IOS Maps and China - <AUTHOR> http://anthonydrendel.com/blog/2012/9/24/ios-maps-and-china.html

<comment><USER2> Meanwhile, searching for a Broadway address a few blocks away from the Manhattan Apple Store in SoHo led to directions to Broadway in Brooklyn, NY.

I've used Apple products since 1993 (Centris 610) and even owned a Powerbook G3 trapped on ADB and a G4 Cube. I've put up with all sorts of weirdness from Apple over the years.

The point of technology is to help you do your job better. I saw my future of late meetings, getting lost on my way to meet clients in towns I've never seen, and missing flights during my travels.

I turned around and walked out without a new iPhone 5.

<comment><USER3> A shame, that phone can run the Google Maps webapp pretty well.

I'm getting the feeling that most problems with the new Maps come from it's subpar recommendation/auto-correct engine, which (unsurprisingly) is great in Google maps. It gets thing right if you type exact, complete addresses, but can fail miserably on basic queries.

<comment><USER4> It's difficult to operate the Google Maps website on the small screen of a phone. On the other hand, it works well on an iPad. After I installed iOS 6, I added a shortcut to Google Maps on the desktop. Works great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I zoom in one more step than he did on Google Maps, I see the same POIs as on his Apple map. And the copyright on maps.google.com is... "AutoNavi", the same provider he praises.

I agree that Apple have done a better presentation here by showing more data at a further zoom level. It's the exact opposite of my experience of Apple Maps here in Japan - I have to zoom in to absurd levels just to see train tracks (which should be on par with freeways IMO)

<comment><USER6> (Japan) My wife had updated her iPhone to iOS6 and we were using it to go to the next city over. Not only are the stations, trainlines and street names not listed unless you zoom in right on top of them, there are no traffic signals or intersection names.

The font that they chose for the area names is also incredibly wide, which works well for something like "Brooklyn" but not for a name as long as "KakamigaharaHonmachi," which is pretty standard for a Japanese town.

Everyone I've talked to in Japan who has upgraded regrets it.

<comment><USER7> > _Everyone I've talked to in Japan who has upgraded regrets it._

... and yesterday I saw a rather long prime-time Japanese TV news piece about how screwed up Apple's iOS6 maps are, where the reporter was travelling around to various places in Tokyo and showing how crazily Apple maps misrepresented them...

So the story's clearly made the jump from something techies know about to general news, just when all the resellers are trying hard to get people excited about the iphone 5...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I zoomed in on the area around the author's location and I'm seeing a fair amount of detail surfacing, as well as most of the same locations that are visible on the iOS 6 map. Is it possible that Apple is showing more detail farther away whereas Google requires a tighter zoom?

<http://goo.gl/maps/ZQSzI>

<comment><USER9> ... and I can't even find that area in Apple Maps. I zoom in moderately far, and the whole map seems empty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of more interest to me would be whether the apple maps are being deliberately offset like the google ones are. You can't accurately use GPS with google maps in China because the map tiles are shifted by some arbitrary amount.

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/m...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/maps/zVmRao1Im3w)

You can see it very clearly if you visit the Hong Kong/Shenzhen border on google maps and toggle between map & satellite, the border is a complete mess with large parts of the Mainland side appearing on the Hong Kong side.

I've always assumed this was a deliberate thing by the Chinese government (one way or another), I wonder if apple have got away without such treatment?

<comment><USER11> It is apparently required by the Chinese government, see comment thread here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4548840>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it just me, or do the two examples look pretty similar? Apple Maps shows a few more businesses, but the street data look more or less equivalent.

Find me some examples where Apple Maps is complete and detailed and Google Maps has nothing.

<comment><USER3> Not that exaggerated, but here you go (Porto Alegre, Brazil): <http://cl.ly/image/300n11462G0U>

Bonus: if you look closely at the bottom, iOS Maps shows a clear bifurcation while Google just merges it into a blob.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I noticed this over the summer when I was in Beijing/Shanghai with the iOS 6 beta. As soon as I got on the Chinese cell network, the maps suddenly changed to the AutoNavi maps, which although they turned out to be significantly more useful, they weren't vector-based maps and you couldn't rotate them like Apple maps. I also noticed a few other things like I no longer had access maps of any other country and after comparing the maps to the Google Maps in China on my locked iOS 5 phone, the AutoNavi maps were SIGNIFICANTLY more useful (and even saved me when I was lost one time).

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting point but I'd like to see some feedback from real Chinese user(s). (although I am Chinese, I am not currently physically in China so cannot test it out).

The major difference between the two maps is that the Apple one has more POIs (and it looks even more cluttered because it contains Chinese characters). As noted by beering, the base map are essentially the same in this particular example. IOS6 maps are criticized for missing spatial features in the base map (i.e., road network, waterbodies, .etc), which largely due to the use of OSM instead of commercial database.

I am not seeing a counter example here. The comparison is even based on different map range (note the IOS6 map covers a larger region than the google map example).

What I've heard is that Google maps works really bad in some rural part of Europe, e.g., South France. Maybe look for some examples there.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes, China is going to pass the US as the world's largest smartphone market. And if Apple's maps genuinely are better than Google's in China (something people are arguing about in this thread), that's to their credit.

That being said, it is important to put this in perspective. While the overall Chinese smartphone market will soon be larger than the US smartphone market, the portion currently addressable by Apple (people who will buy a smartphone that costs 450 USD and up and won't support 3G on the largest carrier) is much, much smaller. Improved maps can't be a significant part of a plan to address this because they have no impact on the bigger issues.

Show me a cheap iPhone with TD-SCDMA and I'll agree that Apple is serious about the Chinese market. Until then...

<comment><USER16> I am a Hong Kong native and lived in Beijing, and traveled for work in Shenzhen and Shanghai extensively. I agree that the population that can afford an iphone in China is still a small portion. However, I believe a cheaper iPhone with TD-SCDMA may not be a viable solution for Apple to the Chinese market for two reasons.

a) The amount of craze and worship to Apple products in key cities surpasses any reasonable level. People are willing to pay, a mark up of 58% - 98% markup in the grey market in Shenzhen. In fact, there are businesses in Hong Kong that built around hiring cheap labor to line up in Apple Store and carrying the iPhones across the border for a quick turnaround of arbitraging prices. [1]

 _It took little more than five hours for the first Apple iPhone 5s to go on sale in China after being smuggled across the border from Hong Kong, but supplies were short and prices high._

 _For anyone able to secure one, the new phone cost HK$5,588 ($720), or the equivalent of around 4,545 yuan, at the Hong Kong Apple store, while they were selling for between 7,500 yuan [$1140] and 9,000 yuan [$1427] in the litter- strewn building in Shenzhen where fake and smuggled phones are often hawked._ [2]

b) It is always been Apple's strategy to price high and capture a customer segment with high willingness to pay. The app store revenue has significantly higher share of revenue for fewer app downloads versus android. "..the App Store leads with a revenue share of 71% (compared to 29% for Android) even though total downloads through Google Play accounts for 35% of the total, versus 28% for iOS. * [3]

[1] [http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently- apple/2012/09/smuggled...](http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently- apple/2012/09/smuggled-iphones-reach-mainland-china-more.html)

[2] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/iphone-5-in- china_n...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/iphone-5-in- china_n_1902833.html?utm_hp_ref=technology)

[3] [http://www.imore.com/ios-app-store-generates-double- google-p...](http://www.imore.com/ios-app-store-generates-double-google-plays- revenue-app-downloads)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there any difference between those two maps? It seems that all Apple's POIs are on Google Maps, except with bigger font and symbols. Also, the Apple Maps screenshot shows a maps that is more zoomed in.

It also looks like Apple shows the local translations of the roads and POIs names - contrary to Google Maps, but this difference could be from the language preference of the app or OS?

Seriously, who would make a judgment based on those mere screenshots?

I wish <http://41latitude.com> was back online. It had the best maps comparisons every published, but Justin O'Beirne closed it when he joined Apple's Maps team few years ago.

</comment><comment><USER18> A little over a decade ago I was working for a company that needed map data for Beijing to produce some wall maps. We quickly found out that, at least with the dozen or so geospatial data providers we contacted at the time, the data we wanted was simply not available in the West (if it even existed at all)! The rumor in the industry was that the Chinese government didn't want accurate map data to leave the country for fear that it would be used for military planning purposes by invading powers.

All was almost a disaster until a co-worker returned from a year in Beijing and brought a small stack of locally produced paper maps of the city back with him, with careful notes where they were "not accurate". We kept 4 or 5 interns busy for a summer converting the various paper maps into digital vector data we were able to use with our GIS systems.

So the fact that less than a generation later, people are complaining that the iOS maps lack sufficient detail of the countryside or whatever is almost mindboggling to me.

On a similar note, recent travels in Seoul have also reminded me how bad our GPS systems are no matter the provider. The average GPS most people use to get around with has astonishing levels of detail[1] by anyone's standards. Would that google maps had that level of detail even in just big cities I'd be amazed.

[1] - Some sample screenshots <http://www.navigadget.com/index.php/tag/inavi> and yes, they do really look that good.

 _edit_ this is pretty good <http://map.baidu.com/>

</comment><comment><USER19> For most of the prefecture level cities I've searched for I find nothing.

Kunming, Maoming, Sanya, Zhanjiang, Nanning, Nanchang, ...

It's only the big international cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzou, Shenzhen, that appear.

<comment><USER20> I think if you view that data from outside China, it's not visible. That is, the details show up only while searching from within China.

<comment><USER21> And vice versa. If you're in China, you only get the most basic details for other countries - my hometown Oldham in the UK (population ~100,000) doesn't appear at all; nearby Rochdale is there but has no roads. And there are no satellite maps at all for anywhere outside China (except Taiwan and other places claimed by the PRC).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm in China right now, and yes Google Maps is shit, at least in China. The AutoNav Maps iOS 6 utilizes is quite a bit better.

That been said, in China the one map you have to beat is Baidu, and I see Apple still have a long way to go.

<comment><USER23> Baidu Map is not shit only if you download and store 10G+ map data on your phone

<comment><USER22> The same goes for every navigation apps in China, the 3G speed and coverage is just not there yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sorry can you fix the title to "iOS" not "IOS" please? They paid a lot of money to Cisco, might as well distinguish and get some branding value!

<comment><USER25> He can't, because of HN's stupid auto-capitalization.

But fortunately, there's a hack: change it to " iOS ..." (an space at the beginning)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If the places shown on the map are actually in those locations, then yes, I am very impressed.

</comment><comment><USER27> >"I'm talking about those of us who live in China (you know, the place with 1.3+ billion people and the second-largest economy in the world)."

This claim is preposterous. There are 1.241 billion in India and Hindi is not even supported in the ios6.

<http://i.cubeupload.com/kTSpGM.jpg>

As others have pointed out, the granularity on Google Maps is not one bit poorer.

<http://i.cubeupload.com/3Dj8kk.jpg>

Google seems to be using AutoNavi as well, for this region.

<http://i.cubeupload.com/EqvYMX.jpg>

I don't know what your're talking about.

Make an effort to be elaborate.

As the late Richard Holbrooke used to say: "Know something about something. Don't just present your wonderful self to the world. Constantly amass knowledge and offer it around."

<comment><USER28>
      > There are 1.241 billion in India and
      > Hindi is not even supported in the ios6.

Only one third of the people of India speak Hindi. That's still 400 million people, but India's highly multilingual environment makes localization choices more complicated.</comment></comment>


Tuning Java Servers (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/articles/Tuning-Java-Servers

<comment><USER2> Re: GC tuning, one investment bank simply disabled the GC during the trading day: purchasing massive amounts of RAM is cheap, having the GC non- deterministically kick in when you're making a decision or executing a trade is expensive. (Yes, Java isn't the most performant language but lots of developers know it and it's great for testing algos quickly)

<comment><USER3> I assume that was a custom VM. As far as I know, there is no way to disable GC in the official Oracle JVM.

<comment><USER4> Can you do this with real-time Java? I understand that it allows you to do all your memory allocation first, then switch into real-time mode with no GC. [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/nilsen- realt...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/nilsen-realtime- pt1-2264405.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Once BlackBerry Focused, a Campus Widens Its View - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/technology/a-canadian-campus-focused-on-tech-and-enterprise.html?ref=global&_r=0

<comment><USER2> The headline is bogus; UW was never "BlackBerry Focused." If anything, the Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering programs sent a disproportionate number of graduates to Microsoft, IBM, and (eventually) Google through the '90's and early 2000s. BlackBerry looms large because of proximity, but its very misleading. I can't help but think that the New York Times would've noticed this if they'd looked at the recruiting numbers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, that's a terrible title, NYT.

I expected a report from RIM (now Blackberry)'s campus talking about how they're focusing on something. Definitely not a report on the University of Waterloo.

Reminds me of the #nytbooks hashtag: [http://www.poynter.org/latest- news/mediawire/193943/on-twitt...](http://www.poynter.org/latest- news/mediawire/193943/on-twitter-book-titles-rewritten-as-new-york-times- headlines/)</comment>


Google debuts Dart, a JavaScript alternative - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20117924-264/google-debuts-dart-a-javascript-alternative/

<comment><USER2> Dart. JavaScript, for Java pussies. The people who wrote Closure don't know enough about JavaScript to be in a position to criticize or replace it.</comment>


Show HN: Magnetissimo – Self-hosted torrent search engine written in Elixir - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sergiotapia/magnetissimo?utm=hn <comment><USER2> I'll be trying this out, it could work well with Cloud Torrent. I've largely moved away from Torrents tho and switched to using NZB's and apps that automatically download tv shows and films[0]

Here is my stack:

1\. NZB downloader - NZBGet - [http://nzbget.net/](http://nzbget.net/)

2\. TV Shows - Sonarr - [https://sonarr.tv/](https://sonarr.tv/)

3\. Films - CouchPotato - [https://couchpota.to/](https://couchpota.to/)

4\. NZB Search - NZBHydra - [https://github.com/theotherp/nzbhydra](https://github.com/theotherp/nzbhydra) (I contribute to this project)

5\. Plex - [https://www.plex.tv/](https://www.plex.tv/)

Add Torrent support:

6\. Client - rtorrent - [https://rakshasa.github.io/rtorrent/](https://rakshasa.github.io/rtorrent/)

7\. Web Interface - ruTorrent (warning: PHP) - [https://github.com/Novik/ruTorrent](https://github.com/Novik/ruTorrent)

8\. Proxy private trackers to XML-RPC - Jackett - [https://github.com/Jackett/Jackett](https://github.com/Jackett/Jackett)

9\. Cloud Torrent - web interface - [https://github.com/jpillora/cloud- torrent](https://github.com/jpillora/cloud-torrent)

Additional:

10\. Plex stats, analytics and user management - PlexPy - [https://github.com/JonnyWong16/plexpy](https://github.com/JonnyWong16/plexpy)

11\. Plex request - allow users to request content - [https://github.com/ngovil21/PlexRequestChannel.bundle](https://github.com/ngovil21/PlexRequestChannel.bundle)

Hardware is a pair of HP Proliant Gen8 microservers, Ubuntu 14, Docker, nginx and LetsEncrypt. There is no real easy way to set this all up, you have to do each part of the stack yourself (a docker-compose file would go a long way to simplifying it)

[0] I spend over $200 a month on content subscriptions so I don't feel bad about utilizing the conveniance of NZB downloads + Plex

<comment><USER3> I do the same, very similar setup actually, but I still wind up using torrents when someone wants older stuff.

Unfortunately you get mixed results in terms of how things are labeled on public trackers and I haven't had a private tracker account since what.cd died.

I'll have to try out a few of these torrent search tools and see how it works out, but most private trackers didn't want to just take cash and seemed to want you to jump through hoops instead, so unless I can buy accounts via other means I'll probably just stick to public.

<comment><USER4> > I'll have to try out a few of these torrent search tools and see how it > works out, but most private trackers didn't want to just take cash and > seemed to want you to jump through hoops instead, so unless I can buy > accounts via other means I'll probably just stick to public.

I think most private trackers are trying to avoid developing a reputation like that of IPTorrents [1], which is notorious for allowing people to "donate" for accounts.

Most private trackers also explicitly forbid members from selling invites for money, and, more recently, giving them to strangers.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/4xta11/so_lets_ta...](https://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/4xta11/so_lets_talk_about_iptorrents/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, looks like IPT and ultrahdclub might be worth a purchase though.

<comment><USER5> That is until they disable your account, and offer to enable it for another $30. Visit /r/trackers and there's probably a thread about IPT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hope you guys like this and use it! If it's hard to use, tell me. My goal is to make this simple to run anywhere. Part of that will be to use Distillery to create compiled executables.

I rewrote this after an initial version that used Redis as a queue to process. Asking end users to install Redis was a step too far I think, so I stepped back and thought about how to solve this without external dependencies.

I ended up with a simple Elixir and Erlang queue implementation. It works much simpler, just as fast, and no freaky deps. GenServer starts up a worker for each crawler, and it schedules work by itself. It's really strange to use a language so complete, it kind of feels like cheating. Programming in easy- mode.

Pull requests very welcome to the crawler folder, it's super easy to write a crawler for your favorite site!

[https://github.com/sergiotapia/magnetissimo/tree/master/lib/...](https://github.com/sergiotapia/magnetissimo/tree/master/lib/crawler)

<comment><USER6> you could make it a nerves project too, maybe after you get rid of some of those database dependencies.

It'll make you a ~100Mb linux distro that will boot straight into your app in ~10 seconds on a raspberri pi.

[http://nerves-project.org/](http://nerves-project.org/)

<comment><USER7> very useful project, thanks for sharing this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You should look for sitemaps. They are often listed in robots.txt. Will save you lots of time!

These sites have sitemaps: [http://torrentproject.se/robots.txt](http://torrentproject.se/robots.txt) [https://www.torrentdownloads.me/robots.txt](https://www.torrentdownloads.me/robots.txt) [https://thepiratebay.org/robots.txt](https://thepiratebay.org/robots.txt) [http://goldtorrents.com/robots.txt](http://goldtorrents.com/robots.txt) [https://bitsnoop.com/robots.txt](https://bitsnoop.com/robots.txt)

Enough with the hype: "high performance" What?? Your program is not concurrent: you have one process per website and go through URLs one at a time. You don't even use Bloom filters.

</comment><comment><USER9> After many years, Bittorrent doesn't cease to amaze me. Such a fantastic technology. Sad, though, that it is primarily known for illegitimate uses. This gives it a bad reputation and makes it hard to promote Bittorrent for more worthwhile applications. For instance, Bittorrent would be a perfect platform for sharing scientific data but when I suggest that to colleagues, they don't take it seriously because Bittorrent is perceived to be that tool for downloading pirated movies. I wonder how this barrier for adoption in academia could be overcome. Perhaps, with a separate network that is targeted at academic uses (think alt-coins). Call this network ResearchTorrent and researchers could use the technology without ever having to make contact with the whole ecosystem around pirated material. Universities could support this network without risking bad PR and getting in conflict with the music/film industry.

<comment><USER10> I work on a BitTorrent tracker on the side[0] that's used for deploying software at a few companies, but has the unique feature of a middleware layer. Right now, there are two different middleware that require a signature of the infohash (files being shared) before allowing content to be shared. One is for JWTs[1] and upstreamed in the project and the other is for a blockchain and hasn't been upstreamed yet. Using features like this, they can run their tracker on the public internet and not worry about people sharing illegal content. I had never considered it, but this sounds like a great use case for academia, too.

[0]: [https://chihaya.io](https://chihaya.io)

[1]: [https://jwt.io](https://jwt.io)

<comment><USER9> Very interesting. Does that mean that there would have to be a central authority that has to sign new torrents? For the present purpose that may not be ideal because this system wouldn't be decentralized, and one institution (or a small set of institutions) would have all control. Ideally, there would be some consensus mechanism that determines which torrents are bad and shouldn't be distributed. Also, what happens when the key for singing torrents is stolen? In the case of a company using such a system, that situation can be handled but in a more decentralized system with an emphasis on long-term storage the loss of a key may be a bigger problem.

<comment><USER10> >Does that mean that there would have to be a central authority that has to sign new torrents?

In this scenario, the source of truth is the location where your users are acquiring their .torrent files.

>For the present purpose that may not be ideal because this system wouldn't be decentralized, and one institution (or a small set of institutions) would have all control. Ideally, there would be some consensus mechanism that determines which torrents are bad and shouldn't be distributed.

Trackers are the centralized alternative to using the Mainline BitTorrent DHT. The performance advantage significant enough they're still in common use after the ubiquity of DHT support in client software. You could build a tracker that serves peer data that it has cached from crawling the DHT, which is an idea I don't think has been done yet. As for a consensus mechanism, that should probably be done out of band and client software could be configured to query it and react appropriately.

>Also, what happens when the key for singing torrents is stolen? In the case of a company using such a system, that situation can be handled but in a more decentralized system with an emphasis on long-term storage the loss of a key may be a bigger problem.

With the JWT system, you can rotate keys, but it will break clients announcing with the old key. Users would have to manually update all their torrents to participate in the swarm again. This is a shame, but there is no official signing scheme in BitTorrent. If the JWT system as chihaya has implemented gathered traction, it could be updated such that clients could actually fetch JWTs regularly from an auth endpoint and then it'd be possible to handle rotation the same way as most OIDC implementations.

<comment><USER9> I like the idea of a tracker crawling the DHT. Research institutions could sign their torrents with their private keys and the tracker only indexes those signed with approved keys. Institutions register their public keys with the tracker and when an institution loses their keys, only their torrents are affected. Anyone can run such a tracker and there is no central authority. Nice. Is it possible to store signatures in torrent metadata?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks really interesting, I love goal 1: no JavaScript - YES! Thank you! And elixir is a very exciting language, especially to an ops person where when I read elixir code it actually makes sense to me and seems elegant. Ignoring my technical praise the objective of the product is solid, this is something I've been interested in for a while, I have a solution for usenet but not so much for torrents.

<comment><USER12> Absolutetly. +1 for the "no javascript" goal.

<comment><USER11> I'm so sick of 'designers' thinking they're programmers and smashing out some NodeJS or JavaScript heavy crap with no regards to performance or security. Elixir seems to attract some smart minds that think 'big picture' \- obviously I'm generalising here and I'm not stating that this particular project is brilliant or anything but it is a trend I've observed.

<comment><USER13> NodeJS is a dependency in the usage instructions for Debian 7 and CentOS.

<comment><USER14> Ew, what for?

<comment><USER15> The creators of Phoenix didn't want to write their own code to manage Javascript and CSS (e.g. rewriting the Rails "asset pipeline" in Elixir), so they just integrated Brunch [1], which is built on Node.js and NPM. I think this was an excellent decision. (Node.js is only needed during development and deployment of your assets. It is not used in production.)

[1] [http://brunch.io](http://brunch.io)

<comment><USER16> That is still pretty awful imo - think quite a few of the people considering Elixir and Phoenix are doing so explicitly to get away from having to Node.js close to their computers in the first place.

<comment><USER17> I don't see the problem. Why not use Javascript toolkits to package, and develop in Javascript?

I can understand languages not self-hosting their compilers, but I'd at least like it to self-host its toolkits---bundlers, packers, preprocessors, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brian-armstrong When someone posts about a GPL violation, people are quick to decry it, and rightly so. But this repo demonstrates, right in the first image, this tool being used to violate copyright, and we applaud that. Why do we have this double standard?

<comment><USER18> They're the exact opposite from my ethic point of view.

Gpl violation is a violation where the person didn't share information.

Torrentting 'illegally' is the act of sharing information.

If you're all for sharing an free flow of information.. I don't see how these two conflict I my ethical point of view.

<comment><USER19> In both scenarios the person's property is being stolen.

Their property might be in the form of information, sure.

But one product being more widely distributed does not make any ethical difference. The fundamental is that the information/property has been stolen in both cases.

<comment><USER20> Copyright infringement has as much in common with stealing as it does with sharing. Both of them are ideological terms to paint the action in a certain light and neither give a complete picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks like a useful tool, but I kinda wish this kind of programs had a CLI. It seems to be doing one main thing (searching), and it could be super useful to be able to pipe the results to a downloading program. Some programs can benefit vastly from a GUI, this... I'm just not sure what's the point. Kudos to the developer nevertheless for the tool itself and for the choice to go with Elixir.

<comment><USER22> Sounds like you found yourself a wee evening task - hack a command line interface for this tool :D

(edit: only messing - I was just thinking that if I wanted to learn Elixir hacking on some existing project is a good way)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I might have to start an anonymous GitHub account so that I can contribute to this. It would be fantastic if there was a way to start a download directly from the web UI.

Many torrent clients can monitor an RSS feed, so that would probably be the best solution. I would add the ability to create a user account, and each user could set up a few RSS feeds. In my case, I would like to have one RSS feed with the label "Movies", and one for "TV Shows". Then the main search page would have buttons to add the magnet link to either RSS feed.

I already use [http://showrss.info](http://showrss.info), which provides an RSS feed for all of my favorite shows. So it would be great to manage my own RSS feed for movies and specific episodes.

<comment><USER23> > It would be fantastic if there was a way to start a download directly from > the web UI.

There are browser addons that can send magnets and torrents straight to the remote APIs of torrent clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can anyone suggest a good torrent tracker suitable to run a torrent site? Opentracker [0] seems to be abandoned and the author doesn't reply.

[0] [http://erdgeist.org/arts/software/opentracker/](http://erdgeist.org/arts/software/opentracker/)

<comment><USER23> opentracker is what is used by the high-throughput trackers. the protocol is fairly simple and doesn't change a lot and the implementation is fairly minimal, so they don't need to update the codebase often, it does it's job, it's mature.

for smaller sites there are more specialized trackers that allow more control, e.g. chihaya and gazelle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Has anyone hosted this somewhere yet? I was hoping I could just run it locally but you have to crawl all those sites every time, and it's not concurrent...

<comment><USER26> > leveraging Elixir's GenServer and Erlang's BEAM VM.

> it's not concurrent

(。´・ω・)?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's concurrent in that multiple crawlers run at the same time. But I do not concurrently crawl single websites. An initial version had that, and Magnetissimo easily crawled 600 torrents every page 3 seconds (not hyperbole). It just pounded websites and I didn't want that. It was bad karma.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Are there other programs that offer this same function?

<comment><USER28> Not a self-hosted program. But, Skytorrents [1] was featured on HN recently [2].

[1] [https://www.skytorrents.in/](https://www.skytorrents.in/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629)

<comment><USER29> Another "inspirational" list thanks to the US government, from a HN comment[1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13237667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13237667)

[2] [https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2016-Out-of-Cycle- Revie...](https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2016-Out-of-Cycle-Review- Notorious-Markets.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> very useful tool</comment>


Experiments Show How Neanderthals Made the First Glue - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/experiments-show-how-neanderthals-made-first-glue-180964718/?no-ist <comment><USER2> Somewhat related household tip:

When something wooden cracks or breaks and needs gluing, but you don't have any wood glue at home, you don't need to buy any. Just dissolve a sheet of gelatine (which you do have, no? :) in a bit of water and warm that in a water bath for five minutes. Use a brush to apply some of that to both glue sides and press it firmly together. As an added bonus, these glue joints become soft at ~50-60 °C, so can be fixed up later again. Structurally, it's pretty much as strong as any wood glue.

<comment><USER3> Hide glues are great in low-humidity environments but can loosen in high humidity. They're useful for fixing musical instruments, for example, because hide glue joints are reversible and repairable. Hide glued joints will release easily with the application of heat and steam. I was surprised to find that most older musical instruments have been repaired to a greater/lesser degree thanks to the use of hide glue.

Bow makers (as in "bows and arrows") commonly used hide glues in regions of low humidity, but a Turkish bow composed of tendon, bone, sinew, wood, horn and hide glue likely will fail to function properly in a rainy-weather locale.

Animal glue (includes hide glue as a subtopic):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_glue#Reemergence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_glue#Reemergence)

The Mongolian bow:

[http://www.coldsiberia.org/monbow.htm](http://www.coldsiberia.org/monbow.htm)

The Modern Reproduction of a Mongol Era Bow based on historical facts and ancient technology research:

[https://exarc.net/issue-2017-2/at/modern-reproduction- mongol...](https://exarc.net/issue-2017-2/at/modern-reproduction-mongol-era- bow-based-historical-facts-and-ancient-technology-research)

Here's a fellow who tried both a modern glue and hide glue in making a bow:

A Note on Indian Bow Making or the Secrets of Sinew Revealed

[http://www.primitiveways.com/secrets_of_sinew.html](http://www.primitiveways.com/secrets_of_sinew.html)</comment></comment>


Effect of High-Dose Vitamin D on Volumetric Bone Density and Bone Strength - <AUTHOR> https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2748796 <comment><USER2> I thought you needed both vitamin D and vitamin K2 - D to mobilize the calcium and K2 to put it into the right place.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5613455/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5613455/)

<comment><USER3> In my mind that's what makes this kind of a garbage study.

<comment><USER4> Alongside focus on just osteoporosis, lack of control for calcium levels (other than blind supplementing with low dietary intake), phosphate levels.

Some people may be responding poorly to the supplement, especially at high doses and low calcium. Direct blood test for status would help.

<comment><USER5> CAC tests are a good indication if D3+K2+mag is mobilizing calcium. That is of course if your current CAC score is above 0 which it should not be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To preface here, what I'm to share goes beyond what's in the article. That said, I worked for years in a clinical "bone lab" (and at a notable university hospital with respect to this area of research) investigating bone wasting diseases; namely, idiopathic hypercalciuria, and osteopenia & osteoporosis.

Not say that lends me too much authority on the matter, but many of the biological effects of D3 are pretty poorly understood, still. Simplifying a bit, this can be chalked up to the fact that it's roles in molecular networks across the systems are myriad, and of these, many of its (downstream) effects seem -- and, if not, are -- contradictory. (To the initial point, in it's bioactive form, it's classified as a hormone.)

At high dosages, typically what's found it many OTC supplements (5-10K IUs vs 500 IU daily allowance), there is evidence that it facilitates significant bone resorption.

So not only does it not strengthen bones, D3 actively makes it more brittle. Typically, this is linked to inadequate calcium & phosphate minerals to match the excess D3 (and these minerals in excess introduce additional problems of their own).

I didn't cite literature here but it is readily available & abundant (But I can pull some if anyone would like). And, within it, there is a glaring lack of consensus. And hence, why my language is couched in so many conditionals.

<comment><USER7> One of the big asterisks with most D3 bone density studies(and is applicable to this one) is that they are studying older adults specifically, vs, say, athletes. There are bodybuilders, for example, who swear by high-dose D3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In other words, a lack of Vitamin D reduces bone strength but getting more than necessary doesn't increase bone strength any further.

Makes sense. This is often how the body works. You should get enough of <nutrient> but having more than needed doesn't turn you into a superhero (but it can be poisonous).

</comment><comment><USER9> Why are there so many studies looking at vitamin D and bone health? Vitamin D levels affect expression of over 400 genes in the human body, make a difference in cancer survival and are strongly inversely correlated with all cause mortality ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4103214/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4103214/) [https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/66349/depression/v...](https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/66349/depression/vitamin- d-deficiency-and-psychiatric-illness) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6201256/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6201256/)). Does the lay person really only associate vitamin D with bones?

<comment><USER10> Time to start taking vitamin D

<comment><USER11> You would probably benefit more from being out in the sun than from taking vitamin D supplements.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, and possibly die of malignant melanoma. At the same time, no sun exposure is also a risk of melanoma - not sure if due to vitamin D or more possibly - due to the hormetic effect of mild skin DNA damage.

<comment><USER11> A little daily sun exposure won't significantly increase your risk of melanoma (unless you have a rare genetic disorder).

<comment><USER12> True, but you get enough vitamin D - especially not during the winter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Being a dialysis patient, I have to deal with a lot of the issues of my kidneys not functioning. There is a complex interplay of vitamin D, PTH (from parathroid), phosphorus, calcium levels and bone loss. So I have to take vitamin D, calcitriol and phosphrous binder and dietary restrictions to balance it all. Going too far one way or the other is not good. Every month I get blood tests for all these things and my doses adjusted. Vitamin D is the least of my concern in this process.

<comment><USER14> Dialysis sucks. It takes away so many of life's little pleasures. My best to you, brave person.

<comment><USER13> The kind of treatment I'm having isn't so bad. Its just the time it sucks up plus the inconvenience of travel. I haven't gone on an out of town vacation is ages because of all the equipment I have to drag along. The best I can pull of is weekend trips and stay-cations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun- exposure...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure- skin-cancer-science)

One of my favorite articles. Vitamin D supplementation has a very poor track record of doing anything positive. It's very likely that most of the studies attributing benefits to vitamin D and correlations between serum vitamin D and health are because it is a surrogate marker for getting sunlight, which may be the real health improver. When we supplement with D in properly controlled studies, the health benefits disappear.

</comment><comment><USER16> To those who only read the HackerNews title and not the title of the actual article, it does not say that Vitamin D does not strengthen bones, but rather higher does don't seem to strengthen more than lower doses, not compared to not taking any at all as one would probably interpret from the HackerNews title.

<comment><USER17> I don't think "compared to not taking any at all" is an accurate summary here. Even if you never touch a Vitamin D supplement, many people are already getting an amount comparable to the baseline used in this study from a typical diet, or from sun exposure.

<comment><USER18> Except, say, for 6-9 months every year if you're vegan and living in cold climates...

<comment><USER17> 2/3 of Americans get the RDA of Vitamin D. Picking a specific outlier case for your control group wouldn't make a lot of sense for a scientific study (not to mention, as others have pointed out in this thread, would be difficult or unethical.) If you are a vegan living in a low-sunlight location, look into supplementation.

<comment><USER18> So you're saying 1/3 of Americans don't get the RDA of Vitamin D, yet calling 33% of cases "an outlier"

I'm not vegan and I actually take Vitamin D3 supplements, but wanted to point out the flaw in assuming that everyone is in the same bucket as me.

<comment><USER17> I'm saying that probably a very tiny percentage of Americans get 0 IU. Which makes 0 IU a very poor choice of a baseline. Since you need some concrete amount to use for your control group, what would you propose using?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > hree-year, double-blind, randomized clinical trial conducted in a single > center in Calgary, Canada, from August 2013 to December 2017 ...

Generally speaking, interesting to consider that Calgary is a fairly northern city and they say more northern people get less natural VitaminD from sun exposure... So even in a generally vitaminD short populace the results are showing no stronger of bones. I say all this iirc, not from specific scientific sources...

</comment><comment><USER20> D3 is converted to 1,25(OH)2-D3 which is the active form. The transformation is limited by 1α(OH)-ase which in turn is regulated by levels of calcium and PTH and degraded by renal 24-OH-ase, which previous work has shown is upregulated by high 1,25(OH)2-D3, _and_ 25(OH)D (formed in the liver from the oral cholecalciferol), thereby providing a brake on the system. It has also been shown that the upregulation of 24(OH)ase can be enough to actually decrease 1,25(OH)2-D3 levels, thereby resulting in osteoclastic activity. PTH is also suppressed by high 1.25(OH)2-D3.

tl;dr there are homeostatic mechanisms in place in calcium metabolism that result in a "counterintuitive" reduction in the active metabolite with supraphysiologic supplementation. Also, this is actually in line with prior work, though the authors don't mention any of it until the discussion at the end, and then only two papers. In about 5 minutes of searching, I found papers going back to 1995 suggesting the same thing.

<comment><USER21> It isn't counterintuitive. Too much calcium (especially in the absence of mangesium) hurts your bones (and many other things)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have osteomalacia, and I have suffered 4 bone fractures in the last 4 years, two spontaneously: one during my sleep, and one while twisting in my car to pick up something from the passenger seat.

I take Vitamin D, Calcium, and alendronate (Fosamax), and when the sun is out, I go out for a while without sunscreen.

My last DXA (2.8 years ago) had a Z-score of -2. I'm only in my 40's, so I don't have a T-score.

I don't really care about the validity of this study. I just know I have to take Vitamin D and Calcium supplements regularly, and Magnesium less often, but regularly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Folks on reddit we're saying this isn't a useful study because they're not considering the roles of vit K and magnesium.

I mean no one really expects vitamin d by itself to improve bone density. It's but one step in the process.

</comment><comment><USER23> The results confuse me. Taking 4000 or 10,000 IU results in _lower_ bone mineral density than 400. Is lower BMD better? Otherwise it sounds like vitamin D is actually bad for you.

<comment><USER24> The study is saying that too much MIGHT be bad for you. 400IUs was the control (not 0). Some vitamins have adverse effects in high doses. Vitamin D might be one of them, but the study just posed the question, it didn't conclude that that was the case. It would take more studies to confirm that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A larger, longitudinal study would be awesome for establishing other Vitamin D claims (in particular, reduced MS incidence and reduced cancer incidences)

</comment><comment><USER26> As with all Vitamin D studies, this one should discuss or acknowledge the differences in intake requirements for people of different ethnic groups. It doesn't, which means that for some of us, the findings balance somewhere between useless and dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER27> Magnesium is also a part of this!

</comment><comment><USER28> So high doses reduce mineral density but have no effect on strength? How is that possible? Is strength not a function of density?

<comment><USER29> Here are two possibilities:

1) It probably easier to measure density than strength. Additional measurement noise could mean the strength difference is not statistically significant while the density difference is.

2) The relationship between density and strength is probably not a simple 1:1 linear function. For example a 10% bone mass reduction may only result in a 1% strength reduction. Therefore one many be statistically significant while the other is.

Likely is is a combination of factors like this. Things are rarely simple in the lab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Isn't that a pretty narrow age group?

"mean [SD] age, 62.2 [4.2] years"

<comment><USER31> It's actually good for the purposes of the study, as the highest risk populations for decreased bone mineral density are elderly populations. We know from multiple studies that women are at highest risk due to decreasing estrogen levels post-menopause, and around peak risk around age 65 (hence why it's recommended to get osteoporosis screening done at age 65). Men aren't quite as susceptible as our testosterone levels are relatively stable, and maybe including them isn't the best of ideas. However, proportion of gender is nearly equal in all treatment arms of the study, so it shouldn't skew the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I thought calcium had a bigger impact on bone density than Vitamin D?

<comment><USER32> Generally the greatest way to increase bone density is to lift "heavy" weights. Compared to that any other solution pales in comparison but doctors never seem to prescribe that.

<comment><USER19> Many things in the weight lifting world revolve around 3 things:

1\. Stimulus: ie lifting heavy, nutrients to support hormonal response

2\. Materials: ie Calcium / minerals

3\. Rest: ie Sleep, recovery time etc.

I would expect any isolated intervention to find lackluster results despite considerable results in conjunction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Headline is imprecise. The study is saying that higher doses of vit D do not strengthen bone more than lower doses, not that they don't strengthen bone at all, which is suggested by this headline.

<comment><USER34> As usual, the headline ought to be taken from the publication. Bone strength was virtually unchanged for every group in the study; no participant had osteoporosis. Mean BMD went down a hair for all groups, but estimated failure load was considered statistically the same:

> At trial end[...]

> mean percent change in [radial] volumetric BMD of −1.2% (400 IU group), > −2.4% (4000 IU group), and −3.5% (10 000 IU group).

> mean percent change [...in tibial volumetric BMD] of −0.4% (400 IU), −1.0% > (4000 IU), and −1.7% (10 000 IU).

> There were no significant differences for changes in failure load (radius, P > = .06; tibia, P = .12).

<comment><USER35> Agreed the differences look small but find a copy of the full article (I would link but I saw a hard copy). The time curve will convince you this effect is real. All participants start at the same place and you see the dose curves move apart over time and very consistently. What definitely isn't clear is whether vitamin D supplementation is benefiting the participants at all, thanks to their lack of a proper control.

The bone density decreases may look minor on paper but look at it this way: it's quite possible that a very large cohort of elderly and middle aged people concerned about their bone health (potentially because they were told they have reason to be concerned) have been paying a lot of money annually to actually worsen their situation. That sucks.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I prepare for the interview? - <AUTHOR>

Got an interview call from YC. Mood: Super Excited/Freaking Out. I'm wondering if there are any YC alumni/interview candidates around who'd have any advice before I appear for the interview? <comment><USER2> Well done :) as for interview simulators, there's always this: [http://ipaulgraham.herokuapp.com/](http://ipaulgraham.herokuapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Decide in advance what the 3 most important facts are you want them to remember about you.

Then make sure to work this into your answers, even if the question they ask you seemingly isn't related to it.

I learned this from one of the co-founders of a SwipeGood (YC W11), they wrote about it in much detail here:

[http://blog.close.io/tough-interview-questions](http://blog.close.io/tough- interview-questions)

(Now of course - do this mindfully, not robotically, but if you've been invited to an interview, I probably don't need to say this).

And congratulations! Wishing you success :)

</comment><comment><USER4> > NOT an alumni or past interviewee but i'll put this out there ...

1] Paul Graham - wrote an Essay - How To prepare for the interview

> > [http://old.ycombinator.com/howtoprepare.html](http://old.ycombinator.com/howtoprepare.html)

2] I created a summarized, annoted version of 'Grahams essays key points' aka my TLDR

> > [http://sospep.com/view/article?id=4457](http://sospep.com/view/article?id=4457)

I would memorize those keypoints

3] I also compiled a list of the 'interview questions' that they are known to ask?

> [http://sospep.com/view/steps?id=129](http://sospep.com/view/steps?id=129)

you/your co founders probably want to know the answer to every 1 of those questions, as they pertain to your company, backward, forwards and sideways :)

4] and a few other resources, that may be helpful to you... \- like ARTICLE(s) - our interview with ycombinator by ... (* x) \- i will add the links to the Reference section the article i posted above

Finally, congratulations, I suspect the bar to YC is pretty high and you've cleared the first hurdle. Now get started practicing those interview ?'s and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> In addition to whatever else (like reading the company site and researching the people I'll be meeting with), I like arriving 20 minutes early and going for a walk.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you aren't already a good public speaker, start attending Toastmasters or some similar organization. This kind of activity is a learn-able skill, and Toastmasters is the kind of place to learn it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Maybe find alums to run a mock interview?

</comment><comment><USER8> Best way is to focus on running your startup instead.

</comment><comment><USER9> Posting here to say congratulations. Would love to know what it's like after it's done.

</comment><comment><USER10> hmmm...Maybe I'll build a YC interview simulator...

<comment><AUTHOR> Be sure to let me know when you do Peter!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's your company?</comment>


Ask HN: Is legal language copyrighted? - <AUTHOR> Long story short: I need legal language regarding submissions to a site I will soon have in beta-testing. I would like some legal language in place regarding indemnification, privacy and use of information; is there anything to stop me from grabbing said language from Digg or Reddit and adapting it for my own use? What are the dangers here, and do legal contracts fall under copyright laws in the U.S.?<p>I would love to find a trustworthy site with information on this question, and yes, I will be hiring a lawyer for this information, eventually. <comment><USER2> I'm not a lawyer. You should talk with one before doing anything.

That said: I asked this question directly to my attorney a couple months ago, as she was reviewing a contract I had cobbled together from similar specimens I found on the web. She said that no, legal language found in contracts is not at all copyrightable in the USA. I've informally gotten the same response from a couple of other attorney friends over beers.

The funny thing is, from what I've been able to find about copyright law - again, as an entrepreneur and as an open-source/free software programmer, not an attorney - there is no explicit exception I know of for contract language. My _guess_ is that common legal practice has evolved so that the courts won't enforce it, and attorneys won't pursue it, for a basic reason: it would be overwhelmingly stupid to do otherwise.

Contract language is normally intended to be precise, clear and unambiguous. If every contract had to be tweaked because some propane-tank business in Montana or something just happened to use the same wording before you did... well, that would be a minefield that makes the software patent mess look like a tranquil field of daisies in comparison.

<comment><USER3> What would be a curious minefield is if contracts were _patentable._ Say some company comes with with a novel and profitable way of structuring a financing contract (or a way of packaging financing contracts for resale) and gets to keep it under patent as a piece of competitive advantage to encourage innovation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure about the legal implications but there are a couple sites that have their terms of use / privacy policy under creative commons. Wordpress has their ToS under CC share alike: <http://en.wordpress.com/tos/>

</comment><comment><USER5> 17 USC section 102(a): "Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression . . ."

This section includes a list of eight "works of authorship" (literary works, musical works, dramatic works, pantomimes and choreographic works, pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, motion picture and other audiovisual works, sound recordings, and architectural works), but that list is not intended to be all-inclusive. In addition, the categories are broadly construed, as for example to sweep computer programs and compilations into the definition of "literary works."

Thus, there is nothing preventing legal language from being copyrightable as long as it constitutes an "original work of authorship." And, if you go to any site that offers legal forms for download, you will find the vendor claiming copyright in the contracts being offered, thus presumably precluding others from taking the same contracts and re-selling them.

That said, the kinds of legal language and contracts you are talking about are almost never made the subject of copyright, I think, simply because they are usually not "original." Most clauses for indemnification, etc. are recycled over and over. Lawyers themselves will often lift them for re-use.

You are right to be concerned about the potential risks in this area but, in practice, I have never heard of any large website complaining of copyright violations from use of legal language similar to theirs and I think the practical risk of borrowing their language is low. For much of the standard stuff involved, I would think it would be nearly impossible for them to prove that the language used is "original" as required for it to be copyrightable.

Moreover, to sue for federal copyright infringement in the U.S., the copyrighted material needs to be formally registered with the copyright office. I would seriously doubt that any large website bothers with this formal requirement over a matter about which they normally could care less (other than making sure it protects their own legal position as used on their site).

I don't know of any definitive place to find a discussion on this but I believe this gives you a pretty good overview of how this area generally works. You can and should check with your attorney about details for your specific situation.

<comment><USER6> The GPL for instance is copyrighted. You'd think they are a group that wouldn't assert copyright needlessly.

You can find some "public" terms of service and other boilerplate stuff for your web site by digging a little bit. Just don't copy verbatim without understanding what you are doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with grellas that while Digg or Reddit (really their legal counsel) could technically claim a copyright in the legal written work that you are adapting for your own use, realistically suing you for copyright infringement on their terms of use and privacy policies wouldn't be worth their time, and you could potentially assert a successful defense of fair use. I don't know the specifics of your business so I can't give you specifically tailored indemnity, privacy and use of information clauses for free (yet!) but that type of work is not hard for a lawyer, really shouldn't cost you very much and shouldn't take long (a couple hours). The much bigger issue in my opinion (and why copying Digg, etc long term isn't a good idea) is whether adapting their policies will adequately protect your rights and liabilities and those of your business well, especially those idiosyncratic to your business. If you just need boilerplate for the time being you can avoid this whole issue by using privacy policy and terms of use generators; I found a few here:

[http://www.bennadel.com/coldfusion/privacy-policy- generator....](http://www.bennadel.com/coldfusion/privacy-policy- generator.htm)

<http://terms-of-service-generator.legalriver.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> This is an interesting question. It looks like one could claim a copyright in contracts in theory, but there are several practical problems to making a contract copyrightable. Personally, I always thought that copyrighting contracts might make them unenforceable since copyrights could limit a public court's ability to interpret and publish rulings on protected contracts.

Here are the best resources that I found on this matter:

Re: copyright notice on contract <http://www3.wcl.american.edu/cni/9908/23029.html>

Copyright and the Contract Drafter [http://www.adamsdrafting.com/downloads/Copyright- NYLJ-8.23.0...](http://www.adamsdrafting.com/downloads/Copyright- NYLJ-8.23.06.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> As mentioned, legal language is (supposed to be) clear and concise. You'd have a strong argument that the merger doctrine should apply.

The merger doctrine holds that when there is only one way to say something (or a limited number of ways), then it cannot be copyrighted. One common example from the case law is game instructions.

Just as there's really only one way to say "The player who rolls the highest amount goes first", there's really only one way to say "Florida law governs any dispute".

Certainly run it by a lawyer willing to make the advice official. Good luck.</comment>


Ask HN: Picked the wrong cofounder, now what? - <AUTHOR>

I'm one of the founders of a little iPad app shop in Portland. We've only been around for about six months, but we have a really, really good app in the works, and our early preview to a small group of alpha users has gotten rave reviews. However, we're starting to see some issues with one of our founders.
This guy ("Jason") and I have known each other through mutual friends for a few years, and I stupidly decided (rashly) to ask him to do a startup with me for an idea that we came up with together. I thought he was a good developer and would be a good asset; he's worked at some good companies in the past. We needed a third, so we brought on another guy ("Brian") that we both have known for a few years and trust. We've been working hard on v1 of our first app for the last few months, and we're getting closer to release.
But issues with Jason have been starting to surface. For starters, he can't really develop. At least not to the standard that's needed here. We thought we'd put him on other tasks, but he just seems to be slow to catch on with everything. This isn't just me talking; Brian agrees. What's worse is that he seems to be losing steam and doing less and less work. At this point, 95% of all the work other than the initial idea has been done by myself and Brian.
Finally, another stupid thing: we haven't setup an LLC or anything yet, and we have no written agreements. We did agree verbally to split the company equally between the three of us, but nothing is in writing or anything yet. I'm not sure I can live with giving away that much equity to someone who isn't pulling hardly any weight, let alone their share.
Bottom line: I know I screwed up here by jumping into bed with this guy before doing more due diligence. I feel bad to have dragged Brian into this and I'd really rather not walk away, but I have no idea how to work this out in a way that will work in the long run. And if we can't work it out, I'd rather just walk away than have an issue with this guy who I'll have to work with for years if this thing works out. <comment><USER2> Lawyer up. (Just kidding)

Have you talked to Jason about all this? What does he say? His response, his attitude, and his intentions going forward make all the difference here. If he's a nice guy that means well but just can't cut it, it might be as simple as cutting him a check for the work he's done thus far in exchange for a signed agreement divorcing him from the company. If he feels he deserves 33% equity for the crappy performance he's put in thus far, the plot thickens (and not for the better).

</comment><comment><USER3> Sit down and talk to Jason. It might be awkward at first, but you will all feel much better after a conversation. Get him doing something else.

If you guys can't work anything out, then kick him out of the group/project.</comment>


Hierarchical Object Detection with Deep Reinforcement Learning - <AUTHOR> https://imatge-upc.github.io/detection-2016-nipsws/ <comment><USER2> Apart from the content of this research, to me, this method of publishing is the future : here, in one github repo, you can find the paper and the code such that you can perform the experiments done in the research yourself. Well done!

<comment><USER3> And in a manner of contrast, Google DeepMind's "Neural Turing Machines" still gives me nightmares. Where are the implementation details, where?! A perfect example of how science should _not_ be reported.

<comment><USER2> Is this what you are looking for?

[https://github.com/carpedm20/NTM- tensorflow](https://github.com/carpedm20/NTM-tensorflow)

<comment><USER3> That is helpful, thank you.

But the most concerning issue however, in my opinion, and taking into account the amount of attention that the NTM paper got, is that (to my knowledge) all public implementations of the suggested architecture involve a great deal of guesswork. The researchers didn't release any code; only vague details about the architecture and results that we must take on their word. The note they released is, I think, closer to being a tantalizing press release than a proper scientific report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The donated GPUs used are listed at $3100 and $1500, respectively, on Amazon.</comment>


Show HN: Counselling for £9.99 /month - <AUTHOR> http://www.spill.chat/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey! A quick backstory - we were working with businesses to offer text-based counselling to their employees and found that everyone that we spoke to at these companies had a friend that wanted to use our service too. So we just launched spill for the public. You can sign up on the site and I'm happy to answer any questions :)</comment>