Odd, but effective, Windows Fix - <AUTHOR> http://a1.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-fix-for-windows-8-freezes-and.html

<comment><USER2> Default Power Options setting is to turn off hard drives after 20 mins. Any r/w operation would require it to spin up which can take up to 30 secs, during this time the app behind that becomes unresponsive. Seems like the possible cause for me.

Anyway, disabling swapfile is not a fix, merely a way to hide symptoms of the problem.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, took around 5 seconds here to wake up when I right-clicked in VS because of that. My swapfile is on a second HD which is not running much otherwise, and this also caused me regular freezes. My workaround was increasing the time to 60 minutes, which probably uses up some more power, but seems to be enough to avoid running into this problem in my usual workflow.

<comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, but all my drives are set to timeoff "Never" because I would rather pay a little more in electricity. Per one of the other comments, even if the drive is spinning, Windows checks the page file first to see if it already "knows" about the file. In many cases that check takes longer than a modern drive would take to seek-find-copy. IMNSHO, Page files are an old solution that need to be rethought given the newer hardware that many of us are using.

<comment><USER4> No page file generally means apps crash hard when they reach the limit of memory. On a multi-tasking OS not set up for making individual applications hibernate, that's a recipe for data loss.

Back in the days of 16-bit Windows, we had this thing called cooperative multitasking. It sucked. It meant that a single unresponsive application could potentially lock up the entire system, and you'd lose all apps. Now, we have preemptive multitasking. The OS calls the shots. Without a page file, we'd be back into a similar situation re memory: a single app could consume most of the system, and all other apps would fail on allocation - and most apps are not written to be stable in the face of allocation failures. It's either that, or background apps would need to be suspended or killed arbitrarily by the OS, or some other kind of drastic limitations on productive work.

I have 16GB of memory in my system; but I regularly run utilities that consume a large fraction of that (enough that the 12GB in my previous system was starting to look pokey - and my prior system with 8GB IIRC, I had to run utilities sequentially instead of in parallel to avoid page thrashing). The advantage of having lots of memory is that you can write utilities that build massive in-memory data structures. Problems are way easier to solve when you can rely on being able to stuff everything into a big hash table, rather than worry about temporary files on disk, or god forbid faffing around with a database and losing orders of magnitude of performance.

Page files, even in the presence of large amounts of RAM, are what enable this approach on workstations, in two ways: it means you won't suffer an app crashing from out of memory as you skirt the line of maximum physical memory; and secondly, and probably more importantly, page files backing allocated pages means the OS is able to free up memory sooner for those applications that demand it.

If you use your computer for casual use and don't stress it or do much critical work with it (i.e. use it much like you would a phone or tablet), you can get by just fine without a page file. But if you actually want to use the thing, a page file is a very handy thing to have.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure page files make sense. But if a page-file starts freezing applications regularly for seconds with typical settings and hardware, all while there is still sufficient main-memory, there seems to be some rework necessary indeed.

<comment><USER4> I've never had page file activity "freezing applications regularly for seconds" since the late 90s. I'm not sure what's causing what you're talking about; it sounds like a dodgy hard drive.

<comment><USER3> Not dodgy, just a sleeping hard drive. Modern HD's sleep when unused and take that long to wake up - that's not really unusual. People just don't notice that as much if they have a single HD as that is usually active most of the time you are working. But with 2 HD's (typical SSD + HDD combination) you often have one HD sleeping and will run into this a lot more thereby. There's ways to work around it - putting the page file on the HD which is more active or not allowing the HD to sleep as often. But my favorite would still be to simply prevent Windows from even using the page-file before the memory is at least used up to 50% - which would nearly never happen on my system for example.

<comment><USER4> I don't let my HDDs sleep for this very reason (my main drive is indeed SSD). Your heuristic would fail pretty badly on my machine; faced with an allocation for 8GB (not unusual for my utilities), I would have to wait while about 6GB of memory is paged out. That latency would be far worse than any delays from paging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Mark Russinovitch did a great talk on how windows uses memory. I highly recommend checking it out if you're curious about this sort of thing

[http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/WCL...](http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/WCL405) Mysteries of Memory Management Revealed,with Mark Russinovich (Part 1 of 2)

[http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/WCL...](http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/WCL406) part 2

</comment><comment><USER6> The title is disturbingly close to "Fix windows with this one weird trick."

A couple years ago I googled for "windows vista thrashing" and found a number of good guides that say what services to turn off and it was a huge performance boost.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably because I saw a posting on here some time ago (sorry I can't pull the link off the top of my head) that explained why you saw "Odd" and "Weird" on so many ads on the Weather Channel site. Given that this is my highest voted HN submission in some time, and my highest single day visit to my blog, I'd say that there was probably some science behind this :-)

<comment><USER7> You just made me realize how much my "web annoyance" factor has actually gone down since I installed ad blockers and don't have to see those "with one weird trick" ads anymore. They're really the worst of the worst IMO. (But I am glad that you were able to legitimately repurpose the phrase in this case.)

I'd love to see the article you mentioned, but I shudder to think of the search results were I to go looking for it. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've disabled the page file on all my systems since I had more than 128 MB RAM. Increased performance every time. System has never crashed, individual programs rarely do since Windows is pretty good about warning you. A funny thing I noticed on my first XP box (256 mb): whenever I ran out of memory, Winamp got killed. Don't know why, but it was no coincidence - I've reproduced this a hundred times, showing it to friends, etc. there was no memory leak in Winamp - it's memory usage was constant. Maybe the system figured out it had no files open in write mode, so killing it would be harmless. Anyone heard of something like this or have another explanation? Windows killed user processes in reversed alphabetical order?! :)

tl;dr; determine peak usage, install twice the memory, DISABLE virtual memory, profit!

<comment><USER9> this is, and has always been, a bad idea per <http://serverfault.com/a/23684>

<comment><USER10> Of course this always depends on your use-case. If you have more ram then you use (say double), you would never notice the effect of this behaviour. I have a linux laptop with 8GB of ram, and no swap, since the SSD is rather small. It takes a few days to fill up the ram (with file buffers). The programs I run will never approach the amount of ram I have, so I am fine with no swap.

<comment><USER5> windows doesn't have "swap" watch those videos i linked for more info on how it works and a few people pasted <http://serverfault.com/a/2368> which has excellent info.

There are many reasons to have a paging file even if you have plenty of ram. If you get a bluescreen it has to use the paging file for the memory dump if you want one, etc.

<comment><USER8> >There are _many reasons_ to have a paging file even if you have plenty of ram:

1\. _If_ you have a BSOD _and_ you want a memory dump

2\. e

3\. t

4\. c

5\. .

<comment><USER5> Sorry but i didnt feel like going into the specifics of windows memory management when i and others gave you the resources to learn more, so i listed one common case that everyone can appreciate. As per your original post I find that completely dubious saying windows never crashes after you disabled your paging file. Windows generally bsod's because of 3rd party driver's(70% of the time, and yes that's a real statistic). So i find it very hard to believe that it never crashes let alone what your lack of page file has to do with anything. Maybe it was blue screening and you where too busy making winamp crash hundreds of times and posting snarky comments on HN to notice?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure why the pagefile would even be in use if your system operates with 4.5Gb free memory...

<comment><USER12> From the comments:

<http://serverfault.com/a/23684>

<comment><USER9> I hope people read that link, because this "we don't need no steenking pagefile!" meme comes up like clockwork every year and it's wrong every time...

<comment><AUTHOR> It comes up every year because it's correct. I have read and am familiar with the issue raised in the linked article, and respectfully disagree. I just think that if I can edit a Video file, record my voice over, and have my email running in the background without using all my RAM that it is time to take another look at how modern OS should work with memory.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Death of Lucus Films Starts? - <AUTHOR> https://www.novainfosec.com/2012/11/01/the-death-of-lucus-films-starts/ <comment><USER2> With the exception of a few small/young divisions (e.g. early LucasArts), LucasFilm hasn't seemed like a place "where artistic creativity often trumped profits" for decades. Even Return of the Jedi compromised its script to include more characters for merchandising, and the prequel films were far worse.

<comment><USER3> Agreed-- Let's be honest, LucasFilms and Disney are a perfect match from a branding perspective.

There has even been a Star Wars Ride at DisneyWorld for like, what-15 years (?)</comment></comment>


Lab Spend – Pricing Search Engine for Research Chemicals and Supplies - <AUTHOR> http://www.labspend.com <comment><USER2> Working with labs, I've found it extremely eye-opening how archaic the supplier relationship is. A big challenge appears to be with the sales model and its reliance on contracts, opaque pricing, and exclusive relationships.

This is, of course, made even more complicated because not all supplies are created equal. Even simple plastics can have slight variations that are invisible without further testing which can impact experiments. You have to be careful, and many of the scientists I work with are superstitious when it comes to buying products, not wanting to risk their experiments.

An alternative I see a ton of labs using these days is Quartzy (YC S11) ([https://www.quartzy.com/](https://www.quartzy.com/)), which also provides great price alternatives, and also evaluates against other parameters people care about when it comes to their experiments. They have an entire team dedicated to vetting these products so scientists can order with peace of mind. Quartzy also provides some very useful supply ordering and inventory tools that are a huge boon for lab ops.

There's a lot of opportunities for disruption in the lab supply space. It's definitely needed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Allowing the searching and purchase of used equipment would also help those facilities running on a shoestring budget.

How to start a lab when funds are tight: [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05655-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05655-3)

<comment><USER4> The biggest hurdle here is probably the university itself - since this is presumably targeted towards uni labs. You don't really see this as a student, but once you start having to place orders through a university finance system (they're all vaguely similar), it's not straightforward. It depends on your PI and what they'll approve, what your budget code actually allows you to buy and so on.

We have a catalogue of approved suppliers who are easy to order from (semi- automated system). The usual suspects like Farnell/Digikey, Thorlabs/Edmund Optics are in there. Most universities have a "credit card guy" who will order things from other places, e.g. if you need a random part from an online retailer or even eBay.

Some suppliers have special relationships, e.g. we get hefty corporate discount on certain IT brands in exchange for exclusivity. This means you have to really argue why you want a non-standard laptop. I've not come up against this for consumables, but I imagine it's fairly common in bio/chem.

There are other cases which are problematic (1) big orders need extensive approval, multiple quotes, etc (2) stores which are not in the system and don't accept credit cards. Adding a supplier at any university is often tedious paperwork for everyone involved and neither the finance department nor the retailer like doing it.

The point here is that it's great to be able to find cheap supplies, but sometimes you can't make that choice. I've had to buy expensive (but admittedly reliable) optics from Edmund simply because a cheaper store wouldn't fill out the paperwork. These sites are great in general, e.g. Octopart for electronics.

EDIT: (meant to reply to this one)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I started entering a number and it automatically ran a search before it was completed (mobile chrome). Then I put in a chemical that it didn't find...now I'm outta tries.</comment>


US Government: You're Scaring Web Businesses Into Moving Out Of The US - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120216/17154217785/congrats-us-government-youre-scaring-web-businesses-into-moving-out-us.shtml

<comment><USER2> When I saw the title I first thought they saw this forum thread about how a Canadian business has switched away from using JotForm and how they are considering to stop purchasing from all US based online companies: [http://www.jotform.com/answers/77171-Recent-Domain- Suspensio...](http://www.jotform.com/answers/77171-Recent-Domain-Suspension)

By the way, Techdirt's Mike is such a great guy. He has been very supportive and he even introduced us to some lawyers.

</comment><comment><USER3> What does "Get corporate membership with EFF" mean?

Anyhow, I totally agree that the gov't is out of control. It isn't just with this copyright stuff either.

I sell electronic cigarettes and have an innovation to improve adoption with smokers. My product will undoubtedly be proven many times safer than smoking and more effective in helping people quit, but we face seizures and the threat of regulations which will shutter small businesses like mine.

I'm doing #4, "Migrate yourself to a non-US controlled country." as soon as I can afford to.

<comment><USER4> serious question: were you aware who you trying to compete with (or step on a toe) before going into this business? I cannot imagine being successful in such a field competing with tobacoo brands who have such a strong lobbying representation.

<comment><USER3> Big Tobacco doesn't sell ecigs, yet anyhow. The more open opposition is from Big Pharma and those who make their living pushing "quit or die" vs. harm reduction.

I just found a way to better serve consumers what they wanted.. pretty standard entrepreneurial story. If everyone let the 90%+ fail rate of businesses scare them from trying, the world would seriously suck.

Part of what I need to do to succeed is recognizing the threat of legislation and finding a better place to do business. My point was that the ridiculousness of SOPA and such isn't new and hurts other parts of the economy too. (and I am genuinely curious what #0 means)

<comment><USER5> > Big Tobacco doesn't sell ecigs, yet anyhow

That makes you even more dangerous than if you sold regular cigarettes, because e-cigs have the potential to change the game - to change their entire industry. And big companies hate it when the industry has to radically change from a model that worked for decades.

<comment><USER4> was about to say the same. he really didnt see that his successful business could kill 200 yrs old competitor with billions of never-ending [habit] profits?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see a time in the not to distant future where people in other countries start copying well used and know US sites and hosting them in say China. OK, China is scary, but what about, say, Poland? A kinda of whole website piracy. It might work because they can simply market the safe as being safe from the US government.

I'm thinking of sites like that forms site that suddenly got taken down wrecking the day of, what, millions of customers? How many of them might changed to an identical site that guarantees no US gov interference? Such people might not even realise its not the same people.

<comment><USER7> Good point. Basically all user-generated content sites could leave the US for countries that continue to respect safe harbor provisions.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#Title_II:_Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act)

<comment><USER8> Do other sites have "safe harbour" laws like that part of the DMCA? I'm not sure any do...

<comment><USER8> Sorry, not "sites", "countries". Do other countries have safe harbour laws like USA?

<comment><USER9> Most countries IP laws are not as obnoxious as ours so they don't have to give minor concessions to pretend to care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You're also scaring web consumers to pick non-US businesses. Do I want to purchase a service that can be shut down by the US govt with no notice whatsoever? No.

<comment><USER11> Which country would you move to? No government of any country gives prior notice before shutting down a website.

<comment><USER5> This wasn't possible in USA when they passed the Pro IP Act, just like they wanted to pass SOPA now. But people weren't aware of it, so it did pass. I'm afraid takedowns like these will continue until the Pro IP Act is repealed.

This is why it's so important citizens are aware of what goes on in Washington, and move to stop a bill if it's too dangerous. Because if it does pass, it will probably be a decade or more before people even start thinking about repealing a bad law. What's worse is by then, a few more bills will pass to enforce that one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> wes-exp The US is still a great place for business, IMO, but sometimes I feel like I should be wearing one of those t-shirts that says "I'm with stupid", with an arrow pointing to DC.

</comment><comment><USER8> A lot of this is due to the current US control of the .com namespace.

I wonder what'll happen when/if the US shuts down some non-US business's .com, and that business starts getting court orders to force local ISPs to resolve that. It would either lead to a split in the .com namespace, or international diplomatic agreements on DNS (like how there is international maritime law about what happens in international waters). This would make the USA no longer have control over it.

<comment><USER12> The U.S. government has already shut down non-U.S. .com domains (PokerStars, Fult Tilt Poker, Cereus).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg>

<comment><USER8> Things only get Interesting™ when the non-US companies start kicking up a fuss, and succeeding in kicking up a fuss, in other countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The reason we have not submitted an application for YCombinator is actually simply that we perceive the US to be a bad place to be incorporated. Not just for the reason stated in this article of course, hacker news is frequently littered with other reasons as well. My understanding is the requirement to incorporate as a Delaware company is fairly strict requirement for YC companies. Can someone verify this? (we're already incorporated in Singapore).

<comment><USER14> There are good reasons to incorporate in US states like Delaware, it is not coincidence that so many (non-YC) tech companies are incorporated there. Note that you incorporate in US states, not in "the US", and states offer very different jurisdictions. Here is a quick explanation of why selection of corporate jurisdiction is important:

1) You want to select a jurisdiction that has clean, flexible, and stable set of corporate laws that have already been through judicial review. This provides a robust foundation for corporate structure with few legal unknowns or political risks.

2) Important for investors, the corporate laws must be fair to all parties involved. For example, a jurisdiction with corporate laws that allow a minority shareholder or employee to screw the majority shareholders or hold the company hostage is bad and greatly increases investor risk. There are many jurisdictions that are like this, even in the US. It is one of the reasons you never see tech companies incorporated in California, for example, even though Silicon Valley is there.

3) A jurisdiction that operates under English Common Law is convenient because it is the common basis of contract law used in business, particularly if it involves parties in multiple jurisdictions. Delaware is a nice example of such a jurisdiction with a long, sane, and mature judicial history.

Jurisdictions like Delaware are among the very best in the world for everyone involved if you are building an investor-backed business. Startups that are not incorporated there often have to reincorporate in a place like Delaware as a condition of investment. It is all about having a stable, scalable, and fair set of legal rules on which to build the company.

The average startup faces much more risk from being in a poor jurisdiction than whatever risk you perceive from being incorporated in the US. Investors know this and proper jurisdiction selection is an inexpensive way of reducing the total risk to startup success.

<comment><USER13> Lots of very very good reasons for Delaware, yes. It totally makes sense for yc to have this as a rigid rule.. Still I'm interested to know if they have ever made an exception for anyone, and if so who and why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Consider rewording the title, it makes it sound like the US Govt is saying that.

</comment><comment><USER16> > 3\. Migrate DNS, web serving and other critical services to non-US based > servers.

What non-US alternatives there exist e.g. for Amazon?

<comment><USER17> AWS has regions in Ireland, Singapore and Brazil at least.

AWS is still a US company, but they offer services from non-US DCs.

<comment><USER16> > AWS is still a US company [...]

That's the very problem (i.e. US legislation), not the physical locations of DCs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> At this point, use of GoDaddy at any point should be noted in any Due Diligence process by investors.

If the founders are unable to identify using GoDaddy as an unacceptable risk and are unable to quickly find an alternative, then one might justifiably come to the conclusion that said founders don't know what they're doing.

If an investor is unable to recognize the risk, then one might justifiably come to the conclusion that they don't know what they're doing, and should stick to Real Estate Development and Direct Mail advertising.

Personally, I like gandi.net for domain registration and hosting. They're not the cheapest, but they're not in the US.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is it just me, or have a fair number of HN comments or references thereof been showing up in stories lately?

This is what, the third one or something in about a week?

</comment><comment><USER20> The better the services and environment for doing business, the more extortionist tactics you can apply and still keep the majority of the business.</comment>


Ask HN: Please, can someone explain the fascination with the Apple/Beats "deal"? - <AUTHOR>

OK, so I'm not in SV, I don't use Apple, and I have no idea what "Beats" might be.  Please can someone explain to me why there are nearly 50 submissions about the alleged possible deal?
Please?
Every other submission is talking about details here, options there, whatever, and I just don't get the background.  Explain to me like I'm five.
Edit: I have done my homework, I have searched the interwebs for "Beats," I have read a little about the subject, and I am genuinely none the wiser.  It's completely unclear what any of this is about, despite reading for a good 20 minutes.  If you can't understand I suspect it's most likely because you already know about it and are reading with previous knowledge.  Trying to read the various articles about this deal, or non-deal, makes it absolutely clear that there's more going on than I can glean from my reading. Hence my question.
Additional: Reading the wikipedia article[0] does not explain what's going on. The bare facts about what the company is and does, does not explain the frantic activity.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beats_Electronics <comment><USER2> I don't recall apple ever buying a $3 billion company, that's what makes this interesting. Interest is increased by the fact that the synergy between apple and beats is unclear.

Regardless of liking either company it's a significant financial transaction, hence the attention it's receiving.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you don't know what "Beats" is, it sounds like you should do some research on your own.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've added more, but in reading and re-reading it's unclear if I've really explained my point. I know who Apple is. I know who "Beats" is. The bare facts about who they are and what they sell does not explain the underlying issues that seem to have the techies in such a lather.

There must be more under this than the simple surface facts - that's what I'm not getting. The fuss seems completely out of proportion - there have been just _so_ many submissions here.

I don't get it. I really don't get it.

<comment><USER4> Historically, Apple doesn't spent billions on companies. They spends tens or maybe hundreds of millions on small technology startups that they can the integrate into their existing products. Beats makes music accessories and has a streaming service, and doesn't really offer any unique technology - just a brand, so it's a very atypical purchase for Apple, especially given the price.</comment></comment></comment>


I've been delivering for Postmates and DoorDash - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/your-pizza-s-cold-blame-your-food-app-not-your-courier-9d1d123ad2e8 <comment><USER2> I'm surprised DoorDash et al. didn't do away with tips. It causes consternation for the couriers, is easily forgotten by the customers, and seems to have no benefit.

You can choose to set the tip when placing the order, or give a cash tip when the driver arrives. The former is convenient, but meaningless; how do you set a tip for a service not yet performed? The latter is inconvenient, especially if you don't carry the necessary cash. It complicates the delivery interaction, is more likely to be forgotten, and still won't be very accurate. Are you going to take the food out of the bag and check it before you tip and let the courier leave?

Uber did away with tips, and it's wonderful. Drivers know how much they're going to make, riders know how much they're spending, there is no awkwardness or pressure, and the rating system does a far better job at maintaining level of service.

My only experience has been with DoorDash. They should do away with tips and overhaul their post-experience rating system. Right now the only options are to give one overall rating to the whole experience, which is useless, or to report a problem, and even then you're only able to report one problem. If, for example, both your delivery was messed up and the order was wrong, you can't tell DoorDash about both. You have to choose one. And their customer service takes 12 hours to respond, with completely arbitrary refunds. Compare to Uber who has responded to all my inquiries within 3 minutes.

Still worse, when I report a problem with my order (wrong items) ... who gets blamed? Does DoorDash investigate and see who was at fault, to correctly apply blame, or do they automatically blame the restaurant? None of that is made clear to the customer, and so it gives me pause whenever I report problems.

<comment><USER3> Does anyone know how having a tipped postition affects the law? I'm curious if these companies gain some sort of protection (from fulltime workers, from minimum wage laws, etc) by having their employees be paid by tip.

<comment><USER4> The federal tipped minimum wage is $2.13/hour, but the employer must top it off to non-tipped MW if the worker's total earnings w/tips fall short (in reality many don't ask for this for fear of employer retribution). California's tipped minimum wage is the same as its non-tipped though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The courier must arrive before the food is ready and wait for it. The food must be packed so that the least damage occurs. (eg. crispy needs to breathe, yet be kept warm) The courier must deliver it in under 10 minutes worst case, but within 5 minutes on average.

Like the constraint of the speed of light on networks, no amount of money can change this. Some food ages like VOIP traffic.

Pizza and Chinese delivery do well in the worst case. They reheat well. Look at what airlines serve.

To survive these new delivery services need to make a profit delivering food that is unprofitable for individual establishments to deliver themselves.

<comment><USER6> > The food must be packed so that the least damage occurs. (eg. crispy needs > to breathe, yet be kept warm)

I wonder how much room there is to specialize in doing this right.

The vast majority of the time I order delivery, food tends to come in super- budget containers that degrade the experience. Pizzas arriving in cardboard boxes, the taste altered by 10+ minutes of steaming and dripping oil... asian food tends to arrive in the clam-shell styrofoam containers that mush up some vegetables or turn crispy fried food soggy, with sauces in thin plastic cups that invariably leak at least a little... When was the last time anyone rethought delivery?

The experience could be so much better. What if soups used parfait-style containers to keep the liquids separate from dry mix-ins (eg fried chicken) until right before consumption? What if pizza boxes had oil-absorbant padding and better venting? And what about standardizing those container sizes like we standardized shipping containers, so food doesn't get jumbled in a plastic bag? Seems like that would open the window to containers with heating/cooling packs as well, which would help batch-deliver orders more efficiently.

How much of a market is there for companies that handle shipping _and_ packaging/handling of delivery orders? Owning the full delivery experience instead of just some cars.

<comment><USER7> That's what the vertically integrated delivery companies like Munchery do. Ultimately I think this model will win, since the food prep facility does not need to need to pay rent in a restaurant neighborhood, and the food can be designed for deliverability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sometimes I wonder if this whole food delivery boom is being supported by millenials who simply haven't faced the need (or desire) to budget yet. How sustainable is spending $25 per person per meal for those outside the top quintile? I know it works in San Francisco and NYC, but how deep is the market elsewhere? Or does that not matter? Maybe a significant number of them will never have families and all that disposable income will go to postmates and doordash instead. Maybe these businesses are built on price insensitive folks in urban areas for regular usage and irregular usage from everyone else?

<comment><USER7> All of these businesses are predicated upon an ever-increasing erosion of the middle class, increasing the number of customers and depressing wages for the workers by increasing the supply of people competing for the jobs.

<comment><USER8> I suppose that benefits them on both sides of their marketplace: the # of less price sensitive consumers in the upper class increases and the # of (educated, reliable, service oriented) people available for cheap on demand labor in the lower class increases as well. The hourglass distribution is a nice tailwind. I wonder how many young people are temporarily part of the demand equation when they are working 24/7 for a high wage and have no dependents and a low to zero (or negative) savings rate. From watching my friends it seems that once you have a child your attitude towards expenses and savings changes dramatically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I read stories like this, my only thought is how little San Francisco resembles any other city in the world. If you are designing your [next big thing] to be successful in SF, it won't be successful anywhere else. If you are designing it to be successful in the real world, it won't be successful in SF.

No, people outside SF are not going to pay $15 delivery on an $18 salad in order to receive it an hour late. No amount of venture capital thrown away will change this.

<comment><USER10> As a Greek, it's very odd to me why many other cultures don't seem to have the food delivery element. Here, you can get virtually every type of food, from fast food, to street food, to restaurant food, delivered, free of charge, in around ten minutes, from 9 am to 2 am.

No other country I've traveled to really had this, you could, at most, get pizza delivered until 10pm or so. Can anyone shed some light?

<comment><USER11> Big cities and college towns in the US have delivery of everything. Same hours you mentioned. Some delivery til 4am.

<comment><USER10> Hmm, I haven't seen that in SF, LA or NY, but it's possible I just didn't know places delivered.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, but almost every restaurant in NY delivers ... When I lived there we used to have a giant basket of menus on the kitchen counter, everything from sushi to Argentinian arepas to Cajun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This helps explain something I've noticed over time using these services. At first, it seemed like most of the delivery people were local and now it seems like they are coming from further and further outside the bay area. When the drivers are driving monster trucks, they probably don't live in an urban area.

<comment><USER14> Wait what? You get postmates delivered via monster truck? How is that even legal?

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty sure the parent didn't mean a literal monster truck, but some kind of large, hoisted pickup truck that's more typical of rural areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is another one of those things that I blame on what is certainly a hot boom and what many call a bubble. Look at HomeJoy for comparison:

[https://medium.com/backchannel/why-homejoy-failed- bb0ab39d90...](https://medium.com/backchannel/why-homejoy-failed-bb0ab39d901a)

In a saner funding environment, people get small things working reasonably well and then scale up. But with the oceans of cash sloshing around and the land-grab mentality, it's too easy to get something half-assedly working and then throw money at all your problems. Disappointed customers? Give refunds! Give coupons! Do more marketing! Frustrated pseudo-employees? Subsidize them! Do more recruiting! Poach from your competitors!

<comment><USER17> Home cleaning services and food delivery are quite dissimilar. There is much more trust required of the former, and as a result, once you find someone who you like, you'd rather just keep using them.

On this same spectrum, an Uber-for-babysitters would fail even more spectacularly than HomeJoy.

<comment><USER16> They are similar in that it's relatively easy to paper over negative gross margins and poor execution by throwing money at them.

<comment><USER17> I see! We were discussing different attributes of those businesses. I was more going on the first principle of business, "What problem are we solving for the customer?"

I don't have any opinions on the specific financials of any company. I was just saying the fundamentals of HomeJoy were completely wrong.

Thanks for the discussion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Illuminating! I'm wondering, who can live in San Francisco on $16 per hour?

<comment><USER19> Rent control in San Francisco is... dramatic. My brother lives in SF in a really nice place that has a little bit of a bay view, even, and he made about that much when he moved in.

My understanding is that The law prevents the landlord from keeping rent in line with market, and makes it hard for the landlord to evict the current tenant, and even limits how much the landlord can jack up the rent between tenants.

Often in situations where one person has the master lease and then rents out rooms, that one person will keep a lot of the difference... but not always. Quite often, it would seem, they are just more picky about choosing roommates.

But the upshot is that there are a small number of very inexpensive units in SF. As far as I can tell, you have to know someone (or know someone who knows someone) and then you have to be lucky, and then that someone needs to like you. But if all those things happen? potentially, you can have cheaper rent in SF than you can in San Jose.</comment></comment>


Climate change pledges: rich nations face fury over moves to renege - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/16/climate-change-pledges-rich-nations

<comment><AUTHOR> Meanwhile the tech industry is funding American politicians who oppose climate change regulations. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/14/facebook- micros...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/14/facebook-microsoft- rightwing-lobby-network-spn)</comment>


Strategizing with Google's Keyword Tool - <AUTHOR> http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/02/strategizing-with-googles-keyword-tool/

<comment><USER4> This is a really useful article when it comes to actually applying SEO to your startup/product. SEO has gotten an insanely sleezy reputation over the years, and rightfully so with a lot of the practices people pull. At the end of the day try to ignore the bad rep it's gotten, because it's something you can't overlook when planning out your growth strategy. It can bring you a substantial amount of customers and a leg up over your competition (your competitors (the bigger ones) will spend a lot of money to outdo you in SEO.

<comment><AUTHOR> As sleezy as it seems to craft your site in a way to increase its pagerank, that's the system we've got and to ignore it is to miss out on a major traffic source.

We had a phrase in college... "Shut up and color" :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Be careful basing decisions off the keyword tool, it's far from accurate. Comparing sites at #1 on the search results for different phrases there's often little correlation between traffic from those keywords and what the keyword tool predicts. It's a good starting point for experimenting, say to get ideas for A/B testing, but I wouldn't put a lot of money towards something based solely on its results.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, good points -- thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Free domain"?

His own data shows people are searching for "free domain" and "free domain name" far more often than his declared winner of "available domain".. right?

Maybe he overlooked it because his mind only translated "free" to mean "no money"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nah, not overlooked.

Domain Pigeon lists domain names, but it doesn't let you register them for free, which is what I think "free domain" refers to. That's why I didn't consider them much.

Also, I'm afraid of the competition for those terms... "Available domain names" seems like a better fight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Have you also checked:

available URLs

available websites

available website names?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just now, yes. For volume:

available URLs - 320 available website - 2600 available websites - <USER3> available website names - <USER3>

So, not bad (a lot better than unregistered), but not as good as the ones that contain the word "domain" too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did you try to insert some of the actual free domain names into your ads?

<comment><AUTHOR> No ads yet; the purpose of this exercise was to find out what to focus the copy on the site. Ads will follow... maybe...</comment></comment>


Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081225/ap_on_sc/do_it_yourself_dna_1 <comment><USER2> Not much new about this -- the "make this strand of e. coli flouresce in the presence of certain sugars" experiment was being done by (high school) AP bio classes ten years ago. (I know, I did it. Bloody things died on me, but my lab partner got it to work.) Since you're not doing original research it takes all the biomedical engineering knowledge that growing a pack of sea monkeys takes -- can you follow a set of direction? Good, have gene splicing.

The fearmongering about it is similarly blown all out of proportion -- people think that suddenly everything gets more lethal once humans get involved. Oh noes if it isn't "natural" we're one drop away from World War Z. Of course, crossbreeding never really triggered that, selective breeding never really triggered that, and viral infections never really triggered that -- but when its humans messing with genes _directly_ why that is different, they say so right in the Hollywood movies.

<comment><USER3> She wants to make yogurt bacteria fluoresce in the presence of melamine, which is causing a load of trouble in China right now. That seems not only clever, but commercially viable.

In any case, DIYbio and bio hackers are about bringing the hacking spirit to biology, which right now is very capital intensive. Genetic engineering now is like computing in the late 60s: big mainframes locked inside ivory towers and Fortune 500 companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> > bio hackers are about bringing the hacking spirit to biology, which right > now is very capital intensive.

That's what I thought was noteworthy about it. My wife works in that field, and it's night and day from ours. You have to have millions of dollars to do anything at all, it seems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "...that drops to 80 degrees below zero, the temperature needed to keep many kinds of bacteria alive."

What kind of bacteria are they referring to?

<comment><USER5> I would expect they're preserving bacteria at -80 and not growing them at -80. You need very cold temperatures, -80 and storage in liquid nitrogen, to maintain the viability of a bacterial culture during storage.</comment></comment>


How anti-competitive lawsuits by incumbents are killing early stage startups - <AUTHOR> http://blog.garrytan.com/infanticide-how-anti-competitive-lawsuits-by

<comment><USER2> Second edit: The article reads much better now with commentary about the lawsuit.

As it stands, this article is mostly linkbait/self-promotion.

The title is very misleading; this article isn't about a trend, it's really about one startup (that the author of the post is an advisor for) getting sued. It's full of meaningless promotional statements like "Touch of Modern actually seeks out modern products exclusively, to the exclusion of the standard bourgeois bohemian hipsterdom of Fab", yet never even comments on what the lawsuit is about.

Just because a company is small doesn't mean that anybody suing it is "abusing the system". If you're saying the lawsuit is baseless and designed to just penalize the startup, say SOMETHING about what the lawsuit is, don't just say how awesome your product is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Edited: The suit claims violation of trademark and trade dress infringement, improper use of IP (apparently the UI) and ironically, unfair competition. While there are similarities between some pages of the design, I find it difficult to believe Fab can claim all right to the use of Helvetica, or industry-standard design elements like checkout buttons.

<comment><USER3> Garry - like most here, I really respect your opinion but you should consider whether you're letting your relationship with the team bias your view.

I was with you until I saw the screenshots in the TC post. The first one with the same layout right down to the seal of authenticity below it - this is way more than using common industry recognized design elements (like Fab using Pinterest's grid layout for example). This is close to Samwer brothers territory here.

They're also not doing themselves any favors with their response to Fab. Raising a lot of money and having scale doesn't automatically make Fab a villain. The claim on using open source frameworks is just bizarre/irrelevant.

Most of all, this doesn't pass the sniff test for me. At a quick glance, I could have easily mistaken this site for something built out of Fab. If I were Fab, I feel I would be angry and want them to stop copying my work directly.

<comment><USER4> "At a quick glance, I could have easily mistaken this site for something built out of Fab. If I were Fab, I feel I would be angry and want them to stop copying my work directly." -- If someone built competing search engine with a text box & search button, would you be confusing it with Google ?. Shouldn't people knowledge enough to differentiate & recognize brands by quality of service offered by them?. There are many clones of Instagram, Groupon, Airbnb. Systrom of Instagram told techcrunch,

"There might be 10 clones here, [but] there are also 20 clones from the United States right? You know, being copied is something that I think that every successful company will go through. Our biggest defensible asset really is our community, and I think that's the thing that you're not going to find on any of these replicas." ([http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/06/instagrams-kevin- systrom-on...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/06/instagrams-kevin-systrom-on- international-expansion-instagram-video-funding-rumors-and-more/))

and Instagram didn't sue their clones !!.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To win on trade dress, Fab.com is going to have to prove that the design is distinctive, and that the average consumer associates the design with Fab.com

Their design is generic enough that I think it will be nearly impossible to prove distinctiveness. I'm sure that A Touch of Modern can find plenty of very similar sites to prove the design isn't distinctive.

Additionally the design elements can't serve a utilitarian purpose--the clock icons next to the timer, and the price tags next to the price, clearly serve a utilitarian purpose. What else would you use to highlight a timer or a price?

<comment><USER6> > What else would you use to highlight a timer or a price?

A different color font, a larger font, a colorful highlight, arrows, bullets, a speech balloon, quotation marks, an hourglass, a dollar sign, a picture of money... there are many other designs available. That doesn't mean that it's an automatic winner for Fab, but there are many other ways that ToM could have designed the site.

> the design elements can't serve a utilitarian purpose

When courts use "functional purpose" in the trade dress context, they usually mean things like product features that make the product work. For example, courts have ruled that things like the physical design of a conveyor belt can't be protected as trade dress (the "Value Engineering" case). I'm not sure that design elements that highlight certain information are "functional" in the way that a conveyor belt design is "functional."

That said, it might not matter: in the "Clicks Billiards" case (2001), the Ninth Circuit held that a _combination_ of functional elements can be protected as trade dress: there, the combination of 37 elements of a billiards hall design were held to be eligible for protection even though some were undeniably functional (the presence of acoustic tiling on parts of the walls and a certain style of "drink rails") and some were pretty generic in isolation (one was "dark mahogany wood finishes"). The court ruled that the combination could still be protected. It looks like Fab is trying to make a similar argument here that the combination adds up to being too similar. (This lawsuit was filed in San Francisco, which is covered by the Ninth Circuit.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess the true reasoning behind the lawsuit is only known by Fab, but I don't think they're making baseless claims. Whether it's "fair" for them to sue for something like this, I don't know, but this page is absolutely copied from Fab.com: [http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/tomofab2...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/tomofab2.jpg)

Also their statement doesn't address the actual claims, they spend 3 paragraphs talking about how they're better than Fab and how Fab is bigger than them, one paragraph is mentions the accusations "All of our design elements utilize open source frameworks and are developed in-house." but doesn't address the issue either...

<comment><USER8> While I do think there was almost certainly some loose copying that happened (from the little I know of such, not enough to cause trade-dress problems, however), your link is a bad example. That could just as well be The Standard E-Commerce Theme. About 90% of e-commerce shops have the exact same elements on every page.

<comment><USER7> It's not the layout or the elements positioning, it's the _style_. You can clearly see that they've seen style choices fab have made and copied them, for example here is 4 things: <http://i.imgur.com/8ONGa.png>

I don't think it's plausible for ToM to have "coincidentally" made identical style choices to Fab, they're just too alike to not be intentional copying.

<comment><USER9> I'm not a lawyer, or a designer, but those examples seem incredibly weak.

A generic tag icon next to the item price, in a different color? A "sale ending" notice with different color, location, and font?

<comment><USER7> Fab.com is not some amazing technology, it's not going to change the world with 1s and 0s, Fab is a brand and the way their website is presented is important to their brand. The _style_ of something is the sum of all its parts, it's the way something is designed and presented. Sure, on the face of it having a clock next to the time to go is meaningless and sure having a tag next to the price is meaningless, but when you have a website made up of lots of things like that it becomes their "style".

To me it is absolutely certain that ToM made a concious effort to copy the _style_ of Fab, through the composition and presentation of individual elements and the layout of the site.

Branding is very important and can very easily confuse consumers, maybe Fab are being overzealous and should have just asked ToM to stop copying their branding, but to claim that because lots of websites have clock graphics next to their timers that this isn't a copy is silly.

<comment><USER5> For trade dress infringement the design elements can't serve a utilitarian purpose. So clocks and price tags used as icons to convey meaning don't count.

<comment><USER7> I'm not arguing the legitimacy of the lawsuit, I'm arguing that Garry and ToM are being disingenuous claiming that fab.com are just trying to shut down their competition, when it's quite clear to me (and others here) that the _style_ of ToM is copied from Fab.com.

Whether or not they will win in court is irrelevant, what matters is that what Fab.com is claiming (ToM copied them) is (in my opinion) an accurate claim.

<comment><USER5> >claiming that fab.com are just trying to shut down their competition

Their lawyers know that they most likely aren't going to win this--they're just trying to force them to pay legal costs they can't afford.

In essence they are pursing a fairly frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of removing competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not a lawyer and cannot comment on the validity of the lawsuit nor the law concerning this; but as a designer I can say that neither site has an original design in any way. They both look like standard modern retail sites to me. Design iterations on retail sites are often driven by the consumers who purchase from them, therefore Fab should sue people who purchase items from retail sites.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ironically Southwest went on to use lobbying to shut down Texas high speed rail projects.

You either die a hero, or....

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm dissapointed that YC isn't more focused on teaching strategy - how to attack an entrenched competitor by being different in a meaningful way. Southwest is one of the great strategy stories of all time. Touch of Modern may be hard working decent folks, but they have no apparent strategy.

I understand the intent. You're hoping that New York Times picks this up and writes a trend piece. Yeah, I know, all is fair in love and war.

I just hate to see YC turn into a more self-righteous version of the Samwer brothers. At least the Samwers have the good taste to keep their public pronouncements to a minimum. I've never heard the Samwers claim to be victimized.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't know about the lawsuit, but the landing pages for touchofmodern.com and fab.com are practically identical.

<http://fab.com/>

<https://www.touchofmodern.com/>

<comment><USER14> as is the landing page for any <http://launchrock.com/> site and a million other web sites on the internet. If that's the criteria for suing someone (which it seems to be), we seriously need to rethink the entire system. Throwing out all patent law sounds like a good start to me.

<comment><USER14> although patent law doesn't seem to be the culprit here. Either way, it's shameful that Fab can sue for look/feel.

<comment><USER15> > Either way, it's shameful that Fab can sue for look/feel.

Uh, really? You're talking about trademark and trade dress. Why, on this green Earth, should you not be able to protect your marks or dress?

Also, this article points to Braniff, Trans-Texas, and Continental suing Southwest as a historical corollary: It's not. Southwest was sued because it was operating outside of federal regulations (which it claimed it could avoid because it only operated in Texas) [1]. Fab is suing based on marks and dress --something wildly different from Southwest's suit.

Additionally, trademark law nearly _requires_ you to vigilantly protect your marks. In that way, it protects against selective suits and bullying where beneficial.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airlines#Foundation_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airlines#Foundation_.281966-1971.29)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What's even worse about this case is that Fab's business was very obviously inspired by companies like Groupon and Pinterest.

</comment><comment><USER17> I suspect that a slight redesign of the site in question would not 'kill' Touch of Modern.

<comment><USER10> Depends on what "slight redesign" means. Such a change could potentially cost them a great deal of time and money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article tells us _that_ the lawsuits are killing startups, but not so much _how_ they're doing so. I guess we can sort of fill in the blanks, but then why read the article?

<comment><USER19> Quoth the author:

"I've been an advisor to the company for years, and you'd be hard pressed to find a more hard-working, dedicated founding team that has endured every roadblock and frustration a startup can experience. They recently decided to pivot to selling modern design-oriented furniture, art, electronics and housewares aimed at young professional men -- a segment they understood well since it was one to which they also belonged. Things have been going great for them, and I couldn't be happier."

He's a party with a vested interest, and is doing his bit to spin sympathetic narrative. With humans, a good story is much more persuasive than facts or content or substance.</comment></comment>


Volt: Fast native desktop client for Slack and Skype - <AUTHOR> https://volt.ws <comment><USER2> I want to like this, ever since it was called eul. But features are consistently pushed back which suggests that the dev doesnt have a great handle on what is going on, the availability of mac/linux versions seems consistently misleading, it's not open source, and it uses icons of services not available (e.g. gmail) in a way that seems dishonest. idk.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the idea of this — it consistently baffles me how poorly web apps primarily serving me text perform — but I'd love to see a little breakdown telling me what's been cut out to make it so lean. I mean, maybe it's stuff I don't care about, but on the other hand maybe it's some file integration I use regularly, you know? On the other hand maybe it's a bunch of RAM-sucking junk and absurd text rendering that I'd just as soon do without.

I'd love it if it was open source or at least public in some way considering the security questions. I realize that's a bit of a pony request but it is one of the things I've come to rely on in the community, that someone is curious enough to dig in and relay their findings.

<comment><USER4> I suspect a big savings comes from not being basically a web browser running a webapp.

<comment><USER3> Oh for sure. I'm not a developer myself though so I don't know whether there are capabilities you lose such as common libraries and whatnot, and what the trade-offs are there. For all I know it includes or eschews certain javascript that's notoriously bad, or has to reach out to Slack for emoji calls, or whatever. A couple hundred words of documentation on this topic would really help me understand the product better.

<comment><USER5> Slack is an Electron.js app, meaning in GP's words it's a 'webapp in a web browser' \- like running a car engine just to get the radio.

Volt implements the radio alone, without the car, but accesses all the stations you otherwise get by running each one's propietary car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting back story on why he created the "V" language to develop Volt:

"Originally Volt app was written in Go, but after a couple of weeks of development I decided to re-write it in C for two reasons: easier integration with existing C graphics and UI libraries and much smaller binaries. The app size reduced from ~5 MB to ~100 KB.

C development is not very productive, so I spent two weeks in October 2017 to create a very light and minimalistic language that can seamlessly interop with C. I called it V (the name is not final).

V compiler is written in V. The language will be open-sourced later in 2019."

\-- [https://volt.ws/lang](https://volt.ws/lang)

<comment><USER7> While the UI is not exactly polished or anything, it is really refreshing to see someone actually care about efficiency and storage.

Nowadays a simple calculator app takes like 30 or 40 megabytes of space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> More than a little disingenuous. While they advertise that the app supports a number of services, when you actually download the app and try it only Slack and Skype are available - the rest are "coming later in February"

<comment><USER9> Ok, we changed the title from "Fast, free, low memory, native desktop client for Slack, Messenger, Gmail, etc."

<comment><USER10> Even the edit seems misleading; might as well just say "Volt: Fast native desktop client for Slack and Skype".

<comment><USER9> Ok!

<comment><USER10> Perfect, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hi,

Developer here. An unexpected surge of traffic => I'm on HN front page again:)

V and Volt got lots of attention 5 days ago. Thousands of people downloaded the beta version and I've been working hard to fix all the crashes and bugs people reported.

I was planning to release the Windows beta by the end of the day. So hopefully Windows and Linux (wine) users will be able to try it out today.

</comment><comment><USER12> The prospect of a native client for Signal excites me. I've never been a big fan of their electron app.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I tried the native Linux app for Signal and while it works its also a huge resource hog. So much so that my machine started swapping when I had a browser open alongside it. For what is effectively AIM + encryption. This is the future that people warned us about back when Node.js was new.

<comment><USER13> At some point will blink/node need to be expected parts of the operating system to undo this mess?

<comment><USER14> More likely people will start developing with compiled languages, compiling down to WebAssembly, then still use Electron for the UI end just for the cross platform support.

<comment><USER13> That doesnt really address what I said. I was saying, the underlying components will need to be built into the OS, for battery life and memory reuse purposes. So you dont end up with 50 slightly different copies of blink/node running at the same time. Blink/node are what are powering electron.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No source, no thanks.

<comment><USER16> These day no source no trust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks promising. But will only be Open Source in "2021" according to [https://github.com/voltapp/volt](https://github.com/voltapp/volt) ... until then it's a root-kit for all we know that people are voluntarily installing.

<comment><USER18> i'm always surprised by such comments

beside Stallman do people not using anything that contain at least single line of closed/proprietary code really exist?

not every closed source stuff is evil, really

<comment><USER19> > not using anything that contain at least single line of closed/proprietary > code

It's not just that. The existence of source code doesn't mean the binaries are uninfected. You'd have to actually build it yourself from source. And even then, unless you've audited the source, you're still not sure. Of course, you'd have to build that compiler from source (that you've audited) using...? And all that on an OS with libc, libdl etc that you've built yourself.

<comment><USER20> Don't forget you have to audit the microcode running you're cpu too, and the gate networks executing the microcode, and...

<comment><USER21> You joke, but wouldn't we have caught SPECTRE or Meltdown a lot faster if someone had?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I still use [https://fluidapp.com/](https://fluidapp.com/) when I have to log into Facebook from the computer, hopefully, this will replace it!

Looks cool, can't wait for support for the other websites.

</comment><comment><USER23> Installed this and logged into my Slack, while it was loading messages it crashed. Oh well.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, it's a really early release. The first public version was released 5 days ago.

For me everything works fine, but this is complex stuff. I'm working hard on fixing things. I wish people would wait a couple of weeks before posting this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Reminds me of Trillian back in the days of AIM and Yahoo! Messenger.

</comment><comment><USER25> the author seems to be too obsessed with the size. I'm fine with it being 5MB. That's small enough.

download size is the least of mine concern, speed and memory usage matter more.

</comment><comment><USER26> Installed it and it doesnt redirect from slack auth window. Uses around 300Mb of RAM for this. Going against electron is a massive undertaking!

<comment><USER11> There are a couple of known memory leaks. They'll be fixed soon, and RAM usage should be 10-20% of Slack's.

<comment><USER26> Memory leaks? Thats not gonna go well with these HN users. Was rust not fitting for use here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looks like a heavier version of bitlbee + a standard IRC client.

Anyone care to compare the two...?

</comment><comment><USER28> free as in 'free beer', supported by donations

they say they will open the code in 2021

</comment><comment><USER29> They created a whole language to code this..?

Talking about reinventing the wheel!!!

</comment><comment><USER30> It only works with Slack, and Skype.

</comment><comment><USER31> Also used to be known as a browser.

<comment><USER18> this isn't electron app

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is it just me, or does anyone else get a little put off by phrases like "for all major web services."

Who decided which web services are major? There are certainly a number of "major" services that aren't included depending on how major is really defined.

<comment><USER20> "for all major web services" sounds a lot better than "the web services we like using", and the only two things I'd consider missing are IRC/steam, and with IRC going the way of the dodo and steam not being a super popular messaging service.

<comment><USER33> Reports of IRC's death have been greatly exaggerated.</comment></comment></comment>


Cocospy claims to be able to surveil Android, iOS without jailbreak - <AUTHOR> https://www.cocospy.com/ <comment><USER2> "Cocospy is a web-based app for target iPhones or iPads. Instead of monitoring the device itself, it monitors the iCloud backup, which usually gets updated every time the device is plugged in and has WiFi access. Cocospy needs the iCloud credentials of the target device to work. Because it works with the iCloud backup, it's impossible to detect. You can also set up Cocospy 100% remotely."

</comment><comment><USER3> It claims to do so by having a willing user install it and grant any permissions it asks for, not really impressive.

On iOS it's having you disable 2 factor auth and letting it into your iCloud account, which

a) relies on you having access to the same iCloud account as the target and

b) gives them access to _your_ data and weakens _your_ account in what is probably the intended use case, shared accounts</comment>


Node.js stream handbook - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/substack/stream-handbook

<comment><AUTHOR> Also by the magnificent substack, learning by doing done right: the node.js stream adventure!

Install via:

       npm install -g stream-adventure

Now simply go forth and start your adventure by typing:

       stream-adventure

Have fun and don't forget to thank the man:

[https://github.com/substack/stream- adventure](https://github.com/substack/stream-adventure)

[https://twitter.com/substack](https://twitter.com/substack)

</comment><comment><USER2> Not hoping to start any sort of flame war, but could someone try to explain this difference between streams and promises? The conceptual difference doesn't seem completely clear to me.

<comment><USER3> Promises hep deal with asynchronous functions by providing a convenient way to pass success/fail methods in a way some people prefer more than classic callbacks.

Streams are a totally different use case. Streams are used when you want to process data one part at a time without having to have all of the data in memory at once.

*edit: typo

<comment><USER4> Promises are actually about trust, not syntax. With a callback you have to trust that the function that will invoke your callback (which might not be something you wrote) will only ever call it once, that it will pass through errors, that it won't call both your success and failure callbacks, etc.

With a promise (or rather, following the promise specification) you instead get back an object that you choose how to handle. That object is either pending or else an immutable success or failure result. Either success or failure will be called (not both), and whichever result is called can only be called once. As such, promises allow you to avoid inversion of control and to safely interact with potentially untrusted code.

This great series of articles helped me understand this: [http://blog.getify.com/promises-part-2/](http://blog.getify.com/promises- part-2/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great write-up on streams. For curiosity sake, I'd be interested to know the overhead of

        var stream = fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/data.txt');
        stream.pipe(res);

vs. fs.readFile('./data.txt) and res().

and if streams become a better and better option as response sizes get larger and larger. The streams syntax is nicer looking in any case.

<comment><USER6> > ... and if streams become a better and better option as response sizes get > larger and larger. The streams syntax is nicer looking in any case.

fs.readFile(...) reads the entire contents of the file into memory. For small files that may be acceptable but if you're dealing with anything that could be large it's not going to be very pleasant or even work properly.

I just tried it out on my laptop for a 100MB and a 1GB file. For a 100MB file using streams is about 25% slower. However the sync method failed for the 1GB file:

        Style            100MB       1GB
        =====            =====       ===
        fs.readFileSync  .176s    <failed>
        streams/pipe     .234s      1.25s

<comment><AUTHOR> By adapting the highWaterMark option one could probably tweak it even further.

Default buffer size seems to be 64k: [https://github.com/joyent/node/blob/912b5e05811fd24f09f9d652...](https://github.com/joyent/node/blob/912b5e05811fd24f09f9d65200a1561a4482f166/lib/fs.js#L1468)

Stream buffering: [http://www.nodejs.org/api/stream.html#stream_buffering](http://www.nodejs.org/api/stream.html#stream_buffering)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Will it work with LIVE video streaming?

For example, can you use ffmpeg to pull live video via rtsp, re-encode and pipe to nodejs for it to stream down to browser and to be consumed by html - with or without a plugin?

Any working code sample?

<comment><USER8> Yup, it does. I do have a quick working example, with a plain multipart form :) You can check it out here: [https://github.com/gabipurcaru/peggy](https://github.com/gabipurcaru/peggy)

While this is not exactly what you are talking about, I think it demonstrates that node.js streams can do that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can't believe it was not in HN yet

<comment><USER10> it was, it's been posted several times -- at least I know for sure in comments. I was about to ask, "why are so many links getting re-posted in hackernews?"</comment></comment>


The Chemicals in Your Mac and Cheese - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/well/eat/the-chemicals-in-your-mac-and-cheese.html <comment><USER2> _"The phthalate concentrations in powder from mac and cheese mixes were more than four times higher than in block cheese and other natural cheeses like shredded cheese, string cheese and cottage cheese,"_

As a chemist, I have to ask, how much phthalate was actually found? Telling me it's 4x higher than block cheese tells me nothing since block cheese may have barely detectable phthalates.

The dose makes the poison.

Our ability to detect chemicals has vastly improved over the years. It's not hard to detect chemicals in the parts per trillion (ppt) at this point in time.

You can't say "the chemical is there, let's be scared". The levels need to be quantified.

That's why drinking water has acceptable levels for things like cyanide, lead and mercury. No matter what water you test, you'll find those things. But if the amount is well below toxic levels, then it's not a big deal.

<comment><USER3> From the article:

>Although the concentration of phthalates in food may be quite low, measured in parts per billion, they are still present at higher levels than the natural hormones in the body, said Heather B. Patisaul, a professor of biological sciences at the Center for Human Health and the Environment at North Carolina State University in Raleigh

<comment><USER4> >they are still present at higher levels than the natural hormones in the body

This still doesn't mean anything. How does the body process said chemicals? Is there evidence that it's actually unsafe at the levels published?

There's probably a reason this study wasn't published in a peer-reviewed journal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On a related note, I've spent an embarrassing amount of time searching for good, creamy mac and cheese, including from-scratch recipes.

So far, this has been the winner: [http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/01/3-ingredient- stov...](http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/01/3-ingredient-stovetop-mac- and-cheese-recipe.html)

It's three ingredients, stupidly simple, and you pick the cheeses you want. I'd argue it's as easy as boxed; you don't even have to drain the pasta. (P.S. if you've never cooked pasta the way the recipe instructs, you'll be blown away by how much more rich the flavor will be!)

We use sharp white cheddar from the grocery store, mixed with a little bit of American. Add a dash of dijon mustard and Frank's hot sauce. Feel free to experiment (but stick to good melting cheeses)!

I also add a dash of sodium citrate before adding the cheese. It helps the cheese remain completely smooth and more tolerant of careless cooking. You can buy a huge bag off Amazon.

EDIT: Also, when we have friends over for this, we've started cooking it in a large dutch oven. Sounds crazy, but it actually turned out even better. The heat regulation and retention of the dutch oven I think helps the cheese melt more evenly and consistently. Plus you can keep it warm for longer after cooking.

<comment><USER6> Seriouseats / Kenji Lopez has some of the best info on the web when it comes to making tasty food.

Here is the video for the mac and cheese you're talking about: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWaYdGQqxQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWaYdGQqxQU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every time I read an article like this, I'm reminded of Michael Pollan's writings on food. His advice, even though I read it years and years ago, has stood the test of time for me:

> Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html)

<comment><USER8> That's about nutrition though, and this is about contamination from packaging. The article would still have been written if mac and cheese were an entirely untreated plant product.

<comment><USER9> Something that Michael Pollan advocates is avoiding processed foods. In the quote above, though counterintuitive, "food" as defined by Pollan does not include processed foods like boxed mac and cheese.

From the article the GP post linked:

 _1\. Eat food. Though in our current state of confusion, this is much easier said than done. So try this: Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. (Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a time before the advent of modern food products.) There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn't recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.

2\. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They're apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don't forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give people heart attacks. When Kellogg's can boast about its Healthy Heart Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly compromised. (The American Heart Association charges food makers for their endorsement.) Don't take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health.

3\. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed._

<comment><USER10> Ok, but why? I'm sure leafy greens are objectively "better", but is eating Mac & Cheese once a week (for example) going to cause physical harm? Do I need to adopt a zero tolerance policy?

<comment><USER11> No, of course not. But let's not overlook the fact that there are people who eat that every other day and lots of people who eat nothing but processed food to the point that they find real food sort of gross and hard to cook, eat or digest. This is a Bad Thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To pre-empt the inane pedantic reactions that always seem to accompany discussions on such articles: yes, water is a chemical too, as are vitamins, etc.

When people talk about "chemicals in food" they mean additional, lab created stuff added to the food, like artificial sweeteners, additives, preservatives, coloring, remains from the production and transportation process, etc.

Those against "chemicals" in food obviously don't advocate for food made without any kind of molecules and chemical substances.

Amazingly not only functions can be overloaded, but words too.

<comment><USER13> those against "chemicals" in food often demonstrably have no idea what they're talking about. the overloading is a rhetorical attempt to associate fear and lack of knowledge with everyday experience. your defense of this practice is vastly more inane than any objections to it.

<comment><USER14> I ignore anyone who makes pedantic word-choice arguments when everyone is clearly capable of understanding what's going on. At best, it is more obsessed with their own cleverness than actual discourse, but more usually is just dishonest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> When I was a child, for various reasons, I was quite a chow hound. I've long wondered if whether or not things like phthalates and BPA had significant effects on my growing body; I had a lot of less-than-masculine features to my body, some of which is correctable and some not. It could very well be that being an overweight adolescent meant that excess body fat caused me to have too much estrogen, but perhaps there was more going on. Maybe I'd have more androgen receptors by now and I'd be able to work less for the same muscle mass. IDK

At the same time, I don't think I can really say that the amount of any of these chemicals in mac-n-cheese would make me avoid it outright. Really, you should only be occasionally eating junk food link mac-n-cheese, and the amount of anything you would have in a box every week or two is not going to make a lick of difference to your endocrine system. Perhaps it's particularly bad for the poor who eat lots of cheap junk like Kraft products, but there are also far cheaper and healthier ways to get your nutrition – rice, beans, real butter, and actual cheese alone are much more cost effective than buying boxes of mac-n-cheese; just visit a Mexican market and you'll see what I mean.

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I incorrect in assuming that any study not submitted for peer review is questionable at best and bad science at worst?

<comment><USER4> There's a fair number of case studies that aren't suitable for peer-review. But in those cases, just publish the data openly for analysis. This "study" didn't do that, and had a lot of other issues mentioned in the comments here.

So your intuition wasn't wrong here, but overall, you may be discarding a lot of relevant case study work due to over-reliance on the peer-review process.

<comment><USER17> I agree and I appreciate the nuanced tone of your answer.

<comment><USER4> I unfortunately submit stuff for peer-review and do case study work, so I know a lot about both sides of the garbage aisles. Lot of crap makes it through peer-review, and a lot of good work never does because of cronyism and single- blind review.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Misleading title. Should be "Chemicals in boxed mac and cheese". It's entirely possible (and way more delicious!) to make mac and cheese from scratch in a very little amount of time

<comment><USER19> Misleading summary. Should be "Chemicals in fatty foods that come in contact with plastics, particularly cheese, and especially cheese powder." As the article (eventually) notes:

 _Since they bind with fats, they tend to build up in fatty foods, including not just cheese but baked goods, infant formula, meats, oils and fats, and fast food, studies show._

So these chemicals are present in concentrations four times higher than in block cheeses (probably due to all the extra processing), but they aren't absent in real cheese (or other products).</comment></comment>


The State of Linux Security - <AUTHOR> https://linux-audit.com/the-state-of-linux-security/ <comment><USER2> > Backdoor in Linux Mint (February 2016)

> Stop using MD5. If you still use SHA1, then add also the SHA256 or SHA512 > hashes.

How did hash strength have anything to do with this? Unless my sources are completely out of whack, the MD5 of the backdoored ISO didn't match the official ISO. My understanding is that there _is_ a vulnerability along these lines, but it requires the official build process to be compromised, whereas this was an edit on the Mint website to point to a malicious file on an attacker-controlled server.

<comment><USER3> Interesting that the site uses TLS, but most of the servers containing the download use plain old HTTP, which as we know, can be easily subjected to a MITM attack.

[https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=225](https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=225)

Only a few of the ISOs are delivered with TLS/HTTPS, like this one:

[https://mirrors.c0urier.net/linux/linuxmint/iso/stable/18.1/...](https://mirrors.c0urier.net/linux/linuxmint/iso/stable/18.1/linuxmint-18.1-cinnamon-32bit.iso)

<comment><USER4> Properly signed images shouldn't need to be delivered over a secure connection. As long as you can receive a signed hash, and the signing key itself over a secure connection, you can obtain the image itself from anywhere.

<comment><USER5> True, although sometimes it's good to deliver signed updates over a secure connection for defense-in-depth - for example, to mitigate vulnerabilities like the recent CVE-2016-1252.

<comment><USER6> +1 "but some software has it's own crypto"¹ is kinda bad excuse for actively avoiding additional security - like Debian has on their mirrors (I think there even is (was?) an FAQ entry why there are no HTTPS mirrors, stating that APT packages are securely signed and that's all you'd need).

¹ I'm aware that APT actually uses GPG, but it does (did) so fishy manipulations both before and after invoking GPG on the signed files, that, if this would've happened in a corporate setting, I'd have rather peculiar questions for the employee who wrote that code.

That recent CVE, and also issues in software that I co-maintain, plus all the other CVEs that are delivered to my inbox changed my mind on open source quite a lot. Open source is completely worthless if no one actually bothers to read the code; I doubt anyone actually read those portions of the APT code, because anyone with a secure coding or crypto coding background should be alerted already by the _function names_ (look them up). Instead we all always assume "ah well people use it and someone probably checked that anyway... should be good to go!". NO. It's not good to go. Read [the] code.

<comment><USER7> > ¹ I'm aware that APT actually uses GPG, but it does (did) so fishy > manipulations both before and after invoking GPG on the signed files, that, > if this would've happened in a corporate setting, I'd have rather peculiar > questions for the employee who wrote that code.

From the openSUSE, I brought up my concerns about us not using HTTPS and it boils down to the fact that few mirrors want to host stuff over SSL. And if not many mirrors will do it, the benefit to users is diminished (you can't force the usage of SSL on the client).

On the plus side, openSUSE does serve a copy of the GPG signing key for the ISO over HTTPS (from the main site). I just wish that there were less steps required to be sure that the ISO is official.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wait, Linux did not have stack guard pages and r-x code pages until 4.9?

<comment><USER9> Pax/Grsecurity fork probably has it for some time, but not mainline tree (i.e "torvalds" linux).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Linux doesn't power the smallest devices in the world. It's about two orders of magnitude too large out at the low end.

<comment><USER11> Out of interest, what does?

<comment><USER12> The almost-smallest devices are powered by LoopOS(tm):

      while(1){ }

<comment><USER13> So slow and bloated! Get with 2.0:

        for(;;){ }

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Linux will always be insecure. There's no fixing millions of lines of code running in supervisor mode.

What will happen instead is that the world will move on to a microkernel-based OS.

<comment><USER15> Ok Mr Tanenbaum, Linus and you already had this argument </sarcasm>

<comment><USER16> Guys...All of you are irrelevant. Doesn't matter if one driver can access another. I just need to read data in user home directory and I can find out everything I need.

Or go to random website look for .Git folders, recreate directory structure from object file, get MySQL passwords and steal user data (I'm not responsible for anyone using my comment for illegal purposes)

Microkernals are supposed to make OSes more stable but they don't. Linux work good enough due to automated testing and amazing kernel engineers.

GNU Hurd, Mach 3, Minix - so far track record isn't good. Stop flamewaring and fire up vim. Write a microkernals if you think you can do a better job

<comment><USER14> > Doesn't matter if one driver can access another. I just need to read data in > user home directory and I can find out everything I need.

Well, you'd need the adequate permissions to do that in the firstr place.

Or you'd have to exploit the VFS (good luck with that), the disk driver (which is hidden behind VFS, good luck with that), or some other driver which hardware is for some reason not isolated via iommu (good luck with that).

> Linux work good enough due to automated testing and amazing kernel > engineers.

You definitely do not run much Linux on production, else you'd know how amazing 2016 has been, regarding kernel vulnerabilities.

Some of them were even reliably exploitable on grsec/pax patched kernels.

> Microkernals are supposed to make OSes more stable but they don't.

Except most RTOSs and anything with high assurance requirements uses microkernels.

> GNU Hurd, Mach 3

Hurd uses Mach, a pre-liedtke, old world microkernel. Not really worth pointing at it, the same way 1971 UNIX isn't representative of Linux.

> Minix - so far track record isn't good.

Minix is doing quite well at what it set out to do: Fault-tolerance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not a single mention of grsecurity and RAP, useless article.

<comment><USER7> Well, given the fact that the grsecurity folks violate the GPL, in not sure what recognition they deserve other than "you can now get their feature in a free software, mainline kernel".

<comment><USER17> Can you let me know exactly where I can get RAP?

You seems to be slandering grsec for no reason.

<comment><USER7> > You seems to be slandering grsec for no reason.

It's not without reason, I don't like people abusing free software in the manner the grsecurity people do it ([https://grsecurity.net/agree/agreement.php](https://grsecurity.net/agree/agreement.php)). They license code under the GPL (because they have to) but then they effectively tell their customers that exercising their right to redistribute code will result in a termination of contract (which is at best against the spirit of the GPL, and at worst illegal).

<comment><USER17> You obviously have no clue how GPL works. Everything is explained very well on the agreement page.

<comment><USER7> > You obviously have no clue how GPL works.

I disagree.

> Everything is explained very well on the agreement page.

Yes, it's very clear that they're attempting to subvert the GPL by coercing customers into not exercising their freedom to redistribute (section 3, first sentence). I can't find it now (all I could find is [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11808914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11808914)) but there was a thread about this issue earlier this year.

Essentially, in some people's view grsecurity is acting in bad faith which means that they are violating the GPL (not the license text itself, but the copyright law surrounding license agreements).

<comment><USER17> Exactly what I said, you don't understand how GPL works and you just slander grsecurity for no reason.

Even you said they're not breaking GPL multiple times. What they're doing is allowed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Humans Are Not Well Designed - <AUTHOR> http://www.startbreakingfree.com/1637/humans-are-not-well-designed/

<comment><USER2> When I am consulted on the redesign of humanity, the first thing I'll have them fix is the air conditioning. Which works somewhat ok unless there's humidity. What a clever system that is, oh omniscient Creator. Oh, and it makes people smell and want to move.

</comment><comment><USER3> However humans can heal, evolve, and adapt to new environments and stimuli exceptionally well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Evolution was an epic kludge. Good biology professors already teach this.

Also, if more people thought of stupidity and bad behavior as software problems, education might actually get the funding it deserves.</comment>


Mt.Gox put announce for mtgox acq here - <AUTHOR>

The only HTML on the Mt.Gox homepage<p><html> 	<head> 		<title>MtGox.com</title> 	</head> 	<body> 		<!-- put announce for mtgox acq here --> 	</body> </html> <comment><USER2> Dear MtGox Customers,

In the event of recent news reports and the potential repercussions on MtGox's operations and the market, a decision was taken to close all transactions for the time being in order to protect the site and our users. We will be closely monitoring the situation and will react accordingly.

Best regards, MtGox Team</comment>