How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area - <AUTHOR> http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surface-area

<comment><USER2> Simply telling people about your product isn't enough. You have to do it properly. If you are making people mad, it doesn't matter how many you tell. If you are actively drawing their attention, everything's golden.

I think it's important to note that when people say 'make your own luck', they mean work hard and good things will happen. Not really luck.

You can, however, increase the chances that something lucky will happen by doing more things the right way. ('Luck' being good things that happen to you that weren't in your control.)

People who volunteer often meet other people who can help them with their own projects. People who schmooze clients often find those clients have additional needs, or have friends that have needs. You don't -really- have control over those things, but you've increased the likelihood of them happening.

</comment><comment><USER3> The advice at [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky- its-a...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-an-easy- skill-to-learn.html) is even more useful if you want to learn to be lucky.

In fact I'll submit it.

</comment><comment><USER4> "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

Given how hard the people in the HN community work, it's little wonder that the concept of the 'luck surface area' resonates so well.</comment>


Sales, the missing piece - <AUTHOR> Hi,
Bunch of my friends and I created a video hosting platform called RealEnc.com. I gain a lot of experience along the way. Now we finally have a product that I think is sellable. It offers a great platform for companies that's looking to incorporate a white-label video host onto their site. RealEnc offers features like:
1. Dynamic Adaptive Streaming to minimize stream buffering 2. Content Protection 3. Support for Mobile Devices 4. Free Technical Support 5. Unbranded Video Player
Now to the hard part. I have been reading up on ways to sell products through email. Specially B2B stuff. I may have sent well over 30 emails so far with each email catered to its reader. Unfortunately, non of them replied back. Heartbroken but optimistic.
Our team compose of all tech guys and non of them have the slightest experience in marketing or sales. But we are motivated enough to read tones of articles on sales and contact people though email. I want to ask, from those who have experience in entrepreneurship, two favors. One, please comment on one of the email I sent out to a company. Two, please advice us more ways improve our sales.
1. Email: (I used dummy names)
Hi David,
I am Harry from RealEnc.com. RealEnc is a video hosting platform. Besides being an awesome video host, we also provide an exceptional support that covers all aspects of video hosting for FREE. I just want to ask if you would be interested in looking into a better video hosting alternative for Automotive News website.
You will get out full-fledged product FREE for two months. Also, you do not need to worry about technical aspect of the integration, we will make sure of a smooth integration.
2. Below are few question that might help us to improve our sales tactics
Any literature that you think would help us to improve? How do we find someone good at sales to work with us?
We appreciate you taking time to read this and comment on it.
Thank you <comment><USER2> Thoughts on email: Your whole email is about you. The first paragraph is about you and what you want from the prospect.

Then you tell them about getting something for free without actually knowing whether "FREE" actually matters to them or not.

You then tell them you'll do a smooth integration, which is also about you.

Then you ask them to help you.

Then you ask them to educate you.

Then you ask them to introduce you to their contacts.

Then you close with a non-close and thank them for reading it when what you really want is a response.

\-----

To improve it: 1) Make it about them 100%. No sales prospect cares about who you are or what you do. They care only about themselves and their company. So start with them. 2) Don't ask them to help you in any way, you are only there to help them do what they want to do. 3) You have to learn to qualify and make it apparent you've done your homework.

<comment><AUTHOR> @sebg

Thank you for the great feedback, I'll do the necessary updates.</comment></comment>


IITian quits Hollywood to design lab in suitcase - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/IITian-quits-Hollywood-to-design-lab-in-suitcase/articleshow/20013993.cms

<comment><USER2> Here's an excerpt from National Technology Day 2013 press release[1]:

 _The First product which is Blood Chemistry Analyser & Compact Portable Mobile Lab developed by Sh. Amit Bhatnagar, an IITian with the assistance of TDB. This Analyser supports the analysis of 23 parameters which includes Haemoglobin count, Blood Glucose, Urea, Uric Acid, Creatinine, Total Protein, Bilirubin, Cholesterol, Triglycerides, SGPT, Calcium, Magnesium, and Phosphorous. Cost of testing all 23 parameters on this device is less than Rs. 120 per person. The analyser is capable of analyzing 4000 samples during a day. The Blood chemistry analyzer costs around Rs. 80,000/-._

From press-kit photo[2], I guess product is marketed under the name _Accuster Mobile Lab_ [3].

[1]<http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=95923>

[2]<http://pib.nic.in/newsite/photo.aspx?photoid=47147>

[3][http://www.accuster.com/product_details.php?id=P14&cid=C...](http://www.accuster.com/product_details.php?id=P14&cid=C1)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool, and the effort is definitely admirable, but I'd have a few questions:

1\. A suitcase can't conduct an examination and render a diagnosis; someone has to be able to operate it effectively. Are those people -- doctors, nurses, or someone with similar training -- available in the places that could benefit the most from this?

2\. From what's been posted around here, India has a very serious basic sanitation problem. If that's true, two things:

2a. How will a predominantly filthy (bacterially speaking) environment effect the accuracy and utility of this, particularly over long term use of a single unit?

2b. Can we expect this to actually do any good in a significant number of cases? I'd expect that a diagnosis like "yes, your malady is x, which is an infection from the water you drink" is going to do very little good for many people's situation.

I have no idea how the cost of this compares to salaries or publicly-available funds for the places this is intended for, but that seems to me like another potential issue.

<comment><USER2> For 1: Rural places in India have _Primary Health Centres (PHCs)_ ; they're basically clinics with basic health-care facilities[0]. I believe these PHCs would benefit from such portable blood analyzers, as setting up a full fledged diagnostic lab may not be economical. PHCs would have doctor, nurse and pharmacist; so operating these kits shouldn't be a problem. Also, from the linked article, it looks like Border Roads Organisation is already using these kits.

For 2a and 2b: I am not sure how effective it will be in long run, in _filthy_ environment :)

[0]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Health_Centre,_India>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your man is gonna make some serious money.

1\. Clearly he is politicly connected. You don't get govt funding in India without being connected to some member of parliament or another.

2\. And he knows some serious science.

3\. Is clearly an entrepreneur.

Well done him.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the bigger story is how he 'got into hollywood'

</comment><comment><USER6> Respect</comment>


Unorthodocs: Abandon Your DVCS and Return to Sanity - <AUTHOR> http://bitquabit.com/post/unorthodocs-abandon-your-dvcs-and-return-to-sanity/ <comment><USER2> I take some of his points, but this seems kinda...a couple years late here. It seems to me that Git/Mercurial just became the best centralized systems; being distributed fixed some critical faults with being centralized, and didn't _really_ introduce that much more complexity, IMO. In most use-cases, you're talking about one extra porcelain command in comparison to a server-connected client like SVN or TFS, assuming you push every single changeset.

I also think being distributed encourages small chunks of work, where being centralized encourages the batcave approach, and that, I think, is a much bigger differentiator than most people realize. It impacts everything. Suddenly, merging doesn't seem as bad, and then suddenly being able to easily and cheaply create branches is more important. Centralized systems never really got there because the client/server nature works against them. I'm glad to see some big players giving them attention again, because one of the author's best points is that being centralized has certain advantages. It's just that the existing centralized systems suck.

I also think the GitHub workflow comparison to the email list + patch days is a bit contrived because the email list procedure was never that simple (well, for getting ignored maybe it was, but the point was to contribute, not be ignored). I, too, remember those days.

Steps 1&2 under GitHub aren't really harder than step 1 under CVS (or what have you). He just neglected to mention all the steps involving fiddling with CVS connection parameters, or finding the right URL for a SVN repository (trunk? All the branches? Do I care about tags? Good luck if they aren't using the standard layout).

Github #3 also belongs in the first list. Goodness...have you ever _read_ the OpenBSD mailing list? It's about as friendly as EFnet on PMS.

I could go on, but the point is that the number of steps for CVS+mailing list isn't really different than with GitHub.

</comment><comment><USER3> The reason git works so well is because it models real life. When you check out a tree to work on it, the moment you change a file in your editor you have forked the tree. Whether you save the changes or not, it's a fork, even if a temporary one. More than that, it's a _distributed_ fork. What your undo buffer in your editor does, or your local filesystem does, or your VCS does, is merely an implementation detail.

It works well to be using a tool where the changes you make in your editor are unified with the more formal changes you'll be pushing back upstream. It makes the whole process smoother, and means that all editing involves an identical workflow.

Even with Subversion, for example: if you make a local change in a file concurrent to something being changed in the repository, then what you have is a diverging branch. Subversion will try to auto-merge when your commit fails and you update your working tree (IIRC). Just because Subversion neither calls your working tree a branch nor your update a merge doesn't stop them being so.

My point is that if you're changing code that is also being worked on elsewhere, you are using a DVCS whether you like it or not. Even if you aren't even using a specific DVCS tool. You have a DVCS the moment two people work on the same code base concurrently. So you might as well use a tool that integrates with the workflow that you already have.

<comment><USER4> This is not real life, this is a workflow, one of many. It happens to mirror mine though and, perhaps surprisingly, I can easily achieve the same workflow with centralized VCS by using branches. It would be a major pain in CVS but works just fine for me (and others) in Perforce. So it can be done.

What's interesting is what "it" means" and that you're proving one of the points author is making: your workflow doesn't rely on the fact that your VCS is decentralized. It relies on the fact that branching/forking is easy. Painful branching is quite often a matter of legacy since CVS and SVN were architected in different times when our needs were mostly different and technology was very different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This may be strange to the author, but many of us experience Git completely outside of the realm of Github. Many of his complaints are fairly irrelevant then.

<comment><USER6> The complaints as I read them are:

* Large repository size because of blobs, large histories, or many files

* Difficulty of using git

* Pull requests aren't easier than patch bombs

Only the last one has to do with Github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For me:

1\. I do development offline all the freaking time. Basically I love the entire repo stored on my disk for the same reason I have a laptop instead of a desktop - so I can code anywhere.

2\. News flash there are plenty of places that do not get good internet connectivity. Or my phone maybe dead or dying. Or I just stopped caring about having the tethering option on my plan. (and didn't care enough to bypass the restriction )

3\. I don't use a lot of large images/video/etc in my development. Never have really, but then again I do a lot of server-side dev - very little Android coding.

4\. Why do I care about a repo that is 1-2 gigabytes? I have a 4 terabyte disk.

Overall, comment: problem for facebook and google - for most companies this is not a problem. And if your company is having this problem, it has the money and people to solve the problem ... like facebook and google are doing.

<comment><USER8> The question is not when do you do development offline? The question is when have you ever needed the ENTIRE history of the repository offline?

Have you? Maybe. Do you constantly need to? Very very unlikely for the vast majority of people

<comment><USER7> Yes I do need the entire repo:

1) when a developer "accidentally" deleted the master repo.

2) when a developer accidentally damaged the master repo with a force push and it was easier to drop and restore the repo from my disk version.

3) when I am figuring out the overall contribution that each developer made.

4) when i am running a git bisect to figure out when a bug was introduced.

5) ... other cases.

As another person said, its not that I always need the full repo its just that I need it on occasion and I don't know when I will need the full repo. And those times when I need the full repo, I may be flying overseas or at my mom's house ( and she doesn't have internet ).

By the simple expedience of having the full repo with me, I don't have to worry about needing an older version of a file ... or anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find it fantastically useful to have the entire revision history on local disk, it makes it practical to actually do ridiculous searches through all of the history. Try doing that against your svn server.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're simply defining weaknesses of Subversion, not centralized versus distributed in either direction. E.g., we made blame for Git repos in Kiln ridiculously fast by caching memoized states for each file. You could also do that locally; we happened to do it server-side because it made more sense. There's no reason that an outright centralized system couldn't do that (and indeed, some do, though neither CVS nor Subversion).

<comment><USER7> can you expand on this? How did you do that? do you have a script?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One point that isn't addressed is the difficulty of actually working with large numbers of unmergeable binary files, even assuming you've got the disk space to store them. Unless you've got some kind of centralized lock/unlock (check in/check out, etc.) functionality, serializing access to files is going to prove difficult.

I've seen it suggested that you should have some better means of coordination than what's in effect a per-file mutex. It's true you need to have a rough idea at a higher level what's going on (no point deciding ten people will all work on the same thing, when that means they'll all have to edit the same file!), but day to day, working at the file level, you still need the mutex to ensure people don't step on one another's work. It's a simple mechanism, and it scales about as well this sort of thing can.

<comment><USER11> There is value in communicating status of work via a central SCM repository. For binary files and locking this is particularly so.

The approach of Perforce where file status is tracked on the server provides this. There can be costs associated so it's not just a panacea for all SCM ills, but it's certainly worth considering.

One reason Perforce is so widely used in game development - it scales easily to Terabyte sized repositories straight forwardly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Agree with most of the points in terms of most developers aren't using the D enough to make DVCS worth it. However, have to disagree about open source development before and after GitHub.

Ironically, it's the centralized user accounts on GitHub that made it really outstanding for open source. Now I don't have 100 different systems each with their own logins and conventions, I just have GitHub and all the myriad projects thereon.

Pull requests are better than patches because they are more explorable (quickly view diffs right from the browser), discussable (make comments on specific lines of code, mention other users), and programmable (webhooks to run tests against pull requests instead of manually pulling and running tests). Those are pretty big advantages.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have been wondering whether to go back to Subversion myself. The distributed option really doesn't apply to me, my minimal branching needs are met by Subversion, and oh my god, git's submodules get confusing.

<comment><AUTHOR> (Author here)

To be clear, in real life, I do not actually like Subversion. I use Mercurial pretty exclusively for my own stuff, and would indeed use some of the centralized Mercurial extensions I linked in the article (e.g., remotefilelog, narrowhg, etc.) to scale upward if I had really big stuff flying around. The article is more about pointing out that going to a DVCS involves trade-offs, acknowledging that we have a lot of tooling designed to fake out those trade- offs, and discourage thinking of DVCS as a strict upgrade rather than an engineering decision with implications and costs and benefits.

<comment><USER13> Oh, no doubt Subversion has its downsides and Mercurial is really good at what it does. I was just musing through my own tradeoffs. It is a very narrow point but one that I hope is in the spirit of the article.

Partial repo checkouts, SVN externals are the two areas where I feel I lost something when "upgrading" to Git. So yes, I quite agree, there are definitely tradeoffs.</comment></comment></comment>


If You Still Don't Understand How China Succeeded Stopping the Virus - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-still-dont-understand-how-china-succeeded-stopping-mario-cavolo/ <comment><USER2> China's systems of shutdown should be producing a steady burn of new cases, not a reduction of active cases.

Population, Density, Epicenter.

This post is bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Incredible propaganda from someone who makes their living shilling for China.</comment>


Google's secret plan to censor the internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6260177/Google-wants-censor-internet-tackle-cyber-harassment-racism-venting.html <comment><USER2> My favorite slide (not shown in this article but in the memo) is the one where they list the 4 horsemen of the dystopian web: Facebook Live, rise of the Alt- right, Pedophiles, and...Logan Paul!

Pic found here: [https://twitter.com/cwarzel/status/1050087337693040640](https://twitter.com/cwarzel/status/1050087337693040640)</comment>


What history teaches us about the latest stock market plunge - <AUTHOR> https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/what-history-teaches-us-about-the-latest-stock-market-plunge <comment><USER2> What stock market plunge?

<comment><AUTHOR> check back in few months

<comment><USER2> I'll ask again after a few years then. If you're not retiring anytime in the next decade, the up's and down's of the market are completely useless to be worried about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> (2018)

</comment><comment><USER4> They happen.</comment>


That Cocky Voice in Your Head Is Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/dear-investor-that-cocky-voice-in-your-head-is-wrong-1535108459 <comment><USER2> Free the link!</comment>


The 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory just took a dark turn - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-attacks <comment><USER2> I'm very troubled by conspiracy theories like this, but I have no idea what I can do to help the situation.

It feels a bit like deprogramming people formerly in an abusive cult environment: can it really only be done one at a time?

Is spreading this sort of misinformation akin to unprotected speech (like telling people to perform acts of violence on a public platform)?

Should it be unprotected?

Is this just something we have to live with, or can we as a society do something to reduce the spread of dangerous conspiracy theories?

</comment><comment><USER3> The law should be amended to include a lengthy "no internet/telephone" penalty when a crime has been committed because of such conspiracy theories (in addition to whatever usual penalty there is) both to protect them (since they have trouble discerning the truth from the bullshit) as well as protect the public by preventing them from spreading the bullshit further.</comment>


Recruiters Using Facebook... as a Reference Check - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtern.com/thesavvyintern/index.php/2011/03/02/recruiters-using-facebook-as-a-reference-check/

<comment><USER2> If you set your privacy settings _correctly_ , nobody but who you allow will see anything about you (bar your name, profile picture, gender, networks, and username {which are visible to everyone}).

Poorly researched article.

<comment><USER3> Poorly thought out comment... what if recruiters follow the ever-growing trend of asking for the login for privacy-set FB accounts?

Oh - then they'll see all of those pictures etc.

What are you, as the job seeker going to do... say "no you can't have my login?" That would take some big juevos, my friend.

<comment><USER4> _> say "no you can't have my login?"_

Of course I would. I don't think that takes big anything. That's an incredibly inappropriate request.

<comment><AUTHOR> YouTern would never suggest giving login information to an employer, or anyone else. And it highly unlikely -- unheard of, even -- that a recruiter would ask for login info or passwords.

We've heard of several applications that contain fields for links to social media sites, including Facebook... so assuming the commenter used "login" when they actually meant "URL" or "link".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use a completely different name for my facebook profile and have a gmail account (unconnected) associated with it. I routinely get job offers for security work even though I have everything set to private.

I'm assuming that this is me showing up as linked to other people that are not so cautious.

<comment><USER6> Are saying they manage to associate the gmail account and Facebook account themselves?

Are they truly unassociated or is there are name in the Facebook account that your friends could use to find the gmail account?

<comment><USER5> I get on average about a message every 3 months from recruiters looking for 'fresh meat'. What I think they're doing is they're looking at friends on facebook, then their networks and making the assumption that the person will have a gmail account, then guessing what it might be. Sometimes I'm cc'd into variants of potential spelling like firstname.lastname@gmail, flastname@gmail etc. but most of the time it's a bcc. If you bear in mind that my profile has a distinctly odd name which used to be a googlewhack and that most of my friends friends on facebook are in the UK and in the same industry (I use multiple profiles for multiple purposes).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Clearly this is going on, but the article seems a little sensationalist. I highly doubt my ex wife or my pet is being used as a measure of recruitability.

<comment><USER8> Maybe the HR person doesn't like your type of pet....hmmmm...IT HAPPENS!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have everything in friends only.. even friends list. I have a public twitter though. I see no reason why they should not hire a human being. We are all human and if they are clinging on to a 1950s view of Man then maybe I should not work there. I am quite professional and accomplished but I always speak from my heart.

My biggest gripe with HR is in their ability to understand transferrable skills. I may have x years and a masters degree in y but they are looking for y'.

I have faith that with my generation, politicians and businessmen alike will stop pretending they are "perfect" people. Then finally we can get past these old ideas of how everyone should exist.

<comment><USER6> That innocuous phrase "hire a human being" masks serious problems for a world without workplace privacy.

The modern world's move to _capitalism_ from feudalism, circa 1800-1900 involved a move from dictators (feudal lords) who could demand anything from their vassals on a life-long basis to a world in which workers and professional entered into definite _contracts_ with employers for _limited_ purposes.

Capitalism, even according to its proponents, is an adversarial system. It's just hopefully a adversarial system to brings benefits to all concerned at the end of the day. But you don't get those benefits if you surrender in the middle of the day - "negotiate not and ye shall not receive..."

It's problematic if your employers has demanded to hire a "human being of their choice" rather than a human being who will competently accomplish a codified job in a competent manner.

Try the phrase "I don't see what's wrong an employer giving a _human being_ a job evaluation" in contrast to "I expect to be evaluated based on my ability to accomplish a job" For _a human being_ , "I didn't like their hair" might be legitimate as a complaint. But

Your employer is giving you something _limited_ a wage. You owe them something limited too -

This is as much for the benefit of the employer as the employee. An employer who works according to objective criteria is going to accomplish their money- making tasks better than one that gives in to arbitrary criteria and demands. Sometimes it the employees who need to remind the employers of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is neither new nor remarkable.

<comment><USER3> Quite a group of remarks though for something "not remarkable".

<comment><USER8> Its a very HOT topic found in many areas right now. Those who listen will have a leg up from those who still say "FMJ" on the site they have so many colleagues "friended".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Every time I read an article describing any practice of recruiters, I lose more respect for them. Whether it be discriminating against un-employed job- seekers or mining facebook to eliminate candidates, their practices just seem terrible. Employers expect employees to keep a barrier between their personal and professional lives, but do not respect that barrier in the other direction.

still have pictures of the intoxicated you with your shirt off in 23 degree weather with the 'A' from "WILDCATS" painted on your chest during a football game (not exactly their idea of a "team player").

How in the world does that affect ones ability to perform a job?

<comment><USER8> If the HR person DOESN'T like the Wildcats...you are NOT getting the job.

Seriously...think outside your little world. HR folks are people who get to be a God for a moment and choose who they want their boss to interview.

HR practices to schedule an interview was based on how many "key words" appeared in your resume....count the words and if there are enough move them to the interview.

Seriously...HR folks may be the receptionist at the front desk, the mail boy who got the resume, an intern who wants the job someone is applying for....HR folks are PEOPLE...think about this folks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As evidence that these facebook-reference checks are actually occurring, Here is an example of a recruiter friending me during an interview process:

Elizabeth Nuzzo, Senior IT Recruiter @ Professional Alternative Inc. Studied at University of Connecticut, Lives in Boston MA Born on May 23, 1982

It feels wrong for the hive mind to discuss Elizabeth Nuzzo's behavior against her will. But hey, it's a two edged sword.

It is a bit jarring for everyone on the internet be able to expose you and your innermost personal preferences, what you do, and how you work, why, and evaluate you based on this against your will. I figure it is inevitable that privacy becomes a thing of the past, we might as well embrace it and remember that what you do online is as important as how you present yourself during an interview.

You are never off-stage, your entire life is an interview. Sleep with one eye open.</comment>


It's Kinda Like CNN for Web Developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.hotjs.net/ <comment><USER2> CNN metaphor didn't speak to me at all.. I was born in Poland and have barely watched American TV channels. Now that I live abroad nobody watches TV anyway.</comment>


VLC Submits iPad App to App Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/vlc_submits_ipad_app_to_app_store.php

<comment><USER2> Surely they are not really expecting approval?

I can't imagine that Apple would let anything through that weakens the iTunes/iOS death grip on media playing. Especially something as robust as VLC.

It seems to me that software that allows the iPad to stream movies from _any_ brand media server is a game changer.

<comment><USER3> 3rd Party AppStore developer here.

There isn't a ban on "media playing".

However, there is a ban on GPL licensed apps, as they GPL is incompatible with the app store terms of use.

<comment><USER4> I suppose, but with GPLv2 there's nothing more than a technicality in the way, is there? As far as I understand it, the app store agreement prevents you from taking that particular copy of the app and doing free things with it, but nothing truly restrictive. You can still get a copy of the source from the app-maker, and exercise all your normal free software rights.

Then again, saying that makes me feel like I'm missing something. Am I?

<comment><USER5> Apple would be in violation of the GPL for distributing the app with those restrictions tacked on. If I were them I wouldn't distribute GPL apps either.

They would basically have to special case apps licensed w/ the GPL. Sadly I doubt it's worth the legal and/or operations costs involved.

I'm not a license snob, whatever works for a project is great (GPL has been great for Linux). However this is a prime example of why MIT and BSD licenses are more free than the GPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hooray! I hope VLC gets approved. I'm really missing being able to overclock lectures on the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER7> Damn, I've been working on a web-based version on and off for a while now. I guess I won't find the time to finish it, especially if this gets approved.

</comment><comment><USER8> Where would you play videos from? Dropbox or something?

<comment><USER9> VLC can do client-server streaming from another copy of VLC. So your desktop machine can stream your dvd/avi/mp3 collection to the iPad

<comment><USER10> and you can do this already, too, right? stream to the ipad by just opening a transcoded stream?

<comment><USER11> E.g., Plex, which does it on the fly and is in the app store.

<comment><USER9> I think plex only lets you share your iTunes with other iStuff and only if the iDRM approves.

VLC lets you share iWhateverTheHellYouWant from iWhateverMachine with iWhateverOS to iWhereverYouWant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Whaaa? VLC developers spent time making an iOS app when a much more open and free platform was available? Interesting. I hope Android sees the same love!

Oh come on, it wasn't even a dig on iOS, give me a break with the downmods, jeez. I was just surprised at their choice considering all thats happened with them in the past with AOL and what not. I was just genuinely surprised to see an OSS project with a history of being burned by corporations choose an iOS device as their first mobile target. But hey, I mentioned Android. Flame away HN, flame away.

<comment><USER13> Using your logic VLC shouldn't release a Windows version since Linux is more open than Windows. I'm sorry, the world just doesn't work like that.

Besides, even with Android NDK it's probably easier to port VLC to iOS than to Android?

<comment><USER14> VideoLAN chairman and VLC developer here.

This is exactly the point. Porting VLC from MacOS X to iOS is more or less just a rewrite of the audio and video outputs (sinks). Plus an interface, of course...

Porting to Android is taking longer and is, of course, on the way...

<comment><USER12> Cool. Thanks for the reply. Any details on why the Android port is taking longer or why it's so much easier to port to iOS? Maybe a VLC blog post or something?

<comment><USER14> iOS is very similar to Mac OS X, where VLC runs already...

Android is very different from usual Linux, using a different libc and libraries than normal GNU/Linux and requires Java bindings to run...

<comment><USER12> I'm impressed that Apple has maintained such consistency across the desktop/mobile operating systems. That is an interesting advantage of iOS that I pretty rarely see mentioned. Thanks for your thoughts.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I would like to work in London, would you help me with my CV/résumé? - <AUTHOR>

Thanks to everyone that is reading this post and everyone that wants to help me! You have my gratitude :-)
tl;dr - My CV/résumé probably sucks for the lack of real working experience as a programmer. What would you change? What would you improve or highlight? What should I try to include in it to make it more compelling?
Résumé PDF: http://ge.tt/3RgNL2P/v/0
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcomassarelli <comment><AUTHOR> I currently work as a tech consultant for Accenture in Italy, but I would like to move to London and work for a software company with a strong software culture.

The first big project in Accenture that I worked on was an image recognition service that calculated KPIs and metrics of the shelf layout in supermarkets. Think of a panorama app to capture a whole shelf mashed together with Google Goggles to recognize specific products. In this project I designed the information workflow, the mobile app for Symbian and Android, the back-office tools. I directly contributed to the code of the Android application, improving performance and stability and even building new features. I was considered an SME of the whole solution and I was chosen more than once to participate in knowledge transfer sessions with new teams and managers.

The second big project I worked on was a knowledge sharing intranet portal, integrating multiple systems and allowing the user to search on them from a single page. Here I had a smaller involvement in the design of the solution: I was in charge of security, data model, and the web-services. I quickly became very knowledgeable about the entire solution architecture, given that I acted as a bridge between the business and dev teams. After project go-live I was nominated to maintenance coordinator, thanks to my knowledge of the system, and I got the chance to supervise teams of 5 and 2 people in the Philippines and India.

In my free time I'm working on a manga reader app for Windows Phone 7.5 (w/ custom reading functionality and web scraping on manga portals), an open- source transfer manager library for Windows Phone 7.5 (<https://github.com/ceoloide/DownloadManager>) and in the spare time contributing to the code of the upcoming metwit.com Android app (although very small time is left to do that). When I don't code I participate to the Appsterdam meetings here in Milan.

</comment><comment><USER2> Nit picking: it's mobile rather then cell in UK.

Otherwise it looks interesting, but I usually see more details. It looks like there's much more to tell about the research papers. Also the Accenture work is all in one block, but I can see a number of areas you worked on - is it worth separating them with some more description? I'd also mention the group leader part (or repeat it in skills) on its own.

Then again it comes from a person used to receiving 5+ pages cv prepared by agencies. To me your cv looks good, but I'm not sure if someone from HR would be happy - if you have any friends in that area, show it to them too .

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions! Nit picking is good ;-) I will revise the résumé and include your comments.

At first I had detailed the projects I worked on in Accenture, but they ended up taking too much space. I'll try to improve on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Résumé, not rèsumè. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9sum%C3%A9>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Motherfriggin' Cron - <AUTHOR> http://duncanmsmith.com/blog/motherfriggin-cron/

<comment><USER2> You used a partial path in cron? Wha...?

Always, always use fully qualified filenames in cron, never rely on environment variables, ever.

And what are you doing editing your crontab directly?

% crontab -l > file % vi file % crontab < file

That's the proper incantation. Let the tool do what it is supposed to do.

Whipper snappers.

<comment><USER3> I understand your viewpoint, but unless those whippeer snappers make the mistakes, they'll never learn.

<comment><USER4> But without grumpy elders, we'll never know we fuck up! Chicken > Egg < Chicken?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is all pretty standard stuff for cron. Which isn't to say that it couldn't be better, but I think the main problem here is expecting it to work like other parts of OS X.

With OS X specifically, launchd is trying to replace cron and you might be better off just using that. You can still create a cron job and get it to run and all that, but OS X is doing it with launchd and Apple has a tendency to pull the rug out from under people when it's convenient for them.

Cron will send both errors and program output to your local mail daemon. Pretty much all BSD/Linux/etc. systems have local mail delivery configured to drop stuff into /var/mail/[login username], to be read by the "mail" (or similar) commands on the commandline. If you don't want that, you have to set up a mail daemon and configure it to forward mail to your regular account using your ISP. OS X might have sendmail built in, which can do this (although sendmail configuration isn't very fun), or postfix should work too.

If email is too much of a hassle, you can use the >> operator at the end of your command to direct output to a file: [command] >> /path/to/file

And, yeah, cron runs in its own environment, so it won't have access to your PATH or other variables.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's great that you managed to get cron working the way you wanted. However, I'm curious, why not just put your Vim settings on Dropbox or something like BitTorrentSync - then alias your local settings/configs on each machine to the corresponding file/folder in your Dropbox?

I use this method for all settings and configs that I wish to share across multiple machines. Personally I find it more manageable than any other solution, and certainly less convoluted than "multiple rounds of ssh duncan@some-server... git pull origin master".</comment>


Show HN: 1HOP, a free tool to handle deep linking across all devices - <AUTHOR> https://1hop.commandiq.com

<comment><USER2> We used Branch Metrics for our deep links in our app because they were the only solution we found that did deep linking past install. They require an SDK to do the post install routing, but give you a lot of cool insights into you installs and conversions. [http://branchmetrics.io](http://branchmetrics.io)

</comment><comment><USER3> Put that video on the landing page. It explains the tool pretty well, but the page as it stands now, does not.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Demo video here:

[https://commandiq-1.wistia.com/medias/zb7p3pug3m](https://commandiq-1.wistia.com/medias/zb7p3pug3m)

</comment><comment><USER4> The name makes me think of pancakes.</comment>


Show HN: How to Setup Node.js App Automated Deployment and CI with PM2 for MVP's - <AUTHOR> http://niftylettuce.com/posts/automated-node-app-ci-graceful-zerodowntime-github-pm2/ <comment><USER2> pm2 is by far the best node process manager. It is excellent.

Though I don't use pm2 for deployments. I create new servers (immutable infrastructure) on AWS every deploy, and use NGINX Plus dynamic upstream to add the new backends and remove the old ones. There is something pleasing about creating new servers and destroying old servers every deploy.

Also check out Drone ([https://github.com/drone/drone](https://github.com/drone/drone)) for all your CI and deployment needs. It uses Docker and written in go.

<comment><USER3> Launching new instances on a per deploy basis is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard.

<comment><USER4> Serious question, why do you think that? I'm not that familiar with why this would be super wasteful and would love to learn more.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't say it's super wasteful, but there is waste involved since he's on AWS. AWS bills EC2 usage hourly, and doesn't do fractional billing. If you deploy, then 5 minutes later deploy again (and provision a new instance and destroy the first) you'll still pay for the full hour of that first instance.

So every deploy incurs that usage rounding. Depending on the frequency of deploys and the number of servers being deployed to, that adds up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for taking the time to write such a helpful, detailed article. With links/references, screenshots, and fool-proof instructions, it's been educational to follow along.

I'd used Jenkins before (that someone else had set up) and was familiar with much of the other parts (DigitalOcean, Node.js, PM2, etc.), but had never properly learned how to set up CI for myself. This article was a great introduction.

Now studying your Rapid MVP Standards document ([https://github.com/niftylettuce/rapid-mvp- standards](https://github.com/niftylettuce/rapid-mvp-standards)). I appreciate you sharing your experience and knowledge!

<comment><AUTHOR> You are welcome. Thank you for the kind words. My email is email@example.com if you'd like to get in touch or ask questions, or if I can help somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just use Codeship's free plan for CI/CD. I embedded the deploy script in my repo and use Codeship to run it via SSH. Works great and costs $0.

</comment><comment><USER8> looks good, I've been trying to find a free CI(never used one) but they're usually non-trivial to set up or cost money. This looks like a decent write up and semaphore seems pretty user friendly, just wish they had gitlab support.

</comment><comment><USER9> PM2 is under the AGPL. Could this be an issue on a non-AGPL project?</comment>


Clock ticking on worm attack code - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7832652.stm <comment><USER2> I am especially interested in the domain-generation part. I've wondered how it would be convenient for an infection to phone home to its owner (call her Mallory). There are several interesting requirements for such a communications channel -- it must not have a single point of failure; extremely difficult to trace to Mallory after the fact, even for a powerful (e.g., governmental) entity; it doesn't allow convenient hijacking of the channel by an external party.

According to the article and related articles, this worm generates domain names based on the current date. Probably many of these domains are owned by innocent parties, and many are unowned. At some point, one of the domains will serve Mallory's payload. The question is whether it will be a new domain that she registered, or an existing, innocent-looking domain she has hacked (or otherwise convinced to serve the content she wants -- perhaps steganographically via a blog comment or something?) If she registers a single domain, it seems likely she will be able to be tracked down by following a money trail. So my guess is that she's found some sites who have been "convinced" to serve her magic content, and tweaked the constants for the domain-generating algorithm so that the worm will land on these sites on a day of her choice in the future.

Of course, the magic content isn't up yet. The sites she's found to host it won't serve it until the correct day, otherwise white-hats would be able to play their computer clock forward and figure out what domains served the content on which day.

And she can bundle her public key with the worm so that she can verify her own payload as opposed to some hijacker's. (That part's easy.)

This is cool. The tough part is finding people willing to serve your magic content on the right day. But I bet that's not too hard in practice. I always wondered how people would control a botnet -- some old bots used to use IRC, but that has a single point of failure (the IRC network).

<comment><USER3> Buying a domain anonymously is not really that hard if you're in that business. Use a stolen credit card + proxy chain + free wifi access point and you should be pretty much untraceable. Then you just add multiple dns to a bunch of compromised servers and serve the payload.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Eh, I already saw this in the season finale of Reboot. I'm pretty sure we need to find Hexadecimal.</comment>


Lawyers Send Mobile Ads To Phones In ER Waiting Rooms - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/25/613127311/digital-ambulance-chasers-law-firms-send-ads-to-patients-phones-inside-ers <comment><USER3> Could be worse. I recently called my doctor for a refill on a prescription, left a message for the nurse. Before I received a call back, I got a text message from GoodRX with a link about the medication, following the link (I anonymized it) took me to a page about the medication and advertising about where I could get it for the best price.

Of course, this made no sense to me, as I deny sharing of my medical information with anyone. So I contacted the office, went through a couple of phone trees and spoke with a few different people. None of them could see the issue with what happened. Then I explained a phone number is PII, and tying it to a medication seemed like a significant HIPPA issue.

Then things changed, it took a few hours to hear the whole story where a pharmaceutical rep had apparently told the nurses/office staff about this great way to get prescription drug information to patents by simply entering the medication and the patient's phone number in an App...

I've been told this is rectified, but the reality is I wish there was more I could do. I can't imagine how many patients have been affected by this and thought nothing of it.

<comment><USER4> I feared this story would end with some version of "no one could tell me how I received this message". So, I suppose it's heartening to hear that you were able to resolve it, and relatively quickly.

But, I do think that's where we're headed fast: with so many interconnections, "affiliate" side-deals, opt-out limitations, etc., we'll soon not be able to manage the byzantine trail of entities that have access to our data in a given scenario. Our efforts to even understand who has our data and how, let alone control access, will be near-useless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Geofencing is not very accurate. The range I've seen is ~100 yard accuracy. This is potentially a colossal waste of ad spend for lawyers because they get some people in the waiting room, but they also get every single device in the building, parking, and surrounding area.

2\. They're called device ids not phone ids. Proof right there the author didn't research effectively.

3\. The doctors/etc who have to abide by hiipa are explicitly requires to have their vendors (ex marketers) follow the same laws as them. This goes for any industry, but is written in the law for health.

Geofences are awesome for things like sports arenas, neighborhoods, malls, etc. but ineffective for anything smaller.

Edit: For #1 here are two sources. This is coming from a vendor that only sells location data, so their accuracy number of 93 feet is definitely not 100% truthful.

[https://www.placeiq.com/2016/05/study-smartphone-location- on...](https://www.placeiq.com/2016/05/study-smartphone-location-only- accurate-to-within-93-feet/)

[https://www.placeiq.com/2016/10/location-data-accuracy- the-f...](https://www.placeiq.com/2016/10/location-data-accuracy-the-fast- factors/)

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I've ever been to a hospital with anything non-hospital related within a 100 yard radius. And you can always adjust the center of your geotargeted area to make it more effective.

In an urban setting, sure, but most hospitals I've been to are MASSIVE, sprawling facilities.

Seems like the parking lot is close enough to being in the ER anyway.

Regardless, the 'waste' will be more from targeting health care workers, janitors, visitors, etc, but the targeting will still be more effective than not doing it at all.

<comment><USER7> To expand on that, say you want to market to only people within the ER room itself because you are an attorney for personal injury.

You will most likely get everyone who's phone was within the overall geofence +100yards or so (sometimes better sometimes worse, really depends on what and how you are measuring).

That will include everyone above and below you with good enough signal to get through. Hospitals are usually tall in urban centers, so 5-10 stories of people?

Now you have your potential list. However, the real segment you just made are hospital visitors + employees/vendors.

Maybe you can exclude those that you see a lot or on a regular cycle as staff/vendors.

You are still not very close to just "personal injury" data.

Usually, you'll need to combine this with something more to make better segment overall and go from there.

Unfortunately, data vendors will often market the above without much cleaning as "ER visitors" or "people with health problem X".

There are numerous threads on HN about how bad some of these segments are - people tagged with mutually exclusive segments, wrong info, etc. That's why FB and Google, and to a lesser extent for now Amazon, are sitting on some really valuable data - we tend to tell them explicitly and/or they have fine-grained location on us.

And let's not forget that stuff like this has spurred responses like GDPR.

<comment><USER8> The list doesn't need to be perfect - hell, it doesn't even need to be very good at all. It just needs to convert better than not using the list.

(I'm equal parts horrified and impressed that someone's actually doing this... This is why, as much as it's annoying at work, I really like the GDPR...)

<comment><USER7> True, but then again Google/FB/etc offer better access to a more targetted audience at a reasonable price.

I'd consider using something like this if I had already deployed marketing capital elsewhere and hit diminishing returns. These are more akin to gambling in my book.

Not to say that polygon-based geofencing doesn't work. It does, but with larger, less dense locations where the lower fidelity is good enough.

<comment><USER8> > True, but then again Google/FB/etc offer better access to a more targetted > audience at a reasonable price.

I'm not so sure in this specific case. If I were a (cue pejorative stereotype for emphasis) scumbag ambulance chasing lawyer - I doubt there's anything in Facebook or Google's ad targeting demographics that'd give me quite the same opportunities as a rough-and-ready demographic of "people at or close to hospital emergency departments" to try selling to...

I hope (but am prepared to be shown otherwise) than neither Facebook nor Google have an easy way to target ads to people who've just posted "Faaark! Just been in a car accident! #YOLO #GladIBoughtAVolvo #ShouldntHaveBeenTexting"

(Evil-idea: I wonder if anyone's using siome combinations of accelerometer and GPS data to detect potentially traumatic events and selling that data on?)

<comment><USER9> Tie into insurance safe driver programs that in your car... Hell tie into the car its self soon... With all the car brand API's coming out. I know it could be done with Tesla, and Mercedes....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Keep in mind that this type of correlation is baked into the system. Lawyer hires an ad agency to get the word out. Agency does SEO on inbound clicks. Finds that there are geographical clusters where a lot of searches originate from. Agency responsibly increases bids on ads for devices in those places. The agency could take the next step and identify what those places are and why they're popular with people looking for lawyers, but what would be the point? All they're interested in is maximizing the value of every dollar they spend on advertising and if the data says do it that's what you do.

<comment><USER11> The book "Weapons of Math Destruction" goes into some detail on how these models are being used to exploit people when in some cases they could be used to help them.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here in Argentina my mother had a car accident. I received a call from the hospital. I went to the hospital and talked with the guy that called me. He was dressed like a nurse. He gave me the news about her accident and that her friend died in the accident. Then he gave me his card. He was a lawer.

<comment><USER13> That's horrifying. Did you report him to the staff?

<comment><USER12> No. I was overwhelmed by the whole situation and public hospitals here are kind of crazy. On the positive side they're public and if anyone (citizen or not) needs medical aid it's free up to a certain point (they're not going to give you a peacemaker for free but the surgery is free).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the type of digestible quip that will get non-tech people to vote for more regulation.

*I'm not advocating for this usage just illustrating a point

<comment><USER15> I don't see "more regulation" as an inherently negative thing.

<comment><USER16> The problem is that folks want either 'no regulation' or 'more regulation'. Neither is the solution.

We need regulation that targets specific problems, nothing more and nothing less. Instead we get regulation that may loosely address the problem it was originally drafted to address, but has since grown into a mess of compromises added at the request of lawyers, lobbyists, and uninformed politicians.

I'll start:

"You cannot send advertising to people when you suspect (e.g. by geofence) they are suffering from a medical emergency."

<comment><USER17> That doesn't seem to help anything. Wouldn't this be better:

> Personal data held by a hospital about their patients may not be used for > any non-medical purpose, and may not be shared with any third parties unless > directly necessary for a medical purpose.

<comment><USER15> A user's location, as reported by a phone app, isn't "personal data held by a hospital".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's got to be at least one app on the person's phone that's reporting GPS info that is feeding information to the marketing company. Is the name of the app(s) mentioned?

<comment><USER19> Usually this is done in cahoots with the carrier - you're typically buying the advertising from them. At least, that's how it is here in Canada.

<comment><USER20> i doubt it. do carriers really sell advertising directly to their clients? ie. does the company have a advertising division where you can spam SMS to their clients within a certain radius?

<comment><USER19> Actually, yes. I was pitched by ad reps from the largest carrier - <USER2> claimed to be able to send an SMS when one of their customers enters a geofenced area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In America, don't victims of injury caused by other people have to sue to get compensation for their medical bills if they're under-insured? That would mean it's quite helpful to have lawyers offering their services right when you need it. In my country, hospitals will pressure you into taking money from the state accident compensation service when you're injured. So what's the difference? Patients are being informed of the assistance that's available to them.

It's weird that targeted advertising is so widely criticized now, but when it was made popular by Google a couple of decades ago (we'll read your email and offer you things that you'll like!), it was hailed as an improvement over the blanket ads that were polluting the internet and of no use to just about anybody. I still think targeted ads are fantastic. Advertisers are doing the leg-work of informing people about how to buy what they want, instead of just cars, shoes, and travel which is what we used to see.

<comment><USER22> If it were only compensation for their medical bills that would probably be OK. But the way it really works is that the the typical personal injury lawyer takes 30%-50% of the award as a fee, so they are highly incentivized to inflate the damages, often with "pain and suffering" claims that money really doesn't compensate for and are hard to disprove.

<comment><USER21> Surely the solution to that is not having fewer victims sue the people responsible? Sure, that would reduce the total pain and suffering payments, but in an unfair way by giving it all to a few who get lawyers while the others get nothing, not even the cost of medical bills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If the lawyers were smart, they wouldn't use geo fencing--they'd use IP Targeting instead. IP Targeting allows you to target an IP address that's been matched to a physical street address. All they have to do is set up IP Targeting and target the hospital's network. Anyone who uses the hospital wifi would see the lawyer's ads.

<comment><USER24> Which ad networks let you target by IP?

<comment><USER5> Most exchanges/dsps let you target, the tougher thing is finding a good company to match an address or pii to an ip. (liveramp does it I know)

<comment><USER23> El Toro is the best at matching IP with physical address.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It doesn't take much imagination to use geofencing for lots of sleezy advertising. Like lottery, gambling and loan shark ads around pawn shops and food banks.

Also, I imagine that televangelists who want a shiny new airplane probably target low-income neighborhoods with their free enchanted water 'guaranteed to bring wealth and prosperity'.

</comment><comment><USER26> The article doesn't say where the advertisers get the geolocation data -- is that from the data that the carrier is selling, or is it coming from some app(s) installed on the phone?

<comment><USER27> > is that from the data that the carrier is selling, or is it coming from some > app(s) installed on the phone?

Could be both, could be some website you viewed, could be google maps, anything that shares your location. Location data is pretty valuable to advertisers, OpenRTB supports it explicitly during the real time bidding process.

All manner of cleaning is applied to the data to ensure that it isn't faked or useless before the bidding starts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Probably the real value here is that if you can hook them in the ER right after something terrible happened, they will have a very hard time being rational and walking away later. If you get to them at any other time, they will be vastly more rational. But planting this idea in their head at this critical time will serve to essentially make many people a captive audience who cannot escape later when it seems they would be more able to think rationally.

</comment><comment><USER29> The first step towards AD supported healthcare. Watch ads in the ER - accrue $ towards your bill (which is silently and automatically padded to make sure that any 'money' you make is sucked right back out). Or maybe Pfizer will buy ad - space on the hospital guest LAN allowing more dollars to flow into the hospital execs pockets - essentially allowing to profit over the patient's illness and misery.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is really adding insult to injury.

In quite a few hospitals that I've been to mobile phones are forbidden in the ER, why is it different with these hospitals?

<comment><USER30> Interesting, at one point it seems like there may have been technical reasons for that [1], but not any longer. I've had to wait in hospital waiting rooms for hours, and not being able to use a phone/laptop _at all_ would kind of suck.

[1]: [https://health.stackexchange.com/questions/10880/are-cell- ph...](https://health.stackexchange.com/questions/10880/are-cell-phones-still- prohibited-from-the-er-or-other-medical-facilities-why-or)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is why we need GDPR worldwide.

</comment><comment><USER32> Url changed from [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/05/injury- lawyers-p...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/05/injury-lawyers-push- ads-to-patients-phones-when-they-go-to-geofenced-ers/), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER33> as intrusive as those minority report ads...

surprised and disappointed HN comments are about tech...

</comment><comment><USER34> It isn't all about personal injury. Hospitals are where life-changing things happen. They are where many people are born and die. People coming in and out of hospitals, be them patients or family members, may need all sorts of legal services, wills and estate planning being top of the list. Not every lawyer advertising near hospitals is an ambulance-chasing leach.

<comment><USER35> I'm not sure that makes it any better - targeting the bereaved or dying (for wills and estate planning), whilst they are still at the hospital, feels potentially more tasteless than targeting people for personal injury claims.

<comment><USER34> >> targeting the bereaved or dying (for wills and estate planning)

Or the young parents who want to add their new kid to their will? Or the very ill person who realizes that their will/life insurance leaves everything to their ex-wife, not their current family? Getting that changed asap will certainly be a relief to them. Or the parents who's kid was just brought to the hospital by the cops and need someone to talk to about it?

There are times and places where lawyers do good things, they just aren't as sexy as the evil things.</comment></comment></comment>


Almost done... but pizza - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/corysimmons/pizza

<comment><USER2> I'm failing to see the value...

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice linkage samsaccone</comment>


A 33-year-old woman who worked for Amazon is the suspect in the Capital One hack - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/capital-one-data-breach-who-is-paige-thompson-suspect-amazon-2019-7 <comment><USER2> I don't understand why Amazon is relevant here, it is like saying someone who worked for Target assaulted a random person, really doesn't make any sense. This article just seems to fishing for clicks and attention.

<comment><USER3> Presumably this person developed hacking skills as a result of working at Amazon or was hired by Amazon as a consequence of possessing such skills. Surely you don't believe that working at Target makes a person more likely to commit assault?

<comment><USER2> Well I second part of what you said was obvious.. but your logic is flawed because I could use the same logic if someone that committed a mass shooting worked at a gun range or if a butcher stabbed someone.

<comment><USER3> Yes, my logic is flawed -- just not as flawed as yours.

<comment><USER2> I'll also say this you're insinuating that Amazon has hired this person because of their skills of being able to break into systems. Without proof of this that point is completely irrelevant. To second this why would they not check any of the other previous employers? Seems like you don't like Amazon and my point still stands that Amazon was irrelevant to this whole situation even if she worked for them and Capital One used their services, and that this article is using Amazon for attention.

<comment><USER3> I love Amazon, most of the time.

I'm insinuating, if anything, that the skills needed to be an effective hacker and those needed to be an effective Amazon programmer likely overlap, that's all.

That being said, I agree with you that the person who put Amazon in the headline was trying to discredit Amazon, just like the person who mentioned that Jeff Bezos ate baby whale was trying to discredit him.

<comment><USER2> Oh my apologies, I took it as you were saying that either Amazon trained this person to become hacker or hired her because she was one already.

<comment><USER3> Not to be contentious, but it now appears -- to me, anyway -- perhaps this is old news -- that the hack was perpetrated via Amazon's cloud services. So now it would appear that the perpetrator's Amazon background is quite germane. Even so, Amazon is in no way at fault, as far as I can tell.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


They said you cant change your name - <AUTHOR> http://entanglement.gopherwoodstudios.com/ They didn't let me change the name in high score ... how the hell I can show my friends how much I have scored ...
So I had to do what I did .. <comment><AUTHOR> They didnt allow me change the name while submitting score .. How the hell i can show to my friends how much i have scored ...

So I touched their top score list ..</comment>


When are we going to contribute BDR to PostgreSQL - <AUTHOR> http://blog.2ndquadrant.com/when-are-we-going-to-contribute-bdr-to-postgresql/ <comment><AUTHOR> I found it a good reading on how the community has been adding all the foundation into postgreSQL for complex features</comment>


BitTorent Sync is a great tool for startups. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vrypan.net/2013/09/13/btsync-great-tool-for-startups/ <comment><USER2> This piece would have been a lot more interesting if it had mentioned why Sync was preferable to the other solutions.

<comment><USER3> Free & not limited by file size / total stored space seems to be the big point.

<comment><USER4> Also, you don't have to compromise your data to a 3rd party like Dropbox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Files sync immediately and fast".

So which is it? Immediately or fast? How would the transfer rates to a remote sync compare with a NAS replication stream? How would the LAN file synchronisation compare to local NAS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Technically, I refer to when the syncing of the file starts (almost immediately) and ends (very fast). When we are all in the same network at the office the speed is limited by our network speed and our laptops.

I guess that a cheap NAS would probably perform the same or maybe worst. I don't know about a high-end NAS on a very fast and fine tuned switched network, but that's usually outside the scope of most startups in their early stages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Files are inaccessible with a smartphone though, that's what's lacking. But that said, no centralized server is a killer feature.

<comment><USER7> Conversely, decentralization might be an attractive option for a small team. Less hardware to have, maintain, keep.

Also there's an iOS and Android version:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bittorrent- sync/id665156116?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bittorrent- sync/id665156116?ls=1&mt=8)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bittorrent...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bittorrent.sync)</comment></comment>


This solar cell edges the practical limits of photovoltaic efficiency forward - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/japanese-company-develops-a-solar-cell-with-record-breaking-26-efficiency/ <comment><USER2> Wikipedia people updated the graph already, nice work! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency)</comment>


German court requires Google to stop ignoring customer emails - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/2605999/legal/german-court-requires-google-to-stop-ignoring-customer-emails.html

<comment><USER2> I'm german, i read the ruling, here's details picked out of the document while reading through it. Feel free to ask if there's something that could be double-checked for.

\- The suing party is a german group whose officially recognized reason for existence is to protect customer rights.

\- If Google doesn't fix this, up to 250k€ per instance of violation (sadly not clarified what instance means), or jail up to 6 months (sic) or jail up to 6 months. (Unclear how that is supposed to be done.)

\- Google has to pay 200€ + 5% interest, starting on 13.12.2013. (I don't know over which timeframe this interest accrues.)

\- Google has to pay all process costs, as it's the losing party.

\- Google offers services which it runs as a business, either by reserving the right to use customer data in a business manner (hangouts, docs, calendar) or by advertising (search, do note that TV broadcasting for example is a business with customers too).

\- Google is required to make it possible to reach individual personal contact with a human employee at Google.

\- The court recognizes and has discussed with Google that the problems of scale here are very real, but still insists on the fact that the current solution is not acceptable.

\- The court even offers suggestions, such as providing multiple email adresses in the impressum to aid in channeling.

\- Crucial to the court is that pointing at an online form is not enough, especially since the pointing is done at a maze of help pages which may, or may not, lead to an online form.

\- The court recognizes that the law does not specify how the company has to communicate once person-to-person communication is established.

\- The court recognizes that "not answering" is also a valid reaction, if and when a human employee has read/heard the request; BUT ONLY IF that kind of answer is not the rule.

\- The court recognizes that efficient communication is not done by answering quickly, but by answering in a reasonable time frame and with detail according to the reasonable expectations of a user. (Thus implying that users may have unreasonable expectations which need not be fulfilled.)

\- The court also recognizes that not all emails need to be read. The problem is that none are read. Google may filter and channel emails as it likes, as long as the system's goal is explicitly to enable communication via email; not as it currently is, to deny communication.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wait, did you read this gem:

> Google can appeal the ruling. The company did not immediately reply to a > request for comment.

</comment><comment><USER4> >If Google does not change its conduct, it could be fined up to €250,000 about US$323,000), the court said.

Hmm, personalized e-mail support for an entire nation, or US$323,000. Wonder which one finance will recommend?

I mean, if you're going to fine private companies for non-misleading, non- fraudulent behavior, then do it right like the US: $250,000 _per day_ of non- compliance.

Better yet, just let the market take care of it. If people really dislike not having e-mail support, they'll stop using Google. So far, it's pretty clear that people value Google services more than they do personalized customer support, since it's almost universally known that Google provides zero support for free accounts, and limited support for even paid accounts.

<comment><USER5> _> If people really dislike not having e-mail support, they'll stop using Google._

When they are locked out of their account and first _realize_ that support is non-existent? Happens all the time, happened to me once (no, I didn't forget my password).

 _> since it's almost universally known that Google provides zero support for free accounts_

Universally known among techies.

 _This doesn 't mean that every incoming email should now be checked and processed individually by a Google employee, the court said. [...] It was left up to Google how to deal with future incoming email._

So Google doesn't need to respond to "How do I change the color of my inbox?" or "New design sucks!". But in case of serious trouble, a customer can expect the possibility of contacting a human.

<comment><USER6> So, they don't have to "check and process" each message, it's just that not checking and processing each message and being honest about it is not OK? So how much is enough?

<comment><USER7> That is hard to say, but the article gives part of an possible answer.

It is obviously not enough to simply say "we don't read it". It thereby follows that it it not ok to not have a channel of communication. This implies that emails who are sent to the support address must have the option to be responded to - if they are important enough. Because if they are all just never answered, this is the same as not having a communication channel in the first place.

My guess is that it has to be a ranking based on importance. Of course it is necessary to answer each one, like "How do I find the google website". But it might be that - in germany - things like having an account closed people relied upon in good faith and than not responding to inquiries why is problematic, given that this can high and monetary personal consequences (violation of customer protection laws, to which all of this is referring - and yes, this is not fully dependent on whether they pay. Imagine important document stored only there - maybe created there, so it is not totally not understandable not having a backup already - and then lost, thus causing a million dollar company to fail. I'm exaggerating, but stuff like that).

Further, having an available contact channel is necessary to be able to submit legal documents, though I expect that Google has another avenue for that already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> But google users aren't customers. Just because I use google to search for things doesn't make me a customer.

It doesn't say in the article, so does anyone know if the relevant German law requires _free_ support? Can Google charge $500 per email to respond to user email, for example?

<comment><USER9> (1) Google also offers other services, such as GMail and Google Docs.

(2) This is a requirement for anybody who offers services that are generally provided for a fee, even if in this particular instance it is offered for free (e.g. because it is financed through advertising or a freemium model). See §5 of the German Telemedia Act [1].

[1] [http://www.cgerli.org/fileadmin/user_upload/interne_Dokument...](http://www.cgerli.org/fileadmin/user_upload/interne_Dokumente/Legislation/Telemedia_Act__TMA_.pdf)

<comment><USER10> _Service providers must render the following information easily, directly and permanently accessible for telemedia which are offered commercially, generally in return for a FEE:_

 _2\. details which permit rapid electronic contact and direct communication with them, including the electronic mail address_

( fee is emphasized by me )

I would argue that free services do not fall under this rule.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, but both the case law and the legislative intent are pretty clear on that. Even free services fall under this rule if the type of service is _generally_ provided for a fee, even if the specific service is free. The section is a fairly direct implementation of article 5 of EU Directive 2000/31/EC.

<comment><USER10> EU directive is much clearer on the subject.

 _(c) the details of the service provider, including his electronic mail address, which allow him to be contacted rapidly and communicated with in a direct and effective manner;_

Replying with an automated answer saying that actual human response is not an option, is certainly not direct and effective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In Germany, at the bottom of almost every website there is this thing called the 'impressum link', (example: [http://www.spiegel.de/impressum/a-941280.html](http://www.spiegel.de/impressum/a-941280.html) ), where the party operating the website lists their address of business and ways to contact them.

This is a requirement for doing business online in Germany.

<comment><USER12> And did the people who passed this law thought of businesses who have millions of visits per second and what the consequences of replying to every single email would cost to the company and society? Seems like Germany have some really backward laws when it comes to the web, starting with all their spying laws and making Google Street View close to illegal.

<comment><USER13> Nobody demands that even a single mail must be replied to.

Do the people who make such outraged, generalised and sweeping statements online think of the consequences, i.e. that they look foolish?

<comment><USER13> Page 11 of the ruling:

"Es kann auch hiernach nicht Aufgabe des TMG sein, eine Antwort oder eine bestimmte Qualität der Antwort zu erzwingen. Es genügt die abstrakte Möglichkeit, dass Kommunikation aufgenommen wird, eine Reaktion erfolgt. Auch ein Nichtantworten kann eine Reaktion sein. Wenn aber Nichtantworten Prinzip ist, kann nicht mehr von Kommunikation die Rede sein."

translated by me:

"Hereafter it cannot be the function of the TMG to force a reply or a certain quality of the reply. The abstract possibility that communication is started, a reaction happens, suffices. A nonreply can be a reaction, as well. But if not replying is the principle, one cannot speak of communication anymore."

<comment><USER11> That was exactly my reading, thank you for the translation.

The 'categoric rejection' was the problem, not the lack of a specific answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While I'm not sure who's side I'm on here yet, it struck me that it is extremely hard to define a Google "customer".

I assume one has to pay monies to a company to make themselves a customer. I doubt even 2% of Google users actually pay.

<comment><USER15> The law in question is not intended regulate business-customer-relations, but is also for business-business of business-press-relation or any other form of contact.

If you operate a business in germany and have a website you have to have an "impressum". Even most personal sites put up an "impressum" even if they are not required too, just because everyone is scared of the "impressumspflicht".

<comment><USER14> Interesting. Thanks for sharing that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What if Google had no offices in Germany? Would these rules still apply? Otherwise the rules would apply to every single company with a website, which seems extreme, especially if you don't do business in Germany.

It would make more sense if the rule just applied to paying customer and not random users.

<comment><USER13> It applies to every web site that targets Germans.

<comment><USER12> But Germany is part of the EU, an open and free market that allows to sell from other countries of the EU such as Ireland to say Spain. This is probably what's going to happen if the German gov keeps harassing Google as a cash cow.

<comment><USER11> They are most definitely not harassing Google as a cash cow. They are telling google that they do not get to live by different rules than other businesses operating in Germany and so they should answer their mail. Categorically not _reading_ your mail is not an option for a business.

<comment><USER12> It's not the first time Germany is harassing Google, I remember the google street view thing and more. There are probably tons of companies not answering their email but they are targeting Google only because cash cow. So yeah, harassing in that sense. They're not the only country harassing a successful company to squeeze cash out of them, but Germany (and France) seems to have a sweet spot for Google.

<comment><USER11> High trees catch a lot of wind. I personally far prefer they target the big companies which can easily afford to defend themselves if they feel they are wrongly targeted than the little guys which could be wrecked by such a lawsuit.

So no, Google is not targeted because they are a cashcow, Google is targeted because they are large and ignore a bunch of law because they think they can get away with it because they are large. The simpler thing would be to simply comply with the law but they choose the confrontational road and rulings like these are the result.

Companies are still not larger than nation states. Maybe one day they will be but for now the nation states seem to have the upper hand when it comes to enforcement.

<comment><USER17> Based on wikipedia [1] Panama, the 89th highest gdp country (out of 193), has a gdp of $36 billion. Google has a gross annual profit of $38 billion [2] [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\)) [2] [http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Google_(GOOG)/Data/Gross_Prof...](http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Google_\(GOOG\)/Data/Gross_Profit)

<comment><USER11> Germany however is still two orders of magnitude away from parity with Google. And you'd probably have to see that $36B relative to the amount google makes in Germany. And then I doubt Google is larger than even Somalia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _companies must provide a way to ensure fast electronic communications with them_

Of course, that's just common sense. How can you run a company and not respond to people who contact you? Can anyone really object to this requirement? Obviously, a generated response does not fulfil it. You should be able to talk to a human.

Repeat that reasoning 1000 times and it becomes much clearer why Europe is being dwarfed economically by the US [http://cdn.static- economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...](http://cdn.static- economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print- edition/20120728_FBC674.png)

<comment><USER11> > Repeat that reasoning 1000 times and it becomes much clearer why Europe is > being dwarfed economically by the US

What a ridiculous way to compare the size of economies. Dwarfed means to me to be substantially larger. But in actual fact it's going neck-and-neck:

[http://useconomy.about.com/od/grossdomesticproduct/p/largest...](http://useconomy.about.com/od/grossdomesticproduct/p/largest_economy.htm)

Number of large companies founded is not a relevant metric if you want to compare the economies of continent sized entities.

<comment><USER18> It's a reasonable way to compare successfulness. It's how Americans ended up providing us with search, phones, operating systems... pretty much all tech. Google dominates EU markets even more than it dominates at home.

All that seemingly sensible regulation is exactly how we keep reducing ourselves to playing catch-up and not even very well. [http://online.wsj.com/articles/galileo-satellites- launched-i...](http://online.wsj.com/articles/galileo-satellites-launched- into-wrong-orbits-1408827462)

<comment><USER11> > pretty much all tech.

That's so incredibly off-base that I don't know where to start with the corrections. What you mean is 'the few large multinationals that dominate a few very visible segments'.

You could (wrongly) turn that around just as easily and point to the WWW created in Switzerland (on a network stack created in the US), that Linus Torvalds is Finnish by birth and that his creation powers all those phones and that search engine (he's moved to the united states now) and so on.

The world is a lot more interconnected and if the US economy goes down so does the EU and vice versa.

There is no 'individual success' any more than there will be 'individual failure'.

Facebook and Google are outliers from SV, by your standards the rest of the US should feel about as miserable as the EU.

Where are all the great start-ups from Northern Michigan, from New York, from Washington DC?

Sure there will be exceptions but they're not facebook or google or Apple for that matter.

But neither are any of those BMW, Mercedes or VW. Nor are they TomTom (nl), Logitech (ch), nor Tata Steel (Indian, the world is larger than just the US or the EU).

Economies are no longer disconnected and EU and US per-capita size of their respective economies is very comparable.

It's just that in the US the economic output (and the wealth distribution) is less even and so you notice the outliers. If you cut California out there would be a severe imbalance.

There are three major reasons web start-ups from the US have an easier time going to Europe than the other way around: Access to capital, a very large homebase speaking for the most part one language, and Europeans adapting easier to using English than US users adapting to using a website in a different language than their mother tongue.

Copycats like the Samwer brothers capitalize handily on the discrepancy during the short window of opportunity between a successful launch of something States-side and the subsequent roll out to the rest of the world. And for the local hold-outs who do not wish to conduct business in a language not their own.

<comment><USER18> There's a lot of great thinking done here, yet rarely capitalized. My point is not that something in the water lowers IQs but rather that well-intentioned, seemingly sensible, common sense regulation is drowning entrepreneurs. Even Linus Torvalds left to run Linux, a non profit, from the US.

 _BMW, Mercedes or VW_

Founded, respectively, in 1916, 1926, and 1937. Those are some great companies but from completely different times. Neither Saint Peter's Basilica nor the Colosseum tell you much about modern Italy. Those are vestiges of glorious (well, usually) past.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft are outliers from among American startups and typical by being American. Luckily, the world is interconnected so we can buy their products.

<comment><USER11> Tom Tom was founded in very recent history, the WWW is of the last 3 decades and now powers a substantial amount of the world economy in one way or another (would you have preferred to buy access from a single huge American company, say AOL?), and Team Viewer (which you've probably never even heard of) was a German company until they exited for $1B+.

Really, there is a ton going on in Europe, but it just isn't as much cult-of- personality oriented in as in the US, nor does it typically become a world wide brand. Things are slower, but just different, not worse.

And if they would be worse then those per-capita-gdp's would be quite different.

Another way to look at it is gdp per man/woman hour worked. And on that scale Europe comes out ahead. You can compare these two until the cows come home, in the end the differences are much smaller than the similarities.

SV is an outlier for the world, not just for the US.

<comment><USER18> _the WWW is of the last 3 decades and now powers a substantial amount of the world economy in one way or another_

But it didn't happen here. Great invention and then nothing. Even something as simple as Geocities took off in the US.

And TomTom is like 1/60th of Google. This whole company exemplifying European IT success is a side gig for Google.

In GDP per hour worked the US also trumps pretty much every European country. Europe as a whole doesn't come close, not to mention ahead.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_hour_worked)

<comment><USER11> > Great invention and then nothing.

Right. What a pity that that WWW thing went nowhere.

<comment><USER18> That's completely not what I wrote. What I said is that even though the invention was European and wildly successful, it was Americans who capitalized on it with Geocities, Yahoos, Mosaic, Netscape... It was developed in the US, and piles of money were made in the US.

And anyway, by your chosen measure EU is clearly doing worse, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand why a technological country like Germany poses so many obstacles to American IT companies. It could be that Germany is sincerely concerned about the limitations that need to be imposed against e.g. Google, so that it doesn't get too powerful, or maybe Germans are just jealous that they aren't really thriving in IT.

<comment><USER2> What you interpret as attacks on companies, is seen by germans as defense of real and individual people.

We have a lot of institutions that would make americans shiver in fright, but give us germans a nice warm feeling because we know that there's someone actually looking out for us.

We have a nationally recognized group for the protection of customers. We have a group for the protection of children from bad influences in media, like hate speech or glorification of violence. We have a government office for the protection of the unemployed, which makes it possible for them to continue living a dignified life and helps them reintegrate into the working community. We have strong laws protecting employees from capricious acts by employers. We have a state program to protect the elderly when they cannot work to support themselves anymore, by enabling them to live a dignified life. We have state health insurance and laws in place to ensure that a german citizen would have to actively break the law to not be protected by affordable health insurance. Just to name a few.

All of this protects every one of us and means that we're free to help and aid one another without having to worry about giving too much or empowering a potential adversary. It also increases everyone's quality of life; for example education is at a comparably high level for everyone, and we don't have cities who need to think hard about homeless, because we don't have epidemics of homeless.

We don't care about having giant IT companies which could buy small countries. We're glad to have everyone have a good chance at a decent life.

<comment><USER19> Ok then, in that case it's sincere concern about the well-being of it's citizens. Some of the things you mention are laudable (unemployment insurance) while other are questionable, nanny-state measures (protect children from bad influences), and other don't seem to be working (hate speech is rampant in Germany). I don't think protecting citizens against bad e-mail service counts as a critical protection measure, it rather falls into the nanny-state measures category and comes across as technologically backwards.

<comment><USER2> I don't think you'll ever see this, but have an answer nonetheless: You're jumping to conclusions a bit.

> nanny-state measures (protect children from bad influences)

Putting age labels on things is all fine and good, but if kids can go to any store and legally buy things like the Doom series, or Manhunt, without requiring their parents, then that's a bit of a farce. All germany has done in that respect is to force stores to actually check ages, and not publicly advertise things with certain contents. Adults can still get anything they like, and give it to their children if they feel like it.

> and other don't seem to be working (hate speech is rampant in Germany)

Honestly curious, how so? I won't deny we still have some bad elements, and every one in a while (once a year or so) a politician may say a dumb thing and get lambasted to hell and back; but i don't think we have anything comparing to the outright white power hitler fetishist groups in the usa, or Glenn Beck, or Westboro Church.

> I don't think protecting citizens against bad e-mail service counts as a > critical protection measure

You seem to have misunderstood. Citizens aren't being protected against "bad email service". Citizens are being protected against a being entirely blocked out of ever reaching human contact when they have legit grievances against a company doing business with them. Read the very top post where the court's stance is explained.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Asciinema player: open source terminal session player written in ClojureScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema-player <comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, asciinema is something that's been posted and discussed before...what's new is that the player can be self-hosted, as it consists of nothing more than a JS and CSS file. This means the recording can be exported as a flat JSON file. Previously, the only option was to host the replay on the asciinema server: [http://blog.asciinema.org/post/self- hosting/](http://blog.asciinema.org/post/self-hosting/)

As someone who writes a few tutorials on programming...this is a godsend. Novices need to be able to see how the code works interactively...but it's a real pain in the ass to render animated GIFs. Asciinema creates something that is lightweight and just text, for all the flexibility and portability that allows.

<comment><USER2> Another option is my own <tty-player> ([http://tty- player.chrismorgan.info/](http://tty-player.chrismorgan.info/)), which takes the approach of being a drop-in replacement for a <video> taking as its source format that of tools like termrec (with no modifications).

<comment><USER3> Very cool (and with the slider) !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> See also, [https://asciinema.org](https://asciinema.org)

An impressively unexciting example can also be seen here: [https://pharext.org](https://pharext.org)

</comment><comment><USER5> I love how this and tty-player work and just wish more people used them for tutorials! Great work and thank you.

</comment><comment><USER6> asciinema player: 4799 lines of code

script + scriptreplay: 1031 lines of code

<comment><USER7> Yeeeaaah but.... there's a significant difference in functionality, don't you think?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The name reminded me of the animated ASCII Star Wars: telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl</comment>


How to generate an arbitrarily large amount of test data - <AUTHOR> https://www.pilosa.com/blog/smote/ <comment><USER2> The SMOTE algorithm is fairly old - isn't there something newer that may be more relevant?

<comment><USER3> I'm the author of the post. I've wanted a tool like this for a while, and I coincidentally discovered the SMOTE paper recently. It's simple enough to throw together a prototype in a few hours, and it requires very little understanding of the data set.

I was looking for something with a certain balance between speed/effort and statistical robustness. I wanted a big data set for testing pilosa performance, not for training ML models, or anything that _really_ cares about the statistics. However, hundreds of repeated records can make histograms look glitchy, so I wanted to avoid that naive approach. Something like SMOTE fit that need well.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you. I have a bit of experience using SMOTE and one of the things that make me keep using it is its simplicity, and how versatile it is. Just like you, a couple of days ago I wrote a small prototype on how to balance an already synthetic dataset and was very, very satisfied with the results. I'll share it with you in case you are interested,

[https://kite.com/blog/python/smote-python-imbalanced- learn-f...](https://kite.com/blog/python/smote-python-imbalanced-learn-for- oversampling/)</comment></comment></comment>


How to make Touch ID a little safer - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/09/defeating-apples-touch-id-its-easier-than-you-may-think/

<comment><AUTHOR> For those who continue to use Touch ID, Graham suggested a simple step for minimizing the success of Starbug's attack:

"use only pinky or ring fingers to unlock your device. He said most prints left on glasses, iPhone screens, and other surfaces are from thumbs and index fingers. Enrolling a pinky or ring finger won't completely foreclose attacks like the one developed by Starbug, but it will require an attacker to work much harder to succeed."</comment>


Ask HN: What are you using for email marketing? - <AUTHOR>

Quick question for you - What are you using for email marketing? There seem to be so many options between mailchimp to postmark.
I'm just looking for something to make it simple to send welcome emails, daily emails, shipment emails etc to a list of subscribers.  I need to do this all programmatically.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions. <comment><USER2> I'm a huge fan of MailChimp. The 1,000 subscribers forever free plan is awesome for small businesses and the monthly fee is affordable for larger lists.

I've used a few before (Interspire, Constant Contact, Bronto) and have found MailChimp to be the most powerful and up to date on the latest technologies and best practices. The interface is intuitive as well and templates are pretty easy to build. I'm not a programmer but when I've had to work with its API our developers have always had an easy time with it.

That said, I've never tried Postmark. I think most will let you sign up and at least try it out for free, so I would suggest doing that and finding which one works best for you.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm using MailChimp's API for my app, though I'm anxiously waiting for Aweber's API (it's read-only right now) -- they allow you to segment lists in a much more sophisticated way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. How do you like the MailChimp API?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using Campaign Monitor - <http://www.campaignmonitor.com> (API - <http://www.campaignmonitor.com/api/>)

Not only is it a fabulous service but the team is great at answering questions and helping out. Campaign Monitor is behind the Email Standards Project - <http://www.email-standards.org> so you can gauge their commitment and quality.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm using ServerGrid.com. It's a great service for sending mass email programmatically.</comment>