Apple's Siri wrong 38 percent of the time in test - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57464337-71/apples-siri-wrong-38-percent-of-the-time-in-test/

<comment><USER2> If I understand that article correctly the headline and lead paragraph must have been written by someone who did not really understand the article and who had a distinctly different opinion than the author of the article.

First, the article body portrays the 62% success rate in a generally positive or neutral light, headline and lead paragraph portray the 38% failure rate in a completely negative light.

Second, the comparison was with normal Google search it seems, i.e. without any voice recognition, something the lead paragraph gets wrong.

So this seems to be the data for Siri:

\- Siri understands 89% of all queries in quiet environments

\- Siri understands 83% of all queries in noisy environments

\- Siri answers accurately 68% of all queries in quiet environments

\- Siri answers accurately 62% of all queries in noisy environments

That's Siri. Now on to Google:

\- Google understands 100% of all queries (since they are entered manually with a keyboard)

\- Google answers accurately 86% of all queries

This test pitted Siri against Google, asking the question how good of a Google replacement Siri can be.

Fortune's article is much clearer: [http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/29/minneapolis-street- te...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/29/minneapolis-street-test-google- gets-a-b-apples-siri-gets-a-d/)

The whole method, however, seems iffy to me. I would like to know much more about which questions were asked and how they were selected in the first place. And even if you can find a good sample of questions I'm not sure how helpful this comparison is.</comment>


Visualizing the Math Behind Logistic Regression and Newton's Method - <AUTHOR> http://thelaziestprogrammer.com/sharrington/math-of-machine-learning/solving-logreg-newtons-method <comment><USER2> What is the difference between Newton's Method and Gradient Descent?

Edit: Found an answer: [https://www.quora.com/In-optimization-why-is-Newtons- method-...](https://www.quora.com/In-optimization-why-is-Newtons-method-much- faster-than-gradient-descent)

<comment><USER3> The calculus answer is that gradient descent approximates the shape of your optimization space with the first order taylor expansion at your currently optimized point (first derivative information), and Newton's method approximates it with the second order taylor expansion (first and second derivative information).

The geometric answer is that gradient descent approximates the shape of your currently optimized point by a plane that is tangent to the current point, whereas Newton's approximates it with a quadratic "bowl" using the local curvature. In gradient descent you have to take short steps down the path, because you know your approximation cannot be true (you will not always be able to lower your error by moving in the same direction, if you assume there is some minimum error). In Newton's method you can assume that your bowl approximation is correct and go straight to the bottom of that bowl. If your space really does look like a bowl, you will get to the bottom super quickly.

The ELI5 answer: you are a ship captain looking for the lowest point in a part of the ocean. You cannot afford to send a submersible down, so your approach is to send an anchor down to check the depth and take a panoramic photo a few feet around the anchor. After analyzing the results of each anchor drop you can move your ship anywhere and try again. In gradient descent you look for the lowest point on the edge of the camera's vision and move in that direction. You can move as far as you'd like, but you will not go too far because you know the drop will not go on forever. In Newton's method you will look at the curvature in the pano and extrapolate it out assuming it is a "bowl" shape. For example maybe your anchor is on an underwater J-shaped cliff getting less steep as it goes north, so you map it out as a U shape that starts going up again if you go a mile north. So, you move your ship a mile north and try again there. In gradient descent you would have moved maybe 100 feet north then checked again. Newton's method can intuitively get you to the low point in very few anchor readings, but crunching the numbers of the bowl can be very time-consuming (this becomes relevant in higher dimensions). In this analogy, the long and lat coordinates in the ocean are your two parameters to be optimized, and the height of the ocean floor is the error in your optimization. You want to find the parameters that give you the lowest error.

<comment><USER4> Great explanation, and the ship example could make for a fun math game! I'm in NYC also and interested in creating spaces for mathematics, will be at the Museum of Mathematics hackathon next week. Drop me a line if you're interested in chatting, email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since the author is reading, a few small typos, followed by one slightly more substantial comment: 'simgoid' should be 'sigmoid' (S-shaped); `x y = log(x) + log(y)` should be `log(x y) = log(x) + log(y)`;'guarentee' should be 'guarantee'; 'recipricol' should be 'reciprocal'.

I would like to see some mention of the fact that the division by the gradient is a meaningless, purely formal _motivation_ for the correct step (inverting the Hessian) that follows.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I co-worker just jabbed me with regarding the log property mistake also...

As to the motivation for the correct step: can you point me to a resource that explains this? Not sure I follow...

<comment><USER5> > As to the motivation for the correct step: can you point me to a resource > that explains this? Not sure I follow...

You write an equation involving division by the gradient. This is an illegal operation (one cannot divide by a vector), and your final recipe doesn't do it. As far as I can tell, you are writing down the incorrect, illegally- vector-inverting formula as motivation for the correct formula involving the (inverse of the) Hessian. All I am suggesting is that you say explicitly something like "Of course, this formula as written is not literally correct; one cannot actually divide by a vector. The correct procedure is explained below."

(Incidentally, speaking of inverses, another poster ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14881265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14881265)) has mentioned that it may be a bit confusing to speak of the inverse of a matrix rather than the reciprocal, since (as I interpret that other poster's point) the reciprocal of a matrix _is_ just its inverse. I might prefer to say something like "We write $H_{\ell(\theta)}^{-1}\nabla\ell(\theta)$ rather than $\frac{\nabla\ell(\theta)}{H_\ell(\theta)}$ to emphasise that we are inverting a matrix, not a scalar, so that the order of multiplication matters.")

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh I got it. Understood, definitely worth clarifying, will update. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dialing up the complexity a bit from Newton's method, it would be interesting to know whether there are now better explanations of the conjugate gradient method online than this classic (or at least high-profile) intro: [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~quake-papers/painless-conjugate- grad...](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~quake-papers/painless-conjugate-gradient.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> For the graphs of the home price / bathroom data set, what does the vertical axis represent? I don't see it labeled or discussed anywhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just took the index of the data point (i.e. 1, 250) as the y-axis with the intention of "Stretching out" the data set along the y-axis. Otherwise the data would otherwise be illegibly compressed on a 1-D number line.

In retrospect, I could have better represented the data with 2 overlying histograms, but this (somewhat) captures the intent of showing that "more expensive houses tend to have more than 2 bathrooms".

<comment><USER8> I agree with you that 2 histograms would be better. Check out the grouped barchart on this link

[http://nvd3.org/examples/multiBar.html](http://nvd3.org/examples/multiBar.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a really nice introduction to logistic regression, well done! My one quibble with the OP is the jump into Newton's method. Maybe a derivation to explain the five steps would help. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I err'ed on the side of caution to (try) to reduce information overload, but I also didn't want to assume too much prior knowledge. Delicate balance...

Maybe a linked post that dives deeper into the 5 steps of Newton's Method? Would that be more approachable?

<comment><USER9> Yeah, that would work. Honestly, when I studied logistic regression, we used gradient descent, so seeing it with Newton's method was the draw for me. I can go find the resources myself of course, but since I was reading the article I thought it would be convenient there :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I search everywhere about the difference between Newton's Method and Gradient Descent? but I couldn't find something that useful. Can u suggest any website/ article where I can learn the difference?

<comment><AUTHOR> The comment right below has 2 links:

Gradient Descent explored similarly to this post: [http://thelaziestprogrammer.com/sharrington/math-of- machine-...](http://thelaziestprogrammer.com/sharrington/math-of-machine- learning/the-gradient-a-visual-descent)

The difference between the two: [https://www.quora.com/In-optimization-why-is- Newtons-method-...](https://www.quora.com/In-optimization-why-is-Newtons- method-much-faster-than-gradient-descent)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author has far too little mathematical understanding to be teaching anybody (that's my impression at least). If you don't understand Newton's method before reading this, you won't understand it afterwards. "A method for finding the roots of a polynomial". Why polynomials? Does it work, always? Is it fast? Why would following the tangent repeatedly be a good idea? "We take the inverse instead of the reciprocal because it's a matrix". Not impressed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am a programmer trying to learn math, so are my intended audience members.

That said, I should include facts related to convergence, and maybe even speed compared to SGD.

As to the reciprocal -> inverse generalization, do you have any resources you could point we towards to better understand this?

Additionally, a concrete answer to "Why would following the tangent repeatedly be a good idea?" has been hard to come by for me. I am able to visualize this, but if you have resources that explain this well please share.

<comment><USER11> In general, it's not a good idea. And in general, Newton's method won't converge.

Newton's method boils down to replacing your function by a first-order approximation. For a differentiable function, in a small neighbourhood(!), that's a good approximation (by definition), though, and the zero of the model function will be very close to the zero of the original function (if it lies in that neighbourhood).

PS: i did not expect the poster and author to be the same person, otherwise I would've phrased my criticism differently. A SHOW HN would have helped.

PPS: basically the whole reciprocal/inverse confusion only arises because you start the multidimensional case from your iteration formula. If you back to its derivation, and start again from there, you can avoid that.

<comment><USER9> > In general, it's not a good idea. And in general, Newton's method won't > converge.

Right, but this blog post isn't about the general case of using Newton's method to find roots, it's about using Newton's method for solving logistic regression for which it is perfectly suited, though there are better methods as well, of course.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Booting-Linux-using-UEFI-can-brick-Samsung-laptops-1793958.html <comment><USER2> So random academic question - Should it be literally possible for an OS to "brick" hardware even if the OS was intentionally designed to do just that?

Now I know in this particular case Samsung wrote both the driver and the firmware, so it is easy to point blame here.

But more broadly, should hardware be built/designed so it has a "fail safe" mode where it just won't allow its self to be damaged by OS/software instruction?

PS - Let's just assume BIOS/uEFI firmware updates are off the table for this discussion. Since many modern uEFIs allow you to disable user updates entirely.

<comment><USER3> The word is bugs. It's very hard, and almost impossible to fix all bugs. Code with no bugs is really code with no _known_ bugs. Especially when dealing with C and assembly, different parts of the code can effect other parts in ways a programmer may not anticipate. You really need to get a 'safer' language to prevent certain types of bugs, especially with the "data and code share the same segments" model of C.

<comment><USER2> It isn't /just/ bugs. It is also the way we think about the relationship between the underlying hardware and the kernel/OS.

There is an inherent level of "trust" there. Which makes sense. But the question is: should that "trust" extend to permanent damage to the hardware/firmware?

For example, a lot of GPUs allow the OS to control fan speed. You can literally set the fan speed so low the GPU will over-heat and damage its self. That isn't a "bug" that is a "feature."

Again, we come back the expectations/relationship.

<comment><USER3> It's always said "hardware is expensive, software is cheap; so do as much as you can in software". When you also remember that we give an OS full control of all hardware, it's the natural conclusion that things like this can happen. Although, this is changing, subtly. Now you have harddrives and SSDs that run their _own_ software that can't be controlled by the OS. The firmware may even lie to the OS, for example harddrives might tell the OS "I've written this data", when it might actually be caching it for more efficient writing. Unfortunately computes are nearly infinitely complex these days, with so many layers developed by many people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was about to pick one of these laptops up late last year until I happened to stumble across that very bug report myself: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu- cdimage/+bug/1040557?comme...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu- cdimage/+bug/1040557?comments=all) Everyone seems to have it working fine with UEFI disabled, and several people have noted the vendor or Samsung has provided a replacement in the cases where it was bricked.

At least in their darkest hours, Linux users can still put on a smile:

" _[...] they changed the motherboard and it's working again now. I won't try to install Ubuntu again though. The whole process took about 2 weeks._ "

</comment><comment><USER5> I wish UEFI was designed more with the user in mind and less politics and corporate decisions.

To start, it should not possible to brick a hardware in any way...

Interestingly, the UEFI looks to me sufficiently complex to control the device graphics and input before the OS boots, I wonder if that can be used to abuse the system and do again some "on the metal" coding for high performance stuff (ie: games... and scientific things).

I think maybe that cannot be done because probably no UEFI comes with drivers for video hardware acceleration.

</comment><comment><USER6> Say what you will about the old BIOS systems but at least it worked and everyone understood it. EFI/uEFI seems to be a big clusterfuck.

<comment><USER7> I am completely and utterly baffled by this statement. Do you realize how many man-years have been spent working around BIOS bugs over the years? Get any kernel developer a drink, then just say the word 'BIOS'; your opinion of UEFI will change pretty rapidly.

I've dealt with kernel dev for BIOS systems, CSM development for UEFI, etc etc. I'll stick with UEFI, even if it does still have some growing pains.

<comment><USER8> > Do you realize how many man-years have been spent working around BIOS bugs > over the years? Get any kernel developer a drink, then just say the word > 'BIOS'; your opinion of UEFI will change pretty rapidly.

Isn't it the case that once the kernel is fully booted, up and running, it bypasses BIOS entirely and talks directly to the hardware? Have all those bugs you mention been related to the booting process itself (constituting a relatively tiny part of the kernel)?

<comment><USER9> I do not know to what extent the OS bypasses the BIOS, but it is not completly. If you look in the linux kernel config, you will see an option to control how much RAM is reserved for BIOS. Also, on (many?) Dells, Fn+Shift+15324 followed by Fn+r brings up BIOS thermal controls [1]. I have verified this on an Inspiron 1420, in Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.10 (kernel 3.5.0-21-generic).

[1]<http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1684657>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The biggest problem with UEFI was that someone decided to mess it up and complicate it by adding DRM and signing-requirements.

It's the result of computing following designs mandated by the MPAA/RIAA. Who on earth thought that could turn out OK?

<comment><USER11> UEFI has _NOTHING_ to do with DRM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Bios is outdated, but UEFI is even worse and became such a mess. It did not fix BIOS's issues and is unnecessary complicated. The efforts are regretfully wasted on UI.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, but the BIOS had many issues, and UEFI provided a solution to them, even if it wasn't an inherently good system.

1.The BIOS isn't portable, you can compile UEFI for any platform by porting a small base module. Everything uses this module, so the compiler will take care of the rest.

2\. BIOS was a heap of 16bit assembly code, with a small memory space. It was quite hard to add any kind of complex functionality.

3\. You couldn't use a boot volume greater than 2TB due to MBR. A new one wasn't added because of number 2.

4\. UEFI is more like a micro kernel then a generic BIOS, and provides the functionality for vendors to write 'better' interfaces. Here the interfaces aren't actually provided in the official UEFI sample implementation, and most can be arguably called worse then an average BIOS interface. However, you have to acknowledge the capability is there.

5\. It added a framework for kernel verification (unlike what some people think, it only verifies the UEFI firmware and the kernel/boot loader it loads directly). The direction that Microsoft is taking it is quite unfortunate, but it's actually a good feature.

6\. It has a limited capability as a boot loader, allowing multiple operating systems to be started directly.

These are all features that aren't present in the BIOS, that UEFI has fixed. Unfortunately the current implementation has many bugs, and many features are arguably implemented badly. However is was created to fix real problems, and has been undeniably successful at that. At a linux conference there was a talk about all this, from someone quite involved with the UEFI creation process. If you are interested, the recording will probably be released in a few weeks. There is also a talk from the previous year by Matthew Garrett (the guy who does UEFI stuff in Linux), talking about all the bugs present in UEFI, which is an entertaining watch, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aq5M3Q76U>.

<comment><USER6> It sounds like UEFI is over-engineered. All I want is for something to initialize the hardware and hand over for booting.

<comment><USER12> "over-engineered" is the right word for UEFI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I do so miss OpenFirmware (forth and all).

</comment><comment><USER14> Looks like a roadmap for some truly nasty malware. This should not be possible in any circumstance. It's like having a history eraser button on your spaceship.

</comment><comment><USER15> Just disabling the driver doesn't seem like the ultimate solution... Have they even identified the problem itself? Why aren't they just fixing it? Is it on the hardware site or in the driver software? They should fix that.

</comment><comment><USER16> As stories go, this one would be a lot better if it actually linked to some technical information about the bug. Does anyone have a reference for what the samsung_laptop driver's doing that is so bad? The kernel bugzilla link (#47121) that someone has speculated is related is a boot panic, not a complete bricking, so while it _may_ be the same thing ...

[https://bugzilla.kernel.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=samsung-...](https://bugzilla.kernel.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=samsung- laptop) # but nothing else in there looks to be any closer either

</comment><comment><USER17> U/EFI is an interesting subject. Yes, of course better than the primitive bios it replaced. Interesting in that you can can play with a new OS.

But, Intel went out and invented another operating system? Why, when embedded Linux (&coreboot) already existed? with a full stack of software? Would be nice to have a web browser available from the firmware for downloading drivers, etc. I ran Linux on an Itanium at work circa 2003 so it was definitely doable.

Is the answer that MS wouldn't allow it? Or is there another reason?

</comment><comment><USER18> In a few weeks, "Don't buy Samsung laptops" is what I will remember from this.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why can't they just use Google's method for the Chromebooks? I think it allows to easily install any other OS as soon as you physically disable the bootloader with a switch on your laptop.

<comment><USER20> Because they're not as smart as Google. Most hardware vendors budget as little as possible for firmware, and the result is predictable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just fixing the driver doesn't seems a safe solution, because then malwares still can do the same to brick the hardware, isn't? Sure nowadays most malwares don't want to brick your hardware because ads are more profitable but it can still happen. It's understandable that new technologies have more serious bugs than decades old ones and hopefully it will be fixed in UEFI soon, but this shows why you have too be careful with new technologies if you are an early adpoter.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your red flags for a project about to fail? - <AUTHOR> Premise: Not every software development crisis has an early warning system, but plenty of them do. If you learn to recognize the signs early enough, you may be able to prevent the project from failing.<p>I'm collecting red flags for a listicle. What should I include? <comment><USER2> I think your premise is wrong. You may be able to save yourself, but you are much less likely to be able to save the project.

Red flags:

\- Lack of a clear goal. If nobody knows what you're trying to do, the odds are high that you won't do anything. And eventually some upper-level manager will realize that you're not doing anything, and will kill the project.

\- Lack of reality in management. Reality has been defined as "that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away". That's true of management too. They may not believe that changing the scope requires changing the schedule... but it does. They may believe that the team can work double hours for months... but they can't. They may believe that they can dictate both scope and schedule... but they can't. When you see management acting without regard to reality - worse, with no _awareness_ of reality - the project is doomed, because reality is going to win.</comment>


Ask HN: Any advice for starting a web development co-op? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a front-end dev with several freelancer friends who, all together, represent most of the talent you would need to start a full-service digital agency (back-end devs, designers, writers, and account executives.)
Like most freelance networks, we regularly reach out to each other for work/advice outside our specialty (I do dev work for designers, writer friends help me out, etc.)
I'd love to propose (and so far the few I've talked to are receptive to the idea) combining our freelance practices and starting a consultancy or web shop.
I believe very strongly that a co-op would be the most equitable system of organizing the company and, even with the potential downfalls of distributed management, am committed to making a flat system work.
Does anyone have advice for actually doing so? Or a software, web-based, or general creative services example of one in action? There are a few local co-ops I regularly patron (Wheatsville, Black Star, and Public School), but I'm having trouble finding an analogue in web development.
Thanks in advance HN! <comment><USER2> Well, overall I would warn against it, although I get why it sounds appealing. The reasons are multi-fold and I'd happily share more personal details on why via email, but the main reason why I say no is that you wind up missing a lot of dates and are constantly resetting expectations (this isn't abnormal in Software but it gets far worse).

Effectively you compete for the every team members time to get things done as no-one is 100% committed to the co-op. e.g. developer X gets a project from the co-op for 40 hours of work, he commits to do it by Jan 9th, 2015 say, but he also takes another project outside the co-op that has a delivery date of 12/30/2014\. He winds up getting hung up on his first project and so you start resetting expectations for the client. But multiply that by 3-4 people doing the same thing, and what you will find is that keeping clients happy is a royal pain in the ass. And it gets worse when rates come in to play, e.g. the private gig now tells the developer he'll pay $1000 on top of his hourly rate to get Z done by 1/5, etc. So now the co-op starts suffering because people are over committing, even though they are well intentioned.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes. It's very unlikely to work. There will be far more overhead than you imagine, egos are far more important than you realize, and the payoff seems far larger than it will actually be.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe you could do time based instead of job based? Everyone commits 5 hours a week to help other people on their projects for a pre-determined rate? You'd have to figure out who gets priority for people's times.</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't big softwares use App Store on Mac OS X? - <AUTHOR> It's rare that a useful software app is available through the App Store on Mac OS X (Slack and Microsoft Remote Desktop are my only two). For example, Microsoft office has their own tool for updates. Firefox and Chrome have an internal updater.<p>Why don't more software not use it? <comment><USER3> If you rely on the App Store, Apple has complete control over your distribution channel and take a large cut of your income.

Not only do they have control over your distribution channels, but the rules they impose change over time, forcing people into whatever Apple wants. There was a blog post on HN a while back where an App update was rejected because they failed to hype up the new iPad Pro's or another post where an App was rejected because (by sheer chance) somewhere the description referred to "an unreleased product".

The only real benefit is that it might bring your software in front of a lot of eyes, which, as a big player, you don't really need that much.

<comment><USER4> I think the "lots of eyes" really only apply to the iOS App Store. sales on the Mac App Store aren't that great from what I've read. As a Mac user I know I never use it, expect when some link from an application website sends me direct to it.

<comment><USER5> I use it for small utilities, so they are kept up-to-date and I don't need to fish them out when re-installing (which happens unfortunately every year on my corporate Mac)

Just missing a Cloud (Dropbox/iCloud) HomeBrew configuration and I would be set for the essentials.

As parent said big stuff don't need to exposure, and anyway, as a developer most of those stuff wouldn't make it to the appstore anyway.

edit: also forgot licensing. I rather buy it on the AppStore so I'm also avoiding having to fish the license email and/or create an account with whatever utils company.

<comment><USER6> `brew bundle dump` will be your new best friend. [https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew- bundle](https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-bundle)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One big reason is that a lot of big, old, monolithic software doesn't deal well with the concept of sandboxing, and the Mac App Store requires that apps have sandboxing enabled. Adobe for example installs junk _all over_ your system with creative suite apps, and that wouldn't be allowed with sandboxing on. Many system APIs are also restricted or unavailable with sandboxing on.

<comment><USER8> Since Adobe products aren't strictly necessary for any of my work, that's the primary reason I use alternatives now: the junk all over the system, the constant calls home for updates, and the hidden little launchers.

<comment><USER9> What alternatives do you use for Premiere and After Effects?

<comment><USER8> This might be peripheral, but I use ScreenFlow not only for screen casting, but also surprisingly robust video editing (from blank canvas).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> At WWDC 2018, Apple announced that Office, Photoshop, and several other big apps would be coming to/back to the Mac App Store. I found this really interesting because I wondered what had changed, but the companies involved have been tight-lipped about it so far. To my knowledge, none of these have been added to the store yet but presumably are still planned to: [https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/06/04/mac-app-store- get...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/06/04/mac-app-store-getting-ios- treatment-office-365-bbedit-lightroom-cc-and-more)

<comment><USER11> I bet Apple has agreed to take a 0% cut of big companies's products, just to incentivize other developers to publish on the AppStore.

<comment><USER10> They might have. Does seem like they'd be priming themselves for backlash if that were confirmed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Mostly because they don't want to bet their farm on Apple's whims and the huge tax burden of 30% plus all the tech and rituals Apple imposes.

</comment><comment><USER13> The selling point of the iOS App Store to developers is, "what other choice do you have?" The Mac App Store doesn't have that advantage.

<comment><USER14> Actually it's not just that. I believe sometimes people forget what enormous achievement it was to have _one_ centralized repo for all the apps a fragile, mobile device can have. Without AppStore, the dark ages of Symbian suddenly come into mind. And sure, Apple has had a number of flaws when it comes to AppStore policies and regulations, but part of Apple's sternness and rigidness is well justified, given the myriad of apps it has to serve, and safety and security of billions of devices that run those apps.

<comment><USER15> It's arguably an advantage for users. But not necessarily for developers.

<comment><USER16> It's a complicated issue to be sure, but developers also benefit from a platform that has high trust among users. I think users are probably much more likely to try out new apps and even pay for them if they know ahead of time that the apps been vetted, the payment processor is secure (and already has your details), etc.

Not that there isn't crap on the iOS App Store, but I don't think it's controversial to suggest that the Good to Bad App ratio is better there than on the web as a whole.

<comment><USER15> And for some devs and some apps that's worth giving up a 30% cut and dealing with Apple's processes and restrictions. For some it won't be, if they can distribute the app any other way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wild guess:

2.5.6: Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript. -> Firefox is No-No

5.2.5: Apple Products: Don't create an app that appears confusingly similar to an existing Apple product, interface (e.g. Finder), app (such as the App Store, iTunes Store, or Messages) or advertising theme.

[https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/](https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/)

<comment><USER18> Yet Slack is an app you can download directly from the App store...

<comment><USER19> There is a difference, though (not related to the subject matter in GP's post, but related to sandboxing). You can download Slack from the App Store, but you can't give mouse access to viewers when screen sharing unless you download the app from their site. Just something I ran into last week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One reason is to bypass the sandboxing requirement of the App Store.

And once you're off the App Store, users won't be nagged to update your application, so you're responsible for getting your users to update all by yourself. At which point some form of over-the-air update is more ergonomic than making users hit your download page to pull in the latest version.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'd say that the app store works best for relatively small apps and developers, where the 30% tax is worthwhile when weighed against all the infrastructure they would need to roll themselves.

By comparison, Ableton, Adobe, etc, aren't having any trouble shifting units as it is, they have more than enough labour power to run their own infra, and they don't stand to gain anything by handing 30% of their revenue to Apple.

Perhaps the question should be flipped, what would these companies gain from distributing via the app store?

<comment><USER22> Several of the games that I've purchased through the Mac App Store are from big developer houses and weigh in at well over a gigabyte.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why give Apple money if you don't have to?

<comment><USER24> Because the choice is between spending it on your own infrastructure or Apple's infrastructure. There is no free lunch.

<comment><USER25> Your own infrastructure doesn't cost 30% of revenue.

<comment><USER24> Often it costs much more indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The bigger questions is why do any software developers agree to take part in app stores that attempt to lock users and developers into their operating system?

<comment><USER24> No, it's not, because an app designed for multiple operating systems can be distributed in whatever way you like. On distribution method doesn't exclude another, just like running it on one OS doesn't exclude it from another.

At the same time, you can also put your app in the AppStore and provide a non- AppStore version on a website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have been using a Mac exclusively for years and I have never once even logged into the App Store. Don't need it. Never once did I need something that was found only on the App Store.

My Mac complains that I need to log in in order to update apps that I never use such as Pages.

<comment><USER28> You can just delete those apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The cut off the top is the biggest reason. See fortnight as an example - <USER2> is an excellent case to look at to understand incentives of skirting around Google and Apple's stores, even if inconvenient to end users. If a user wants the software (eg if the demand is significant enough) the inconvenience to the user may not be a factor. For the rest of us... The App store as a platform is too powerful to ignore. [https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/3/17645982/epic- games-fortni...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/3/17645982/epic-games- fortnite-android-version-bypass-google-play-store)

</comment><comment><USER30> The same reason many apps don't use the iOS AppStore to monetize... Apple's tax and the high friction of your business customers doing business with them.

If you sell software for businesses, it's pretty painful to actually buy software with their volume programs.

Both Slack and Remote Desktop are free apps that access non-free resources on the back end.

<comment><USER31> But the App Store isn't exclusive. I know that 1Password had multiple version depending on if you download it from the App Store or download it from the web. (ie The license keys were different.) You can always sell the large packages via the web, and the small ones through the App Store.

<comment><USER30> Depending on the app, that's problematic. For a low cost thing like 1Password, you can do that and even benefit as customers who are price sensitive will buy Apple gift cards at a 10-20% discount.

A company like Abobe has high value software and large customers who will not accept a single source fulfillment vendor for software. A school district, for example, is usually required to get competitive bids on a state or other contract from multiple resellers. Usually companies drive revenue by bundling, so putting product A with Apple and product B with the channel is complex and doesn't add value, particularly when Apple wants 4-6x more dollars to do that fulfillment.

<comment><USER31> While I understand bundling, what I don't understand is why bundling is relevant here. If you're at the position to be placing bids, you've already chosen a bespoke price for the product (either by explicitly stating a price, or throwing stuff in for "free").

None of the precludes simply selling the very same code product (sans bundle) on the App Store at a price that's higher than your bid price. Doing so, increases sales (perhaps marginally, but more is more, and the opportunity cost is trivial), and it makes your bid price appear even lower.

The reason why Adobe doesn't bother is because they're a household name. People that want Photoshop, will just google it and go to their page and download it directly. The 30% acquisition cost simply isn't worth it when you've already cornered the market.

But Adobe is an outlier. They own a verb. Most people aren't in that position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Apple can update the guidelines anytime, sometimes forcing you to drop some features. Expo's iOS client had to drop QR code reading: [https://blog.expo.io/upcoming-limitations-to-ios-expo- client...](https://blog.expo.io/upcoming-limitations-to-ios-expo- client-8076d01aee1a)

</comment><comment><USER33> Doesn't Apple take a substantial cut of anything sold through its app store?

<comment><USER34> 30%

<comment><USER11> 30% of $0 is $0. The App Store is a great way to distribute freeware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> TL;DR The app stores are messy to deal with and come with many restrictions that shouldn't be there, considering they're completely Apple's solutions, and Apple could do a whole lot more within its control (but has not been doing so far after all these years). Conversely, the only reason the App Store on iOS and tvOS are used is because there's no other way to distribute the apps to a large base of customers (at least for non-jailbroken devices).

Why many apps don't use the Mac App Store:

1\. It's primarily because software distribution on the Mac had different mechanisms maintained by developers for decades (or from before the iOS App Store and the Mac App Store came to be). Many old time customers are used to buying direct from developers and having a way to have a direct contact with the developer. For example, AgileBits (maker of 1Password) had to go back to retaining its own sale/distribution mechanisms after declaring that it's going MAS only because of long standing customer backlash (and probably acknowledging that it was anyway forced to maintain this for its Windows app at that time).

2\. The App Store on iOS is deficient in many ways, when you consider that it doesn't allow (easily implemented) trials, upgrades, etc., that many users from the PC/Mac computers side are used to. The Mac App Store is even worse than that. Read this mess about free trials on the App Store (iOS) from a few months ago (June 2018), written by developer Daniel Jalkut of MarsEdit fame. [1]

3\. The sandboxing restrictions that just don't work for several apps, means it's too much of a hassle to change (or cripple) one's app just so it can be distributed by/through Apple.

4\. The 30% cut that Apple takes is probably a lot higher for developers who already have had a system in place for a long time. But some newer developers have moved to the Mac App Store as the only means of distribution (Pixelmator is a popular and notable example that went MAS only and has stayed that way).

5\. For developers who care more about customer relations, Apple's country restricted stores and the lack of portability mean that a user who moves from one country to another would usually have to go through some confusing ways of updating apps bought from a previous country. As for subscriptions and in-app purchases, those cannot even be transferred, AFAIK. Even now, subscriptions cannot even be canceled before they expire (you'd have to contact Apple for that and try to work it out). The app stores are completely Apple owned and controlled, but yet they don't have any easy solution for people who travel or move to another country (or to other countries) either temporarily or permanently.

[1]: [https://bitsplitting.org/2018/06/06/ersatz-free- trials/](https://bitsplitting.org/2018/06/06/ersatz-free-trials/)

<comment><USER36> +1 I am a small developer with a niche audience (firefighter training, simsushare.com) that has a cross-platform app. Most of my audience is Windows and iOS, but I do need Mac as well.

I don't really need Apple to help with marketing the app, so paying 30% on the Mac App store is way too much for me. On iOS, it is necessary because there is no alternative. Also, my simulation tool has an enterprise subscription, which means Apple can say yes or no and meddle with my business model. Too many restrictions!

Now Apple is saying I have to get my app notarized for Mojave. I don't quite understand why I have to do that in addition to the $99/year I pay for the Mac code sign. Bottom line is that I'm not making a killing by any means and Apple is hurting me by adding all the technical restrictions and financial constraints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Because if you're a platform for general purpose computing, it's a really bad idea to restrict what kind of software ISVs may write and _then_ charge them for the privilege. This is also why so few major apps are available for or bought through the Windows Store. If Apple and Microsoft try to force the issue... well, the year they try will become the long-awaited Year of the Linux Desktop.</comment>


CIA.gov Possibly Down, LulzSec Claims Responsibility - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ciagov_possibly_down_lulzsec_claims_responsibility.php#.TfkygTjrh9Q;hackernews <comment><USER2> Works for me.

It puts me on edge that these idiots would pick such media-friendly targets to strafe with their clueless bandwidth wastage; not looking forward to the next round of "cyber security" laws one bit.

"Hey dad, tell me just one more time about how when you were a kid you used to be able to make TCP connections freely and without the connection first being authorized by the NSA." "Go to sleep, son."

<comment><USER3> I'm wondering if LulzSec is a false flag operation very well engineered.

<comment><USER4> It isn't, there's no point in doing that, not to mention how illegal that would be. The US govt doesn't need any _more_ scandals of this nature (wiretapping is enough I think).

Also, whenever a government really wants to do something, they'll use any excuse that's available. For example; PATRIOT ACT, DMCA, Iraq Wars, etc. etc. For cyber-security, if none of this Anon or LulzSec stuff happened, it would be Russian or Chinese hackers that are infiltrating and by god we must protect Americans from those evil foreign hackers. Or they would rely on the terrorist excuse: the terrorists are losing in real life so they need to re-build support and attract younger people so why not hack some sites and gain new supporters that way? Beheadings and suicide bombings really fuck up the recruitment rate for terrorist organizations.

See how easy it is to come up with an excuse that the internet needs to be locked down?

<comment><USER5> "It isn't, there's no point in doing that, not to mention how illegal that would be. The US govt doesn't need any more scandals of this nature (wiretapping is enough I think)."

Wiretapping scandal became public circa late 2005 - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy)

Random collection of additional federal political 'scandals' since 2005:

1) This goes from 2001 - 2008 so skip to 2006 - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scand...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States#2001.E2.80.932008_George_W._Bush_Administration)

2) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scand...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States#2009.E2.80.93_Obama_Administration)

Additional 'scandals' with solid link to US Government:

1) <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/gps/>

2) [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110218/02143213163/more-h...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110218/02143213163/more- hbgary-federal-fallout-government-wants-to-buy-software-to-fake-online- grassroots-social-media-campaigns.shtml)

3) [http://www.thenation.com/article/161057/wikileaks-haiti- let-...](http://www.thenation.com/article/161057/wikileaks-haiti-let-them- live-3-day)

4) [http://www.ban.org/ban_news/2010/101022_caught_exporting.htm...](http://www.ban.org/ban_news/2010/101022_caught_exporting.html)

5) [http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1026810/us- governme...](http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1026810/us-government- censors-wikipedia)

6) [http://www.elizabethwatson.org/featured/wikileaks- reveals-a-...](http://www.elizabethwatson.org/featured/wikileaks-reveals-a- government-caught-up-in-the-mendacity-of-lies/)

Just some random examples I pulled in 5 minutes. I don't believe the argument "...not to mention illegal that would be." or "The US govt doesn't need any more scandals..." has any bearing whatsoever on their decision making process at the level of authority needed to authorize something as a false flag operation for various reasons.

<comment><USER4> You're right of course, but my main point is they don't _need_ to do much in order to come up with an excuse to do something. I'm sure there are easier ways to get consent for locking down the internet than to create a false flag operation; just use something that already exists (copyright infringement, terrorism, porn, war on drugs, etc.)

<comment><USER6> They've tried all those things, and it's not moving along as fast as they'd like.

Since when has the government decided what to do based on _need_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could LulzSec actually be working for the Government to help create that "civilized" Internet Sarkozy was talking about. They've certainly created the "worst case scenarios" that politicians can point to now.

But the most surprising thing about them is how confident they are they won't be caught. Can they really be that sure that they will never be caught doing these attacks? Or are they just reckless?

But if they are for real, it might be understandable if they actually had a cause, and a good one. Doing it for the lulz, doesn't seem like a very good cause, and it's only going to give politicians more ammo to restrict the Internet because of "these crazy hackers" that prove the Internet is very "chaotic".

At least when Anonymous attacks they have a pretty good cause, that could actually be supported by most of the public. LulzSec attacks are getting less and less defensible, and maybe even suspicious.

<comment><USER8> The crazy thing is (I believe) large botnets are worth a lot of money on the black market. It makes no sense that they would waste their network to take down government websites "for the lulz". Something is missing about the situation.

<comment><USER9> I don't think something has to be missing here. My experience tells me otherwise, that many botnet ops go for fun _and_ profit and it's not so strictly "just business".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just wonder... would merely announcing the CIA.gov is hacked on LuLzSec's highly-popular website be enough to cause such spike of curious visitors that the servers collapse?

Kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, it'd be; also a neat hack. Truly anonymous DDoS, too ;-)

<comment><USER11> Probably not even close to enough...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> All these hacks are nothing but the modern version of kids going out at night and spraying graffiti on public buildings, or going in them to vandalize the hallways, then bragging to their friends at school, and then one day they attack a bigger target and get caught. Only this time they can do all this stuff from their own home so they feel invincible until they get a knock at their doors.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hilariously, the massive media frenzy surrounding the site outage will send the site enough traffic to DDOS it, even if LulzSec never meaningfully impacted it in the first place.

<comment><USER14> My first thought too. I immediately tried to load CIA and then thought, "Maybe they didn't hack it at all but just put out their Twitter message to drive traffic at it?"

Or more interestingly, if they were in the process of hacking or something and wanted the cover of a torrent of strangers trying to reach their site.

<comment><USER15> I just happened to be looking at my Twitter feed the very moment they posted, and clicked the link immediately. No go.

Would this effect happen so quick? I guess they do have a lot of followers, but I'd hope that even if all of them did what I did they could survive that amount of hits?

<comment><USER16> The other thing to keep in mind is that cia.gov is probably not made to handle lots of traffic, since I cant imagine them having a massive day-to-day userbase.. hence I assume it would be rather easy to get them choked up with traffic

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _scratches head_

I can load cia.gov just fine. It doesn't even appear to be slow. I opened up the CIA World Factbook then checked their press section & what's new on cia.gov and there was nothing about it going down.

Also, kudos to the CIA for flipping to HTTPS by default.

<comment><USER18> Interesting to me that they don't use a wildcard cert though.

<comment><USER17> Well they have the EV cert and as far as I know, you can't get one for wildcard domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hacking CIA.gov, if they're half as good as one would expect, should yield no more than the static web content hosted. If there half as good as government contractors tend to be, I expect my tax return to be posted shortly.

<comment><USER20> They didn't "hack into" the CIA.gov site as far as any of the reports I've read have indicated. They just launched a denial of service attack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Confirming that it is indeed down for me.

I wonder what the CIA are going to do, especially because LulzSec is directly targeting them now.

<comment> brown9-2 I doubt that the core of the CIA cares too much about it's public-facing website.

<comment><USER22> It's got a few important uses. Recruiting, public relations, etc. And then, there's the loss of face in having it down.

<comment><USER23> CIA also runs the CIA world factbook, which is an incredibly useful resource.

Mostly, though, I'd say this is just egg on their face.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well this will be interesting.

Great article btw in the current Popular Mechanics [1] about the new militarized CIA and whether or not that's a Good Thing.

[1] [http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/spi...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/spies- at-war-the-new-era-of-the-cia-5767465)

</comment><comment><USER15> Off topic, sorry, but not sure where I'd ask this.

I posted this news 15 minutes before this submission. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2659263>

Can someone explain to this newbie why mine disappeared so quickly, but this stayed? I don't have a problem at all, I just wish to understand the system thanks.

<comment><USER25> well one reason would be OP linked to an article, you linked to a site that doesnt load...

<comment><USER15> Ah :-) So I should have used the text option then?

A broken link gets it immediately marked down? Makes sense.

<comment><USER21> > A broken link gets it immediately marked down? Makes sense.

If we can't open the site, we scratch our heads and move on. On the other hand, if we can open the site, we scratch our heads and say: "Yeah right! The site isn't down! No upvote for you!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've seen a lot of the sites they have compromised before; can't disclose where. I wrote f-secure back in 2007 about it. Never a response. A few to watch for in the future Noth Korea's main site; Adam Sandler's home page. I'll have to dig trough my logs to find more. Again, no bodies listening, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2651275>.

Maybe a good start-up idea, Internet 911. Grey/White hats find vulns => report => issue gets the attention it deserves. Made me laugh, but something like cyber-police :D

From - Sat Aug 07 23:58:30

X-Mozilla-Status: 0001

X-Mozilla-Status2: 00800000

X-Mozilla-Keys: Message-ID: <[re-dictated]@gmail.com>

Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:58:24 -0500

From: Chris <[my email]@gmail.com>

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:184.108.40.206) Gecko/20100713 Thunderbird/3.0.6 MIME-Version: 1.0

To: firstname.lastname@example.com

Subject: fox news

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Dear F-Secure:

Many Fox news opinion sites(Glen Beck, Hannity, ect) are vulnerable to multiple attacks- read LFI(getfile.php), XSS(search), ect. I would try to contact them, however, the LFI leaves their mail servers vulnerable to ease dropping. As a well established security reseach company I feel disclosure of this should be left to you(the pros); plus it would make a good blog post.

</comment><comment><USER27> Down here too (east coast).

LulzSec feels (to me) like just a group of bored teenagers messing around, randomly attacking whatever websites they can. I suspect if the gov't wanted to scare people, they wouldn't just sponsor/create a group doing things "for the lulz" - they'd make it out to be something larger and scarier.

</comment><comment><USER28> One of my favorites sites, the CIA World Fact Book[1], is also down.

[1]<https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/>

<comment> mkr-hn Most of the CIA Factbook is duplicated on country wikis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> What are the chances that LulzSec is a single individual with exceptional abilities that is working his tail off to make all this happen?

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, without civilians being able to access www.cia.gov for a short period of time due to a ddos I'm sure the military industrial complex will crumble.

Why bother running stories about random DDOS's and defacings? It's even less interesting or important news than mainstream media's celebrity gossip.

<comment><USER31> This is actually a damn good point. The best way to fight DDOSes is to stop making a big deal out of them. We need to show some restraint, and also to educate the media -- folks being unable to access cia.gov has (to a reasonable approximation) zero effect on the CIA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What on earth is their plan?

<comment><USER33> False flag to justify tighter Internet regulation ?

<comment><USER34> If it keeps going. It will probably work false flag or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> yes, i can see no downside to this. i would never expect that there would be an irrational, overblown response that causes lots of people to be arrested and made examples of.

</comment><comment><USER36> terrorists -> hackers al qaeda -> lulzsec patriot act -> ??? tsa -> ??? wtc bombing -> yet to come or spread out into many hacking instances?

lol parallels

</comment><comment><USER37> The Jester, greyhat patriot who hacked Talibans' websites and forced Wikileaks to change their hosting, is now going after LulzSec. This is a lot more entertaining than TV: <https://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r>

<comment><USER38> He's just a troll/internet tough guy having verbal warfare via Twitter and IRC.

<comment><USER39> I love the fact that LulzSec actually calls him out constantly, calling him a "schizo retard" and threatening to reveal the exploit he's using to take down sites. It's immature, of course, but entertaining as an observer.

<comment><USER40> No, LulSec said that he is part of the illuminati. I'm not even sure they were even serious, but funny regardless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> You will see the EU anti-DDOS tools law modified and possibly one for USA as well..

Seems like a false flag to get DDOS tool anti-laws passed

</comment><comment><USER42> Is it a (d)dos or an actual hack?

<comment><USER43> Feels like the former. Were it the latter, they would have probably defaced the page or announced that they'd stolen some data, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I read for most of their hacks they used SQL injection. Any know how that works exactly?

<comment><USER26> Input isn't properly sanitized by the server thus allowing an attacker to run code through the database. Fairly easy to test for.

<comment><USER44> It's pretty embarrassing that none of these big corporations (PBS, Sony) can't even take some time to test for security flaws considering that SQL injection like you mentioned is easy to test for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Maybe the CIA lost its raison d'etre with Bin Laden's demise, and decided to Cuil things off.

</comment><comment><USER46> Are there truly this many servers out there that are so horrendously behind on updates that they can be picked off like this?

<comment><USER47> This doesn't have to do with security updates. This is most likely a simple ddos/flooding attack and there are not many things you can do against them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Enough with the "cyber security" law conspiracy.

Do I need to remind people that these laws are _voted_ on by your _elected_ representatives?

The patriot act is a result of democracy. Don't want cyber security laws? Start by educating people and voting for people who don't want cyber security laws.

<comment><USER49> While I agree with some of your setiments, this is a very strawman/ranty type of comment.

<comment><USER48> Strawman? My points are completely factual.

Where is the evidence of this false-flag operation? There is none. Why would congress need to conduct such a false-flag operation when they wouldn't have much trouble passing such a law regardless?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Widget for online stores to increase trust? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I have some idea for service which I have described here: http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/widget-for-online-stores-to-increase-trust-and-credibility.318767/
What do you think about it?
Regards, Wiktor <comment><USER2> [http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/widget-for- online-...](http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/widget-for-online- stores-to-increase-trust-and-credibility.318767/)

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean?</comment></comment>


Skype Bots preview comes to consumers and developers - k-mcgrady http://blogs.skype.com/2016/03/30/skype-bots-preview-comes-to-consumers-and-developers/ <comment><AUTHOR> From a TechCrunch article: "It is true that, as Jonathan Libov has observed, "developer interest in messaging/bots has far, far outpaced consumer interest thus far"."</comment>


This guy is shopping his business around for ~a billion dollars - <AUTHOR> http://www.bobparsons.me

<comment><AUTHOR> I find him inspirational in a completely different way to the normal hackernews / mixergy / startup world entrepreneurs.

He makes you feel that success is all about heart.

<comment><USER2> I'd like to have him on Mixergy. Interesting guy.</comment></comment>


Gabe Newell Is Doing an AMA - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Gaben/comments/5o8fsy/gabe_l_newell_will_be_joining_us_tuesday_the_17th/ <comment><USER2> WHY WONT WE GET Hl3!?!?</comment>


Creative demo of HTML5 canvas - <AUTHOR> http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/

<comment><USER2> Was posted here a few days ago.

<comment><USER3> And a few days before that... I don't like going into the 'old'ing but I was under the impression that there was a URL check when posting doubles on HN. Maybe I was wrong...

<comment><USER4> The fancy HN dup checker doesn't look at #'s in the url.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a lot of interesting code in here; I took the liberty to beautify the JavaScript here, <http://pastebin.com/zVe5a1Fi>

This got me so excited I've decided to dedicate my spring break to getting acquainted with HTML5 by learning to us <http://processingjs.org>

I think HTML5 could quite likely liberate JavaScript from the DOM altogether and provide the necessary foundation for revolutionizing 'the manner' in which we develop the browser as a client-side application on 'some system' while further streamlining the web-server as a means of storage. I mean HTML5 could very well be the solution for writing _formidable_ JavaScript that can do so much more besides molesting the DOM. ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> It didn't work last time on Chrome Dev 5.0.307.1 (r37331)

Today I found out it was because an extension called Kill Evil

[https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/epieehnpcepgfiil...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/epieehnpcepgfiildhdklacomihpoldk)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is amazing. I wish there was the ability to make text via typing as well because I could easily make some basic designs to pretty up my website with this =]

(Yes. I'm not a designer)

Edit: Hold Shift for colors!

</comment><comment><USER8> This works for me in Firefox 2 and Opera 9.64... should it?

I guess basically my question is, what HTML5 features are used in this that they would be supported in Firefox 2 and Opera 9.64?

</comment><comment><USER9> I wish someone would translate Fugpaint (<http://www.benfry.com/fugpaint/>) to be Canvas based.

</comment><comment><USER10> Fantasic!</comment>


Three Software Freedoms - <AUTHOR> http://www.naughtycomputer.uk/the_three_software_freedoms.html <comment><USER2> He has a valid point about restructuring the three freedoms that he did keep to make sense. However that 'zeroth freedom', which both the FSF and he initially forgot, is important as well.

"The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose"

This is about licences that restricted possible uses of software. Just as you are free to drive your vehicle anywhere * , and transport anything * while using it, so to should you be free to use software the same way.

( * the point is no artificial additional restrictions, not literally wildcard)

Multiple edits: I will never get used to the crazy custom syntax HN posts have. It isn't pure plain text (maybe with hyperlinks), a form of psudeocode tagging, or markdown like.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure that the FSF considers freedom 0 to be essential anymore. They describe it as follows:

> The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or > organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of > overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with > the developer or any other specific entity. In this freedom, it is the > user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose; you as a user are > free to run the program for your purposes, and if you distribute it to > someone else, she is then free to run it for her purposes, but you are not > entitled to impose your purposes on her.

AGPL was accepted by the FSF as a free software license, yet it is quite problematic when it comes to freedom 0.

Suppose I find a program that displays an interactive chess board in a window, and lets you play over chess games that you enter by pasting in the moves.

I modify the program so that it includes a simple HTTP interface. Someone on the network can connect to that interface, and if the person sitting at the terminal is willing, the person on the network can play a game of chess with the person sitting at the terminal. If I'm already a playing a game, people who connect over the HTTP interface will be placed in a queue to wait for me to be available.

If this program was under AGPL, I have to give my modified version to those who play chess with me over the network.

To make that requirement be in accord with freedom 0, it is necessary to claim that I am not a "user" of the program and/or that I did not "run" the program.

It's kind of hard to say I'm not a "user", since I am sitting at the damn terminal using the program. Same for "run". I typed the command that started the program running.

(Note: I've seen people argue that the person coming in over the net is a "user" and that they "run" the program. Even if so, that is not relevant here, because AGPL is not trying to impose any requirements on them. It is trying to impose a requirement on me, and so is only whether or not I am a "user" and what I did was to "run" the program that is relevant as far as determine whether or not imposing a requirement on me violates my freedom 0).

<comment><USER4> But you are "conveying" the software to the users, that's the whole point. AGPL just extends the meaning of the word conveying to also include users connecting over the network.

As for it infringing on freedom 0, I don't understand how your logic wouldn't also apply for the GPL. I disagree that you cannot "use the software for any purpose" with the AGPL. You haven't given an example of you being restricted by it. If a user gave a copy of their program to another user they would have the exact same requirement (under the plain GPL). If you wanted to run a private copy of your modified program you just have to make it forbidden to connect to that interface.

Also, there's no reason you cannot just provide a link to a git repo for your modified project. Which means that you don't even have to modify your program to distribute its source code to users.

<comment><USER3> > But you are "conveying" the software to the users

No, you are not conveying the software to people who merely interact with it over the network. From the text of AGPL itself:

AGPL> To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.

> As for it infringing on freedom 0, I don't understand how your logic > wouldn't also apply for the GPL. I disagree that you cannot "use the > software for any purpose" with the AGPL.

Being able to "use the software for any purpose" is not sufficient to satisfy freedom 0. As the FSF explains:

FSF> The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity.

Note that you have to be able to use it for any purpose _without_ being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity. If my purpose with the program from my example is to play chess from my computer with remote people, I am not able to do that under AGPL unless I communicate my modifications to them.

<comment><USER4> > No, you are not conveying the software to people who merely interact with it > over the network. From the text of AGPL itself:

Yeah, you're right it's not called "conveying" in the AGPL. But the whole point of section 13 is that it's _like_ conveying. I'm not a lawyer and I doubt you are, so the distinction is without a difference IMO.

> Being able to "use the software for any purpose" is not sufficient to > satisfy freedom 0. As the FSF explains:

> Note that you have to be able to use it for any purpose without being > required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific > entity. If my purpose with the program from my example is to play chess from > my computer with remote people, I am not able to do that under AGPL unless I > communicate my modifications to them.

I don't agree with that reading of what the FSF says. "developers or any specific entity" is referring to telemetry. If you have to give a copy of the code to all users of software you've exposed on the network, you are not sending it to "developers or any specific entity" \-- it's just the users that you're communicating with over the network.

The whole point is that you can _choose_ to not share your code with anyone -- meaning that you can choose to not offer a network service to anyone.

<comment><USER5> > "developers or any specific entity" is referring to telemetry.

I generally agree with your reading, but I think this part more likely refers to things like registration.

<comment><USER6> There are many oldish licenses that allow modifying code but require sending all modifications to the original developer of the software. I believe that's what's being referred to. Some of them are listed in the GNU license list [1]: AT&T Public License, Reciprocal Public License, Open Public License, eCos, Plan 9, APSL v1, and (not old, and hence obnoxious) the Oculus Rift SDK license.

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license- list.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author makes a serious mistake in calling Freedom 0 "just silly". He doesn't seem to _disagree_ with Freedom 0, just considers it obvious and trivial ("I mean of course I can use the program as I wish").

An example demonstrating that this freedom is _not_ obvious, even to people who believe in "free software" is the "Hacktivismo Enchanced-Source Software License Agreement" [0]. To quote from the FSF [1]:

> The Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement (HESSLA) is a > software source license that tries to put restrictions of ethical conduct on > use and modification of the software. Because it restricts what jobs people > can use the software for, and restricts in substantive ways what jobs > modified versions of the program can do, it is not a free software license. > The ironic result is that the community of people most likely to feel > sympathy for the goals of the HESSLA cannot contribute to HESSLA-covered > software without violating its principles.

> The restrictions in the HESSLA prohibit specific activities that are > inexcusable: violations of human rights, and introduction of features that > spy on the user. People might ask why we do not declare an exception for > these particular restrictions—why do we stick to the general policy of > rejecting all restrictions on use and on the functionality of modified > versions?

> If we were ever going to make an exception to our principles of free > software, here would be the place to do it. But it would be a mistake to do > so: it would do harm to free software movement and would achieve nothing. > Trying to stop those particular activities with a software license is either > unnecessary or ineffective.

[0]: [http://www.hacktivismo.com/about/hessla.php](http://www.hacktivismo.com/about/hessla.php)

[1]: [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I, the author, have added a clarification on why freedom 0 is unnecessary:

Basically I value Free Software for two reasons: 1\. I think it's irresponsible and dangerous for us to be doing all of our computing using technology we cannot understand or maintain. 2\. I think community software development is great fun.

Freedom 1, 2 and 3 are all needed for these things, but freedom 0 is not.

If you want to do x, and the license on some software forbids x, then you use a different software. It's no different than if the software were simply unsuitable for x.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like free software just as much as the next guy and I don't find it appealing to remove a freedom just for the sake of a blog post.

I mean, why is it implicit that I can run a program but e.g. distributing it is not?

Next time I get some free AI software I will find that I don't actually have the freedom to put it in my car/tractor/vacuum/etc because software license says so, not to mention the hardware locks that I would have to overcome.

Edit:

Example: BMW decides to release their AI software driving their car under a "free software" license. In this hypothetical situation, Audi would not be allowed to use BMW' software because the license restricts this. But now, because _using_ the software in any way you wish is no longer an explicit freedom, nobody could claim that BMW software is not __FREE__

I know of at least one GPL licensed project for audio editing and synthesis that has an explicit ban on using it in commercial applications.

<comment><USER9> > I know of at least one GPL licensed project for audio editing and synthesis > that has an explicit ban on using it in commercial applications.

Then either it is not GPL licensed, or the restriction can be ignored (see section 7 of GPL v3).

[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.en.html#NoMilitary](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.en.html#NoMilitary)

<comment><USER8> Took me a while to find it but here it is:

[https://www.linuxsampler.org/faq.html#commercial_products](https://www.linuxsampler.org/faq.html#commercial_products)

[http://svn.linuxsampler.org/cgi- bin/viewvc.cgi/linuxsampler/...](http://svn.linuxsampler.org/cgi- bin/viewvc.cgi/linuxsampler/trunk/README?view=markup)

It's still not clear with me how they reconcile this restriction with GPL

<comment><USER10> The GPL contains an optionally removable but there by default "or any later version" clause. This doesn't appear to remove that clause, and so the GPLv3 contains a "If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term." clause, so it can just be deleted?

<comment><USER10> I wish people would comment instead of down voting; it's very difficult to have a discussion when people don't voice their thoughts.

Nothing I said is factually wrong. The GPL, the version they use, has the upgrade clause, and v3 lets me remove restrictions on use.

<comment><USER11> Or at least comment in addition to down voting :) I up-voted just to balance things out. Given the neutral fact-reporting nature of your comment, I would have just passed it over otherwise (no hard feelings, okay?)

<comment><USER10> > Or at least comment in addition to down voting :)

Yes, that is what I meant :)

> I up-voted just to balance things out.

I'm always hesitant to seem like I'm "complaining about down votes" when all I want is an actual discussion. I'm not trying to fish for anything; I honestly want to know if I'm wrong, but more importantly why!

<comment><USER11> For the same reason I've sometimes included a statement like "If you choose to down vote, I'd appreciate it if you'd also take the time to reply in a comment. I'm interested in hearing what you think!" I want to make clear that I'm not opposed to people down voting me. I want to improve my comments, and that's hard to do if you don't know what you're doing wrong.

Edit to add: Oh, and to be clear, I didn't read you as complaining.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one sitting here, thinking that I value the 4 freedoms, but thinking that software vendors does not owe that to us in any way?

I use free software where it makes sense. I don't use it for my desktop, because it cannot do what I need it to do. I use it for my 3d printer because it can do what I need it to. I pay (at least indirectly through my MSDN subscription at my job) for Windows, and it it suddenly stops working that is it, and I'll have to figure out a different solution.

I don't like that the ECU of my car is closed down, but trade secrets an all, I can understand. I would love to be able to at least look, not necessarily modify the software, I'm not qualified to do that and I don't want to void my warrenty. But this is a trade secret, of course it is not open for anyone to look at.

<comment><USER13> > Am I the only one sitting here, thinking that I value the 4 freedoms, but > thinking that software vendors does not owe that to us in any way?

A lot of people feel that there is an absolute sense of justice. What do the vendors owe us? From my point of view, whatever they owe us is a factor of the societal norms.

My interpretation of the idea of free software is that software that is not free potentially harms society. The kinds of things that vendors/governments can do with the power they gain from denying software freedom to their users is detrimental to us all. In that way it behoves us to strive for software freedom.

Do they owe us? No, I don't think so because it is not part of our cultural norm. It would be nice if it was, though.

<comment><USER12> When designing an algorithm, you pour hours upon hours into creation and testing. If the source is freely available, you basically hand this over to other people to copy. We would completely hamstring R&D in the private sector if we don't allow them to guard this secret.

Now if govenerments actually posted money into basic R&D in collaboration with the private sector on the premises that the work will be public domain, this might not be a problem, but when they pay for it themself, it's foolish to belive they want to share in this market economy. I could see a model where all e.g. car manufactures collaborate on creating an ECU software company, they all pay to, but it requires ALL manufactures to participate, otherwise someone enter the party, without paying the entrance fee. It's a classic prisoners dilemma - if all play nicely, it's a net benefit for all of them, but if one doesn't it's a net loss for all.

I would like a "Rights of ownership" define access to the source code, I just cannot see how.

<comment><USER14> Hours upon hours is the problem, hours upon hours isn't very long. Putting a couple of days work into something isn't something that should be patent-able. It's practically obvious.

I was thinking about this the other day, the basic problem with software patents is that almost all problems are trivial to solve as soon as you actually ask the question. It's just that there are so many questions in software engineering. Most programming problems are fairly easy to solve for a smart person. Many programmers have come up with virtually ideal solutions very quickly, people matching grep's search speed in days or came up with almost an identical shuffling algo as the ideal one in a couple of minutes.

Until you have a storefront and logged in users, you can't ask the question "how can my users quickly buy something online", and come up with a one-click button.

And so instead of being awarded for hard, complicated work that took months or years of man-effort, patents are being awarded for being the first to ask questions that are simple to solve with a few hours work.

<comment><USER12> When I said "hours upon hours" I was thinking about years of work to create or prove something. If you cannot protect and benefit from that work, private companies are not going to do it.

We agree on the sad state of software patents right now, but it seems that there is some movement against it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The biggest exception for freedom 0 i've seen is the license on the original JSON implementation [http://www.json.org/license.html](http://www.json.org/license.html).

> The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

The JSON license is not considered a free software license due to this violation of freedom 0(not to mention all the problems with definition including the fact that many things could rightly be considered neither in Good or Evil and the license actually explicitly says it must be used for Good).

<comment><USER16> IIRC IBM got an exception from the author to use it for evil.

<comment><USER17> "IBM, its customers, partners, and minions."

Which reveals what a farce the 'no evil' clause is, since IBM has in the past sold typewriters to the Nazis, and probably has no qualms to do business with more modern evils either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The author's dismissal of freedom 0 makes me a little uneasy. It is arguably the most important of the Four Essential Freedoms.

</comment><comment><USER19> No matter how I counted, I always end up with 5: use, study, share, modify, share modifications

<comment><USER20> > I always end up with 5: use, study, share, modify, share modifications

I wish the author had expanded the four freedoms (for clarity) instead of trying to condense it. I just don't think it effectively targets the different limitations that exist in software.

The categories you listed above are so clear and concise that further explanation seems unnecessary:

The 5 software freedoms in just 6 words.

It does a great job of breaking down the areas where I have seen limitations imposed by other software packages over the last three decades.

Even the first item - use - which at first glance may be the least troublesome, is riddled with limitations related to running on specific hardware, under certain conditions (non-commercial, certain networks, etc).

Final thought: I wonder if this list could be further expanded with a ' _No Software Patents_ ' or similar item - as it relates to _Software Freedom_ (maybe this is just redundant?).

<comment><USER19> Patents are in use, if there are patents you can't use it (without some sort of licence for those patents)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Ok so this is the 'Information wants to be free' based list of freedoms. It's too narrow, only applying to OSS.

I think we need a list of rights that does more than cover the OSS-ness of our software.e.g

Privacy of personal information.

1\. Use software without having to login to facebook or google to do it. e.g. Android apps.

2\. Sign up using credentials (e.g. email or phone) that cannot be sold to other parties.

Copyright

3\. Be able to sell software without it getting freely redistributed contrary to the license.

4\. Be able to reverse engineer commercial software.

Open web

5\. Discourage web pages that are only available through social networks, e.g. small businesses using facebook pages.

6\. Somehow reduce peoples dependence on Facebook as their primary online news source.

</comment><comment><USER22> I fully agree with most points made. But there are some caveats:

\- there are quite a lot of commercial software packages around, which depend on constant paid programmers work to keep up to date. Without a guaranteed revenue stream, those would not exist.

\- if people are free to modify all software, liability questions can arise. I am mostly thinking about any kind of firmware, like the one controlling cars or any other software which has the potential to create expensive if not disastrous accidents when malfunctioning.

There is some work needing to be done addressing those issues before we can have a completely free-software world (which I would like to have).

<comment><USER23> Your caveats are age-old FUD!

Many people are paid to work on Free Software, companies like RedHat re Linux and Acquia re Drupal are two examples.

If by releasing your code suddenly means a whole bunch of people suddenly spring up and start maintaining it that's fantastic as it means your maintenance costs have disappeared and your users will be free and better off. If you can't find anything else for your staff to do of value, then your business deserves not to exist and you should set your workforce free to do something of value.

As for the firmware argument, you are mixing free code and security. Proprietary software is far worse for this, examples include pacemakers which don't cope for pregnant women but can't be reprogrammed, and of course the recent Volkswagen incident. You should be able to see the code which runs anything - especially cars which have to make life and death decisions, and security can be provided by comparing checksums during installation and use.

If you really would like to have a completely free software world then please learn more about it and stop the FUD spreading ;)

<comment><USER22> Sorry, my arguments were not meant as FUD, but as challenges to be solved. I like the idea of every piece of software being free, but those points need a solution to make that work. I am of course aware of Red Hat and its business model. It mostly works, because there needs to be a "standard" distribution for commercial Linux platforms. But there is expensive software sold to corporations where the open source model just wouldn't work. Software, which costs tens of thousands per seat, where there is almost one developer per user. This eco system would break apart.

And for the second point, you misunderstood me. I would be very happy if every firmware would be open source, so everyone can see how the device works. But whether it is ok, that every user is free to change the installed software is a different question. If you brick your TV changing the firmware, that is up to the user. But safety-relevant software is another thing. At minimum, liability is affected, but for example for cars, they might need to be recertified before they can be used on public roads again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The best thing about this is it doesn't hector readers about features of their individual consumption or production (e.g., licenses). The call to action at the end instead is:

> The government can help us by making software companies distribute the > source code. They can say it's "in the interest of national security". And > they can sort out the patent system (there are various problems with how the > patent system handles software which are out of the scope of this article). > So when you chat to your MP please mention this.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Also Freedom 0 is just silly I mean of course I can use the program as I wish."

Tell that to people spending time in jail for using a program in a way that was frowned upon by government. Clearly the author hasn't spent much time thinking about these topics.

<comment><USER23> Sadly no software license will stand up against corrupt governments, Freedom 0 is there to stop the creator of the software or derivatives thereof exerting control over the user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _The freedom to study is normally taken away because the software vendor keeps the human-readable version of the code secret, only distributing the compiled program._

This is an argument which I think could go away if more people knew reverse- engineering, and decompiler technology has also been constantly improving in the meantime. The freedom to study and availability of source code are related but not entirely the same thing; regardless of legality, people have been studying and modifying software for _decades_ without source code. One great example of this is in security research, where plenty of vulnerabilities are discovered without needing to obtain source. In fact I'd argue that sometimes it's better to not use the source, since it could be somewhat misleading --- whereas the binary, the actual instructions that execute, is _the truth_. Thus, one can have all those freedoms without having source code.

 _It was not possible for third-parties to provide security support, because Windows is proprietary software, lacking all of the freedoms._

Look at the various unofficial patches available. They might not be legal, but they are definitely possible and made without access to the original source code.

As the saying goes, "Source code? We don't need no stinkin' source code!" ;-)

<comment><USER27> What about restrictions on reversing? Like [1] and [2].

[1] [http://www.wolfram.com/legal/agreements/wolfram- mathematica....](http://www.wolfram.com/legal/agreements/wolfram- mathematica.html) (Prohibited uses, b.)

[2] [http://maple.soft112.com/eula.html](http://maple.soft112.com/eula.html) (7.)</comment></comment>


How To Start A Business With No Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.startbreakingfree.com/273/46-ways-to-start-a-business-with-no-money/

<comment><USER2> Thank you for posting this. It's nice to see a startup article on here for a change that isn't about getting lots of investment money.

There are a few things I'd add, having done essentially what the article is about:

* Concentrate on making money, not on saving it. Saving money is important, but it's _more_ important to continuously figure out how to grow your bootstrapped business, and it's easy to be distracted by various tactics for saving money.

* Focus on what's important for your particular business. I've poured a lot of time, money, and effort into various projects that weren't important to my business -- things like advertising, marketing, community projects. There's absolutely nothing wrong with those things, but they're probably not vital to your business in the first year or two.

* Do what you're good at, and

* Don't hesitate to farm out what you're bad at it. I'm terrible at bookkeeping, for example; it doesn't make sense for me to try to spend my time doing that, and making a mess of it, instead of having someone take care of it for me.

I bootstrapped by consulting while working a couple of part-time jobs. As the consulting work grew, I gradually freed myself from the jobs, and then as the consulting work finally merited getting more help, I've freed myself from that, too.

It's a classic old formula that works.

<comment><USER3> On your first point, are you saying not to shy away from paying for things?

A friction against action I have fought is that I could pay for a service through which I could create more value, but paying for it means I need so many X new customers a month to make it worth it.

<comment><USER2> Well, yes and no. I'm saying that knowing when to spend money, and when not to, is a fine balancing act for the bootstrapper, and that it's self-defeating to concentrate more on saving money than on generating more revenue.

As an example: very early in my business, I paid the monthly fees for crossbrowsertesting.com (a _great_ service btw). Some months, I could barely afford it, but at the time I was doing a lot of web work and I justified the expense by how much time was saved dealing with follow-up issues from clients.

Conversely, I really struggled for a while because I waited too long to hire on help, and I could no longer manage my business's growth by myself. Clients got frustrated, deadlines lagged, and I wasted a lot of effort trying to save the additional cost each month of some help.

I've also found that, for me, having expenses helps to motivate me to keep growing the business. It would be _possible_ to survive as a business by simply cutting costs until the costs were lower than the revenues, but I prefer to look at it inversely: keep growing the revenues so that they stay higher than the costs. I have no idea if that would work for you, but it might be worth trying for a while.

So, yeah, if you could pay for a service that would help you create more value, then maybe you should do that. You might find that when it creates more value for you, you're able to handle more customers, which helps you to find the time to go out and get those extra customers that you need to pay for the service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would throw in a 37Signals quote in here and advise "sell your byproducts." There is money to be had from residual assets used in the process of building your main product.

Did you create some nifty icons, or write a custom graphing engine for your mobile app that looks really nice? Cool. Put up a Paypal-based checkout site. Sell licenses.

<comment> a-priori The risk there is that it can take a lot of effort to productize an internal tool. You need to polish it so people think it's worthwhile paying for (good design, integrations, etc.), harden it against security concerns, and so on.

<comment><USER4> No doubt. Before taking that complicated step, throw the idea out there that you are willing to license it. Get a few developers to do that as single transactions, where you walk them through code integration. If it proves too popular for you to manage, you now know you have a market, and a reason to build out a full API and battle test it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Entertaining, but not too useful. If you really can't spend $10 on a domain name, you'd better go out clean few windows, and then buy it. Being too cheap is a sure recipe for failure, or if not failure, for a lot missed potential growth. I've always been economical in my business ventures, and respect people who don't hurry to spend money on stupid things. But many of the points givem here are just way too cheap, unproductive and plain bad.

</comment><comment><USER6> While I enjoyed the article, I resent the misleading title. It should be "46 Tips For..." or something. It was certainly not _46 Ways_.

</comment><comment><USER7> Decent post, but really don't like being blasted with the AdSense right off the bat. Had I found that site through a search, I would have hit the back button. Just FYI.

</comment><comment><USER8> Still reading through it; nice so far; thanks for sharing.

In Tip 14 (Getting a logo), the link (a cj.com aff? URL) shows 'expired'. You might want to fix that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Actually it seems like an old article, many of the referred sites are out of date or expired.

</comment><comment><USER10> or, raise money for your startup with EarlyIPO.

Follow us on twitter for early access to our platform next week: @earlyipo</comment>


Hey, What About Pixar? - <AUTHOR> http://tbm.thebigmoney.com/articles/0s-1s-and-s/2009/01/15/hey-what-about-pixar <comment><USER2> Jobs is Apple. But Pixar? Pixar is more John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, directors of their blockbusters.

Without the passions of those guys, Pixar wouldn't be where they are now.

<comment><USER3> You are right of course, but who gave those two such autonomy? Jobs knows that autonomy is what makes Pixar so great. Will the other Disney "overloards" realize that or just grind Pixar into the ground like they did with their own (once brilliant) animation studio?

<comment><USER4> Part of the Pixar/Disney deal was that Lasseter be put in charge of _all_ Disney animation ("Chief Creative Officer"). Disney Animation Studios is presumably in good hands now... once they flush out all the stuff that was in the tubes prior to the merger.

(Edit: ...assuming, of course, that Mr. Lasseter's hormones remain OK. This is another case of a particular individual succeeding where a group failed, so there are similar risks.)

<comment><USER5> Close but not the full story.

Ed Catmull was put in charge ("president") of all Disney and Pixar Animation and Lasseter was made CCO as you said, so both have control of both animation studios.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Jobs will always be synonymous with Apple. Just like Jordan will always be remembered as a player and not a owner (successes are not anywhere near, he was just the first example that came to mind.)

Sure he was tied to Pixar and Disney but his absence won't be FELT. They said when he was CEO of Pixar he was in the office one day a week whereas with Apple it's my understanding he was there much much more often, like a full time job even.

So now that Jobs isn't CEO, how often did he check in at Pixar HQ? The fact is it doesn't really matter.</comment>


Checking Up on Dataflow Analyses - <AUTHOR> http://blog.regehr.org/archives/1388 <comment><USER2> This was in its blog comments:

[http://dsw.users.sonic.net/oink/](http://dsw.users.sonic.net/oink/)

Wilkerson claimed the CQual++ tool found hundreds of bugs in Debian with a 50% positive rate. Said it also spotted Heartbleed. Worth independent testing on some known-buggy code or projects with little attention to see what it can do.

Liquid Types is another interesting one more people need to try out on various types of code to assess effectiveness & ease of use:

[http://goto.ucsd.edu/csolve/](http://goto.ucsd.edu/csolve/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm wondering to what extent that this kind of Dataflow Analysis can be used in scripting languages such as Python or MUMPS. Deciding properties over all elements of an array is difficult, just as checking every element is time consuming. There is also some concern re proper treatment of sparse arrays when doing matrix calculations.

<comment><USER4> Are you talking about DFA on straight Python?

In principle this is possible, but given the complex semantics of language terms, this will be quite complex. Typically DFA is run on intermediate code in the optimising part of a compiler. Intermediate code is typically RISC-like idealised machine code. Each specific instruction is very simple and hence computing its effect on global data flow can easily be worked out.</comment></comment>


Mathematical Model for Surviving a Zombie Attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/zombies/

<comment><USER2> Classic! I just sent an e-mail nominating these guys for the Ig.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a link to the actual PDF:

<http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf></comment>