Spotify Introduces Video Clips, Podcasts, and Activity-Based Playlists - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/20/spotify-introduces-video-clips-podcasts-and-activity-based-playlists/ <comment><USER3> I feel like Spotify is regressing in terms of music discovery and usefulness in general. It's still nice to be able to stream (almost) any album but the radio and shuffle have _always_ been terrible and the removal of useful music discovery (which is also terrible on Spotify...Rdio & LastFM both destroy Spotify in this realm) applications in a recent past updates only made it worse. Now, they are adding these 'features' that have little to do with music and more to do with marketing and corporate relationships.

I'll most likely continue to be a subscriber because as I mentioned the ability to stream (almost) any album is great but it would be nice to see some progress related to music or music discovery rather than these gimmicks. Stop trying to be a universal storefront for everyone's media consumption (video clips from ABC, who wants that in a music app) and do one thing right...

In the meantime, I'll continue to subsidize Spotify with useful music discovery services (and self made hacks) and just use Spotify as my "I know exactly what album I want to hear and don't need shuffle" music application.

<comment><USER4> I feel the opposite. I subscribe to Spotify specifically for music discovery in the form of listening to playlists other people (not algorithms) created. IMO these tend to be much better than anything I've seen a computer come up with.

I'm also pretty excited about podcasts and news. Podcasts, because it may eliminate another app on my Phone that I always felt Spotify should have been able to do all along. News is exciting because I really don't know any other way to stream on-demand audio news into my phone (and car). Maybe there is already an app for that? I looked around lightly and never found anything.

I feel the direction they are taking isn't 100% music albums, but more the audio-everything on the go. I listen to Spotify 99% of the time on my commute, and love the focus on audio-only.

<comment><USER5> >News is exciting because I really don't know any other way to stream on- demand audio news into my phone (and car). Maybe there is already an app for that? I looked around lightly and never found anything.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but thought I'd point out NPR One is great for this purpose: [http://www.npr.org/about/products/npr- one/](http://www.npr.org/about/products/npr-one/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great to hear there's something shiny for the developers to work on, but as a paying user, there are some massive regressions they have introduced and apparently won't fix. Their twitter customer service is particularly glib.

Want to find a track in your a playlist? Or go to an artist page and find a track within that? They removed the filter functionality ages ago and are very opaque about communicating updates.

[https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Desktop-Bring- ba...](https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Desktop-Bring-back-search- inside-Playlists-amp-Songs-tab/idi-p/1039674)

By co-incidence, it looks like they announced something on this ticket today. But it doesn't excuse their past attitude.

<comment><USER7> Finally, at least they listened. The decision to take out searching within a playlist baffled me (or I guess it was more of a oops we forgot it).

<comment><USER6> No, I think they implemented a whole new view, probably more extensible, to allow future features (IIRC the look changed a bit). They just didn't prioritise fixing the regressions they introduced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Surprise this article makes no mention of the elephant in the room, namely Apple's imminent "Spotify killer" ([http://www.businessinsider.com/apple- beats-spotify-killer-wh...](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-beats- spotify-killer-what-we-know-2015-3)). Spotify have evidently concluded that they need to be more like iTunes, which is unfortunate.

<comment> mkr-hn Apple is not going to kill anything unless they suddenly learned how to make competent software for non-Apple devices.

<comment><USER9> They've been hiring Android developers recently to work on the Beats music app, which is likely to become the Apple streaming service, so there's a good chance it'll be on Android too. No idea whether it'll be any good, of course.

I suspect the main thing that will limit Apple's streaming service is availability: iTunes Radio is only available in the US and Australia. I think they're being punished a bit by the record labels, after Apple took over the digital downloads market, much to their displeasure.

That said, if Apple's streaming service comes to the UK, I know I'll drop Spotify in a heartbeat. I couldn't be more disloyal to Spotify: I only use them because they're the only service with the exact combination of features I need (besides Rdio, who I don't use because their desktop app is - <USER2> - even worse than Spotify's).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is Spotify trying to differentiate themselves from other music streaming services ahead of Apple's announcement, I think.

As it stands now, most music services are basically at feature parity with each other: Spotify, Rdio, Slacker, etc. They all offer listening to whatever album or song you want on-demand for a price, as well as algorithmically- generated radio stations based on artists or whatever for free.

The only thing any of them can compete on anymore is how well their app works and how they can exploit their given niche (on-demand for Spotify and Rdio, curated radio for Slacker, market share for Pandora).

</comment><comment><USER11> It's hard to care about anything new they are adding when their existing software is so inadequate. I mean, I love the desktop client. But Linux has no desktop client so km forced to use the web client. The web client is months if not years behind the desktop client. It is missing folders, drag and drop just to name a few. The web experience is just so awful compared to the desktop. I wish they would focus on what they have deployed instead of half baking this crap. /rant

But as a subscriber, I do still really love the desktop client when I have the option to be on a Mac or PC.

<comment><USER12> There is a Linux client and there has been one since I remember. They even have a proper .deb repo.

[https://www.spotify.com/en/download/previews/](https://www.spotify.com/en/download/previews/)

<comment><USER13> Sadly practically unusable on high DPI screens

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How about they bring back third party apps?

<comment><USER15> For the life of me I don't understand why they removed 3rd party apps. I used Classify, SoundDrop, SongKick and others all the time, they were so useful.

I understand that they wanted people to use their Web API and SDK, but it was so nice and convenient to have them embedded inside of the Spotify desktop client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The running feature is interesting. It detects how fast you are running and delivers songs that match your pace.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm excited for this. Discovery is an area that can definitely stand some more work.

</comment><comment><USER18> Did anybody find out how podcasts are integrated into Spotify? What interests me is if there will be a dynamic playlist of unlistened episodes. This would be great, as I don't know any good podcast applications for Windows.

EDIT: Spelling.

<comment><USER19> It isn't quite a Windows application, but PocketCasts' web app works well for me (and syncs with my phone): [https://play.pocketcasts.com](https://play.pocketcasts.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've not yet been able to find: Anyone know if they're hosting the podcasts (or even caching them) or are they just streaming them as any other podcasting app?

Will this break the already minimal podcast statistic tracking?

</comment><comment><USER21> > For example, in the morning, a user might see playlists like "Wake Up Happy" > or "Sunrise Run"

I don't know what the Hell names like that are supposed to tell me. I guess there is some specific kind of music associated with 'wake up happy' and 'sunrise run'...</comment>


Are your rsync transfers slow? - <AUTHOR> http://bsdpunk.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-was-having-some-slow-rsync-issues-on.html <comment><USER2> For the 2nd test (after you got it up to 18 MB/s, which is higher than you'd be able to get if it were still in 100 Mbit mode), did you check if either side is CPU-bound? Rsync takes a decent amount of CPU, so that could be the bottleneck on gigabit networks.

You can also try adding the -W option, which will send the whole new file when a file's been changed, instead of the usual rsync diffs, which can be faster when bandwidth isn't the bottleneck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rsync adds a lot of overhead- The fastest way I've found to transfer a file is actually the venerable netcat.

On the receiving side, we open a socket, and direct it into a file-

nc -p 5678 -l > file.name

then, on the sending side, run

nc 192.168.47.1 5678 < file.name

That avoids the key exchange, the overhead of compression, the CPU to check for diffs, etc. Just pure copy.

I'd be curious the difference in speed you get.

<comment><USER4> If you like netcat, look at socat(1). It does everything nc(1) does and more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Set up an rsync daemon so it doesn't have to go through SSH.</comment>


Death by selfie: Why selfies near water, charging locomotives etc. are dangerous - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/03/death-by-selfie-study-finds-a-major-public-health-problem/ <comment><AUTHOR> (First published March 2018)</comment>


Forrst Gets Seeded With $200,000 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/24/forrst-200000-seed/

<comment><USER2> $200,000 isn't cool. You know what's cool? $41,000,000.

Honestly though, grats Kyle. Passionate users, revenue is coming in, you obviously deserve it.

<comment><USER3> Haha, indeed.

But thank you, I really appreciate it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> kylebragger (forrst's founder) first introduced forrst with a small _Tell HN_ invite session a year ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1132947>

Then a more wide-spread RWW article:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1440847>

Grats Kyle!

<comment><USER3> Thanks so much. It seems like forever ago that those went up. I'm really proud of the progress we've made in the last year.

<comment><USER5> Question for you: According to the article, 10% of users pay 9$/month:

9$/month-user * 12 months/year * 10% * 23000 users = 248400$/year

200k$ seems like a small sum compared to your yearly revenues.

What did you gave up for 200k$ ? Why not just wait for the revenue to come in ?

<comment><USER6> It is 10% of forrst.me accounts that cost $9/month, not forrst.com accounts.

Forrst.me can serve as the central place of your online profiles, but not everyone on Forrst have a forrst.me portfolio.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the correction. I guess I got confused by the similar names, especially since <http://forrst.me> redirects to <http://forrst.com> . I can't be the only one confused by this dual use of the same trademark...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Over 40 Million and you get to buy a vowel. Less than 40 million? No vowel for you.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great for forrst, well deserved, even if this is yet another article that pretends forrst is for designers only...

Us devs are on there, I promise.

<comment><USER9> Yes we are but one of the reasons like it is that it's mostly about design. There are already enough dev dominated ghettos on the web.

<comment><USER10> I like that it's a mixture of coders and designers. It's enlightening to mix up with a different group of people now and then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love this. A small, sizable round for Kyle and his two employees -- I think there are three people building Forrst? -- to advance the product and see where they get. If all things go well, they'll get more financing and continue to build it out. If not, his options are to (1) sell for a reasonable amount; (2) reduce the team size and chug along on their revenue; or (3) let it run as a side project.

</comment><comment><USER12> The reason I like forrst is because an engineer created a community that brings together people who might have never have ever met. Also, the name rocks.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good for them, but it still annoys me that I have to give a twitter username to sign up. Not everyone tweets all day. Some of us waste our time on here instead ;)

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I appreciate where you're coming from. It was a bit short-sighted of me to add that field. FWIW We're working on an overhaul of the invite system and model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I applied to forrst, but never got a response on being rejected or approved.

Is it always going to be invite-only?

<comment><USER3> We're requiring invites always, in order to keep out recruiters, "idea" people, and other non-dev/designers, as that would likely detract from the community in a grave way.

We are, however, in the middle of a huge overhaul to the invite system to ensure that developers/designers can and will get access, while still ensuring _only_ they do so.

The new system will be much, much less of a black box, and hopefully alleviate the frustration too many folks have had to experience.

<comment><USER15>
      ensure that developers/designers can and will get access,
      while still ensuring only they do so.

Curious about how that might work - anything you can expand on that?

<comment><USER3> Sorry for the late reply. We're prototyping a new invite system where we do a few things:

a) drop the whole "Apply" motif, since it's not so much about approval/denial as it is ensuring the integrity of the community. It's caused a lot of confusion.

b) move from a "use your invite and become accountable for the invitee" model to a vote-centric one: you cast votes for folks you'd like to invite, and depending on the reputation of the voters, after a threshold of votes is reached that person is invited in. People who voted on users who end up being invited get a point - we're building a leaderboard that will surface the users with the most points -- basically trying to reward, through exposure, users who are great at growing the community. (NB: this leaderboard will also feature users who have a large amount of comments marked as helpful or starred by staff)[1]. The overall goal here is to use humans as a "not a good fit for Forrst" filter. We're trying to encourage folks to grow the community by rewarding them with recognition -- both within the community and publicly.

c) We're also working on some other stuff that will whitelist users who want in based on various things (e.g. having a verified email address with a well- known company e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.). Also have been working on looking at a user's existing social graph(s) to determine potential overlap between that person's network and the Forrst userbase. Much of the credit for this one goes to Nate Westheimer (innonate.com). FWIW I'd love to speak to folks who've done similar things (kyle at forrst.com) Also looking to make it dead easy to get dev/design shops on, and furthermore, to make it simple for existing Forrst users in good standing to get their teams on board.

Happy to elaborate on any of this.

[1] I should add that we're really pushing right now to make it all about quality comments. Posts, to me, are second class citizens. They only exist to create great discussion/feedback/critique.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Coders hang out on Stack Overflow. Designers hang out on Forrst.

Actually, designers hang out on Dribbble, and - to put it bluntly - those who can't get in hang out on Forrst. It is really weird that TechCrunch included no reference to former, feels almost like it was intentional.

<comment><USER10> Forrst has a better community feeling to me than Dribbble.

<comment><USER16> _That_ is actually true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats Kyle + Team.

This headline made me cringe, because in Jamaica 'seeded' means 'impregnated'.

</comment><comment><USER18> Congrats, Kyle and the whole Forrst team! Looking forward to seeing what's coming in 2011 and beyond.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, Jim!

<comment><USER19> Kyle, since you're here I figured I'd give you my #1 bug I'd love to see fixed: The login wall loses what you were trying to access after a successful login. It's a stab to the heart. Stabby stab stab.

EDIT: That and the login cookie seems to be one of the shortest lived of any site I use. :(

<comment><USER3> Our session lib is my arch nemesis these days. They _should_ be good for a year, but for whatever reason, it's hosing them. I'll see what I can do...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article kind of assumes developers and 'coders' are mutually exclusive, and seems to suggest Forrst is not for people who write code, after a glance at their home page for a couple of seconds it seems apparent this is not the case.

Still perhaps I'm being pedantic.

</comment><comment><USER21> Forrst is an incredible community. I post my in-development snaps on there all the time and receive a lot of great advice from some amazing and extremely talented people. Super happy for them! :)

<comment><USER22> I love how Forrst posts seem to get a lot of visibility on from the community where they might not get much on HN/Reddit. Sort of a facebook news feed instead of a vote-up competition.

As feedback for Kyle: I find the Activity and Posts menus confusing. Why the separation? Why don't you just show me things you think I want to see, and not give me so many choices? I feel like you can get rid of a lot of the stuff on the top menu bars. I'm not a power user and I find it overwhelming.

At any rate, I expect that forrst will slowly start to become another one of my regular visits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Proud to be an investor. Go Kyle!

</comment><comment><USER24> Finally, some sanity in the bubble :) Congrats Kyle!

</comment><comment><USER25> Forrst has been a source of inspiration for my work ever since I started using it. Honestly some of the designs I see there are so polished and refined that it makes me (a developer trying to improve on my design skills) feel downright design-dumb sometimes.

Congrats Kyle!

</comment><comment><USER26> Great, the question is though, is it enough for them to be able to purchase the domain www.forest.com and www.forrest.com?

</comment><comment><USER27> Congrats on the seed! I have been a member of the community for a while, and love what it has to offer members.

</comment><comment><USER28> Awesome to hear this. I am on Forrst daily and find it to be a great community.

</comment><comment><USER29> Run, Forrst, run!</comment>


Facebook Nanny Blocks You From Visiting Facebook Unless You Have Notifications - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5954578/facebook-nanny-blocks-you-from-visiting-facebook-unless-you-have-notifications

<comment><USER2> If you want to use facebook to communicate with friends, but dont like wasting time, just adblock the news feed. The first time seeing an empty newsfeed and not being able to scroll is quite an interesting feeling.

<comment><USER3> I just started hiding 'non-essential' people from my news feed when I saw a post pop up by them. Within about a week I was down to just a small core group of people I actually care about, and generally if I scroll down more than a page I'm met with a "Sorry, there are no more posts" message. It's a good way to keep up with close friends while filtering out the noise that wastes so much time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have disabled all notifications from Facebook. I find myself not visiting Facebook that often anymore.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is fantastic. So much more useful than your average site blocker because it actually lets me get to the (admittedly rare) important notifications on Facebook while preventing me from wasting extra time.</comment>


Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later - <AUTHOR> https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/11/22/progress.html <comment><USER2> I literally spent the past week reading a couple dozen papers on cryptocurrency attacks, in service of a term paper which should hopefully turn into a master's thesis (and possibly more during my PhD campaign). I'm pretty damn pessimistic as a result. Smart contracts basically throw all of your consensus guarantees out the window because they can cause arbitrary exchanges of value in the application layer, which can be used to incentivize miners into all sorts of shenanigans.

All of this research is producing a fascinating array of solutions in search of problems. Fun stuff to think about, but I suspect that the added complexity will only create a system that is just as prone to fraud and abuse as the existing centralized order.

<comment><USER3> Plus there's the problem that smart contracts cannot be easily modified if they are found to be buggy and that one can always reverse engineer them, because they're distributed to everyone.

These two together have already caused lots of damage [https://hackernoon.com/yes-this-kid-really-just- deleted-150-...](https://hackernoon.com/yes-this-kid-really-just- deleted-150-million-dollar-by-messing-around-with-ethereums- smart-2d6bb6750bb9) and they make most real-world uses impossible.

It is pretty much impossible to sell anything digital with smart contracts, because due to the source code being accessible to everyone you can always figure out the password, key, or secret URL to whatever is being sold. Without paying for it.

<comment><USER4> The best smart contracts don't need to be reverse engineered, they've got shared, verified source code. The bugginess is a real problem as you've pointed out. The "impossible to sell anything" couldn't actually be farther than the truth from all my experience buying and selling NFTs. Over $150,000 USD worth of digital collectable game cards have been traded this week alone over at [https://opensea.io/recent](https://opensea.io/recent) \- everything is based on cryptographic signing and verified ownership on smart contracts, and it works great.

<comment><USER5> Digital assets are obviously the best possible use case for blockchains and smart contracts, but can it really work outside of that use case? And even for that use case is it really more convenient than centralized solutions?

From what I can tell browsing through this website those digital "assets" seem to be yet another speculative outlet with some limited gamification on top. It's cool from a technical perspective but where do we go from there?

<comment><USER4> We're going to get the Metaverse from there, eventually! And it will be glorious. A great definition of the Metaverse and what role blockchain may play in it: [https://soundcloud.com/siggraph-spotlight/30-tim-sweeney- and...](https://soundcloud.com/siggraph-spotlight/30-tim-sweeney-and-the- metaverse)

I can confirm that the blockchain is way more convenient than centralized solutions for buying and selling digital assets once you get over the initial friction (which is still way too much). The keys here are open standards, composability, and trustless atomic transactions. As a user, I basically look at ethereum as an in-game currency—and the game is the whole of the ethereum gaming space (still nascent, yes, and polluted by a great many scammy speculative shell games) rather than a single game.

As for working outside of digital asset use cases, there are certainly a large number of people trying to get it to work though I agree the use case is much less clear cut. Without exactly agreeing with Vinay here, I at least appreciated the perspective he shared in detail on this episode of the NonFunGerbils podcast: [https://nonfungerbils.com/podcast/3-vinay-gupta- indexing-the...](https://nonfungerbils.com/podcast/3-vinay-gupta-indexing-the- physical-world)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your site's SSL cert has just expired at November 24, 2019 at 1:00:59 AM Eastern Standard Time

Safari, Chrome give errors now.

<comment><USER7> is there a mirror somewhere? article seems interesting.

<comment><USER8> State of browsers in 2019: asking your browser to bypass an SSL error is so hard that it's easier to ask for a mirror.

btw, if you use Chrome and you see an SSL error, just type "thisisunsafe" and it will load the webpage. Try it here: [https://expired.badssl.com/](https://expired.badssl.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some hubris in this post. Claims ASIC resistant PoW is "Solved as far as we can", with Ethash being the near end-all of hashing.

Random-X is a significant step towards ASIC resistance, requiring near general purpose computation to perform efficiently (i.e. if you can build a better CPU than Intel/AMD/ARM, you've already won).

[https://github.com/tevador/RandomX/blob/master/doc/design.md](https://github.com/tevador/RandomX/blob/master/doc/design.md)

(Random-X requires code JITting, large CPU caches, compliant floating point, SIMD, hardware AES, as well as large amounts of system RAM, and other things.)

Innovation continues. If you stop having ideas, step aside.

<comment><USER10> This is what I really dislike about owning crypto long term as a store of value. It's a cat-and-mouse game with hardware and software development, and there's a lot of faith in maintainers to stay ahead of the threats.

<comment><USER11> I'd rather put my trust in an open source community than in centralized banks.

<comment><USER12> Just wondering, unless you're doing something illegal or are targeted by the government and your money is at risk of seizure, why would you keep it in crypto with all its associated risks instead of in a bank? Banks are highly regulated and so can't just run away with your money.

<comment><USER13> Couple points:

1) If we are talking about central banks such as FED - non-QE QE happening right now in the USA could be good example of why one would not be want to be part of the game.

2) If we are talking about centralized banking as a group of banks operating under the rule of the government - similar question to yours could apply to the general cryptography - why you need it (unless you are a criminal) if the state protects your rights? We seen countless examples where it doesn't quite work like that.

I really want you to consider that desire to not be forced to use the only one available medium of exchange does not mean someone wants to do something illegal (also, try to define illegal in the very general way, that would apply equally in the USA and in Venezuela, and in Russia, and in Somalia =))

<comment><USER14> > 1) If we are talking about central banks such as FED - non-QE QE happening > right now in the USA could be good example of why one would not be want to > be part of the game.

Crypto doesn't get you away from this. Not to sound like a mediocre Ashton Kutcher film, but it's all connected. In short, too much fiat, cryto prices in terms of fiat will go up and the converse is true as well.

The only way crypto wins or is THE place to put your money is if the entire world stops using fiat money.

<comment><USER13> Even more than that - crypto developers can decide they want to have more than 21m (or whatever fixed number) of coins out there changing the whole mechanic of it. But it is one fork away if majority disagree. Try to fork USD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's such a shame that useful proof-of-work is so impractical. The amount of cycles spent mining for the sake of mining is pretty depressing.

<comment><USER16> Besides proof-of-stake, there's also a coin that tries (tried?) a proof-of- work with greater public utility: Primecoin [1]. It creates Cunningham chains of prime numbers [2].

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

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

<comment><USER17> Wasn't there also like CureCoin that unfolds proteins for medical application?

<comment><USER18> Yes, and there's also SolarCoin which rewards users for producing renewable energy. The problem is that these coins are centralised, so while they may be very useful for what they do, they don't solve the same problem as proof-of- work coins which aim to be decentralised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The biggest problem is actual uptake for real transactions, as opposed to speculation and black markets.

The 2 biggest barriers to be solved are:

-lack of trust/ease of use for the layman

-volatility

These problems may or may not sort themselves out with time.

<comment><USER20> Even if I could use it for regular transactions, I'd still need a reason to want to.

If the justification is "you don't need to pay credit processing fees" then things would have to be priced cheaper. But I think you'd have to pay me more than the credit card fee to give up the ability to do chargebacks for a lot of online transactions.

Maybe I'd use it for making donations where I'm not expecting anything back from a transaction that the other party could fail to deliver.

They're just not solving a problem that I have.

<comment><USER21> I think there are some use cases where it makes sense. For instance, I have somewhat of a split life between the US and Europe, and I really wanted cryptocurrency to succeed as a cheap way of moving money between currencies.

I played around with bitcoin a bit in 2015, and it back then it was a pretty good experience. Transactions were quick and cheap. The problem is it seems to have gotten less usable in almost every way since then.

<comment><USER22> Bitcoin certainly got enormously slower. But the other major currencies (ethereum, xrp, etc) are both much faster and more liquid than BTC was in 2015.

<comment><USER23> > Bitcoin certainly got enormously slower.

[https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin- confirmationtim...](https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin- confirmationtime.html)

Average block time data doesn't agree with you, or are you talking about something else?

<comment><USER21> It's not about whether the next block will come on time, it's whether your transaction will be in it.

<comment><USER23> That has only been an issue around the Dec '17 congestion. I can have my transaction mined in the next block for the satoshi equivalent of $0.61 today.

<comment><USER21> That's interesting, I didn't know it speeded up again. I guess it still is an issue though: it's hard to trust a currency with the knowledge that it's transaction speed could potentially slow down by hours or days if there is too much traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Funny. Article discussing hard problems of crypto and ignoring the elephants in the room. There is still no actual and relevant use case for crypto outside illegal transactions and gambli^H^H^H^H^Hinvestment purposes. The second elephant is that it brings monetary policy back to medieval times. Third is that in practice the whole concept of credit and ots role in money creation is ignored.

<comment><USER25> What's actually funny is how people still believe that no use cases exist. Here are just some examples:

* Uncensorable donations

* No way for a third party to freeze your payments (internet is full of horror stories of PayPal)

* Not all businesses can accept digital payments (marijuana stores or porn have trouble)

* Credit cards and payment processors take a 2-4% cut, of all transactions.

* You can use cryptocurrencies anonymously (to for example buy VPNs)

* It's possible to flee your country with some of your wealth intact (for example by converting to Bitcoin and crossing the Venezuela border)

<comment><USER26> Excluding the transaction fees problem you mentioned (which cryptocurrencies also have -- while it might not be 4% it's definitely not 0%), all of the uses you listed are really just one use-case -- uncensorable transactions. Don't get me wrong, that's a very good feature of cryptocurrencies (assuming that you have the ability to transform crypto back to real money on the other end), but you should be aware that your list of use-cases is only one element long.

I also want to point out that the use-case of "get your money out of the country" is not exactly perfect for Bitcoin because of how volatile it is (imagine if someone had to get their money out during December 2017).

<comment><USER27> I'm struggling to understand if uncensorable transactions are a good thing (note: struggling not in a sense of "I actually think it is evil but let's hear your bullshit arguments so that I can easily debunk them", but in a sense of really being undecided). I am not a libertarian so I don't think that laws are just a useless form of violence. So how can uncensorable transactions be useful for a law-abiding citizen? One thing I can think of is when a transaction is in the gray area - you do it without asking anyone and then can argue that it is legitimate from a relative position of power, similar to asking for forgiveness instead of permission. Another thing is that existence of uncensorable money can push nation-states to adopt more equitable and just laws. But of course there are downsides in enabling crime and so on. So is uncensorable money a good thing in aggregate? I don't know.

<comment><USER26> The most obvious example I can think of is when WikiLeaks (or pick your own politically-unfriendly charitable cause) had their PayPal and bank accounts frozen -- people donated using Bitcoin because the transactions couldn't be blocked by private companies. There are also several other examples of completely legal but unfriendly-to-large-corporations transactions -- in the several US states where marijuana has been legalised it is still difficult to conduct non-cash transactions with the proceeds because most payment processors are under federal jurisdiction thus making it possible for your (completely legal) funds to be seized.

<comment><USER28> You are always at the mercy of your platform. But wikileaks could have continued accepting cash in the mail instead of being sidelined by a third party service. And at least with legal pot the tide is quickly shifting to make traditional banking easier; there was talk in LA about opening a municipal bank kinda for this purpose.

For most people, the utility of sticking your money into a volatile and slow system with no recourses is just never going to be there. A municipal credit union would be more useful and offer an out from private for-profit banking for most people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I consider myself fairly knowledgable with cryptocurrency. I create and run a crypto project myself. I read this post and maybe understand 10% of it. This is probably the rate of things I read from Vitalik. Either Vitalik is extremely smart or he just doesn't know what he's talking about. Overall, his opinions are just confusing and distracting like the whole Ethereum ecosystem.

A warning for those who think getting a degree is useless. At least, it will force you to think deep about some problems. I hope Vitalik will find his focus and really solve a concrete problem.

For those who think I'm 10 times less smart than Vitalik. Here's my take on Ethereum and its prospect.

[https://bitflate.org/post/2019/11/16/ethereum-and- computer-l...](https://bitflate.org/post/2019/11/16/ethereum-and-computer- language.html)

<comment><USER30> > Either Vitalik is extremely smart or he just doesn't know what he's talking > about. Overall, his opinions are just confusing and distracting like the > whole Ethereum ecosystem.

Vitalik started out years ago with writings consisting entirely of self-citing the Ethereum echo-chamber. Judging by the citations here he's starting to understand the value in the works of the established institutions, tenured university professors, and career cryptographers -- people whom it's obvious in his circles are either loathed as some irrelevant elites or simply, wholly unknown.

Now that Vitalik has spent the last few years actually surveying the last decades of theoretical achievements in the literature, maybe it's time to build a secure distributed world-computer. Oh wait.

<comment><USER29> LOL. I can't stop. :)

I'm not going down the path of personal attack. Vitalik is smart. He lacks self criticism and focus. I do hope he'll find success.

<comment><USER31> Depending on your goals. He raises millions with bad ideas. From his perspective he is wildly successful

<comment><USER30> What is he really supposed to represent? Skipping all the hard work, middle- fingering the system, and getting rich quick? That's worth at most 15 minutes of fame, and a long long time ago. Mr. Buterin isn't in jail simply because no government has the slightest fucking idea how to parse this massive exabyte jumble of cryptocoin hodgepodge over the last decade.

Meanwhile, thousands of poor souls have been lost in the basements of universities doing real honest-to-god useful work which may never be understood and used by industry, or even see the light of day; they lack this disingenuous excessive hyper-promotion and the means to compete for media attention with our favorite cult heroes like Vitalik.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> In a space absolutely filled with hucksters and scam artists, vitalik is legit. Good read.

<comment><USER33> Vitalik and ETH are the definitions of scam and scammer. He's very good at obfuscating it by appearing very smart: read his articles and tweets, they always sound complex, but can be rewritten in much simpler terms. And ETH is the same: it obfuscates its uselessness and nonsense by being overly complex, every year employing new terms and coming up with tons of code that only increases the attack surface and complicates things even more.

<comment><USER34> Please don't cross into personal attack. It degrades discussion. Maybe you don't owe every person better, but you owe the community better if you're posting here.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are:

1\. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol)

2\. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states.

3\. How do we stop money laundering.

4\. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors.

5\. How do we allow people who lost access to their money by negligence, fraud, theft, act of god or otherwise, access to their money again.

[bonus] how do we generate the right quantity of new cryptocurrency so that the pace of money growth matches that of economic and population growth so as not to disproportionately reward early comers just for "being early"?

You know, the "currency" problems and not the "crypto" problems. These are the actual hard problems of cryptocurrency and until solved it will never, and I mean never, reach mass adoption, making the questions from the article totally irrelevant.

<comment><USER36> 1\. I don't know if it will work, but the idea is Proof of Stake (ETH2 in Ethereum-land)

2\. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one

3\. There's no such thing as money laundering

4\. Peer-to-peer, transparent finance infrastructure

5\. User-money as a layer on top of cryptocurrency

<comment><USER35> > 1\. Proof of stake.

This has yet to be proven, and as you say, there's reasons why it has yet to land. I give this one vitaliks sideways smiley face.

> 2\. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one

Uh, one that doesn't exist in the current financial system. I'm sure y'all will find a way. As I said, it's a prerequisite.

> 3\. There's no such thing as money laundering.

Hilarious. I see someone never took compliance training at work. With that attitude I'd love to see you explain your position to a judge. Money laundering is literally financial transactions arranged in such a way as to conceal the original source of funds.

> 4\. Buzzword soup.

> 5\. More buzzword soup.

More buzzword soup that immediately falls down as once you use crypto as only a bulk transport instrument you've lost out on all its ostensible benefits. No transparency, no security, it's no better than just using a wire transfer.

<comment><USER37> _Hilarious. I see someone never took compliance training at work. With that attitude I'd love to see you explain your position to a judge. Money laundering is literally financial transactions arranged in such a way as to conceal the original source of funds._

I though anonymity and legal safeharbour were founding principles of cryptocurrency? The original comment is correct that what we call money laundering is an artificial construct of power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I usually hate the cryptocurrency articles that get posted here, but I do like this one — a decent overview of technical challenges & possible solutions

</comment><comment><USER39> The hardest problem of all is getting consensus to put in front of regulators whose legal frameworks are stuck in the early 90's. SEC Securities law is the 800 pound gorilla on the globe and the workarounds 'offshore' of the SEC (Malta EU framework etc) are pea shooters against this reality. I've been involved in a european utility token against a real asset (Beer) which is live but it has been very time consuming and difficult to navigate the regulatory maze.

</comment><comment><USER40> The original Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency was my favorite talk from Vitalik ever: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXRtJcNVfQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXRtJcNVfQE)

</comment><comment><USER41> "Cryptographic obfuscation"

Wouldn't this be a subcategory of homomorphic encryption?

</comment><comment><USER42> Can some people from the crypto space give a quick tl;dr of what's going on in the space that's of note? Seems like I hardly hear about interesting stuff after the bubble burst (kind of at least).

Are there any people using crypto to actually do work for clients and solve fiat currency based businesses problems? I am curious if the crypto start up space is mostly filled with crypto-to-crypto services or if there are many successful crypto-to-regular business cases.

Edit: I'm interested in if there are many people making meaningful money from doing client work or building a business, mostly in the crypto space. There seems to be two camps: crypto idealists that don't care about making money, and the crypto application people who might be a little idealist, but also want to make money here and now. This is more geared towards the latter.

<comment><USER43> I build blockchain development tools at Truffle (a for-profit company). Most of our efforts are on Ethereum tooling, but not all, we are building some tools for enterprise blockchain tech as well as other public chains.

I think most of us here believe we are building tools that will have had a role in the long-term future of (decentralized) finance.

[https://trufflesuite.com/](https://trufflesuite.com/)

<comment><USER44> How does truffle make money?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Vitalik linked to our help article on Handshake's airdrop as an example of a proof of excellence alternative. It's ssl configuration was broken before but it's fixed now: [https://help.namebase.io/article/4vchu01mec-handshake- airdro...](https://help.namebase.io/article/4vchu01mec-handshake-airdrop-101)

</comment><comment><USER46> Interestingly, advances on currency stability are much more interesting than this post make it sound like: Libra backed 1:1 with a reserve, grincoin with its forever inflation model, and even tether with its controversial fractional reserve.

</comment><comment><USER47> TLDR: " Great theoretical progress, pending more real-world evaluation, plz to buy more magic beans. "

</comment><comment><USER48> That moment when you click on the first paper referenced in the article, and the author is the professor of the lecture you currently should actually study for

<comment><USER49> Lol. What is the lecture you are studying for? Who is the author?

<comment><USER48> [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.10434.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.10434.pdf)

The author is Roger Wattenhofer. Currently taking his Computer Systems class at ETH.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> funny how his SSL certificate expired.

</comment><comment><USER51> Expired SSL. Buterin's attention to detail is why I trust Ethereum so much.

</comment><comment><USER52> It's funny to write such a blog post without even mentioning Cardano...

<comment><USER53> It's even more funny to leave a comment like this without even elaborating on the argument and not contributing to the overall discussion. Why would this blog post mention Cardano?

<comment><USER54> Because Cardano is what ETH might have been if done right. They did a tons of (actually scientific) research on the topics mentioned in this article but the author won't mention Cardano as it is his direct competition (even nicknamed Ethereum killer).

<comment><USER53> What does "actually scientific" and "real research" (mentioned by jki275) mean? I'm pretty sure most people doing research in the cryptocurrency space are trying to use the scientific method as much as they can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Whether or not you're aligned with Bitcoin political values and goals, please don't be duped by Ethereum. It may appear as something useful, without the stigma of Bitcoin being black market money. However, you ONLY need black market money. Everything else that's ok with being regulated, does not need a blockchain. The hard problem that Bitcoin solved was "How do we create money that wouldn't collapse and lose value once outlawed". The proof-of-work solution cannot be replicated (for reasons I won't go into here, homework for you). And that's a good thing.

Ethereum is a scam and has always been a scam from its inception. Multiple reasons for that:

1) Overly complex, obfuscating its lack of problem to solve by having lots of features and code

2) Constantly coming up with new terms and features and "new hot thing" to try and pump the price and keep the interest going.

3) No real world use case. Only promises and cryptokittes.

4) Literally controlled by one guy (see the now famous "Can you guys stop trading" quote).

5) Only produced scam ICOs with 99.99% of ICO projects practically stealing money from investors with no repercussions whatsoever.

There are many more, but the thing to remember is - Bitcoin solves a real problem: it allows people to escape and bypass existing financial system and continue doing business, save and not be subject to policies outside of their control. It is black market money which governments hate and will try to outlaw in some way. That is the real pain Bitcoin solves for people: not agreeing to unjust laws peacefully and quietly exiting the system.

<comment><USER55> Ethereum is a blockchain for general purpose computing. It's not a scam, it delivered what it promised. MakerDAO, mentioned in the post, is a cool and useful project running on Ethereum.

I agree with you about the core use case for Bitcoin currently being an escape from the government-forced financial system. It pierced the monopoly successfully. But the Ethereum screed is just lies at this point, Ethereum is one of the good ones.

<comment><USER33> What has it delivered exactly? Where is it being used that's not itself a scam? MakerDAO - which seems to be some sort of token issuance thing - has no real world mechanism for enforcement. That is, if an autonomous decentralized organization issues a token, who's to make it pay you dividends or enforce your rights for whatever this token represents? This is the thing that ETH fanboys are completely delusional about. Securities only work because state regulators enforce the laws guaranteeing their value.

<comment><USER56> How about being able to raise money for a project, and whitelist investors, without people having to trust you to send them the securities after they send you the money, and them seeing exactly what is being done with dilution or whatever instead of having to trust?

Or having a fair pricing model as investors buy in using a bonding curve, eliminating priced rounds and other crap, pg said that's the "future" - Ethereum makes it possible.

All this is only possible because enough gateways trade ETH that it can now be considered money. And it can be used as an input to tons of cool smart contract things. You couldn't do this stuff 10 years ago, at best you'd have some sorta hookup to Stripe API and banks.

<comment><USER33> Explain the mechanism by which people who invest can exercise their rights as stakeholders, receive dividends etc? Who's to enforce they actually own anything? What's stopping this project from taking all the money and producing nothing (which is exactly what happened with pretty much every ICO out there)?

<comment><USER57> As far as I understand it, all that matters is the logic of the smart contract code, and possession of private keys. Humans are removed completely from the process. If you own the private key involved in a transaction, then that is the guarantee you're looking for. All that's left is to examine the smart contract code in order to figure out what sort of contract to which you're now a cryptographically-guaranteed party.

No person enforces anything. Only the math does. And I think that's entirely the point.

<comment><USER58> > Humans are removed completely from the process

Do you have an example of an organization that works this way, 100% automated? It's hard to think of a system that can be 100% foolproof, there is always someone somewhere that has to trigger something manually, and that 's the weak spot.

<comment><USER57> Nope, I don't. And I'm not a particular proponent of this approach. This is just how I understand it.

I think the ultimate goal is to have smart contracts which don't require any of the human intervention you're mentioning. How that'll be possible remains to be seen...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Any progress on the problem of cryptocurrency being a vastly inferior solution to far easier ones, almost on every metric, in virtually every use-case?

</comment><comment> onion-soup Oh shut up already with big block phobia. BSV proves that big blocks is the most rational way to scale. The small block mantra started by blockstream completely rotted the crypto space

<comment><USER60> I agree, although I'd say BCH proved it first. :P

<comment> onion-soup BSV is a fork of BCH

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31>  after year of this technology being around still this is the best article HN can upvote. Be a sceptic and a scientist</comment>


A/B test anything with Var.to, a link shortener with variable destinations - <AUTHOR> http://var.to/

<comment><USER2> Guys,

This is really clever. When I first looked at it I thought "I can already do this in my app or with Unbounce or ..."

But then when I took a closer look at app it occurred to me that this is sooooo simple. Unbounce takes a learning curve and doing app-level routing testing can take some configuration.

With that in mind, I see a couple of options:

1\. Do A/B testing on the type of products you suggest, such as Google Docs that don't normally then themselves to such functionality. The issue I have with this approach is that I don't actually know of a situation where I would have done this. The times I'm A/B testing something (which isn't often), I'm highly invested in whatever I'm doing and the outcome. This is almost always whatever I'm building or selling, hence Unbounce or my own app.

2\. Figure out a way to put var.to INTO an app or a situation that I care a lot about and would pay for the tool. IF you could figure out way to make it drop-dead simple for me to put it into my app and then provided killer analytics an services on top if it, then it might be something I'd pay for.

Bottom line: I think you have a clever, interesting, easy-to-use tool that I like from an intellectually curious position. But it doesn't yet grip me emotionally with a "I've GOT to use this" position yet.

Nice job, hope it helps!

Kevin

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like your URL approach to A/B testing. I gave the product a try and found a couple of things you guys might want to fix:

\- The copy to clipboard button isn't really working. At least not on Chrome 9.0.597 on OSX10.6.6

\- Using cufon for the actual URL I want to copy isn't the best idea. It makes it really difficult to do a traditional "select and copy".

\- There's no way to delete/edit a URL

\- The title/description this for each URL may be a bit too much to ask. At least as an early user with just a couple of short URLs in the list.

Something more controversial (and also more important). What I expect from a URL shortener is a permanent redirect, not an iFrame. Some mayor website don't even allow rendering their pages inside iFrames (namely Twitter and Facebook)

I didn't find a feedback link in your page, that's why I'm doing this here.

Congrats for the realease!

</comment><comment><USER4> Put the "Add New" form on your homepage. Burying that form behind three pages creates way too much friction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point - I'll get that up in the next deployment. Appreciate the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like a good product, but I found the fonts on the front page very hard to read. I'm on XP/Chrome.

<http://imgur.com/vaUq7>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, and I appreciate you sharing the pic! Yeah, that doesn't look very good. I'll test it on XP and see if I can improve. Personally I really like the text-shadow/bevel effect, but I've always worried it reduces readability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _you'll need a Twitter account to login_

Whelp. Too bad, since it looked like a pretty cool service.

</comment><comment><USER7> Some case studies of how people increased their traffic/conversions/growth would be awesome :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Super simple, and really useful. I can imagine a few different use cases for this!

</comment><comment><USER9> Great idea! I would use it for my app

</comment><comment><USER10> Very cool idea. Would love an API!

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool idea!

</comment><comment><USER12> also simple. also good.</comment>


Raising a child in a doomed world - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/opinion/climate-change-parenting.html <comment><USER2> I'm going to admit that more than 10 years ago I wasn't so sure about global warming. Not an outright denier, just slightly sceptical, mainly because I felt there was a bit of mania surrounding it. But at the time I sought out a climate change scientist who sent me a few papers, which I read and was at least sold on the idea of CO2 levels and global temperatures rising, though with little conclusive evidence the two were connected by causation, although that was the most likely scenario.

More than 10 years on, climate change scientist's predictions have turned out to be terrifyingly correct, and I feel embarrassed for my previous naive scepticism. If now I meet a climate change denier/sceptic, I find this XKCD comic [1] is the most convincing way of communicating the problem, addressing both the idea of a recent ice age, and also the rate of change.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/1732/](https://xkcd.com/1732/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Does the author never ride in a car or shop in a strip mall or box store? Life is much better than it was a hundred years ago, and the author should read some books by Julian Simon.

"looking out the window with her at the rows of cars in the hospital parking lot, the strip mall across the street, the box stores and drive-throughs and drainage ditches and asphalt and waste fields that had once been oak groves. A world of extinction and catastrophe, a world in which harmony with nature had long been foreclosed."</comment>


Machine learning best practices [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zag7uhjdYo

<comment><USER2> Comparing the machine learning grading of essays with _just_ two human graders is plain stupidity[1].

By coincidence, all three might be same. And the probability of that coincidence is way too high.

[1]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias)</comment>


Raneto: Markdown-powered knowledge base for Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://raneto.com

<comment><USER2> Well, that was easy. Went ahead and took our long-standing WIP wiki which was already markdown and threw it in here. We've been meaning to do something like this for a while, you just did it.

Agreed with the point about security. We have a public part we want to make into a general KB but also a private part for internal. If anyone comes up with something, I'd love to see it.

Lastly, because what comment wouldn't be complete without some sort of "criticism" on someone else's awesome, hard work, what prompted the decision to use the /* */ commenting for page-specific config? In my experience (maybe this is just because I've used jekyll too much) it seems that Yaml frontmatter is pretty typical for .md file config.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. To be honest I just used a /* */ comment block because it was simple, but I'll have a look at implementing YAML.

<comment><USER3> How about gray-matter[1]? It supports YAML, TOML, JSON and Coffee. It can also auto-detect the type of front-matter.

[1] [https://github.com/assemble/gray- matter#lang](https://github.com/assemble/gray-matter#lang)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I played around with this last night. Woke up this morning, visited raneto.com again, noticed that the website claims that for "commercial" projects, it requires a per-domain license. Except the source code on Github is licensed under MIT. I'm not sure how to reconcile those two things. [http://docs.raneto.com/commercial- licensing](http://docs.raneto.com/commercial-licensing)

<comment><USER5> I noticed that too! Why don't they sell it as a service instead of trying to sell open source code?? Anyone who knows enough to use it knows enough to make it themselves

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do you still have to style the knowledge base to match your site's design or use a layout?

We've been working on a hosted knowledge base that you drop on a page and it inherits the design you already have. Our editor supports both WYSIWYG and Markdown too. Looking to see if people are interested and get feedback. [http://userdeck.com/guides](http://userdeck.com/guides)

</comment><comment><USER7> Really cool stuff! I actually wrote a [flat-file CMS]([https://github.com/AntJanus/popstar- cms](https://github.com/AntJanus/popstar-cms)) in Node as well, wasn't disappointed to see that my code and Raneto's code bares a good deal of similarities!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I actually created a flat-file CMS in PHP called Pico ([http://picocms.org](http://picocms.org)) so I built on some of the lessons I learned creating Pico when building Raneto.

<comment><USER7> I'm looking through it, I'm impressed by your plugins. I'm hoping to introduce that kind of structure into my application (hooks for remote posting, etc.). But gotta add one piece of functionality at a time!

I haven't looked through your code completely so let me ask you something, what kind of an object do you pass to your templates? Do you pass the entire tree of information (all contents parsed as a JS object), or do you pass the current + children + parent?

I'm just wondering. What I'm currently doing is sending the top-level content, current page, and children along with all of their information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had almost this exact idea recently, because I really wanted a minimal KB/wiki that I could edit in my text editor and collaborate on with others. It's encouraging to know that others feel the same way. You may have a competitor in a short while ;)

<comment><USER9> Please, let us know!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice work! Is there any difference between a knowledge base and a wiki?

And while on the topic of wikis, I wanted to plug dokuwiki which is an awesome feature-rich flat file wiki. I've been managing a lot of my writing as .txt files, even the ones with lots of math blocks---thank you MathJax! Also, the docutexit plugin allows me to export as .tex.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose the difference between Raneto and a "wiki" is that Raneto doesn't have all the multi-author features and collaboration that a wiki offers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool! I've been hoping to see more wiki/knowledgebase type static site generators.

I will admit that I fear for its longevity though. Any particular reason why you decided against building on top of something like assemble.io or wintersmith.io? Probably would have gotten a lot of functionality for free.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did consider simply building a KB with other static site generators, but I wanted something specifically designed for Knowledgebases and easy to setup and use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a question: what is the typical workflow for a user to "update" a markdown file on a static site that generates html ?

I'm okay with ftp being so 90's but I don't see regular joes git-pushing their website.

</comment><comment> T-A Doesn't seem to work on Windows. Links resolve to [http://localhost:3000/C:/Users/..](http://localhost:3000/C:/Users/..). i.e. full path to content directory.

</comment><comment><USER13> The licensing is confusing. The GitHub project is released under MIT, but the site says you need to have a commercial license to use the software?

<comment><USER14> The paid license is for commercial products. But that's still confusing.

 _Raneto may be used in commercial projects with the one-time purchase of a commercial license._

<comment><USER13> It just seems that the commercial license is incompatible with the MIT license. With the MIT license there is nothing stopping someone from using it in a commercial product, the MIT license doesn't have that restriction.

Even more confusing is if someone were to fork the project, would a user of that fork need to pay Raneto to use it a commercial license?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be nice to have some sort of security option around accessing the KB. Does anyone know of something like this with a login system?

<comment><AUTHOR> Raneto is secure because it doesn't have any kind of interface that can be hacked (e.g. a login page). To make changes to Raneto content you need to have access to your server file system.

<comment><USER16> i think the question was asking for most of the content publicly accessible but some of the content hidden behind a login. google sites does something like that but i haven't seen any flat-file cms'es that offer it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why the need for Node.js? Couldn't this simply be a static site? (I know there are tons of these, but most are "blog oriented)

<comment><AUTHOR> You could just create a static HTML site yes, but getting it generated for you from Markdown files is super handy. To generate it on the fly it needs to be powered by some kind of server (e.g. Node, PHP, Python etc). Nodejs was just a good choice of platform for this kind of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sort of related: how do people handle images when using markdown documents for local/offline storage?

<comment><USER3> I just put it in a specific directory, like root/data/images

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good work. :) But without the cross reference module, it is just like a simple blog system.

<comment><AUTHOR> It could easily be "hacked" into a blog if you wanted to do that. At its core it is just a static site generator.

<comment><USER3> No, I don't need another static blog. I mean (bi-directional) cross reference is very important for memorization and even better than a simple search engine. Maybe you can use Disqus comment box to get related article but that's not good enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just what my colleague needed for our small KB redesign. Thanks for discovering!

<comment><USER20> Yep.. Was also looking for a markdown kb. Pref. with flat files

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Any plans to integrate API blueprints?

</comment><comment><USER22> Looks very nice</comment>


Hardly Working: Start-up Guys  - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmdl4VltD4

<comment><USER2> Enjoyed this. Poking fun at "our" culture is a healthy reminder to not take it too seriously and get caught up too much in the startup mode.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thought this was really funny. Makes fun of the buzzwords we like to use and the "trendy" startup atmosphere.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a grain of truth in every joke...</comment>


Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A "Premium" Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/13/motorola-makes-the-moto-g-official-a-premium-phone-at-a-price-more-can-afford/ <comment><USER2> This phone looks like a game changer to me, because it has the specs of a _high-end_ smartphone but is priced like a crappy _low-end_ one.

The cost of an unlocked unit is $300 to $600 LESS than that of other devices with comparable specs, so mobile carriers should be able to offer the Moto G to the masses for _hundreds of dollars less_ than any iPhone or high-end Android device by Samsung, LG, etc.

Mobile carriers could offer the Moto G profitably at a _negative price_ \-- for example, zero money upfront plus an instant $300 coupon rebate if one commits to a two-year plan. Or they could offer it with much cheaper monthly bills than economically possible with other comparable phones -- for example, 25% off one's monthly bill if one commits to a two-year plan.

\--

Edits: added context and examples.

<comment><USER3> If this is high-end what is the HTC One I bought 6 months ago?

<comment><USER4> Especially considering Moto G won't be out until 2014, about 10 months after HTC One's release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is terriffic news! Smartphones are things that drop, that break, that fall into water and that get lost. Shelling out $500 for something this... ephemeral... always seemed absurd to me.

Or maybe I am just clumsy.

<comment><USER6> Calculate the cost. If you destroy a phone on average once per year, then $500 equates to $1.37 per day.

<comment><USER7> Except human psychology doesn't work that way. You will have lost something that has a value of approximately $500. It will feel like someone just stole $500 from you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've never understood why the good cell phones (unlocked) always cost something like 500, 600 euros. Glad to see someone trying to push the prices down, especially if it's not Samsung or Apple, to help keep some variety in presence.

Seeing Motorola as "a Google company" is really weird to me.([https://www.moto-g.com/](https://www.moto-g.com/) ), for some reason it makes me feel like Google is going to become the next GE or something.

<comment><USER9> Regarding the latter part of your comment, it's actually interesting to compare GE to Google for several reasons.

When GE was founded, it was a new kind of company for the time, and in the same way, Google is a new kind of company for our time, together with companies like Amazon -- their business model is built around leveraging the Internet, in the same way that GE was built around leveraging America's burgeoning industry.

Furthermore, Google manages to bring in a third of the revenue of GE with a sixth of the employees, and their net incomes are remarkably close. Think about how many products and services Google already offers, and how many more we already know are in the works. Because it's software, you don't as readily perceive these facets of this admittedly very large organization as you might with a company like GE, whose primary business is to produce a diverse array of physical objects.

<comment><USER10> Really good point. If you have a blog you should write more about this. Very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sounds like a great offering for an unlocked smartphone. I'm personally in the market for a cheap, unlocked smartphone, and if this is as good as the reviews sound, I'll probably buy one straight away.

But I think the real test for this phone's market share will be the subsidized price that carriers offer it at, which would have to be substantially lower than current subsidized flagship smartphones. I don't think most smartphone consumers value unlocked phones enough that they would pay a similar amount for one as they would pay for a subsidized iPhone 5S. A subsidized 5C would still be even cheaper than the unlocked Moto G.

A subsidized $50 Moto G vs. a subsidized $100 iPhone 5C though? I could definitely see that taking off.

<comment><USER12> With such a low unlocked price, I wouldn't be surprised if this hits a subsidized price of $0.

<comment><USER13> At $0 subsidized you would be getting ripped off. You'd be better off buying a subsidized iPhone, selling it, then buying the G at full price (plus pocketing a bunch of $$ at the same time).

<comment><USER14> I would bet cash flow is more important to which phone someone buys than absolute value.

<comment><USER15> Sure, but there's so much differential that it would make sense to buy a 5S on a contract using a payday loan, put it on eBay, and then use the proceeds to pay off the expensive loan, buy the Moto G, and go buy a bunch of groceries for your family with the difference.

The Moto G would be a straight-up ripoff on a traditional contract. I expect it to be a hit in the prepaid market, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's an excellent price for Latin America, I don't know other parts of the world, at $200 USD it will kill other smartphone vendors (Samsung and other Android mostly [http://qz.com/145704/slides-mobile-is-eating-the- world/](http://qz.com/145704/slides-mobile-is-eating-the-world/)). Also note that latam region already have the same amount of smartphone sales than Europe or US/Canada.

</comment><comment><USER17> The $179 price is total bullshit. In Brazil, where the phone was actually launched (and being produced), the price is US$279 (8GB) and US$343 (16GB).

Not that I, as a Brazilian consumer, am not used to getting dicked on hardware prices for everything. But reading $179 over and over again is kind of making me want to punch my screen.

<comment><USER4> How much are iPhone 5S, Nexus 5, HTC One, and Galaxy S4 in Brazil?

<comment><USER17> Prices simply too obscene to mention on family-oriented hackernews

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how much Motorola makes per handset at that price point, which could be slightly concerning for the business overall. Google can get away with tiny margins on their physical devices as they're about pushing traffic back to their services, making more money residually, but Motorola makes money by selling hardware for a profit.

It's great for consumers when price comes down, but that could leave businesses fighting to try get prices down and reduce overall profit, meaning they're unable to throw as much into R&D, or cut back on customer support or a dozen other areas. It's certainly an interesting marketplace at the moment, most manufacturers seem to be slashing prices reasonably heavily.

<comment><USER19> Motorola Mobility is now a Google (R) subsidiary...

<comment><USER18> Fully aware, but it's not important as it's being run as a separate business concern so it's a for-profit enterprise.

<comment><USER20> > _so it 's a for-profit enterprise._

Or not, given that Motorola has been operating at a loss for quite some time now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> No way this competes with real high end phones like S4, HTC One, iPhone5 or later.

What it does is compete very well against the iPhone4, 4S, S3, and older premium phones.

If you're adding a line to a family plan and want a phone that isn't basic, then this becomes very appealing as the iOS/Samsung/HTC/Nokia alternative will cost you either a 2 year subscription, or be $300 or more unlocked.

Considering people will still buy iPhones because they want something simple, the attack is really against Samsung and other manufacturers.

<comment><USER22> The Moto X/G _are_ simple.

<comment><USER21> Let me qualify my statement. People will buy Apple because the perceive it's simpler. Apple spends a lot (time|money) on making subtle interactions discoverable. This is simply not the case on the Android side, though it's getting better.

Having just bought a Nexus 5, I can see how usable it is, but how frustrating it would be for, say, my parents to use unless I got them on BigLauncher, or did all the setup for them and support as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is great, I was ready to buy a MotoX until I saw it was $750 unlocked, when at the same time the Nexus 4 was only $350. I'm not surprised that they didn't sell that many of them.

<comment><USER24> I was in the market for a phone at that time. Google then dropped the price of the Nexus 4 to $200 (8GB storage) and $250 (16GB). That was way too good a deal for me to pass up.

<comment><USER25> It was kind of unfortunate since just 2 weeks before the price drop I had paid about $350 for the Nexus 4.

Well that's life I guess.

<comment><USER24> So you just missed the cutoff for the refund? That's a bummer.

I could maybe have held off and gotten a Nexus 5, but it wasn't clear how much it was going to sell for, or exactly when. I had previously tried out a N4, and found it acceptable (other than the lack of a physical keyboard), so I just went for it. No regrets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> From the article: There's no LTE on board, which makes sense given the target market (growing, developed countries where LTE is in limited supply or nonexistent).

<comment><USER27> Such as France ;)

<comment><USER28> Or the UK.

<comment><USER29> UK does have LTE or 4G as some call it. Not that it is priced attractivly enough for anybody to use it compared to the lovely 3G deals out there. That and some of the 3G services are more than fast enough and I even used 3G for a game tornament few years back and won.

But it is out there and more than one network now - but I live in London so kind of spoilt compared to parts of highland Scotland still to see a mobile signal (lucky peeps).

But as said it is not priced well IMHO and if anything America may well have better price bundles with regards to 4G. Now 3G I think the UK is around 3x cheaper. Heck I get unlimited 3G and SMS and plenty of minutes for £15 a month, never seen anything as close for America. But that is a less dense area and later in the day to get 3G compared to the UK. So maybe they invested into kit that is more cheaply upgraded to 4G basestation wise compared to earlier models. But the UK is after all the size of a whole state in America and with that easier population density wise to cost justify rollouts. Albiet UK goverment flaffing about of spectrum sales and the UK mobile market getting burned by paying over the price for the 3G spectrum many years back (rare rare cose of a goverment selling something of not underpriced, indeed only case I can think of).

EE (aka was T-Mobile until they merged with Orange) [https://explore.ee.co.uk/coverage- checker/?wt.mc_id=ON_EE_V_...](https://explore.ee.co.uk/coverage- checker/?wt.mc_id=ON_EE_V_coverage-checker&wt.tsrc=Vanity)

O2 [http://www.o2.co.uk/4g/coverage-and- cities](http://www.o2.co.uk/4g/coverage-and-cities)

Vodaphone [http://www.vodafone.co.uk/our-network-and-coverage/uk- covera...](http://www.vodafone.co.uk/our-network-and-coverage/uk-coverage- map/)

So 4G is out there, but price wise - naaa. That said it is not covering the entire UK, though I can find places in the UK which get no mobile signal 2G onwards. Have to love the highlands in Scotland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From the article: "The 4.5-inch display, with 720p, 329 PPI resolution is the "hero feature" of the phone, and it outperforms the iPhone 5s according to Motorola."

I'm assuming they're talking about the display outperforming (bizarre wording) the iPhone5S? Because the stats don't seem to make it comparable much less leading the current performance champ...

<comment><USER30> Try re-reading it without the parenthetical: "The 4.5-inch display outperforms the iPhone 5s according to Motorola."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is a great product/market fit. Full Kudo's to google on this. If it is a success, i think they will get a Halo effect for their brand. That being said, lets hop there's no surprises in the SW bundle, performances, settings etc.

</comment><comment><USER32> I was talking to representatives from Lyft at a festival here in Baltimore, and I asked them if they had any plans to support non-smartphones like mine, or any other way to use their service. "No" was the answer.

I realized, this was genius! They could ensure only wealthy customers used their service, creating a vacuum in which the upper class could use transportation in style and comfort, without having to interface with "those kinds" of people. Also ensuring their customer base was (relatively) well- behaved and polite.

Hopefully cheaper phones like this can fuck with these digital social classes.

<comment><USER33> Or perhaps maybe they realised that most people, especially those that might use their app, are likely to have a smartphone or get one soon. That investing on making a service targeting other platforms is a waste of time and money?

That sounds much more likely than some digital class nonsense.

Edit: Also the assumption that people with smartphones are going to be better behaved than normal is... not based in reality. It's not like taxis are stopping for e.g. homeless people that camp out inside the taxi all day.

<comment><USER32> You're saying basically that investing money in developing your product to gain more customers is a waste. You're also saying it somehow makes more sense to develop two different applications for two different platforms and depend on a THIRD service's platform (Facebook).

Instead of just making one simple web 1.0 mobile site that works everywhere, doesn't limit your customer base, and takes less time and money to develop.

And it's not nonsense. I'll bet you that some basic research on demographics of the user base would show a clear separation in the economic disparity of cab users vs lyft users.

Why the separation? Easier access to cabs. Poor people will find it more difficult to access the internet or a smartphone, but they can get easy access to a plain-old telephone or desktop internet access.

The assumption is based on socioeconomic class differences, and is perceived rather than actually noticeable in difference, but i'm not going to repeat what you can find on wikipedia. The other aspect is that rich people may be perceived to tip better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This makes much more sense than the Moto X in terms of differentiating Motorola and charting a course that isn't "me too" and competitive with Google's first tier OEM partners.

</comment><comment><USER35> I guess it's not CMDA (Verizon) compatible.

It sure looks nice otherwise, AND it has an FM radio. I hate that most new models have dropped that.

EDIT: Reformatting

<comment><USER36> You have that backwards.

It's Verizon which has decided explicitly not to be compatible with phones which works everywhere else in the world.

It's like an ISP which decides that it doesn't want to use TCP/IP, but instead goes off and makes their own network-protocol, which requires its own custom OS preloaded on customer-computers.

You can hardly blame phone-vendors for not being on that ship. It's much more profitable to make one model which works everywhere.

<comment><USER35> As someone else pointed out, I was talking about an FM radio.

Also, you do realize that CDMA is much older than VZW and wasn't created just to create incompatibilities?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It would be very 'premium' if it supported Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) right out of the box. The specs only mention Bluetooth 4.0, but sadly that's not enough for real BLE support on Android pre 4.4 KitKat. An unexpensive Android smartphone that works with my Fitbit Flex and other BLE devices would be awesome.

</comment><comment><USER38> I hoped it is based on the X8 architecture, but is just "normal". So it makes not sense to compare it with Moto X, is a different phone, different target, is no "little brother", more like a distant "poor cousin".

<comment><USER39> I don't follow Android that closely. How is the performance of this phone? Cheap phones like this will help get Android into the hands of another billion people. It's probably more important to have a more recent version of Android than the fastest CPU.

<comment><USER40> It's quad core. Looks like an excellent phone for the price. Interesting that Motorola is one-uping the Nexus to some degree here (the Nexus is closer to being a flagship, but this is significantly cheaper).

This might be my next. What's for sure is I'm never buying another $600 phone again.

<comment><USER41> I'll never buy one of those again either, subsidized or not. One reason beyond the cost is being at the mercy of the telco for upgrades.

So, unlocked, is this thing jail-breakable/cyanogenmodable or similar?

What's a reasonable expectation for how many years I could keep it security upgraded?

<comment><USER42> The Motorola blog says that the phone will have an unlockable bootloader (in the U.S) which means you should be able to install custom ROMs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> got an unlocked LG L9 months ago for $179 with a 4.5 inch screen and LTE. It has been discontinued now, but I have been wondering why LG seemed to be the only company capable of coming out with decent spec phones at decent prices.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps it simply isn't profitable?

Motorola still hasn't posted a profit since Google's purchase. I don't see how this product is going to turn those tables.

It could be they will simply become Google's hardware R&D arm and effectively a cost-center.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> A competitive globally accessible phone price would be $50, not $200. This feels more like a cheap 1st world phone than a global one.

ZTE and other have already made 50 dollar phones using Android and Windows + Asha won't be far behind at $60.

Motorola has a long ways to go (4x price reduction) to truly get their android devices into India, China And other poorer regions of South America and Africa.

<comment><USER45> I'm from India and I've been looking to buy a smartphone in this price range for sometime. The Lumia 520 seemed really attractive as it was the only phone in the $200 price range that wasn't crap.

The Moto G looks really compelling and if its available for this price in India I would buy it in a heartbeat. If this phone is as good as claimed (and thats a big if) then Samsung and Nokia stand to lose a lot of ground.

And as for the $50 price point I'm not sure you can provide a true smartphone experience at that price.

There is a lack of usable smartphones in this price range and the longer it goes unaddressed the more ground Android will lose to phones like the Lumia 520.

<comment><USER46> > if its available for this price in India

The blog says it will be available in India in January.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has sued 397 companies - <AUTHOR> http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/03/microsoft-and-google-jointly-sue-geotag.html

<comment><USER2> This is great news. It's nice to see two rivals joining forces on something which is not only morally wrong, but actually generally damaging to the industry as a whole. Hopefully (if successful!) this sets a precedence and sends out a message to other patent trolls.

<comment><USER3> While I absolutely agree with you, I believe you were looking to use the word _precedent_.

<comment><USER2> You're right, ack, embarrassing. Unfortunately I seem unable to edit the post now.

EDIT: As an aside I think it reminded me too much of the concept of precedence in maths, so the brain-burp was probably sourced from there.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't matter at all. Don't be embarassed. Anyone who reads your original comment will know exactly what you meant.

Some of the smartest people I know frequently mis-grammar a sentence every now and then. Sometimes even frequently.

A language is a tool for conveying ideas. If a given paragraph conveys the same mental result for each reader, then it doesn't matter if any given word is wrong; the tool has done its task. I wish more people would realize this and stop condemning frivolous mistakes...

<comment><USER5> Yes, it is about time to allow some wiggle room. I am glad that grammar and spelling correction became a meme. At one point, it looked like the web was going to deteriorate into all lol speak. It was also leaking into offline writing, as well. Ebb and flow has a great end result, but the process is often painful and/or annoying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ideas especially in the field of software design should never be patented IMHO. Algorithms, hardware definitely but not the idea. For example, what is the point behind Apple patenting multi touch gesture technology? I mean why? (FWIW I am an Apple fan). I remember somebody suing twitter for they have the patent for an ecosystem that allows celebrity to come together and do some stuff in an "online" environment. I mean wow! To all such people, step back and think what if the guy who made chair had patented it. What about wheel, fire? I know this sounds crazy but seriously why should ideas be patented. I could genuinely have the same idea without having seen yours (idea) first!

<comment><USER2> Absolutely.

I think John Carmack put it best:-

"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." [1]

[1]:<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_D._Carmack>

<comment><USER7> Whereby this again now is not about the idea but the implementation.

But in many cases, this is also right.

See Amazons 1-Click as an example. I haven't really looked up the implementation details they describe in their patent but I guess it mostly follows the straight-forward implementation of this.

<comment><USER8> The implementation details of the 1-Click patent are still fairly broad/generic: <http://www.google.com/patents?id=O2YXAAAAEBAJ>

It's worth noting that while the USPTO granted the patent (and even after multiple reexaminations still granted parts of the patent), the patent was never granted at all in Europe: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder, why don't large corporations join forces and lobby the government and congress for changes in patent rules and laws?

Of course they themselves may have benefited from the current rules quite a bit too, but they still can benefit more with _some_ changes to the rules that remove the chance for these leeches from sucking blood from them and the whole economy. (For large enough players, growth in the economy as a whole will also affect their growths and profits.)

Large corporations generally have both positive and negative impacts on everyone's wellbeing, but these patent trolls, who don't produce anything of value, only consume resources, are clear negatives.

<comment><USER10> _I wonder, why don't large corporations join forces and lobby the government and congress for changes in patent rules and laws?_

Some do. In fact Microsoft is doing just this right now and many companies are supporting MS, including Google. Unfortunately, more companies came out AGAINST MS and in support of the current patent system. See: [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/20137856...](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/2013785625_morethan100companiessupportofi4iinmicrosoftsupremecourtcase.html)

It is interesting to note that the companies in support of MS are largely in the tech sector, while those against are largely in pharma/agriculture.

Note, this case is about changing the standard of proof in patent cases to a "preponderance of evidence" rather than the higher standard of proof, "clear and convincing evidence". While it doesn't get rid of the patent system, it _should_ make it easier to beat weak patents in court.

<comment><USER9> A good way to do it might be to have different rules for different industries then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Funny fact about US software patents:

\- software can be patented

\- math cannot be patented

\- all software is basically math

(very simple interpretation, but it scales)

<comment><USER12> To grind it right down to its essence, facts cannot be patented, but the application of facts to solve a problem can be patented.

Charcoal burns and produces heat. Water boils when heated. It produces steam. Steam has a larger volume. The increase in volume can move a piston. A piston attacked eccentrically to a wheel causes it to rotate about its axis.

All these things are natural facts that cannot be patented. But put them together to solve the problem of turning fossil fuels into mechanical energy, and you've got a steam engine.

The difficulty with complaining that patenting software is patenting math is the difficulty of complaining that patenting steam engines is patenting facts of nature. The patent is for the application of facts to solve problems, and that applies equally to facts of math as it does to facts of nature.

Now patents may be a bad idea, or perhaps a good idea badly executed, but that is a different argument. I assert that if you can patent the application of nature to create a steam engine, you ought to be able to patent the application of math to create a program.

<comment><USER13> You don't patent a combination of natural facts. You patent the apparatus that combines them. If the "apparatus" was itself a natural fact, it would not be statutory.

But this is all theory. What's patentable isn't what you read in statute or SCOTUS opinions. What's patentable is whatever can cause you legal troubles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They wanted software patents on trivial ideas.

Now they have them and don't like them?

Well, I hope the "troll" wins, maybe the big ones then start lobbying against "patents on ideas".

<comment><USER15> In the defense of Microsoft and Google, they typically filed patents as defensive measures to mitigate against what they saw as a broken system.

<comment><USER16> Except Microsoft _has_ used patent threats in the past (e.g. against the VirtualDub project, and there are a few more). When the threat comes from Microsoft, and it goes to what is essentially a one-man-show open source project, you don't actually need to get to court.

It's called "a chilling effect".

Furthermore, Ballmer was, and still is, FUDding all the time about Microsoft going to enforce patents that Linux infringes (though not name anything). Even though no action was taken, it also has a chilling effect.

Your defense is acceptable for google. Microsoft deserves to be patent trolled.

<comment><USER10> The VirtualDub case is an interesting one. I wish the author would have pushed it a bit more. I suspect that there was no threat of a lawsuit, but rather an engineer who saw VirtualDub and was POed. Legal at companies like Intel, IBM, and MS generally won't let someone from the actual product team call another company on a legal matter.

My suspicion is that it was just a rogue employee who frankly probably wouldn't have had support from legal, since legal at these organizations tend to be more strategic than tactical (they don't care about one-off infringers, but are usually pushing a bigger strategic story, where patents infringement is just part of it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why is someone abiding to the patent law a "troll"? What's wrong with suing 397 companies if (i) you have a valid patent (ii) the law says that those companies violate your patent?

If you don't like how the patent system works lobby your government to change the patent laws, but don't blame the companies who utilize those laws to make money.

<comment><USER18> A patent troll is a company who sues over at least one patent, but does not produce any products. As a result, the company cannot be threatened, because you cannot impact their "sales" in any way (e.g. by threatening with other patents) -- they have none. This is in contrast to the typical situation where two companies threaten each other with patents and then (usually) hammer out a cross-licensing deal.

This is an industry term, not an insult.

<comment><USER19> I hate the patent system as much as the next guy, but given what the patent system is meant to do, is there a way to distinguish between patent trolls and legitimate R&D firms that invest in technology and license the resulting patents, but don't actually productize themselves?

<comment><USER20> Easy.

1) Do they perform original research themselves, or do they purchase patent rights? If they're not actually generating knowledge, then they're rent- seeking.

2) Do they generate income from licenses, or from lawsuits? Licensing IP is a voluntary transaction for both parties, so the people using the IP believe they're paying a fair cost for it. Lawsuits seek to extract maximum payoff through coercive means, usually because the free-market value of their IP would be vanishingly small.

<comment><USER19> Hm. Thanks!

I'll give you 1, but I'm not sure about 2. I guess if there's a pattern of lawsuits over licensing, but isn't a lawsuit what you resort to if someone uses your patented process without licensing?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


We Can Do Better – Visualisation of gender disparity in engineering teams - <AUTHOR> http://do-better.herokuapp.com/

<comment><USER2> Cool visualizations! I wonder if the title of this page could be less condemnatory, however.

</comment><comment><USER3> cool visualization, but apart from that I don't see anything special about it...

yes. There are more men engineers than women. So?

<comment><USER4> That sort of thinking is part of the problem.

50% of the people in the world are female, so why are they under-represented on these teams? It's a sign something's out of balance here.

<comment><USER5> Because today, despite 60% of college grads being female, only 16% of comp sci students are women. Choices. Agency. Isn't that what equality is supposed to be about?</comment></comment></comment>


Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman Steps Down - <AUTHOR> http://www.webpronews.com/go-daddy-ceo-warren-adelman-steps-down-2012-07

<comment><USER2> Can the board just agree that the new CEO will be re-titled as "Chief Scumbag?"</comment>