more scrutiny so making a big deal out of something that isn't ready doesn't seem wise to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ok, can someone help me? I'm quite confused. Apple's maps have undeniable problems. Pretty big ones in some cases.

But are they really unusable? From my perspective it seems as though Apple's maps are merely inferior, not unusable. Some aspects are even better than they were before (on iOS), some (very few) are better than Google Maps (traffic info in Germany is quite impressive).

Everyone here seems to take it as self-evident that the maps are unusable. I don't get that. To me it looks like a slight (again, depending on use case) regression in the short term.

I also don't get the deification of Google Maps. I remember they weren't that great in Germany only two or so years ago. I still encounter mistakes regularly. Google Maps are awesome despite those flaws.

<comment><USER10> Apple's maps are really good. Google's maps are much better, generally, though.

There are places where Apple has an advantage over Google, but Google has been pouring resources into Maps for a long time.

Garmin, TomTom, Navteq, etc. won't be nearly as good as Apple or Google because they aggregate sources.

They aren't unusable, and are better than if you rely on a dedicated GPS. But they can still be improved. Apple doesn't seem to be weighting proximity for search as effectively as Google (unsurprisingly).

Honestly, Apple is the new #2, but they've got a mountain ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is one of those articles, that after you read it, you face palm, and go, "Of course."

I feel stupid not having come to the same assessment after hearing about when the dates were set.

<comment><USER15> What he doesn't answer is why they chose to ship a half-backed map implementation rather than continue to pay licensing fees until they got it right. It's not like Apple's starving for cash.

<comment><USER16> > rather than continue to pay licensing fees until they got it right

It's not like you just buy the data at Wal-Mart -- you have to negotiate licensing terms with Google and the terms that Google wanted were, reportedly, onerous.

<comment><USER17> Gee, that almost sounds like something worth considering _before_ starting a thermonuclear war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If I'm reading this right, does that mean when the contract expires, Google stops serving map tiles to iOS clients using the Google Maps client?

That would mean the iPhone, the iPhone 3G, and the original iPad (none of which support iOS 6) will lose all mapping ability starting next year. Unless, of course, Apple backports their maps app to iOS 5 (and even that wouldn't help original iPhone users--if there are any left).

<comment><USER19> Check the footnote. Devices using still Google Maps will most likely function without a change for a few years, but Apple won't be allowed to sell/activate more phones using Google Maps.

<comment><USER18> Yeah I just saw that.

I'm sure the deal takes into account legacy devices, but I wonder how long that extended support would last.

<comment><USER20> I suspect it would last for quite some time beyond the officially supported window (possibly until the vast majority of those devices are no longer using Google's map data either via upgrade or retirement). Absent Apple or someone else unreasonably taking advantage of the "legacy device loophole", Google doesn't have much incentive (and some disincentive from the potential PR fallout) to shut it down even no matter what the contract allows. I'm sure sometime after that support windows they'll want to roll out something where it's easier to break existing clients than to keep them working, but until then...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This still doesn't explain why they didn't ship it in iOS7 then. If it wasn't ready and they only want to ship such things in major versions then hold it till the next major version. It wasn't ready. And bug reports aren't the solution to get it ready either. They needed better expertise and better quality data to start with.

<comment><USER22> How does it not explain it? Maps deal expires 6/13; iOS 7.0 launches 9/13. What do you ship from 6/13 to 9/13?

<comment><USER21> New maps deal to get you up to 9/13.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Remember he usually calls half-cooked products or apps as "turd"s.

</comment><comment><USER24> Who cares about the timing? The maps experience, even with turn-by-turn, feels worse than what I had in iOS 5. I hate it when companies deliberately make things worse.

<comment><USER25> really ? I'm liking the turn by turn directions in ios6 a lot and to me the update was worth it just for that. I still have the mobile google maps on there if I need to search anything.

Apple Maps feel very snappy and I like the Yelp tie-in.

But I have never used the transit options so I can't say I'm missing it. If I had to use it I figure I could just jump over to web based google maps.

Curious to know what don't you like about the new apple maps that can't be solved by the web based google maps ?

<comment><USER24> To be fair I've only used it for about a week-and-a-half now. If you give it a specific address it works pretty well for the most part. One thing I love compared to my Galaxy Nexus is that under the lock screen the next direction will turn the screen on.

Another thing that works better is integration with Siri. I felt that on Android there were a few more hoops to go through to do things like "drive to home" or "drive to Bob's Chicken Shack".

The things I don't like are the lack of detail on the maps currently. I don't use the satellite layer so it looks really sparse and I feel like I'm driving to big abstract blobs.

To be honest this is pretty good for a first try. Getting native turn-by-turn that works 95% of the time is pretty impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While I'm not a fan of the new iOS maps, I'm reasonably happy that Apple chose to break the relationship with Google rather than throw my privacy under a bus to get a contract extension.

</comment><comment><USER27> Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Gruber. IOS6 Maps still suck balls.

</comment><comment><USER28> tl;dr : Apple screws up. The totally-oh-so-unbiased Gruber defends them anyway. For the rest of us who don't give a rat's ass, life continues.</comment>


Show HN: Computer Vision Boilerplate (CVB) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pennpolygons/cv-boilerplate <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, we want to present open-source boilerplate for computer vision research! The goal of this project is to provide a lightweight boilerplate repository that researchers, Ph.D. students, or generally curious individuals can clone to kick off their research.

Our main idea is that researchers waste too much time managing their projects because tooling is hard to set up. We believe that project plumbing should "just work in a sane way", so we set you up to do YAML configuration management, logging to multiple modalities (image files, Visdom, log files, stdout, etc.) with no changes.

Thanks to the UPenn Computer Vision Group and several individuals in GRASP for their generous feedback.

Now get back to research!

-Mia & Matt

<comment> chris-clem Hi,

great work! Have you heard of PyTorch Lightning ([https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch- lightning](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning)) and there conference seed repo ([https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning- confer...](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning-conference- seed))? Maybe it would make sense to join forces.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had PyTorch Lightning recommended before, and heard it works great! My main concern is that it isn't officially supported, while Ignite is part of PyTorch.

Ignite is still in alpha and needs to catch up, but I get the feeling that PyTorch / FB will commit resources rather than folding in Lightning (unlike TF did w/ Keras). The new releases are already promising (w.r.t. distributed training).

Always looking to collaborate, and please lmk if anything above is incorrect.</comment></comment></comment>


Machine intelligence at Dropbox - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2018/09/machine-intelligence-at-dropbox-an-update-from-our-dbxi-team/amp/ <comment><USER2> > We suggest the most relevant content by traversing a user-specific graph > that connects people, content, and activity signals in privacy-preserving > ways.

Details would be welcome here. From the linked portal and whitepaper I just see a discussion about mostly their operations practices that may offer some protections against inadvertent data disclosure to third parties but nothing about how they preserve any of the users' privacy from their own servers.

<comment><USER3> > nothing about how they preserve any of the users privacy from their own > servers

Yeah, well, client-side encryption has not been on the menu for ten years now.

(Mention of which has remarkable anechoic properties.)

<comment><USER2> 1) Client side encryption

2) Differential privacy

3) On device learning

4) Other techniques

Pick any or all of them. Explain what you're doing and why. Don't write platitudes about how you're protecting people's privacy and have built something privacy preserving if you haven't used _any_ privacy preserving technologies in your system.</comment></comment></comment>


Coders Can't Put Writers Out Of A Job Yet, But We'd Better Watch Our Backs - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/25/coders-cant-put-writers-out-of-a-job-yet-but-wed-better-watch-our-backs/

<comment><USER2> No doubt automation will eliminate certain tasks that are currently done by humans. But there are only so many where bots can replace people. Best I can see for the near future, bots could very capably create "news spam." More tweets anyone?

There are just too many aspects of human language that comprise an actual piece of literature that are not dealt with in a particularly integrated way by current AI/NLP techniques. Narrative structure is a really fuzzy thing in certain respects and has an immense impact on a reader. Symbolism, metaphor, and various idioms are learned through personal interactions and require a sensitivity to the author's role and intended audience.

Of course I just may be out of touch. Have there really been such significant advances in computer generated journalism/writing?

<comment><USER2> Looks like someone is selling it: <http://www.narrativescience.com/technology/>

<comment><USER3> This company was mentioned in the article as well. I've actually used them for doing a test run of generated content for a specific niche (I prefer developing, not writing) and found that once the article calls for something "meatier" like analysis, comparing events to other trends, or generally just being longer than 200 words, the artificial nature of it is glaringly obvious.

Much like true voice recognition, I doubt quality, automated journalism is even a decade off. Humans get better and better at identifying subtle differences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> See Hammond's ee380 talk, linked to at [http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/winter- schedule-20112012...](http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/winter- schedule-20112012.html) .

This year's EE380 (<http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/> ) will have many talks of comparable quality.</comment>


Wow, check out this guy's comment - <AUTHOR> I wrote a short blog about Mark Cuban and his journey to becoming a billionaire.  Not surprisingly, he was motivated by money.  I always have disliked money as a source of motivation, I still do.  Tonight at dinner I was caught off guard when my brother and both parents said "well of course everyone is driven by money... you mean you thought they were driven by something else?"  Regardless, a guy came to my blog and posted a comment that I found inspirational:
---
This is the first time I have read a blog and of course the first post of any kind. As a 36 year old plumber I have been fired from every plumbing company I have ever worked for. All of them fired me after about a year. The reasons have all been the same, they asked my opinion about their problems and I told them the truth. It seems every company always has some sort of problems they deal with but never know the answers. The last job I had was running a new hospital project and after 9 months I was asked by management to get rid of half the plumbers and replace them with non-plumbers to drive down cost.
The short story is I said no way, it's illegal and I want no part of it. I then said if they go over my head I will turn them in to the state dept. of health. Well, I was fired….With the economy the way it is no jobs are available. So with a family of 4 and a new house and $300 in checking I started my own plumbing company. Anyone who cares to listen here is what I have to say. Weeks went by with no customers calling and I didn't know what to do.
We were out of money and my wife gave me a choice of getting a wal-mart type job or get out. That night I freaked out and was up all hours of the night just thinking and thinking. Then it came to me. My problem was simple, I was going about this backwards. Money is a stupid motivator, customers are the real motivator. So here is what I did. I went to a printer and had them print up a 1000 $50.00 gift cards on heavy paper stock all of them with code numbers. The next thing I did was go door to door and meet people one at a time. Ya, it was crazy at first but the people were blown away, they loved it. As of right now I am the number one plumber in a town of about 40,000 people and am looking to hire another plumber.
So whats the secret? Give people what they want. All these years I was right, most people let money motivate them and that creates poor decision making. I let the customer decide. The economy is tough so just give the customers what they want, money. People were so blown away they thought it was a joke. Think about it for a moment, have you ever heard of a business come to your door, shake your hand, and while looking in there eyes tell them you would like to earn the business and by they way here is a fifty dollar gift card that can be used anytime for any plumbing service they need.
When it's all said and done I wished I would have done this years ago. I enjoyed the article about Mark Cuban but I think money is just a poor motivator, money is the result of good business practice. My wife by the way thought it was crazy to give $50 to everyone I meet, she was wrong, but now she is my biggest fan. That $50 is nothing when you consider a customer spends thousands during the course of a life time, not to mention they spread word of mouth business like fire. Mike <comment><USER2> A very nice story. I think, however, he overlooks the power of humanity in his story. It's not down to that $50 voucher. It's because he became a real person to the people he visited - a local guy, someone they'd seen in real life. It really seems all down to pressing the flesh. The other points don't make any logical sense, for example:

 _All these years I was right, most people let money motivate them and that creates poor decision making. I let the customer decide. The economy is tough so just give the customers what they want, money._

If it were really about him giving them "money" (a discount voucher isn't money, but we'll ignore that) and money creates poor decision making, then choosing him based on that offer is poor decision making.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, it's the "look them in the eye, shake their hand, and tell them you want to earn their business" part that really gets them.

The $50 voucher is the thing that gives the future customer "permission" to follow up on their gut feeling of "Wow, I like being treated like a HUMAN BEING."

<comment><USER4> I really doubt this. I live in a neighborhood where people come by all the time. They don't offer $50 cards or really anything, they just drop off their business card. Which I usually just throw in the trash. Obviously your going to call someone if you have a $50 gift card with them.

<comment> bjelkeman-again I think it is the combination that does it. I have lots of "discount vouchers" for all sorts of things, which I never use. But I need a plumber and this guy would be it.

<comment><USER5> What serves this purpose with a web app? Is it a stock photo of a person? (Doubt it.) Some bit of humor that a corporate marketdroid would never write for fear of pissing off his boss? The developer blogs? MySpace or Twitter presence? I suspect that most of the time, most of these things don't succeed.

Perhaps this is part of the power behind "Viral Marketing" in the old days when its effectiveness wasn't diluted by so many trying the same thing.

<comment><USER6> A real, honest to goodness, here we are, this is my desk, good-and-bad blog?

I signed up with Dreamhost because I truly felt they would care - their site is very good at giving that impression. Their service was poor, so I left, but that's another story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > my wife gave me a choice of getting a wal-mart type job or get out

"...to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do us part."

It's reading things like this that make me appreciate my wife more than I already did. Get a 'walmart type job' or get out? My wife would _never_ say that to me, especially in such bad times. At the very least she'd suggest we _both_ get walmart jobs, not threaten to leave.

:/

How depressing.

<comment><USER8> As I get older, I am not sure if life is so simple anymore. Although I guess ultimately it boils down to this: women want to have children, and children cost money. The time in which women can have children is limited, so they can't sit around and wait for you to get a hold on life forever.

<comment><USER7> Fortunately for me there will be no children involved to cause this sort of problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cuban was motivated by a love of business.

Before Broadcast.com, he sold garbage bags as a kid, gave disco lessons to sororities in college, threw parties as a quasi event planner, started a computer company (MicroSolutions) and ran a hedge fund. After Broadcast.com, he bought the Mavs, started HD Net, formed a charity (Fallen Patriot Fund), actively invests as an angel and cofounded numerous movie production & distribution companies.

<comment> daniel-cussen So true. I love business and would do it even if I had to wait tables to do it, for free, in my spare time, with no chance of personal financial gain (but a nonzero chance of success). Just seeing businesses start and grow is reward enough, even if I don't make any money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What really struck me about that story is how one great idea executed well can make the difference between bankruptcy and roaring success. It's something that I've seen first hand, and probably the reason why being stubborn is so important. If you don't give up you'll eventually stumble into a strategy that works - after exhausting all possible alternatives. :)

</comment><comment><USER11> I hope to not be "that guy" but wasn't this plumber's ultimate motivation money? I mean he was out of it and needed it. He was willing to work at a loss(or lower profit) so he could get business. He innovated and won. If he had had customers immediately then is he suggesting that his motivation would've been the love of money? Given his track record of honesty I would guess not.

<comment><USER3> The reason this comment is so striking for HN is that most people here who would describe themselves as "motivated by money" don't foresee themselves having to do gruntwork such as door-to-door sales, giving the customer what will really appeal to them, to earn that money. They think that it will be easy and hassle-free, somehow.

It's like Puritan Work Ethic porn.

edit: Also, he passed over the easy money (e.g. violating his ethics/the law) which got him fired to begin with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reads like a completely made up story to me.

Nice, inspirational and all, but _that_ was not written by a plumber after reading first ever blogpost in his life.

<comment><USER13> I tend to agree with you. I did get that "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" vibe from it, and that was a made up story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The usual arguments against using money as motivation are that (a) money is not enough to keep you motivated during the "darkest of times" and (b) even if you get there the money will probably not make you happy.

But Mark Cuban _was_ motivated enough to take his company public. And Mark Cuban likes to make extravagant purchases (e.g. The Dallas Mavericks). In a nutshell - he seems to enjoy the billionaire's lifestyle. So money was probably the right motivational force for Cuban.

</comment><comment><USER15> _my wife gave me a choice of getting a wal-mart type job or get out._

Is it really this way in the US? As a foreigner I'm curious.

<comment><USER16> Maybe in some situations, but it would be a shitty situation as a walmart-type job does not provide enough income to live on. Some epithet towards the wife is probably appropriate.

<comment><USER17> A lot of people don't get this. When I was failing at running a small business in semi-rural Alabama, nearly everyone around me told me I should just get a job at walmart or a convenience store, even though that wouldn't have been enough to live on. For many people, a job seems to be something of a talisman, rather than a source of a certain amount of money.

<comment><USER18> This is true for me in semi-rural Ohio, too.

<comment><USER19> I'm in SW Ohio, you? I do not think there are many Ohioans on HN, and we ought to find each other!

<comment><USER20> Bowling Green

<comment><USER18> Waterville, visiting family. We should meet up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That's an interesting anecdote about business practices, but I don't understand what it has to do with the pro/con virtue/evil desirability/undesirability of being motivated by money.

<comment><USER22> He was successful despite not selling out his principles and succumbing to the motivation of money.

<comment><USER21> How is he not motivated by money in this post? Is plumbing his love and passion, or is he trying to provide for his family? And what's so wrong about being motivated by money, except for that it offends the secular liberal religion?

<comment><USER22> Yes he was motivated by money, but in the same way that you're motivated by food. It's important for accomplishing your goals, but there are more important things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [http://jtame05.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/theory-disproven- mon...](http://jtame05.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/theory-disproven-money-as- motivation/)

I wonder how he found your blog.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm wondering the exact same thing. I only posted that on hacker news, so he either saw it on wordpress or he reads hn.

<comment><USER23> maybe someone emailed him a link or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I really loved this post.

It brings out one of the obvious truths in economics or business if you will.

Customers are not that interested in paying you to help you out. They are interested in getting what they want. Money is just a reward for getting what they want.

Too many businesses focus on getting paid, they lose track of why customers are there in the first place.

<comment><USER25> I just don't buy this. Most small business are really bad at collecting their Accounts Receivable, and it is one of the number one reasons for small business failures. I agree with what someone else wrote, there may be a kernel of truth to this, but it's too polished and too neatly tied with a bow to be true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The success of the plumber was really marketing, which is the success factor for any business. He never gave away $50, he offered a discount on his services (how many plumbing jobs cost less than $50?). Also, he was driven by money, just not for greed's sake, but for the sake of supporting a family.

</comment><comment><USER26> _I went to a printer and had them print up a 1000 $50.00 gift cards on heavy paper stock all of them with code numbers. The next thing I did was go door to door and meet people one at a time. Ya, it was crazy at first but the people were blown away, they loved it. As of right now I am the number one plumber in a town of about 40,000 people and am looking to hire another plumber._

This is just good marketing. Small businesses do this all the time.

My mother owned a small business and did this sort of advertising at least yearly. I used to have to help hand out flyers as a kid. We would also go around and get permission from the property owners to attach flyers to car windshields. I always thought it was a waste but there is a reason people do it - it works.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't get it. Is the $50 only against his labour charges? If the customer pays nothing for the parts too, then he can't subsidise the scheme for long enough to start being paid one the coupons run about by his, now loyal, customers.

<comment><USER28> If he charges _x_ dollars for "up to the first hour", and _y_ dollars for every hour thereafter, where _x_ >= 50, then there's no problem.

<comment><USER27> Yes there is, depending on the type of job he's hired for with the vouchers, and whether the voucher covers parts as well.

<comment><USER28> Not so: In my scenario, the labor for any job would eat the entire voucher. (I'm assuming he's got a "limit 1 per customer" clause in the small print).

<comment><USER27> Sure, you can pick a job like that. But similarly, the voucher recipients could pick jobs that cripple the plumber financially.

<comment><USER28> Perhaps I'm not following you completely. Please give an example where that could happen, given the scenario I outlined above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> _Think about it for a moment, have you ever heard of a business come to your door, shake your hand, and while looking in there eyes tell them you would like to earn the business and by they way here is a fifty dollar gift card that can be used anytime for any plumbing service they need._

Why is it that so many people seem to think direct sales is some kind of new idea?

</comment><comment><USER30> Perhaps he'll be the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Baker> of plumbing... :)

</comment><comment><USER31> Sounds just like "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

</comment><comment><USER32> i think in a way... money was the motivator for the plumber.. if he could afford his bills... he wouldnt have spent that one night thinking and thinkingg...

</comment><comment><USER33> Great stuff. All companies have moved away form this, I hope that the current economic situation will force companies to care about their customers again.

</comment><comment><USER34> _my brother and both parents said "well of course everyone is driven by money... you mean you thought they were driven by something else?"_

What the fuck? They really think everyone's goal in life is to buy as much crap as they can?

<comment><USER35> Money isn't an end goal, it's a means to something else. Who said the goal would be buying crap? A better use of money is financial security for raising a family, having free time, buying things you really value, retiring early and enjoying life. Money is an excellent motivator, but it's indirect, the real motivator is your values and your life.

<comment><USER34> Then that's like saying you're motivated by food, water, shelter. I see money as just one resource that I need in my life to maintain my lifestyle, like I need food/water/shelter. It would be nice to solve the money problem once and for all by doing something to accumulate a large pile of it, but only so that I can stop expending my energy on generating money and move on to the things I _really_ care about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> people are motivated by the "reward" their efforts may reap them. For some people this "reward" is money or power, for others it may be acceptance from peers or loved ones, for the plumber it was the ability to take care of his family.

</comment><comment><USER37> Well it's a good thing someone can profit from a shit gone awry!</comment>


Scaling Engineering Teams via Writing Things Down and Sharing – Aka RFCs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/scaling-engineering-teams-via-writing-things-down-rfcs/ <comment><USER2> Seems like a good idea of you know what you are building is not going to change significantly. Might be overkill for prototyping things in early stage start ups.</comment>


Merck Created Hit List to "Destroy," "Neutralize" or "Discredit" Doctors - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/merck-created-hit-list-to-destroy-neutralize-or-discredit-dissenting-doctors/ <comment><USER2> If ever there was a case for criminal charges against corporate officers abusing their authority, this would be it.

But here's betting it won't happen.

</comment><comment><USER3> Desperately needs (2009) at end of title

</comment><comment><USER4> Merck also did some fraudulent science to get the Gardasil vaccine accepted by the FDA:

[http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/25-reasons-avoid- gardasil-v...](http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/25-reasons-avoid-gardasil- vaccine)

<comment><USER5> Whether or not Merck "did some fraudulent science," I'd need a better source than RFKJr to believe it. Preferably a scientific source. Here's some scientific sources on Gardasil, mostly after its introduction to the US market: [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=safety+efficacy+quadriv...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=safety+efficacy+quadrivalent+hpv+vaccine&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart)

<comment><USER4> RFK Jr is not a source. You do not have to like him, only to verify what he says.</comment></comment></comment>


Unobtrusive JavaScript -- Use It!  - <AUTHOR> http://www.chromasynthetic.com/blog/archive/106

<comment><USER2> It's stuff like this that reminds me HTML CSS and Javascript ought to be thought of as object code. Figure out the right way once, then make the compiler do it. Now, where did i leave that website compiler? :)</comment>


Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase - <AUTHOR> https://firebase.googleblog.com/2017/03/introducing-cloud-functions-for-firebase.html <comment><AUTHOR> Note to moderators: this is _not_ a dup of the the other Cloud Functions post on the front page. The Firebase integration is an extended offering with additional features.

<comment><USER2> You guys have inundated us with emails, comments, and reposts before we've even had a chance to consider this properly. That slows us down—I can't think when I'm not breathing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry!

<comment><USER2> It's ok, it just takes a few minutes to actually look at the articles and figure out what's fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> (Cloud Functions for Firebase PM here)

We've been developing this product for quite some time, and we've had it in private alpha testing for well over a year. We're incredibly excited to finally take the wrappings off and let all of you try it.

Firebase has always focused on empowering you all to build extraordinary experiences for your users, without needing to worry about building common infrastructure. While we've made big strides towards this vision in the past, we always had one big hole: trusted code execution. Today, we're completing the story with Cloud Functions for Firebase so that you can easily run server- side code in response to events from your Firebase app.

We think you're going to love it, and we can't wait to see what you build with it!

Non-Firebase related Cloud Functions discussion is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13831398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13831398)</comment>


Scrapping HN / HNewsletter ? - <AUTHOR> As a pet project, I would be interested in scrapping some queries on HN / HNewsletter. I am starting with Python (as per Automating the boring stuff with Python).
However, I encouter some practical problems.
For HN, I am able to search a term, but I am not sure how to navigate the different pages (or if it is needed at all).
How would one get all the titles (+points +number of comments) that match a specific query ? What would be the most practical way to also get the comments in an exploitable format ?
For hacker newsletter, I found that website : https://hackernewsletter.com/issues/ that seems to make the loop over issue relatively easy. But issue before 250 seems to be missing. Any idea on where I could find them ? Or an already compiled archive ? <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/HackerNews/API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API)

[https://hn.algolia.com/api](https://hn.algolia.com/api)

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe a copy of HN data is on BigQuery, not sure how current</comment>


The U.S. is still using many pesticides that are banned in other countries - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencenews.org/article/united-states-pesticides-banned-other-countries <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20132575](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20132575)

</comment><comment><USER3> This article is a fantastic example of an editorial slant that provides zero evidence to back up their position. You can write the exact same article in reverse and have no idea whether the regulations are warranted or not. If you want to write a good article, provide the rationale for the ban and let the people decide whether one side is too lax or the other is too stringent. What's the evidence? Where's the science? I can't logically come to a conclusion based on what you've written. There's a big difference between a ban on 72, 17, and 11 chemicals alone, so why not pit the EU vs the rest of the world?

I could write the following article: "EU continues to allow use of banned artificial sweeteners in food products" but that wouldn't give you any information on whether sodium cyclamate is worth banning.

<comment><USER4> And indeed, why not pit the EU versus California? I could write an alarming headline along the lines of "The EU continues to use over 5000 chemicals declared proven by the state of California to cause cancer!" and get my clicks while completely glossing over the fact that the vast majority of California's notices are pretty much nonsensical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The EU is still allowing many dangerous toys[1][2] that are banned in U.S." /s

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys#United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys#United_States)

<comment><USER6> I can choose not to buy magnets and chocolate eggs.

I can't choose not to buy poison in the US ("organic" foodstuff is an expensive bandaid)

<comment><USER7> Fair enough but two sovereign countries aren't expected to agree on everything. Variance is expected. What's the data say in the pesticides?

<comment><USER8> Data says big agriculture has more lobbyist money in US Congress than the team behind the Kinder Egg. The FDA is a revolving door. Dangerous toys get banned because they're easy, usually seasonal and low market-penetration targets for politicians campaigning on protecting the children.

<comment><USER9> Can you share this data?

<comment><USER8> Opensecrets is a good source: [https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=A](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=A)

I don't have the details of the contribution amounts of the Ferrero team on Kinder Suprise Eggs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> All pesticides are bad in one way or another, what we need to do is invest more in development of gene drives for elimination of more pests. Doublesex gene used by target malaria is similar in most insects, so the same technique can be used to target most of the pests, and dramatically improve the situation.

<comment><USER11> Nothing says human safety like a technology that can make a species extinct. The motivations for elimination mosquitoes is noble, but I'm not comfortable about where this technology will go afterwards.

<comment><USER10> We have had lots of technologies that could make (and made) many species extinct: fire, spears, guns, nets, walls in the right place that helped to trap the whole herd. The difference this time is that we have a technology that can make extinct the species that we want to make extinct, without side effects. What complications do you foresee with this technology?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And pesticides which _are_ banned in the U.S. are often used illegally, such as carbofuran:

[https://www.hcn.org/articles/californias-backcountry-drug- wa...](https://www.hcn.org/articles/californias-backcountry-drug-war)

</comment><comment><USER13> >The imbalance between voluntary cancellations and government regulations creates a bias toward pesticide use in the United States based on economic factors, rather than health and environmental risks

Litigation risk is an economic representation of future health and environmental risks. That's the American way - market pressure is the preferred method of regulation.

</comment><comment><USER14> Failure of lobbying mainly. Companies need to donate more to politicians to regulate their competitors out of the market!

</comment><comment><USER15> TL;DR the EU basically uses a whitelist and the US basically uses a blacklist

Of course the EU bans more stuff and the US allows more, those are the default actions of the respective systems!</comment>


George Lucas Talks About Star Wars (1976) - <AUTHOR> http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1976/09/12/79322901.html?pageNumber=89&WT.mc_id=D-NYT-MKTG-MOD-09660-05-15-PH&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_c= <comment><USER2> That article is hilarious, not only for the caption underneath the photo ("Two robots and their captive"), the misspelling of "wookie", but the _massive_ spoiler about the film's resolution (columns 2 & 3) ... all about 8 months before its original release.</comment>


Google Shifts Ads (To The Left) - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/google-shifts-ads-to-the-left/ <comment><USER2> The fact that they have made a choice to increase their profits while compromising on user convenience is a completely opposite direction of what google was based upon IMO. Google is a company I used to look to whenever I had to think of a business problem(User convenience/solving a problem before making any money). If you are providing user what they want business model will work out, which seemed to be the case but not anymore, I guess.</comment>


Renting vs. Buying a Home: What's the ROI? - <AUTHOR> https://app.solvifier.com/blog/renting-vs-buying-a-home-whats-the-roi <comment><USER2> This is great I have been looking for a model that I can implement.</comment>


Monobloc chair - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monobloc_(chair) <comment><USER2> A more unique use case, but these remind me of water polo practice. We'd have to carry them across the pool without getting them wet. Sometimes we'd do 3 person drills where 1 person would carry it across and hand it to the next person who would carry it across to the 3rd person who would carry it back to the first person, etc. The chair was well suited because you could hold it by any two legs easily enough, so when handing it off you didn't have to re- adjust. It was a brutal drill, especially since your "rest" was treading water.

<comment> frant-hartm OT but I never understood why treading water in calm comfortable temperature (20C plus) pool is supposed to be difficult (or even slightly tiring). For me it is definitely less effort than e.g. standing up.

<comment><USER3> How could treading water possible be less effort (which I read as less energy) than passively standing??

Also gets a lot more difficult when you can only eggbeater with your legs and have to hold a chair above your head!!

<comment> frant-hartm Haha I had to lookup what eggbeater means and based on some YouTube videos it's crazy how much some people have to move to stay afloat. The body densities must vary a lot more than I thought.

<comment><USER2> Eggbeater in water polo is usually used to rise out of the water. Taking shots on goal is much more effective with your upper body out of the water.

Most people can float on their back without much effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the 3D metal printing companies made a titanium version of this chair and had it out at Westec or one of the tradeshows. It gave me really mixed emotions, do I want it because its frickin' titanium or am I just impressed you can print something like that? I expect that chair to outlive the company and possibly humans on the planet :-)

<comment><USER5> "I expect that chair to outlive the company and possibly humans on the planet" is a sentence that I would react to with the opposite emotion :-(

<comment><USER4> When future cockroach geologists look upon this artifact they might speculate it was a throne for the giant creatures that used to rule the planet :-)

<comment><USER6> You assume they might know or appreciate chairs and thrones. More likely they see it as an ancient monolith.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bryan Ropar on YouTube is a dedicated collector of many examples and extensions of the design.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2UvVoTS460](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2UvVoTS460)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm surprised that an article that says "stackable" in the first sentence doesn't have a picture to show the chairs stacked together.

Two examples:

[https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/12/412300/6034129/stac...](https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/12/412300/6034129/stackedchairs_600.gif)

[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/27/cb/7c/27cb7c5a2e9610cff78e47ce5...](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/27/cb/7c/27cb7c5a2e9610cff78e47ce56d7ac86 --stackable-chairs-magis.jpg)

Hopefully someone has (or can take) a freely licensed image to add to the article.

<comment><USER9> There is quite a bit wrong with that article; it reads like a middle school weekly report; on Monobloc chairs. Maybe it is?!

<comment><USER10> The article is pretty short and straightforward. Can you name a specific thing that's wrong with it?

<comment><USER9> Sure, there are too many ideas in the second/last paragraph.

<comment><USER10> So when you say there's quite a bit wrong, you don't mean that any of the content is inaccurate?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Such a distinctive sound when you drag them on the ground, too; I can hear it perfectly.

</comment><comment> kube-system The most ingenious designs are the ones that are everywhere but nobody ever notices.

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't say it's not noticed It is, mostly in an unfavorable way.

A German moniker for the chair is 'Rasen Akne', which translates to 'lawn acne'.

As you can probably surmise that's not meant as a compliment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Probably worth mentioning the Emeco 1006, a similarly iconic chair.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeco_1006](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeco_1006)

<comment><USER14> Is this U.S. specific? I've never come across it (though it seems like something I might have seen in a café in north america). The monobloc I've seen in every continent except Antartica - as I've not been, but I'm sure there is someone here who could attest that they've sat on one there.

<comment><USER15> It's a hipster thing.

As a lifelong US resident I've seen those no more than a handful of times, always at hipster bars or restaurants.

<comment><USER16> > As a lifelong US resident

how old are you?

in my recollection, the old/original ones were around alot kind of everywhere (watch 60s movies with office/interior scenes, etc, though i'm younger than that), gradually fading away, and then the new ones came back on the scene ~10y ago (and yes, now very often at hipster sorts of places)

<comment><USER17> In my 30s here, so past the heyday. I have lived in several regions of the US and traveled to the rest - these aren't very common.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thats quite a cool name for a chair. I think I like them better, knowing that I can call them that.

"Hey, pull up a monobloc and tell me all about it!"

</comment><comment><USER19> The OG ugly design has seemingly insurmountable cultural inertia. Many handsome modern monobloc designs out there, production cost not that much greater, but I very rarely see them being sold or being used out in the wild. Wonder if there's a "stack" of theseus thing going on, since the modern designs are largely not stack compatible with the original geometry. Really annoying/perplexing this form factor has lasted so long.

</comment><comment><USER20> > "Seeing a white plastic chair in a photograph offers you no clues about > where or when you are"

Well you know it's 1970s or later.

<comment><USER21> That's as vague of a key as the photo being color or has signs of modern lens coating

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Every time I see one I'm reminded of how uncomfortable they are.

<comment><USER23> I couldn't disagree more. That's my favourite thing about these chairs - they're cheap and ugly, but i actually find them really nice to sit in. There's just the right amount of flex to support you and bend to the shape of your body without feeling flimsy. Most cheap chairs are either totally inflexible, or too flimsy.

<comment><USER24> I always hesitate to sit in them because I always get the impression that they're dirty. I think that's a problem with them being white: every speck of dirt stands out.

I agree though: very comfortable to sit in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Seeing objects like this makes me think of the book, the Design of Everyday Things[1].

We often forget that these products have been designed by someone, somewhere, who thought long and hard about their aesthetics, usability and cost.

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

</comment><comment><USER26> The red solo cup of international chairs.

<comment><USER27> I've actually never seen those cups outside of the US, which was surprising to me as they are so pervasive inside.

<comment><USER28> Look more closely; we've had these for years. These bloody things are now sold in nearly all party shops, variety stores, and supermarkets in the Netherlands, because US media (like films and music videos) and social media from America feature these as the cups you use for a party.

Your local Jumbo sells them. Your local Action probably too. They seem to be bought by teenagers mainly.

For the non-Dutch: the stereotypical plastic cup in the Netherlands is white and much smaller than these solo-cups. The trend is towards more environmentally friendly paper cups though.

<comment><USER28> Also Albert Heijn: [https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi434996/ah-party- cups](https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi434996/ah-party-cups)

Once you notice them, you'll see them everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wish to share the world's foremost authority on chairs, Bryan Ropar

[https://youtube.com/channel/UCAajKTeS- mCS3PccJUrrIzw](https://youtube.com/channel/UCAajKTeS-mCS3PccJUrrIzw)

</comment><comment><USER30> These are basically disposable chairs that break easily and sit in landfills forever. I'm shocked that over a billion have been sold in Europe alone. They are aesthetically offensive in my opinion.

<comment><USER31> That break easily? These things are nigh indestructible in my experience. It's possible that you had ones that weren't rated for the appropriate weight, they have slightly different sizes and larger ones are beefier.

<comment><USER32> I weight just around 70kg and I broke two in an hour by just standing on them. I'm quite scared using them now.

<comment><USER31> I don't think standing on them is what they're designed for, that strains even the best built chairs. The interesting thing about this chair I think is its relative strength compared to the absolute dearth of materials used, not its absolute strength, in my opinion — it won't ever be a strong as a steel chair, sure, but that is not why these things are remarkable.

<comment><USER33> > I don't think standing on them is what they're designed for, that strains > even the best built chairs.

My memories of monoblocs suggest that the problem is less that the chair can't take the strain of being stood on, and more that it can't take the strain of being climbed onto. They're not rigid bodies; getting on to one to stand up will shake the seat around like crazy.

Most chairs are much more physically _stable_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have no idea where I saw them, but I bought 4 of these and they are the most comfortable folding chair I've ever sat in.

[https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B005PJ0VJQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt...](https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B005PJ0VJQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Definitely made of plastic.

</comment><comment><USER35> probably one of the objects most washed up on the shores of the planet. creates piles of indestructible garbage

<comment><USER33> > creates piles of indestructible garbage

This is a serious conflict with the other complaint that they spontaneously disintegrate under exposure to sunlight.

<comment><USER36> ... to a zillion tiny pieces of microplastic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There's also this one, quite a bit prettier:

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

</comment><comment><USER38> There's an interesting gallery from an exhibition of photos of where the Monobloc is found: [http://www.abitare.it/en/gallery/events/chairs-monobloc- vitr...](http://www.abitare.it/en/gallery/events/chairs-monobloc-vitra- exhibition/?ref=291427#gallery)

</comment><comment><USER39> I love the way Monobloc is not linked (Admittedly missing from Wikipedia atm), but chair, white and plastic is.

"The Monobloc _chair_ is a lightweight stackable _polypropylene_ chair, usually _white_ in colour, often described as the world's most common _plastic_ chair"

Monobloc, adjective made as, contained in, or involving a single casting.

<comment><USER40> Anyone can edit Wikipedia, including you!

When you see something like this, feel free to jump in and fix it.

I went ahead and edited the page for you, linking the second instance of "monobloc" to the disambiguation page for that word. It seemed like a tossup between linking the word there vs. the highlighted word in the first sentence, so if you think something else would be more helpful in the article, please go for it. Thanks!

<comment><USER41> AFAIR you're not meant to link to a disambiguation page, which makes sense because you already know which meaning of the word you wanted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Reminds me of a documentary on the common but little known Robin Day chair:

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

For something a step up from the monobloc, a typica classroom chair will last and take some abuse, though not as common especially in low quantities.

</comment><comment><USER43> I have broken at least one of those and I am sure I will break more in the future.

</comment><comment><USER44> Micro monobloc application: [https://www.awesomeinventions.com/tiny-pizza- table-and-chair...](https://www.awesomeinventions.com/tiny-pizza-table-and- chairs/)

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't think I've ever seen these in the US, and I find it interesting that these are also ubiquitous in Europe.

<comment><USER46> These are everywhere in the US and have been for decades. I have a stack of them on my patio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> They don't stand much weight compared to other chairs. But you may stack multiple of them to solve that problem.

<comment><USER48> It stands enough weight for above average weight of people in the 70s. It was designed with that in mind probably. Times/people changed though.

<comment><USER49> Another big factor is how they're stored. If left outside in the sun they'll become pretty brittle. Most people probably experience poorly stored and older examples of these chairs just by sheer probability.</comment></comment></comment>


Buddytruk Mobile App, looking for feedback - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/buddytruk/id826283020?mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! My name is Brian and I am the founder of the Buddytruk mobile app. Buddytruk is a peer-to-peer moving and large item delivery platform. Think Uber/Lyft functionality, except you're getting connecting with a buddy and a truck to help move a couch, instead of a friend with a car for a ride.

We just went live, and looking to improve the service. Let me know what you think, we're open to all feedback!</comment>


Taking control of all .io domains with a targeted registration - <AUTHOR> https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-control-of-all-io-domains-with-a-targeted-registration/ <comment><USER2> This is a huge screwup on the part of the people who run the 'root' of .IO, and their entire operation should be severely scrutinized by ICANN.

In my opinion almost all of the 'weird' TLDs which are country codes that are actually operated by a third party commercial service are 95% spam and junk registrations. .TV is a good example.

Technical screwups aside, the existence of .IO and the fact that it "belongs" to the UK government is morally questionable, since the entire country code only exists because the British and American militaries forcibly removed the original inhabitants of islands such as Diego Garcia so that they could use the area as naval and air force bases.

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

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

If I had been able to successfully register these names and get live traffic going to a BIND9 instance, my first instinct would not be to alert the company through its first tier customer support levels, but to immediately post a summary of the problem to ARIN, RIPE, APNIC and ICANN mailing lists. This would get the issue in front of people who immediately understand how serious the problem is, and hopefully one of them would be able to contact the principals of .IO directly.

<comment><USER3> I'm in the TLD space (we run a fair number of gTLDs). If a gTLD operator screwed up like this then there could be consequences. A ccTLD, however, runs with very few restrictions. I don't see much of consequence happening to it as a result of this.

I will, however, say that gTLDs are generally more secure and well-run than smaller ccTLDs, and are worth preferring for that reason. It's a weird historical quirk that .io randomly became popular in the developer community, but there are better options. And, as you point out, it's morally suspect, which is why we don't use it for new domain names.

<comment><USER4> Besides the old .org, what better options are there for software projects?

<comment><USER3> We have .dev and .foo, which seem like they'd be good options, but neither are available for open registration. Sorry :(

<comment><USER5> > .dev

I really hope that one never becomes available..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Originally, .io, .sh and .tm were operated by ICB PLC, later ICB LLC (owned by Paul Kane[1]). Just a couple of weeks ago .io and .sh changed hands to Afilias which swapped out all turning parts over a weekend. They really screwed up a lot of things including losing my balance, manipulating domain information and extortion attemps:

I was a reseller with ICB and have a contract. Without a cancellation period (which as defined in the contract) they wanted to take over the contract, introduce new contract details and probably a new pricing scheme. Around 20 pages of legal stuff and a window of <10 days to "decide"/comply.

I'm done with them (Afilias). I'll never ever spend a dime and advise anyone not doing any business with them.

(But also the old technology backed (which still runs .tm) is far from secure and reliable. At least it supports IPv6 whereas the Afilias infrastructure still is not IPv6 ready…)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kane_(entrepreneur)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kane_\(entrepreneur\))

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, I don't think I would've even considered such an attack...

DNSSEC, HSTS and Certificate Pinning would've made it more difficult to abuse this, but I guess it would've been pretty easy to get valid SSL certificates for all your favourite .io domains.

Let's try to play malicious party here:

Phase A: First set up a simple DNS forwarder playing by the rules and answering requests as we should (as to not get any unwanted attention). Gather usage statistics.

Phase B: Crawl the list of most-used domains to see if there are any valuable targets without HTTPS (port 443 is closed). Alternatively/additionally see if there are API subdomains used by software other than browsers (of which a few won't have annoying features like Cert Pinning - golang's DNS resolver for example afaik doesn't do DNSSEC). Pick some medium to high level targets where the attack might go undetected for at least some time.

Phase C: MitM time! Get certificates for the target domain(s) of your choice and get to work. Start with only a few percent of the requests to not draw too much attention (and to avoid the majority of their traffic coming from a single IP (range) all of a sudden) Obfuscate the attack by acting like a third party app or something simply doing requests for their users.

Congratulations on finding the vulnerability (and thanks for looking for that kinda stuff in the first place).

<comment><USER8> If you control the root DNS servers for .io, you can simply not answer the DNSSEC queries. Many resolvers will fail open.

HSTS requires the site is HTTPS with a valid cert. If you own all .io, you can use LetsEncrypt to get that for free. They now even support Wildcard Certs! :-) That said, you would have to choose your targets carefully and/or load balance your requests to LetsEncrypt. There is a rate limit. There are browser plugins that can tell you if a cert just changed, assuming you have been to that site prior.

Then there is Public Key Pinning. This would be great, but I suspect the number of big companies implementing this are low. I don't have numbers, but you can test your favorite sites in Qualys[1] or using testssl.sh[2] that only depends on openssl and bash.

You could proxy all requests to the real root servers for .io and only become authoritative for the ones you wish to target.

Given the small number of zones, I think a modest server could keep up, or you could balance the load on a bunch of VM's. It may take a while for anyone to notice. I am curious actually, how many fellow geeks have nagios/sensu alerts that would tell them if the root server IP's changed.

All of this said, there are BGP attacks you can do that accomplish the same thing for any TLD and the IP's wouldn't even have to change. Only more advanced monitoring tools that keep an eye on route path might notice, but probably would not alert anyone.

[1] [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/index.html](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/index.html) [2] [https://github.com/drwetter/testssl.sh](https://github.com/drwetter/testssl.sh)

<comment><USER9> LetsEncrypt don't support wildcards _yet_. They will, starting January next year.

<comment><USER8> Ah, I was not aware it would be January. Then for now the targets would have to be specific DNS records.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I read this, but still don't fully understand the implications or impact for .IO TLD services and domain owners.

From the OP's "Impact" section.

> Given the fact that we were able to take over four of the seven > authoritative nameservers for the .io TLD we would be able to > poison/redirect the DNS for all .io domain names registered. Not only that, > but since we have control over a majority of the nameservers it's actually > more likely that clients will randomly select our hijacked nameservers over > any of the legitimate nameservers even before employing tricks like long TTL > responses, etc to further tilt the odds in our favor.

What does this mean? Is the "poisoning" / "redirecting" of traffic for ALL .IO domains possible through this "hack" because of some flaw at the .IO registrar, or at 101domains.com or at Nameservers that .IO registrars are using, or something else?

How can this be mitigated? Or am I over-reacting since I don't fully understand this story?

<comment><USER11> Yes. It does.

Someone noticed that the 4 of the 7 hostnames that were assigned for authoritative names servers for .IO were available for registration. They registered them, and started receiving DNS lookups for .IO hosts from what appears to be actual internet users. Since the user had 4 or the 7, its possible that the majority of DNS lookups for .IO hosts would be sent and answer by the author's systems.

The author could have started replying with malicious lookups. "Oh some-sexy- saas.io? yeah, that's [evil IP]." "oh, billing.otherapp.io? what a surprise that site is _also_ available at the same [evil IP]!"

How could .io sites have avoiding getting spoofed? HTTPS + HSTS would prevent the author from spoofing the DNS of that those sites and sending them to a server over HTTP thus avoiding the certificate errors.

update: I overlooked that sites would also need to leverage Public Key Pinning to be protected, since getting a valid DV cert for a spoofed cite when you control DNS would be likely.

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

<comment><USER12> >HTTPS + HSTS would prevent the author from spoofing the DNS of that those sites and sending them to a server over HTTP thus avoiding the certificate errors.

I'm confused, how would that help? Could the attacker (the author, in this case) not get a valid https certificate for these domains, returning spoofed DNS responses when the CA goes to validate it?

<comment><USER11> Depends, but for DV certificates, most likely. Certificate Transparency could/would help alert the original site if that was the case.

<comment><USER12> yes, but HTTPS + HSTS would not enforce a certain validation level, eg you can't enforce EV certs only in HSTS (as far as I know), so a DV cert would be sufficient

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just to add some color to this: There was an attack last Friday on a few geo TLDs that ended up hijacking a bunch of traffic for a few hours, including .la, .es, and .jp:

[https://news.gandi.net/en/2017/07/report-on- july-7-2017-inci...](https://news.gandi.net/en/2017/07/report-on- july-7-2017-incident/)

<comment><USER14> I'm one of the unlucky few that were affected by this (I own .ch).

One of my site user's reported that the website is inaccessible on Friday. I went to check and observed the DNS changing. Then went to check Route 53 status page[2] in which I learn that this is not specific to my site. The behavior is exactly the same as what is described in the SWITCH report[1]. Luckily that I have HSTS on my site, so the damage is limited (users not getting redirected), and Gandi seems to fixed this quick enough (I was in the middle of commuting back home by the time of the attack.)

[1]: [https://securityblog.switch.ch/2017/07/07/94-ch-li-domain- na...](https://securityblog.switch.ch/2017/07/07/94-ch-li-domain-names- hijacked-and-used-for-drive-by/)

[2]: [http://status.aws.amazon.com/](http://status.aws.amazon.com/) (The blue icon for Amazon Route 53 Domain Registration)

<comment><USER15> We were also affected by this on a major e-commerce site. It was a .se domain. Their post mortem isn't really convincing ( [https://news.gandi.net/en/2017/07/report-on- july-7-2017-inci...](https://news.gandi.net/en/2017/07/report-on- july-7-2017-incident/) ) since they do not state what really happened and how it can be prevented again.

I issued a support ticket to aws today to see what measures can be taken, otherwise we might need to change registrar.

<comment><USER16> There is a more detailed followup today: [https://news.gandi.net/en/2017/07/detailed-incident- report/](https://news.gandi.net/en/2017/07/detailed-incident-report/)

<comment> vertex-four > These credentials were likewise not obtained by a breach of our systems and > we strongly suspect they were obtained from an insecure connection to our > technical partner's web portal (the web platform in question allows access > via http).

This makes no sense - how did the attacker get between gandi.net and their technical partner in order to MITM them? MITMs aren't magic - simply sending an unencrypted password somewhere doesn't result in it becoming public knowledge unless a router or switch in the path is malicious.

<comment><USER17> > This makes no sense - how did the attacker get between gandi.net and their > technical partner in order to MITM them?

On the top of my head, bgp hijacking perhaps?

> MITMs aren't magic

No. But do not trust the network. Ever.

<comment> vertex-four If it's BGP hijacking, there'll be evidence somewhere.

And no, don't trust the network, but "the network isn't trustworthy" is not a diagnosis, only a potential risk factor. "X entity used BGP hijacking to situate their router between me and Y" is a diagnosis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, the real question is: "How much should we freak out about this?"

If you scroll back a few months to Cloudbleed/Cloudflare we sort of collectively decided that because cache data containing sensitive info (passwords, tokens, whatever) might be accessible for your site using Cloudflare that everything should be revoked, force password resets, etc.

Now we have this vuln, which I'll dub "IOgate" because it's the cool thing to name these. We don't know if this has ever happened before, there clearly were not adequate safeguards in place, etc.

Should anyone operating a service using a ".io" TLD consider everything potentially compromised?

<comment><USER19> Well, if it's any consolation.. the domains weren't registered..

<comment><USER18> Per the article, he got them registered and pointing at his own DNS test server and received actual .io resolution requests to it.

<comment><USER20> Yes but [per the article] they weren't registered _before_ he bought them. Obviously somebody could have done this before and stopped, or could control some of the other servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As the article mention, this is a nice example where DNSSEC would had prevented malicious activity for users which has DNSSEC validation enabled. There are also countries like Sweden were almost all ISP has this, so a rather large group of people in the world would likely have noticed if a majority of .io nameservers was responding with unsigned data.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am really super happy that the root domain serving the largest IOT population on the planet wasn't co-opted by the MIRAI bot writers.

That could have been a net killing event.

<comment><USER23> There's an IOT population? I thought it was just a dumb trend everyone hates?

I'm not trying to diss anyone, I just thought the whole "IoT" concept was dead in the water?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Side note: Please don't use such gray and thin fonts. I had to modify the CSS to use black instead of #555 for the text color.

<comment><USER25> I don't mean this pejoratively, but how old are you? I'm just curious as I had no problems with the color / font weight. For my sites I usually use something like #232323 instead of pure black.

<comment><USER26> I'm 25 and had to zoom to read and even then it wasn't comfortable. (not the OP)

<comment><USER25> Ah I see, upping the font-weight to 400 helped when viewing it on my laptop screen. I didn't really have that issue on mobile, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not the first time .io TLD messes things pretty bad. A few months ago they had a couple of name servers poisoning internet with false negatives, that made a few hours very "interesting"

</comment><comment><USER28> NIC.io are a terrible, terrible registrar. I reported an account takeover security vulnerability to them 6 years ago that they only fixed after 4ish years.

</comment><comment><USER29> > After sending the email I immediately received a bounce message indicating > that the firstname.lastname@example.com was not an email address that existed at all

> This was not a strong vote of confidence that someone was going to see this > notice.

Honestly though, this seems like common practice to me.

<comment><USER30> I though ICANN was supposed to be getting serious against fake contact data on domain registrations? The fact that even a TLD's NIC admin info is fake is pretty spectacular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This sounds an awful lot like what happened to the .sr ccTLD on 06/23/17\. Part of my business runs on a .sr and we were down several days.

Any way to look up a history of such an event?

</comment><comment><USER32> Good grief! I've always found using vanity domains for your project/company to be tasteless at best. Now .io is even associated with deportation, dispute of territory, and security screwups. Using an .io domain only serves to demonstrate that you care about pretending to be a 2010-ish startup at the expense of everything else at this point.

</comment><comment><USER33> I had a similar issue with the .IM domain three months ago. One of the four NS for the domain was not responding.

Two of the guys at Cloudflare diagnosed it for me: [https://twitter.com/xxdesmus/status/855858441289572353](https://twitter.com/xxdesmus/status/855858441289572353)

<comment><USER34> One Cofounder of cloudflare, pretty impressed they picked up tweets directly.

<comment><USER35> Many people at Cloudflare (including myself, Matthew, Justin and others) monitor Twitter, HN and other forums carefully and reply quickly to folks.

Personally, I run a script that emails me for every HN comment that mentions Cloudflare and use Tweetdeck to monitor @cloudflare/cloudflare mentions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Not even a "thank you" message from the TLD managers ? That is the most shameful behavior.

</comment><comment><USER37> Wow this is quite shocking. A very nice find, this is all the more concerning considering many high profile startups including financial ones are using .io domains (I'm using one too).

</comment><comment><USER38> Wow! That is one scary vulnerability. Glad we have smart people like this to find such problems before the bad guys do. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER39> While it's definitely an error on the part of the backend registry operator for .io, this is not the major security issue the author describes. He couldn't have hijacked any DNS traffic this way.

I've written in detail about why this is the case at [https://mpounsett.blogspot.ca/2017/07/the-io-error- problem-w...](https://mpounsett.blogspot.ca/2017/07/the-io-error-problem-with- bad-optics.html)

<comment><USER40> Author here, responding here like I did on Twitter. DNS resolver implementations matter here greatly. I received so many DNS queries (without me actually responding to any of them) that I quickly filled up my VPS with gigabytes of data from IP addresses of DNS resolvers across the Internet.

Saying "this is not the major security issue the author describes. He couldn't have hijacked any DNS traffic this way." seems a bit dishonest. You're saying that you have personally vetting all the DNS implementations of various DNS resolvers and have verified all of them take the resolution steps you've described exactly? If this is the case why did I receive so many queries (such as A, AAAA for the NS hostnames - which I assumed/assume was to cached these IP addresses for future resolution of the TLD's IPs). The way dig resolves things is different from how many production resolvers would do so, etc.

I can certainly see that some resolvers may take different steps for resolution which would make them unaffected by this issue (I'd have to think on it some more). A big issue here is of course that I didn't actually attempt to poison a bunch of the DNS resolvers which were hitting my server because I didn't want to affect any actual users. "Proving the point" in this case would've been dangerous and probably illegal as well.

That being said, mapping out how various DNS resolvers would perform their full resolution is an interesting side project and I've added it to my TODO list :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I need like a dumbed-down version of what went wrong here.

</comment><comment><USER42> seems to be a bad idea to get domains from strange small countries just because they look cool.

</comment><comment><USER43> Complicated by the fact that the .io domain has recently become popular for startups

</comment><comment><USER44> That's amazing! Nice find, man!

<comment><USER45> Trying to figure out why you were downvoted. Was it the positivity?

The exclamation marks? The lack of pretending to contribute to the conversation?

<comment><USER46> I downvoted because it doesn't raise any questions or add any information to the discussion.

BTW, neither does commenting about votes ;)

As per [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

"Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

<comment><USER45> I was merely puzzled that my favorite comment was downvoted to the bottom of the thread!

I am sure the author (who appeared in the discussion here) would have appreciated the positive feedback. Are you suggesting it would have been better to contact the author directly?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Who would have thought that email@example.com_ registered in a small overseas territory in the middle of the Indian Ocean might not be entirely reliable?

</comment><comment><USER48> Considering there are a grand total of 2500 people in the BIOT, all of whom are British or American military personnel, it _might_ not be a great idea to route a good chunk of the world's tech traffic through them. The disparity between how important the .io TLD is for the Internet and how few resources must go to running it is pretty appalling.

<comment><USER49> "route"? That's not how DNS works.

<comment><USER45> How does DNS work?

<comment><USER2> when one packet loves another packet very much....</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Journalism Isn't Dying, It's Returning to Its Roots - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/journalism-isnt-dying-its-returning-its-roots/ <comment><USER2> I think the main problem with biased-by-intent news is that has less credibility, and therefore (usually) less utility.

If you must cross-check every statement (assuming the cross-checking process is reliable), why bother?

Instead, just pick a team and ignore everything related to that sphere.

Save your brain cells for processing useful information and designing experiments.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was never really aware of the history of journalism and ethics, but the fact of the matter is articles with blatant falsehoods and bias are not good and should bot be encouraged.</comment>