5G Network end-to-end demonstration by Ericsson - <AUTHOR> https://www.ericsson.com/news/2079365 <comment><USER4> These days with 4G i do find that it is not the technology that is the bottleneck. It is the carierers trying to hold on to their business model.

I would prefer if we aimed our research on increasing coverage.

<comment><USER5> The technology is still a bottleneck, but the business model just isn't tightly fitted to the limitations of the bottle neck.

4G cannot viably stream 1080p netflix into the number of homes in America that use it at any given time (unless you use an unrealistic number of cell sites).

Some sort of rationing has to occur otherwise cells would be overrun.

Carriers should bring back free nights and weekends.

<comment><USER6> Free nights and weekends is exactly anti-net-neutrality.

I have always been an advocate for more, open, spectrum, and simple laws to outlaw intentional interference. We are not operating dumb radios - we can dynamically change or allocate spectrum channels to load balance congestion and avoid making it worse.

To legally cordon off everyone into separate silos is a hatchet solution to a nuanced problem with much better solutions if you could just incentivize good behavior and punish bad in commons.

I do not believe for a second we cannot technologically transfer h265 video via radio to every individual in even the highest population densities if we had full access to building infrastructure around all of the spectrum of light we use for communications.

<comment><USER5> I can't think of a reason why free nights and weekends would be anti-net neutrality.

<comment><USER7> "Net neutrality" is a problematic term because it seems to mean different things to different people depending on their perspective/motive. For instance, I've seen arguments that T-Mobile not charging for SD video streams is net neutral because any company is allowed to get into the program.

In its strictest (and IMO, most useful) sense, "net neutrality" is the concept that data is data is data. It doesn't matter whether it's carrying video or whether it's carrying text, whether that comes from Google or whether it comes from the server in your basement, or whether it's being transferred at 11am or at 11pm.

IMO that definition is the most useful because it's the clearest - <USER2> else ends up getting into some debate about why _this_ applies and _that_ doesn't. I'd very much like to keep my neutral internet connection - <USER3> creeping preferentialism on my cellphone connection is not welcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Spectra efficiency and even faster data rates are nice but I wonder are carriers going going to upgrade backhaul link and IP core network to allow customers to take full advantage of 5G air interface? This a huge capex spending. I wonder if customers willing to pay even more exorbitant prices for 5G plans for their phone?

With those speeds 5G could be an alternative/replacement for cable/DSL for home internet access. I'm not sure the carriers would be on board with that tough as its its easier to oversubscribe mobile devices than home internet.

<comment><USER9> >With those speeds 5G could be an alternative/replacement for cable/DSL for home internet access.

Though 3/4G already is, it's what many people use instead of wired internet here (Finland) and it's often marketed as such. I rarely get under 25mbps in our clubroom that only has 4G internet access.

<comment><USER8> Wow so carriers have really built out their networks in Finland it sounds like. I think this is probably true of all the Nordics no? There are no caps on your 4G? I am curious are you using a mobile router? My experience with these has been that there were data caps attached to them and the plan, as opposed to a 4G unlimited plan on my phone.

<comment><USER10> I can't speak for Finland, but in Sweden I don't think there are any plans with unlimited data anymore, that weren't grandfathered. There used to be when 3G was the norm, but now that 4G is available pretty much everywhere you'll be capped most likely. My plan for instance is capped at 100gb I believe, for which I pay about 500-600 SEK / month. (This includes all domestic voice and texts too.)

<comment><USER11> In Finland 4G data contracts tend to be limitless. I pay 30 € per month for a package of 2 SIM cards which both have unlimited 4G data (no voice or SMS services packed in). The other one for a pad, the other one is my home's fixed network with appliances and WLAN connected.

I'm not entirely happy with current operator, though; I used to get 15 Mbit/s downlink but now it's often 3 Mbit/s at home, which is not enough. I might switch operator.

(At work I get 25 Mbit/s with the pad so the limit is clearly in poor coverage of operator DNA in my residential area, at work it is OK.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > took place in Sweden [...] at Ericsson's laboratory at Krista.

Should probably be Kista:

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

</comment><comment><USER13> Joe Armstrong had a fun talk about the general setup how it works in 2014:

[https://youtu.be/rQIE22e0cW8?t=603](https://youtu.be/rQIE22e0cW8?t=603)

Then it was still in the labs as a prototype. He talks about some of the limitation, the history (3G, 4G, 5G) and how it all set up. It is mostly in the context of building reactive systems and this was just the intro bit.

Also fun fact: since Ericsson controls more than half of the market in smartphone <-> internet gateways and most of those run Erlang. If Erlang stops working, no more cat videos for anyone on their phones.

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope that the network vendors and the IoT vendors sit down and think about how the devices and the network can work to mitigate things like large-scale IoT DDoS etc. Even if this mean new protocoling or whatever. I'm not sure I'm thinking about this exactly correctly, but I feel there is something in there?

<comment><USER15> Cellular IoT doesn't really have the problem seen with Mirai & co DDoS attacks. A cellular device is attached to a cellular network first, and for many application are not even on the Internet.

In 3GPP cellular IoT (2G/GPRS, 3G/UMTS to HSPA, 4G/LTE) it is very common for devices to be on what's called a private APN. It's a private IP network, and the cellular operator provides a VPN access to this private network to let the managing company access the devices from their application servers. Only the application servers can access the devices, which are not on the Internet. In practice this removes the risk of remote attacks on the devices (if you either hacked the telco or service operators and can get to the devices, you already could get to more interesting stuff like aggregated data). This has been available since GPRS and will also apply to 5G --- no difference at this level.

Of course the flip side of this model is that the end customer must go through the device associated service provider to get to the device. It may not be acceptable to all, but when it is using a private APN is really a very effective way to kill remote attacks on cellular IoT devices.

Even for devices not using a private APN but having Internet access, the operator is still in between and could do ad-hoc filtering if called for. Another factor is that tier 1 telco operator tend to require support for FOTA (Firmware update Over The Air), so cellular IoT devices can be remotely upgraded.

With all this cellular IoT is in a much better situation for security than LAN-based IoT. It's also more expansive.

<comment><USER14> That was my point, in a massive IoT deployment devices are maybe safer when they stay off LAN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm really interested in the potential for p2p networking in 5G. But I've been disappointed that LTE Direct[1] hasn't really become a normal thing since a couple years ago when Qualcomm announced it. A cursory googling of 5G shows that some amount of 5G research has focused around device-to-device, mostly for IoT purposes[2][3]. Link [3] in particular talks about the challenge of incentivizes:

> Besides the technical challenges, there is the very practical problem of > incentivizing users to lend their devices to serve as relays for the traffic > of others, especially since these connections will consume bandwidth, > storage, and battery power on the relay. Again, the appropriate class of > solutions depends upon the D2D design.

If this D2D does become a central part of 5G, I'm really curious about whether users will be able to use 5G not (only) with a carrier's towers, but as a part of a mesh network (and as a Bluetooth- or wifi-like tool for local networking). It could be a great way to chip away at the power of carriers and ISPs (which might be one reason LTE Direct is nowhere to be seen, and why D2D 5G capabilities could be gimped in end-user devices).

I'm a complete layman in this area, so I'm curious to hear others' thoughts.

[1] [https://www.qualcomm.com/invention/research/projects/lte- dir...](https://www.qualcomm.com/invention/research/projects/lte-direct)

[2] [https://www.ericsson.com/research-blog/5g/device-device- comm...](https://www.ericsson.com/research-blog/5g/device-device- communications/)

[3] [http://www.comsoc.org/ctn/device-device- communication-5g-cel...](http://www.comsoc.org/ctn/device-device- communication-5g-cellular-networks-challenges-solutions-and-future-directions)

</comment><comment><USER17> As an end-user, I'm ok with current 4G/LTE link speeds. What would be great is they could minimize TTFB on mobile devices. It takes a second or two for the first bits of content to appear in the browser/mail, especially after the phone has been in sleep mode.

<comment><USER18> The only reason the speeds seem fine is because due to data caps people are too afraid to actually use the data. With more capacity in the networks, data caps can rise, and usage will go up. I don't want to have to mess around with connecting to coffee shop WiFi networks all the time. Every computer should have a wireless chipset that simply uses the WWAN when a WLAN is not available, without you worrying about that OS update downloading in the background.

<comment><USER19> The rising capacity will be offset by rising average page size. What the network giveth, the browser taketh away.

<comment><USER20> Its just like building highways to alleviate traffic.

<comment><USER21> Bandwidth caps exist to destroy demand, and they do the job well (no different then London's congestion charge).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is great. If only we could get true 4G in the US...

<comment><USER23> When I went to the US two years ago I got LTE in the Baltimire, Washington DC and Los Angeles areas so you guys do have true 4G. The issue is more the amount of LTE coverage avaliable which isn't that great outside of the main cities (or at least it wasn't at the time I visited).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone else restrict their phones to 3G because 4G (real 4G) eats through your data cap too fast?

If I accidentally load a large video/gif/website, It's easier to back out then let it eat my data.

I'm also noticing that with similar usage, my same apps are eating much more data than they used to a couple years ago. Twitter, Facebook, Maps. I could live on 500MB/mo, now 2GB/mo is not enough.

<comment><USER25> 4G saves your battery. you could limit the speed through an app:

[http://www.phonearena.com/news/Bandwidth-Ruler-for- Android-l...](http://www.phonearena.com/news/Bandwidth-Ruler-for-Android-lets- you-manage-your-internet-and-tethering-connections-with-custom-boosting-and- throttling_id73558)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > The 5G New Radio (NR) used 800MHz bandwidth, running on 15GHz

Wow, 15Ghz signals are going to really suck for building penetration...

<comment><USER15> Yes. The issue is mitigated by massive beam-forming. Thanks to the high frequency antennas are small and it's possible to use many of them to steer a narrow beam toward the device. The antenna gain compensates for the pretty tough link budget at those high frequencies.

For the number of antennas, I've seen anything from 64 to 1024 (amazing...). Even then millimeter waves are only for short distances (< ~300m).

Of course, a very narrow beam makes life very interesting with mobile devices ;) But one of the first application of mmWaves should be last mile access, where this is not an issue. With this, fiber is required close to the home but the most costly last hundred meters can use wireless. This should reduce cost while still supporting very high throughput. TBC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Where does LTE sit between 4G and 5G? Was it the true 5G? 4.5G?

<comment><USER23> It's 4G.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> 15GHz? Jesus.

<comment><USER29> And 800 MHz bandwidth. I wonder what kind of bandwidth carriers will use in real life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> No end-to-end encryption though. Oh well, maybe for 6G?

<comment><USER31> Even 4G (LTE) is typically end to end encrypted. Unsure what you are trying to say or if you're just trolling.

<comment><USER32> Isn't it just mobile station to base station encryption, not true E2E encryption of calls (which would never be allowed)?

<comment><USER31> No the core network uses IPSec. Of course there is support for "lawful interception" though.

<comment><USER31> Or rather has support for IPSec, not all operators chose to deploy it properly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


China's Creditor Imperialism - <AUTHOR> https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-sri-lanka-hambantota-port-debt-by-brahma-chellaney-2017-12?a_la=english&a_d=5a3a2bc178b6c709b85882f6&a_m=&a_a=click&a_s=&a_p=%2Fsection%2Fpolitics-world-affairs&a_li=china-sri-lanka-hambantota-port-debt-by-brahma-chellaney-2017-12&a_pa=section-commentaries&a_ps= <comment><USER2> This behavior plus their own internal social credit system to rate all Chinese citizens. Sadly, some American companies are embracing this. I remember that one company that tried this nonsens, Klout, I believe it was. What rubbish. The human variables are almost limitless. To shoehorn, pigeon hole, whatever people into a set number of variables is simply evil and smacks of an utter desire to control. I can understand the Chinese doing it. They have always had a heavy hand on their own. This tends to be an Asian constant with regard to governments. Even the Japanese are like this. I lived there for three years and noticed it almost immediately. All foreigners must immediately register themselves with the police. You are ALWAYS an outsider. ALWAYS. You are referred to as "gaijin", literally outsider/foreigner, often to your face. There are estblishments aplenty that literally have signs in the windows stating, "No Gaijin". One gets a taste of what black people in America got back in the first half of the 20th century.

I'm worried about the social credit nonsense taking off again. Some think that here in the West we are going to go cashless quicker than previously thought. I will hold out as long as possible. People have the right to buy and sell anonymously.</comment>


Third-Biggest U.S. Coal Company Files for Bankruptcy - <AUTHOR> https://flatheadbeacon.com/2019/05/10/third-biggest-u-s-coal-company-files-bankruptcy/ <comment><USER2> To add insult to injury, this is from the April 2019 Stanford law review:

"Almost half of all the coal produced in the United States is mined by companies that have recently gone bankrupt. This Article explains how those bankruptcy proceedings have undermined federal environmental and labor laws. In particular, coal companies have used the Bankruptcy Code to evade congressionally imposed liabilities requiring that they pay lifetime health benefits to coal miners and restore land degraded by surface mining. Using financial information reported in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission and in the companies' reorganization agreements, we show that between 2012 and 2017, four of the largest coal companies in the United States succeeded in shedding almost $5.2 billion of environmental and retiree liabilities."

[https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/bankruptcy-a...](https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/bankruptcy- as-bailout/)

<comment><USER3> This is why limited liability is a terrible idea, just another way to privatize the gains and socialize the losses.

When you buy a stake in a corporation(especially one that comes with voting rights), and the corporation goes on to cause damages to life, property, the environment etc, you should be held personally liable in proportion with your share(or voting share).

I can see the argument for limited liability in case of debts: the issuer of the debt has the opportunity to do due diligence and take the risk of bankruptcy into account. But in the case of damages, I don't see how limited liability can ever be justified.

<comment><USER4> We've had limited liability for centuries, and it's completely critical for getting people to invest in businesses. Without it, nobody dares open anything larger than a lemonade stand, unless they're already extremely wealthy.

<comment><USER5> So what do you think happened BEFORE limited liability companies existed? And what do you think happens in countries that don't have limited liability companies? And what about all the people who create businesses without creating a limited liability company?

<comment><USER6> Feudalism, limited economic growth, and one of {insurance, personal bankruptcy, luck} respectively.

I believe law firms still go for the insurance approach in the UK.

<comment><USER7> A lot of countries don't let their professionals incorporate. Usually for the reason that victims of professionals shouldn't end up paying the costs of their victimization.

It's also why you'll see professionals put their home in their spouse's name, just in case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Within the next few decades, we will see the oil majors facing a similar fate, unless they've transitioned to other energy tech.

New technology can seem impossibly expensive, but if it's on a consistent tech curve of decreasing costs, it's impossibly expensive one day and then the only option the next. There's a non-linear transition when the new tech becomes the cheaper one.

We are seeing electrical energy storage following that curve. In the right geographic locations solar and wind are far cheaper sources of energy than anything else. If hydrogen from renewable energy, or methanates hydrogen (ie natural gas made from renewable energy) becomes cheap, it will eliminate all oil extraction except for things like plastics. And without selling diesel and gasoline, will it be worth it to pull out the oil instead of synthesizing plastics?

The world is changing, and there are currently a ton of investments in natural resources that will never be extracted.

<comment><USER9> > Within the next few decades, we will see the oil majors facing a similar > fate,

I'm wondering what is the consensus about this statement. AFAIK solar and wind may be cheap at the margin, in specific areas, when they are supported by coal/nuclear. But can we reasonably think they can replace fossil fuel at a large scale in a near future? I have little knowledge on this issue, but I heard reasonable experts [1,2] saying it was doubtful.

[1] [https://www.withouthotair.com](https://www.withouthotair.com) [2] [https://jancovici.com/en/energy- transition/renewables/100-re...](https://jancovici.com/en/energy- transition/renewables/100-renewable-electricity-at-no-extra-cost-a-piece-of- cake/)

<comment><USER8> It's so weird to me that people read "Without Hot Air" and think that it is pessimistic about renewables. It's a perfect example of what I'm talking about here. It was written long ago. Read it again, and insert modern numbers, and the unbelievably expensive scenarios are starting to become the reasonable ones.

Add in other tech like HVDC, and as I said in my post, conversion of electrical energy into chemical energy storage in hydrogen or methane, and it all becomes quite feasible.

Why is coal dying over the past 5 years? Because huge government subsidies kick started fracking technology which ended up making US natural gas incredibly cheap, as the tech descended the cost curve.

Why are solar and wind the cheapest (non-dispatchable) electrons in much of the US? Because we are far enough along on the tech curve.

Why are solar+storage and wind+storage project bids for 2022 and 2023 coming in under the cost of combined cycle gas turbines? Because lithium ion batteries are transitioning to cheap from impossibly expensive, particularly as vehicle demand drives massive scale up in lithium ion battery production.

All that stuff in "without the hot air" that made it hard in the UK is coming within reach. And the UK is pretty much one of the worst possible situations for solar, one of the main legs of renewable tech, and it will still work out. Offshore deep sea wind is getting super cheap and it has much better intermittency properties, making it require even less daily storage . seasonal storage still would be great to minimize overprovisioning of generators, but how much we overprovision versus how much we store will just be a cost optimization between the relative prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My wife is a coal market analyst and says that Cloud Peak is just late to the chapter 11 game. The rest of them filed Chapter 11 in 2016.

<comment><USER11> Cloud peak?

<comment><USER12> Cloud Peak Energy, the 3rd biggest coal company in the title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there an actual possibility of burning coal in a"clean way" through any technology now or in the future?

The current term "clean coal" is obviously BS, but is it possible either now or in the future, but just uneconomic?

It is an immense resource if we could extract the energy of coal in a clean way.

<comment><USER14> Yes. Burn it inside building and capture CO2. As it stands, the gas waste is externalised.

Imagine if nuclear reactors were allowed to dump waste in air/river.

<comment><USER15> And do what with the CO2? Burning coal releases a lot of it.

<comment><USER16> Capture it and bury it underground turning it into rock

[https://phys.org/news/2019-05-iceland-carbon-dioxide- cleaner...](https://phys.org/news/2019-05-iceland-carbon-dioxide-cleaner- air.html)

Capture it and convert it to fuel [https://phys.org/news/2018-10-catalyst- door-carbon-dioxide-c...](https://phys.org/news/2018-10-catalyst-door-carbon- dioxide-capture.html)

Capture it and convert it to plastics [https://phys.org/news/2018-11-co2-ingredients-fuel- plastics-...](https://phys.org/news/2018-11-co2-ingredients-fuel-plastics- food.html)

etc...

<comment><USER17> The fact that none of this is economical makes this fairly difficult to do.

<comment><USER18> "Economical" evaluation right now, in the US, is before the true cost of carbon emissions are priced in. Once/If there's a real carbon tax the economic viability on these may change.

I personally believe that in addition to pricing carbon governments are going to have to self fund massive sequestration projects as well to avoid catastrophic change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I like how stories like this always leave out corruption and mismanagement of the mines themselves. Mines are a hot spot for upper management and owner corruption.

<comment><USER18> More so than other industries? If so, any source material to learn more?

<comment><USER20> Historically, coal is an industry filled with -to put it lightly- labor disputes due to exploitative conditions [1][2].

Today, the industry in decline by any definition and as companies try to awl out some sort of profit they cut corners which create unsafe conditions. When accidents happen, the company will skirt responsibility to the very end (someone else has a nice link here [3]). The "Last Week Tonight" on coal from a few years ago (start at 8:39[4]) goes through some rather aggressive coal executives who don't want to fairly compensate workers. Here are a few recent coal disasters you can read about: [5,6]

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars) [2]: [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-w...](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition- working-class/ch11.htm) [3]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19905967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19905967) [4]: [https://youtu.be/aw6RsUhw1Q8?t=519](https://youtu.be/aw6RsUhw1Q8?t=519)

[5]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster) [6]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sago_Mine_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sago_Mine_disaster)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seems like this is to be expected more and more. From what I have heard coal is only cheaper when you already have the coal power plants built but when you are starting fresh renewables make more sense.

<comment><USER22> Someone needs to tell the currently sitting Australian government, whose very own (now, not then - they are on high rotation) prime minister brought a lump of coal into parliament in 2017 and said "Don't be afraid, don't be scared, it won't hurt you. It's coal."

<comment><USER23> Somebody should also tell the current government in Queensland. Currently royalties is over $4 billion. They should start looking at alternative income.

<comment><USER22> If they've been putting this transient income aside in a fund for the past 30 years then they'll be good for a while when it trickles down.

/s :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Don't believe politicians when they promise they will change industries. In our free market society, only economic conditions will change the market. This is very relevant with our current news about tariffs.

</comment><comment><USER25> They are legally using our on-the-books bankruptcy laws.

If you don't like it, tell your senator or representative. Go out and vote. This country's voter turnout is dismal.

</comment><comment><USER26> Good. Leave that nasty shit in the ground where it belongs.

</comment><comment><USER27> When Trump said he was going to bring back coal jobs, he meant the bankruptcy lawyers.

</comment><comment><USER28> Coal companies folding, robots taking Amazon warehouse jobs –– it's a week of future economic pain foreshadowing on HN.

<comment><USER29> Coal companies folding is hardly economic pain, just opportunity for solar and wind.

<comment><USER30> It's economic pain for coal miners.

<comment><USER31> Economic pain for coal miners is a political issue.

You could for instance encourage solar companies to hire ex coal miners and pay them good wages.

<comment><USER32> Wish it was that easy, you can't just reschool a coalminer into an entirely different profession 10 years before their retirement.

<comment><USER33> You can easily skill shift a coal miner into eg the natural gas industry. Including at 10 years prior to retirement. I've known at least a dozen miners that transitioned to natural gas, in the greater Marcellus shale region.

When shifting an experienced miner to the natural gas industry, the problem isn't education, it's replacement pay. They're usually technically, industrially competent people, and are well suited to the oil and natural gas industries as far as ease of skill adaptation goes. It's something our government/s should be pursuing aggressively (except usually the states where the coal industry exists don't want to go against those jobs and actively encourage that shift). If done correctly, you could make the job shift from coal to other energy industries far easier, buffering the labor hit, and drain the coal industry of the labor it needs to operate (accelerating its demise).

<comment><USER34> Replacement pay and _relocation_. Asking an older blue collar worker to move away from family and friends to another state, more or less involuntarily, is much harder than encouraging a young tech worker to move to, say, California.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Good. One of many, hopefully.

<comment><USER36> Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> MAGA will save this! Trump will make coal mandatory in every home! switch off the heating! lets make coal great again :D

</comment><comment><USER38> Left and right should listen to Bill Gates:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xe3BWPsBTU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xe3BWPsBTU)

<comment><USER39> Can you please post the full talk if you're going to cherry pick sound bites from bill gates

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> That's good but there are many existing coal companies that could make up for the missing coal. [https://www.eia.gov/coal/annual/pdf/table10.pdf](https://www.eia.gov/coal/annual/pdf/table10.pdf)

<comment><USER41> While that is correct, the article suggests the market is seeing reduced demand _as utility companies increasingly turn to gas-fired generation and renewable energy for electricity_.

For such a large coal producer to be struggling with that lower demand (and hence the lower price) suggests most of the sector will also be struggling with those adverse market forces.

<comment><USER42> I suspect you're giving them too big a benefit of a doubt. It's equally likely that the coal company's owners have decided they've milked the cow for as much as they could and can now shut it down before liabilities (clean-up costs + retirements) catch up with them.

<comment><USER43> This is exactly what's happening and it's not even the first time.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Vic-20 Love Story - <AUTHOR> http://www.seoish.com/a-vic-20-love-story/ <comment><USER2> This made me smile all the way through.

My first computer was a VIC-20. I wanted a Commodore 64, but now I know I was better off because I had friends who had '64s who spent more time playing games than programming (the games for the 64 were so very, very much better).

As it turns out it mattered more that I had a computer of my own than the "quality" of the computer. I had access to better machines, but I had unlimited access to my VIC-20, and being able to sit up all night with it, to start coding minutes after waking from dreaming in BASIC, resulted in getting so much more done than if I had access to a CRAY-II but I had to go to the library to use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Let's just say they didn't know what a IF/NOT loop was."

Me neither.

<comment><USER4> He has corrected it to "infinite loop" now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My first was a Vic-20, and yes after two years of begging my parents at 12 I got the Commodore 64. I remember the fun of setting the tape drive up to load, then having dinner, then checking to see if it was done loading!

Used to scare my parents that I spent so much time typing in lines of PEEK and POKE code to make sprites and custom characters!

Right now I still have my Commodore64, 2 1541 Drives, original monitor and my Amiga 1200 at home!

</comment><comment><USER6> For me it was a Sinclair clone (Prologica's CP-200) and an Apple II clone (CCE's Exato Pro).

After using an Apple II, a PC is an inelegant kludge.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. I had a BBC Micro with Basic, Pascal and a wordprocessor (Wordwise) in ROM. It booted in a second and gave you immediate access to all the software in ROM.

First time I used a PC, it had no HD, so you had to boot DOS from a disc and then whatever software you wanted from another disc. And everything was green. Why anyone would want to use one was beyond me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For me it was the Sharp MZ-80K: [http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/08/in-which-i- switch-on-30-year...](http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/08/in-which-i-switch- on-30-year-old.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> TRS-80 CoCo I here.

Gotta love the chicklet keys - at least it wasn't a membrane keyboard.</comment>


Japan: 'Lonely Deaths' Rise Among Unemployed, Elderly - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100406/wl_time/08599197695200

<comment><USER2> FTA: _Several hundred years ago, the Japanese witnessed death regularly, with bodies buried by family members and samurai displaying severed heads in public. These days, such moments are rare._

Indeed, it is a crying shame that displaying severed heads in public has become so rare. Seriously though, can't Time magazine do a slightly better job editing?

<comment><USER3> _with bodies buried by family members_

Dealing with death is considered unclean in Shinto and many of the various traditions it was synthesized out of, which is why only Japan's untouchable caste (burakumin 部落民) did gravedigging, and one reason why they were ostracized. It has been, ahem, _a very long time indeed_ since burying one's family members would be considered normative behavior.

For more on this and other interesting topics, see your favorite Japanese Civilization 101 textbook.

<comment><USER4> Before reading the textbook, maybe watch "Departures", the film mentioned in the article. I'd wager most people will find it to be easier going and more moving. Half the cinema was sniffling by the end when I saw it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departures_%28film%29>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is not just in Japan. During heat waves, as observed for example in France (<http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5006569197>) and Chicago ([http://www.amazon.com/Heat-Wave-Autopsy-Disaster- Illinois/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Heat-Wave-Autopsy-Disaster- Illinois/dp/0226443221)), death tends to strike the socially isolated.

</comment><comment><USER6> Since there are so many system monitors built, can we build something of a human monitor? A device that can detect motion like the IPhone/IPod/IPad. Once it's not moved for a long time, like a day (allowance for sleep), it would transmit a signal to a center and someone can call back in to check. It can be worn around the neck.

<comment><USER7> In the US, they sell something called <http://www.lifealert.com/> (very scammy late-night commercials) but I wonder why there couldn't be a free/cheap version of this. Kindle sells for $260 and has free life-time downloading via 3G. So it is possible to make devices that do not have monthly/annual fees that can hit a URL every now and then.</comment></comment>


Chinese investors are inflating housing markets in the US, Canada, and Australia - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/china-investors-inflating-housing-markets-in-us-canada-australia-2018-6 <comment><USER2> I believe it's also fuelling a rise in casual assumptive anti-Asian racism. Many buyers are of Asian origin but national residents. Locals who compete have no basis to know a counter bidder is resident or non resident status and the fear is causing social glue to weaken. It expresses in really awful ways.

Disclaimer: I live in an apt complex with a mix of resident, non-resident and domestic and international investor owners and we're doing fine. I'm reporting anecdotally what I sense from anglo Australians trying to buy in a hot market.</comment>


Introducing PeopleSpark – a weekly pulse on your team - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mitchellharper/introducing-peoplespark-a-weekly-pulse-on-your-team-3957e3c66563 <comment><USER2> You are a terrible manager if you try to replace this part of your job with software. A lot is lost when people are expected to proactively update you on what they're doing, rather than answering questions that you choose to ask them.

More importantly, it'd be nearly impossible to get most teams to do this.</comment>


Cruiser - Javascript Parser Generator - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/cruiser/wiki/Parse <comment><USER2> Interesting. For anyone interested in a more powerful, yacc-style javascript parser generator, check out JS/CC: <http://jscc.jmksf.com/> . I've used it to generate a parser for spreadsheet formulas; the interface to use it is pretty clunky (since it's written in javascript and runs in the browser) but it got the job done.</comment>


NFL wants fantasy football in elementary school curriculum - <AUTHOR> http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/08/nfl-fantasy-football-elementary-school-curriculum

<comment><USER2> Original source: [http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/08/27/nfl-cmo-mark-waller- inte...](http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/08/27/nfl-cmo-mark-waller-interview/)

Per the guidelines, please don't submit blog posts about other articles; submit the original.</comment>


Getting Started with Elm - <AUTHOR> http://pragmaticstudio.com/blog/2014/12/19/getting-started-with-elm

<comment><USER2> Whoa, Elm is a language? And here all along I thought it was an MUA: [http://www.instinct.org/elm/](http://www.instinct.org/elm/)

<comment><USER3> Every time I read an article on HN about Elm, I go through a moment of confusion. Elm wasn't just some random piece of rarely-used free software where it makes sense to re-use the name. It was an extremely popular mail program. If you're reading HN, you are the kind of person who 20 years ago would have used or at least tried Elm.

It's a bad idea to re-use a name for a product when the prior product targeted essentially the same users.

<comment><AUTHOR> A very large percentage of the HN population has been using computers for less than 15 years. The creator of Elm is a very smart cookie. But, there's a good chance he has never heard of the Elm mail client. I've got bad news for ya: We're old.

<comment><USER4> But elm isn't particularly old - as recently as 1999, when I started doing IT at Loudcloud, there were a bunch of users who still wanted to use elm as their primary email client.

It's like naming something "eudora"

<comment><USER5> 1999 was 16 years ago. The last release of Elm (the mail client) was 10 years ago. I started using the Internet back when AOL was still charging an hourly (rather than monthly) fee, and if I've ever heard of Elm (the mail client), it wasn't enough to be able to remember it today.

So yes, Elm (the mail client) is particularly old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the detailed writeup! I've done a lot with the Reactjs-esque elm- html, but have yet to try out the graphics libraries.

This was a nice introduction to that part of the ecosystem, and I definitely plan to revisit this post when I get around to taking Elm's graphical capabilities for a spin.

</comment><comment><USER7> I heard sometime ago that given that Elm is build around FRP, is not very good for making widgets or reusable and nested components. Why would this be the case?

<comment><USER8> Having used Elm a little, the aim certainly is completely opposite to that. Moreover, Elm is mostly pure even in its handling of the reactive paradigm. That alone should make it more composable than most other languages. Should, because as far as I know it hasn't been proven just yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I scanned the headlines on Hacker News and thought this said "Getting Started with Elf" :P

</comment><comment><USER10> In it, voted 5</comment>


Nobody is unemployable - <AUTHOR> http://mattwest.io/on-being-unemployable/ <comment><USER3> I would suggest a new term: Employ-unable.

Many if not most firms are unable to identify intelligent, motivated people, outside of the typical CV pedigree of Ivy Leagues and corporate brands.

As a result, they have created a cargo cult recruiting process that promises, in a few easy steps, to tell them the essence of the applicant's very being, and to accurately predict their future performance within the organization.

A child knows that this is impossible, but the need for control and risk minimization means firms force themselves to believe in it.

That is why the entire job seeking and interview process has degenerated into a tragedy and a farce.

In Europe and North America, there are tens if not hundreds of millions of people unemployed because businesses are not able to employ them; they lack the competence to recruit well.

<comment><USER4> I cannot upvote this enough.

I spent 2 1/2 years unemployed after leaving a top graduate program in math - I didn't lack for motivation the whole time and I ended up teaching myself programming out of frustration over the process. I then was able to find a job after 3 months of searching after an arduous almost 2 1/2 years searching beforehand. All of the big companies passed up on me, as well as anyone else out there, despite going out of the way to apply to all sorts of jobs. After a few months of work, companies started contacting me. After my first job switch and some open source contributions, the floodgates started to open up - <USER2> then did companies start to recognize talent. The sad thing is, any one of them could have netted my loyalty and at a cheaper price overall if they were savvy at recruiting.

I have little sympathy for companies that choose to operate that way.

<comment><USER5> > I have little sympathy for companies that choose to operate that way.

A known product is more valuable than an unknown one. And you did "switch" from your first job when your value was more realized, so it cuts both ways!

<comment><USER6> That's why contract-to-hire exists; to turn an unknown into a known. If a company is serious about getting the best, they'll know that their best shot of getting it is before -everyone else knows how good the person is too-. Unfortunately, most companies are too short sighted to do this (the startup hire fast fire fast mantra applies here too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 'Nobody' here is highly contextual. From what I understand, there are some markets (outside the US, particularly in the developing world. E.g., [http://dazeinfo.com/2014/10/28/1-5-million-engineering- pass-...](http://dazeinfo.com/2014/10/28/1-5-million-engineering-pass-outs- india-every-year-fewer-getting-hired-trends/)) where there's a glut of talented people. They are 'unemployable' if they cannot move and cannot find remote work.

In the larger sense, there are plenty of people who are unemployable (though it can be geographically or temporally limited in scope -- not always ,though): Zero Marginal Product workers: [http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/zer...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/zero- marginal-product-workers.html)

To his point, though, the market in the US is still hot, and we're not /terribly/ far off from the first dot-com wave situation of "if you know HTML you can get hired in this market." Now it's more like "if you know Rails or one front-end JS framework decently, you can get hired." So if you have any skill, yeah, you're not going to unemployable here for a while, and whether or not you failed at your own company will probably not be relevant.

<comment><USER8> >From what I understand, there are some markets (outside the US, particularly in the developing world. E.g., [http://dazeinfo.com/2014/10/28/1-5-million- engineering-pass-...](http://dazeinfo.com/2014/10/28/1-5-million-engineering- pass-...)) where there's a glut of talented people.

Just because you have an engineering degree does not mean you actually know anything you were supposed to learn.

<comment><USER9> And learning all they taught in school well enough to pass the tests doesn't mean you can actually do a job in that field.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been self employed most of my life, I created companies from scratch and I deeply feel that I am unemployable.

I am engineer, a geek, a hacker, whatever you want to call it when you love working with machines all day, but the most important thing is that I take my own decisions. I won't be happy working on machines for someone else.

When you study in the University they train you to obey the decisions of others. Everyday I am shocked when people obey me without resistance.

The best people I had did not obey me: When I ask something stupid, they just told me fast how stupid it is. They were a pain in the ass to work with, but the resulting work is outstanding.

I think the belief that you need to work for someone else is wrong, society trains you for that as it is the only alternative. It is not. You can work on your own just fine and partner with other people.

Working on your own is not for everyone, but also being employed is not for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER11> For me, it was the exact opposite. I was self employed for about 15 years and decided to take early retirement as a full time employee. It's amazing. Vacation time. Full benefits. Profit sharing. Dedicated A/R and A/P accounting departments. Built in customer service department (HR). Marketing department. All taxes handled for me. All I have to do is code. Frankly it's a joke.

Don't be afraid of going back if you decide or need to. In my mind, I'm still a consultant and always will be. My current customer is my employer and I only have one customer. The only thing that can get to me on occasion are all the petty gripes the other employees constantly bicker about. They don't know what it's like to do everything on your own.

</comment><comment><USER12> I love how nobody has actually responded to the post.

The idea that working for yourself makes you unable to be an employee is a serious one. I have alternated over the years between self-employment and working for others and at this point I doubt anyone would ever hire me again even if I wanted to be hired.

Self-employment is not for everyone (it does come with a huge amount of stress), but if you can get used to this then it make working for someone else hard to accept.

<comment><USER13> I did that for a couple of years part time in university, and now I'm employed in a small company. Personally I enjoy both experiences, and am glad I'm not without either. That said, my current company does give me a lot of autonomy.

<comment><USER12> The autonomy part becomes more attractive the longer you are self-employed. The other thing is there is no age discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having gone back and forth between employment and entrepreneurship, I agree with the point that the author is making. Taking on a "regular job" doesn't mean you've failed, and previously running a business certainly wouldn't be a knock against someone I was considering hiring.

<comment><USER15> Based on my experience interviewing (both as a candidate as as a non-boss watching my coworkers interview), it makes me want to start my own business so I can get some great people at a bargain price. When my employer was interviewing, the two strongest candidates failed their interview process, and they hired one of the weakest candidates.

However, I don't fit the profile for VC, so the only way I can get to that point is by bootstrapping.

<comment><USER16> a lot of those interviews are perplexing. they ask people questions that took people with PHD's years to figure out and expect them to figure it out in minutes/hours. either they are repeating something from memory or they aren't going to figure it out, either way it doesn't tell you anything about how they are as an employee.

<comment><USER15> Most of these interview questions can be summarized as

1\. Have you heard this question before?

or

2\. What number am I thinking of?

I.e., any answer other than the one the interviewer is expecting is wrong. I had a recent interview with some SQL/Linux questions. I gave a correct answer, but one that wasn't on the interviewer's script. He wasn't able to accept my answer as correct. So I'm left trying to guess what answer the interviewer is expecting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> And the corollary: the graveyard is full of indispensable people.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great article Matt!</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone still use RSS readers? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I do!

If you are making something that would make sense to include an rss feed, please include an rss feed.

Rss is great!

Edit: It is a standard useful format for a common purpose/use.

You know every irritating thing that some websites with their own dashboard feed system thing do, like rearranging the order of things, or only showing the things that /they/ think are important, and ignoring user stated preferences?

With rss you don't have those problems.

Rss respects user choice.

It allows users to follow their stated preferences, instead of what the website thinks are their revealed preferences.

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course we do, RSS is indispensable. Forget the "RSS is dead" crowd, because it really isn't. It's not _trendy_ like it used to be, and arguably didn't "take over the world". But there's a lot of ground between "dead" and "rule the world". RSS is awesome and everybody should continue to produce and consume it where it makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER4> To avoid a thread filled entirely with confirmation bias, I'll post to say I used to use RSS extensively until about 5 years ago. I never used Google Reader, so the fate of that product didn't affect me.

Mostly, my appetite for news has changed, in that I went from passively consuming news to seeking out particular sites and reading more articles -- and also, because of HN, I discover more news than I could organically follow through RSS on my own.

</comment><comment><USER5> While I've scaled back my use, mostly as a part of a info-diet, I still use one.

</comment><comment><USER6> A few mid 20s post grade writers of one of my sites recently asked me if I could implement RSS feeds for their blog posts. I asked the same thing.

Easy enough to code the feeds - if someone has a need for it, why not.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes. Adoption never waned, only implementation. Not as hip an monitizable as social buttons. Therefore less pressure on devs to support it. Find a way to push ads, and watch it take off again.

<comment><USER2> In at least one webcomic I follow, a (fairly unobtrusive, using project wonderful) ad is included in the rss feed for it.

If nothing else, the rss feed could just include the link to the full post (and not the post content), which is useful in that it prompts the user to view one's page, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I used to use them a lot more but got overwhelmed by the amount of content of some of the websites I read were posting. They are very useful though for following multiple blogs.

</comment><comment><USER9> Protip: I fetch github commit logs etc as RSS. Just add .atom to many github URLs.</comment>


Orchestrating False Beliefs about Gender Discrimination - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jsmp/orchestrating-false-beliefs-about-gender-discrimination-a25a48e1d02 <comment> August-Garcia > So, in conclusion, this study presents no statistically significant evidence > that blind auditions increase the chances of female applicants. In my > reading, the results seem to weakly indicate the opposite, that male > applicants have a slightly increased chance in blind auditions; but this > advantage disappears with controls.</comment>


Show HN: I created a database of companies hiring remotely - <AUTHOR> https://remotive.io/remote-companies <comment><USER2> Awesome, thank you for this!</comment>


Show HN: Drone Hire – An international directory of drone operators for hire - <AUTHOR> https://dronehire.org/

<comment><USER2> Currently selecting any state will populate the site with Hawaii and South Carolina and Cleveland operators. It seems that country works as a filter but not state/province.

I like the idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks good. What is the business model?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently we allow operators to pay a subscription fee for higher rankings and extra promotion.

<comment><USER3> Interesting idea. Did anybody pay for that already?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dumb question: is this even legal? I thought drone commercial is not allowed in the US yet?</comment>


Ask HN : Robot kits other than Mindstorms? - <AUTHOR>

Looking for a programmable robot kit. Cost is one concern : something under $600 preferable. Focus is on the "programmable" part. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> I've had a lot of fun with the Parallax Boe-Bot kits.

<http://www.parallax.com/tabid/411/Default.aspx>

I've been working wit the Basic Stamp (and other micros) for probably the last 12 years or so. To me, it's a good mix of powerful and easy to get up to speed on, so the initial learning curve isn't so steep as to be discouraging.</comment>


XKCD #666 - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/666/

<comment><USER2> Depending on how you count it is 665. Comic 404 is a 404.</comment>


Should I Take My Friends' Money? - <AUTHOR> http://www.emadibrahim.com/2013/03/25/should-i-take-my-friends-money/

<comment><USER2> Don't. It's a bad idea. You can no longer discuss progress and failures with them because they're personally invested. Against my better judgment I took $ from family. When I was doing poorly I was pressured to shut it down. When I started doing well I was pressured to pay out when I really needed to invest in the company. And all the while I hear the "you couldn't have done it without me" speeches.

They'll start watching every purchase you make and wonder "is that my money he's spending?" I can't talk about buying a new phone, a new laptop, or anything else. My own mother heckles me about "paying my employees too much". Every time they see a photo of you on facebook at a music festival they're going to think, "so thats what he's doing with my money." They'll want status updates every time you see them when what you need is a few hours away from work.

If you can bootstrap--do that. Only raise money to expand when you're already doing well but could be doing better.

<comment><USER3> I don't think this is the greatest advice. That said, it can be exactly like this and worse.

You really need to evaluate who you're receiving money from. Are they the right person to invest in your company? Will they support you in the low times and not try to screw you in the high times? If you think this will happen if you take money from your particular friends and family, then inuhj's advice is solid.

But it sounds more like expectations weren't managed. If you haven't told your investors how you're going to spend their money that is your fault for not telling them and treating your investors how they should be treated. Every investment dollar should have a purpose. (Yes, treat your friends and family like investors. Not like family. If you treat them like family who gave you money, they'll treat you like family who took their money, as in inuhj's example.)

The golden rule of raising from friends and family: If you're trading on relationship, then you put the relationship at risk. If you're trading on merit of the investment, then the relationship is separate.

This then allows you to at least somewhat evaluate whether the investor will freak out if you lose their money. As with an angel investor, they need to be willing and ABLE to lose every penny they put in. TELL THEM THAT. If they have a problem, or you sense a problem, don't take their money.

This then blur's the line between "friends & family" and "angels." VC's or VCs-in-angels-clothing are a separate category. This is not a firm that "does angel investing" this is an individual high-net-worth individual. Could be friend, family, or other.

And this is coming form a guy who will never have a relationship with his Godparents because a business deal between my parents and my Godparents went south when I was a baby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd never put stress on my personal relationships for a business that have chances to fail as much as chances to succeed. my best bet here would be VC, its a professional way to handle investment, and you will be sharing your company with someone yes, but still own your idea/company mostly and have influence and you'll learn a lot about investment fund management and other perspectives of a startup you might have not though about.

<comment><AUTHOR> the problem is that it is a ton of work to raise money... friends and family is a lot easier...

<comment><USER4> its easy once you figure out how your startup is going to be profitable and try to prove that to VC funds, and its a good idea to put some effort in articulating your business goals, and plans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't take money from friends, the potential problems there are countless. For one thing, your chances of success are low and your friends can't properly estimate that. They hear too many startup success stories in the news. A professional investor knows what he's getting into, your friends have no idea.</comment>


HOWTO: Ditch Gmail for self-hosted webmail - <AUTHOR> https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2014/06/15/ditch-gmail/

<comment><USER2> Much harder if you use Google Apps for your domain. Many devices get ties to these Google accounts and severe breakage happens if you move those addresses or downgrade them

<comment><AUTHOR> Harder, but not impossible. It's interesting the range of reasons people come up with (what about spam! everyone else is using Gmail!) not to do this.

Not always the best option for everyone (obviously).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> your link to hacker news at the bottom of the article doesn't link to hacker news.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops! Thanks - fixed. :-)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Password Chef – Create a recipe for your passwords - <AUTHOR> http://passwordchef.co <comment><USER2> Before switching to a standard password manager I used to use the algorithmic equivalent of this: I used supergenpass which took the domain name and a master password and hashed them (probably HMAC'd) so that I could have the password be strong but not stored.

Ultimately though what got in the way were obscure password requirements of some websites (especially banks). Some banks required a "special character" that wasn't in the hash's output, other sites thought 16 characters was too long for a password, other sites didn't like some of the non alphanumeric characters (no joke).

As the exceptions started piling up I started having to do lots of password resets on these usual suspects before giving up this scheme and moving to a traditional password manager (1password).

Just thought I'd share my experience with this sort of thing.

<comment><USER3> Great thoughts. You've highlighted some of our hurdles. I helped develop the app with Robert.

There does seem to be a trend to make passwords less restrictive (or at least longer). For example, Schwab just removed their ridiculous 8-character restriction this summer. Hopefully that continues.

In the meantime, we address that issue a few ways: 1) we have a report card that you can check while writing a recipe that guides you toward producing more universally accepted passwords 2) if you find a password still doesn't work for a particular site, you can affix a "note" to that recipe so you can record the adaptation (e.g. "change $ to &")

I use Password Chef for everything, and have a surprisingly few amount of notes. So few, in fact, that I have memorized the adaptation I need to make for most of them.

Thanks so much for the comment!

<comment><USER2> Ah good that you've thought of this too. Seems like you guys already have some good workarounds

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Few things:

1\. I initially thought this is chef.io recipes, but this is actually different.

2\. This is a great idea, I've been personally using a password recipe for a long time now, this is a great way to only remember one thing but still have different passwords all over the place.

3\. I would also create a chrome/FF extension, this will be much easier for most people to use. I really hate taking out my phone every time I need something like this, this is why I hate 2 factor authentication.

4\. The information above the fold is not enough to understand the solution without watching the video, most people will exit at this point IMHO.

Good luck with this!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out. An extension would be helpful and I can see us working on that in the future. I see what you mean about the information being below the fold. We'll work on that.

<comment><USER5> also work on giving the chef a name please

but seriously, the problem that comes to mind is the crazy complexity requirements that some sites have (must have special chars) but other sites restrict (no special chars). i honestly can't think of a good solution to that though, i always wanted to make a collaborative database of password complexity for various sites

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha. We'll take name suggestions if you've got some!

To work around this you can have a second recipe called "no special characters" or if it's something as simple as needing to shorten it to 8 characters, you can add a note to your primary recipe within the app about the troublesome sites. By default the app walks you through designing a recipe that produces strong passwords while meeting the most common requirements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks interesting.

How do you store the password recipes? On disk? Are they encrypted? If so, how?

</comment><comment><USER7> What should be the correct approach using this for the sites (mostly banks) that require a password change every 30 days o so... In a moment you will have a lot of recipes depending on the period of the requirement...

</comment><comment><USER8> Just a question: what if you want to log in at a friend's house for example? Do you have to remember the encrypted password or do you just open the app with a master password? Could you please elaborate some?

<comment><AUTHOR> Once you have designed a recipe, you can reference it in the app which will provide your passwords as needed but the idea is that as you become familiar with your recipe, you'll be able to recall passwords on the fly without checking the app. You can set a passcode to open the app but none of your passwords are saved in there, only a recipe (or recipes).</comment></comment>


So What Was Up with Alexa's Creepy Laughter Anyway? - <AUTHOR> http://www.skynettoday.com/content/news/alexa-laughter/ <comment><USER2> While "Alexa laugh" (which I can confirm has happened to me) was fixed month ago, "Alexa, fart" is still an issue.

It sounds like a sophomoric joke but it's not. I was having a normal conversation with somewhere where neither of us said "Alexa" or "fart" and the Alexa randomly let out a huge embarrassing fart noise. Having known about the "laugh" issue it didn't take long to guess what Alexa thought it heard.

</comment><comment><USER3> Did I not read the article clearly, or is there exactly zero information here that wasn't thoroughly covered back when this happened months ago?

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems like a hoax more than anything. Also, what's up with that domain name?

<comment><USER5> It definitely happened, Amazon said it was a bug that caused Alexa to be more likely to interpret silence or random noise as "laugh" after a false trigger (or something along those lines).

I suspect it was either a legitimate bug or if I wanna be more adventurous, an internal prank/easter egg that somehow went wrong and got pushed to customers.

<comment><USER6> My guess is that the were working on a "laugh track" skill, that laughs with you when it hears laughter -- and either it was pushed too early, or was just too sensitive in its determination of what laughter is.

Many dry sitcoms become funny with a proper laugh track. Why not your life?</comment></comment></comment>


.CSV: The dangers of "human terrain mapping" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.steinberg.org/?p=7

<comment><USER2> "In one experiment, Eagle looked at how well he could predict an individual's activities over a 12-hour period, based on their data from the previous 12-hours."

First 12 hours: sleep.

"After training a simple Hidden Markov Model, he could predict people's behaviors with 79% accuracy"

Monday: Class. Tuesday: Class. Wednesday: Class.

Thursday -- you'll never guess!

</comment><comment><USER3> I can be used for good. Netflix comes to mind.

They say there are only 800 people in the world, the rest are androids.</comment>


Art Advice I'd Give Myself If I Had to Start from Scratch [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxZbsLBd3oU <comment><USER2> Good suggestion!</comment>


Buffett and Munger won't buy Facebook stock - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/06/news/buffett-facebook/index.htm

<comment><USER2> No surprise here. If you want to understand why (in depth) read "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham.

tl;dr: Facebook lacks intrinsic value. Like most tech companies out there.</comment>


Show HN: Developer News - <AUTHOR> http://devnews.today/

<comment><USER2> Not sure how this is different from hacker news. Also everything is hard to read. Gray fonts on gray background, not enough spacing etc</comment>


Tesla and Other Domestic Brands Take Big Steps Backwards in Reliability Rankings - <AUTHOR> https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/2018/10/consumer_reports_annual_reliability_survey_tesla_and_other_domestic_brands_take_big_steps_backwards_in_rankings11/ <comment><USER2> Note that they categorize "domestic" by nameplate only, not country of manufacture. The falling Ford Fusions for the North American market are all made in Mexico, for one example.</comment>


NSA Exploit of the Day: DEITYBOUNCE - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/01/nsa_exploit_of.html <comment><USER2> I had never heard of the term Interdiction [0]

It seems since 29th December 2013 is has an additional meaning [1]

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdiction)

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Interdiction&diff...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Interdiction&diff=588283302&oldid=545074830)</comment>


NASA and SpaceX launch astronauts live - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/Aymrnzianf0 <comment><USER2> 8:33pm GMT.

Only about an hour away from launch.</comment>


Ask YC: anything similar to Google Notebook or even better? - <AUTHOR>

I love google notebook but its not compatible with new firefox version ... so what are my options? i like something that allows me to click the link at the bottom of browser to save the webpage... or may be even better than this feature ... i'm going to try Zoho Notebook but would like to know other better options. <comment><USER2> if it's only for that matter you could use the Google Reader's notes / clipping adding bookmarklet - you save a url and add a comment.</comment>


Things you didn't know about Python - <AUTHOR> https://speakerdeck.com/u/mitsuhiko/p/didntknow

<comment><USER2> Do these postings of slides ever help anyone? I never seem to get anything out of just clicking through slides with no explanations. It's essentially reading 20 unjustified bullet points to me.

<comment><USER3> I agree. The problem is that modern slide design says that slides shouldn't be done in a way that lets them work independently of the presentation. That is, slides are there to provide structure and illustrate things that are difficult to describe verbally, but aren't meant to repeat what the presenter is saying.

It would be very nice if these online slide presentations came with the speaker's notes that actually cover the main points of what they're saying (with explanation). This assumes that these notes exist, but I feel that the slides by themselves are not very valuable.

(No disrespect meant to Armin Ronacher — I use his work every day and I'm a big fan of what he's done for the Python community.)

<comment><USER4> That would be more of an essay - which would certainly be valuable, but takes a considerable amount of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Armin's implementation of `cached_property` is not entirely correct. Well, it works, but the branch where `value` is not `missing` is never executed: the object's `__dict__` takes precedence over the descriptor _as long as the descriptor does not define `__set__` method_.

Here is an implementation of `cached_property` I use:

        class cached_property(object):

            def __init__(self, fget):
                self.fget = fget
                self.__name__ = fget.__name__
                self.__module__ = fget.__module__
                self.__doc__ = fget.__doc__

            def __get__(self, obj, objtype=None):
                if obj is None:
                    return self
                value = self.fget(obj)
                # For a non-data descriptor (`__set__` is not defined),
                # `__dict__` takes precedence.
                obj.__dict__[self.__name__] = value
                return value

<comment><USER6> Don't do this. Your implementation does not work if someone invokes the dscriptor's __get__ by hand which is not uncommon. My implementation takes the shortcut but also still does the correct thing if you keep a reference to the property object.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Best slide for me was "worry less & get stuff done". Good advice.

</comment><comment><USER8> Saw the talk in-person at Pycon South Africa this morning. Excellent presentation - thanks Armin.

<comment><USER9> Is there a video of this talk somewhere?

<comment><USER10> The talks are being recorded. They should be online later. Great talk from Armin!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> some context for slide 99? (which says "screw HN")

<comment><USER12> on HN every technology older than a week who isn't posted by very vocal 19 year old fans at least 4 times per day is 'dying'.

<comment><USER13> Can we please try and avoid the casual ageism? I'm 20 and I don't recognise my 19 year old self in that description. Further I know many people of all sorts of ages who switch to the latest 'cool' technology at the first opportunity.

<comment><USER14> The poster didn't say "every 19 year old is a vocal fan boy who posts 4 times a day"

The poster said that there are some 19 year olds who are very vocal about their fanaticism and who post 4 times a day.

It's not ageism because it's not generalized to an entire group of people. So if you don't recognize yourself in the comment, it's not aimed at you. Stop being hyper-defensive.

<comment><USER15> To imply being 19 or age in general has anything to do with being vocal or a fan is agism. What makes zalew believe those posts where made by 19 year olds? Last time I checked, HN did not require age verification or disclosed such information about its members.

<comment><USER16> Or maybe, just maybe, he was being sarcastic and not ageist? God, why do people need to take everything at face value...

<comment><USER17> I agree with you for this particular case but you are mistaken if you think that sarcastic and _ist are mutually exclusive. Sarcastic comments of a_ ist form can (and nontrivially often do): mask sincere _ism; be a more socially- acceptable-looking way of expressing actual_ ism; encourage _ism, especially of a casual degree; exhibit societal/subconscious/not-actively-malicious_ ism; or create a generally hostile environment for people of an oppressed class of *.

So, yeah, probably an overreaction for this particular occasion, but it's not so easy as writing it off as "sarcasm".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It looks very interesting, but I feel I'm missing half by seeing just the slides. Is there a video of this talk somewhere?

<comment><USER18> Hm, I see on the schedule page of PyCon-ZA that the talk was only this morning? (or night, depending on your time zones) So I can imagine that _if_ there'll be a video available, we'll have to wait for it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you are interested in learning more about python and caching I wrote a post about it couple days ago:

<http://russell.ballestrini.net/explaining-cache-with-python/>

<comment><USER20> That's more accurately described as memoization, as caching is a broader term.

Also, you might want to look into Sieve of Eratosthenes, as you only have to test up to sqrt(n) for primality: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_of_Eratosthenes>

<comment><USER19> Thank you, AncientPC. I have adjusted the article with the insight you and many others have provided me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a ton of respect for Armin. Can't wait for this video to be posted.

</comment><comment><USER22> I especially liked the last slide :)</comment>


How i created a lucrative website by accident - <AUTHOR> https://www.lazypreneur.pw/2016/steps-create-lucrative-website/?he <comment><USER2> What exactly is the lucrative website he created? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> A gaming niche specific site, nothing ground breaking just a little better than the competitors.</comment></comment>


Robert Scoble has allegedly continued to sexually harass women after going sober - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/20/robert-scoble-has-allegedly-continued-to-sexually-harass-women-after-going-sober/ <comment><USER2> Hitting on someone is not sexual harrassment.

I've partied w Scoble, he's a nice guy.</comment>


OwnCloud Switches from PHP to Go - <AUTHOR> https://owncloud.com/owncloud-infinite-scale-owncloud-unveils-new-architecture-for-unlimited-scalability <comment><USER2> Microservices, go, containers... I'm worried that I'll need a kubernetes cluster to run this thing, whereas at the moment I can run owncloud/nextcloud off a normal pc.

<comment><USER3> mhm i don't think so.

But it wont't be possible to run it on a cheap shared Host since the usually don't support running arbitrary binaries. I think they are aiming towards a more professional/corporate customer base. But since nextcloud is still a thing its not a big loss for the average nerd.

<comment><USER4> Running a binary really should be easier than installing a runtime and directories full of code. I'd be even more inclined to reach for a container in the latter case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder what nextcloud will do. I really would prefer something not written in PHP. It often feels very fragile.

<comment><USER6> And getting it working on some of the "enterprise"-class Linux distributions like CentOS requires some hoop-jumping, as PHP isn't being kept up to date on those. That's really the fault of the distribution, but the brunt of it falls on the admins to fix by installing PHP from other sources, some of which are questionable or require a lot of explanations to suit-wearing compliance- types. Having it written in something easier to wrangle would be nice, especially if that also passes through to Nextcloud.

<comment><USER7> I recommend using the IUS repo ("Inline with Upstream Stable") for installing PHP 7 on CentOS 7 [https://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/CentOS/7/x86_64/r...](https://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/CentOS/7/x86_64/repoview/)

These are drop-in replacements for the stock packages that don't break dependencies.</comment></comment></comment>


PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser - <AUTHOR> http://pythonmonk.com <comment><USER2> Interesting, however I feel like learning to code in a browser (even if it's JavaScript) doesn't work.

Sure, you may learn how to do a for loop or how variables work. But, you don't learn how to _actually_ use the language. Setting up a development environment, and understanding how everything is connected is much more important.

Let's say you ace everything here, on CodeAcademy, etc. You still can't actually build anything.

(For more on this, see this article from HN a few days ago: <http://blog.zackshapiro.com/want-to-learn-to-code-start-here>)

<comment><USER3> this kind of thing is a good resource for people who already know how to code, but need a fast and elegant syntax guide. its not useful for teaching beginners because, as you've said, it doesn't deal with the tool chain or project organization, etc. but if you know Ruby and want to learn Python, this is a great resource.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I'm actually learning Python at the moment (coming from Ruby & Java), and am finding this useful. Generally I don't think too highly of coding in a browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The first thing I always try on sites like these is stuff like this:

__import__('commands').getstatusoutput('ls /')

or

__import__('subprocess').call(["ls", "-l"])

which gets blocked by the interpreter somehow with

exceptions.OSError - [Errno 11] Resource temporarily unavailable

I'm curious as to how you managed to do this - I've always been interested in how to sandbox something like this.

<comment><USER6> This particular behaviour can occur because the process is disallowed to call fork() and can be done with setrlimit() (see RLIMIT_NPROC). There should be other protections, though, because forking a "ls" is not the only way to access the filesystem.

<comment><USER5> Ah, interesting.

File system access isn't blocked completely:

__import__("os").listdir("/evaluate")

open("/evaluate/test.py").readlines()

<comment><USER6> Execv'ing processes is OK as long as you don't fork:

        __import__("os").execv("/usr/bin/uname", ["uname", "-a"])
        Linux ip-10-196-3-111 2.6.32-amazon-xen-r3 #1 SMP Mon Jan 16 21:03:16 PST 2012 i686 GNU/Linux

As for the actual files, there are a few clues that a chroot is created for every request : /proc is not mounted, /etc is minimal (root + 1 user in passwd) and "ls -id /" returns a new inode number every time.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, we are using chroot (along with other things) to sandbox things on a per request basis.

\- Tejas from Team PythonMonk (I built the sandboxing stuff)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is beautiful and the usability is great. But can anyone recommend some online interactive Python learning that starts at the intermediate level? I need Pai Mei to whip my sorry skills into shape, starting with OOP, sockets, image handling, and maybe data persistence?

<comment><USER9> We already support teaching most of these - if you know anyone that would like to create courseware around any of these topics please let us know.

Our courseware marketplace is still in a private alpha, but we are actively soliciting awesome hackers that would like to teach online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Your turn now - go on and change the following code to compute the sum of the numbers 1 through 5."

If you input 15 and submit, it says the answer is correct. Do all online code courses just check for the retured value?

How do these services deal with someone running sum(i for i in xrange(1000000000000000000))?

<comment><USER11> But of course that is a valid piece of code!

"15" completely matches the specification you give.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tried the test to define unique. Wrote

       def unique(s):
           return list(set(s))

and it gave assertion errors. Nice presentation ... but incorrect Python implementation.

<comment><USER3> maybe you had a typo? or they have corrected this in the meantime? I just tried this problem and it was error free.

def unique(values): """Finds all unique elements of a list.

            >>> unique([])
            []
            >>> unique([1, 2, 1])
            [1, 2]
            >>> unique([1, 2, 1, 3, 4, 2])
            [1, 2, 3, 4]
        """
        # your code here
        return list(set(values))

it also works without the coercion to list. return set(values) is fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Both GitHub and Google signins failed for me and I lost progress in the first section. May just be the work network; I'll try it at home.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems like there is a bug over here [http://pythonmonk.com/learning/books/17-python- primer/chapte...](http://pythonmonk.com/learning/books/17-python- primer/chapters/98-conditional-expressions/lessons/240-conditional- expressions)

"Evaluates to True when age is 40 and name is "Bob" , which should be fine i think.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think this is a great way to get beginners / students coding, but the end product might be what we now know as "bolt-on" engineers. They put components together and build beautiful functional products, until it breaks and they have no idea what's "under the hood"

</comment><comment><USER16> This is really cool. I think the assertions that this learn-in-the-browser thing doesn't work is because folks on HN have seen so many entry-level courses at this point.

More interestingly, can I get transfer credits from Codecademy instead?

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks like it sends each command to run on a server - I'm curious why not execute it in the browser? (There are a few solutions for that?)

<comment><USER18> I tried llvm based project <https://github.com/kracekumar/test- empythoned(empythoned>: <https://github.com/replit/empythoned>). There are few limitation I am facing, `import` system don't work(compilation issue). From my experience more effort is required.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It is 2013. Why are you teaching Python 2?

<comment><USER3> while I agree that we should be more proactive about migrating to Python 3, if you're trying to be pragmatic it is most useful to teach Python 2.7 since that is the most widely used version.

<comment><USER19> Python 3, in 2013, is not lacking in pragmatism. It's not new, or experimental. Someone just learning today is going to have to immediately turn around and relearn things because they started out with an old version.

<comment><USER20> I don't know anyone who uses Python 3 in production. It's still seen as an experimental implementation.

<comment><USER21> I dont' know Python but I'm thinking about learning it. What's experimental about Python 3? I don't have any legacy reasons to start with 2.7. Why wouldn't I just start with 3?

<comment><USER3> there's nothing experimental about Python 3. its a stable release version and I think its already up to sub version 3.3.

HOWEVER, there are many important 3rd party libraries that have not yet been migrated to be fully compatible with Python 3. these libraries are far more important to writing real applications than the ability to use some newer syntactic constructs in Python 3.

<comment><USER22> > _HOWEVER, there are many important 3rd party libraries that have not yet > been migrated to be fully compatible with Python 3._

Are there any particular libraries blocking you? Numpy / SciPy, IPython, Requests, Django, Pyramid, Bottle, etc. have all been ported to Python 3.

<comment><USER3> South (database migration for django). Until django core has its own migration tool I won't be using it with Python 3.

PIL as well. similar reasons. django image fields are dependent on PIL.

Celery is still on Python 2 also, and while there are other message queues available, none of them is as easy to integrate with for an app that's already written in Python.

<comment><USER23> To replace PIL you should try Pillow, a fork of PIL that is capable of running on py3k (and 2.x).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Very far away from Perl Monks.

</comment><comment><USER25> This probably isn't for experienced developers, but it looks gorgeous.</comment>


The no-flush movement: the unexpected rise of the composting toilet - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/dec/09/no-flush-movement-composting-toilet-clean-water-waste-fertiliser-eco-revolution <comment><USER2> Does this process address issues associated with pathogens like e-coli, etc?

Japan also used to collect waste to use as fertilizer[1]. Though with modern fertilizers it's little used.

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil#Japan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil#Japan)

<comment><USER3> It can close the parasite lifecycle loop when it's used for agriculture, so it's best avoided for growing stuff that's going to reenter the foodchain.

The defector from North Korea who was in the news a couple of years ago was found to be full of parasitic worms when he was operated on, apparently because NK is using nightsoil to fertilise crops.

[https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/04/health/north-korea- defect...](https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/04/health/north-korea-defector- doctor-intl/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I installed a composting toilet a few months ago at an off-grid cabin in the mountains. The important thing to get right is the venting system. This keeps a negative pressure in the compost chamber so air is continually drawn down through the toilet and up out the vent stack. When this is working correctly the bathroom will have no smell at all.

The second thing to worry about is the overflow drain. Depending on temperature and usage, urine may not evaporate faster then it is added. There is an overflow drain to handle this situation. Local building codes may require you to pipe the overflow to a conventional septic system, thus negating a lot of the cost and simplicity benefits of a composting toilet.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm always surprised that urinals (especially so-called 'waterless' urinals) haven't taken off more in residential settings - they don't take a huge amount of space, can pay for themselves in terms of water costs relatively quickly if you have metered water and enough men/boys in the house and don't present any particular new issues in terms of dealing with waste.

For toilets, gray water systems (using waste bath/shower water to fill the toilet) equally achieves savings (at a cost of space) without people needing to do anything different.

<comment><USER6> Why install a urinal when there is a perfectly good sink just sitting there?

<comment><USER7> That reads like a joke but I'm genuinely curious what the answer is.

<comment><USER6> I was half joking.

I read an article from dollar shave club a while ago on the subject. Apparently some men do it. Just a warning, their articles are closer to click bait than to journalism.

[https://www.dollarshaveclub.com/content/story/toward- grand-u...](https://www.dollarshaveclub.com/content/story/toward-grand- unifying-theory-men-pee-sink)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Urine has a NPK of 11-2-4, that's something you $10 a bottle for at a garden store, it definitely has a noticeable impact on plant life, especially nitrogen hungry corn.

My farm was built with an outhouse, today it has a toilet with a septic system where the waste is stored and liquids dispersed underground. It's wasteful and destructive to the water table, but convenient and recognized as safe, despite being biggest water quality threat in rural areas.

Composting toilets are definitely needed if we're going to keep up this standard of living we've grown accustom to.

<comment><USER9> Can you use human urine directly as fertilizer or are there other chemicals in there that are not so good for the plants?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A practical advice video on the topic by the (formerly) RVing couple Gone with the Wynns:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYR6GPmDzVM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYR6GPmDzVM)

They actually switched to a sailboat a few years ago for their travels and are now partly across Pacific (per recent episodes). Still use a composting toilet on the boat.

</comment><comment><USER11> Quakers and Mennonites have been doing it similar to this way for hundreds of years.</comment>


First screenshots of App.net - <AUTHOR> http://dribbble.com/ianmintz

<comment><USER2> Since you're just starting, can you maybe go beyond what Twitter does in some obvious ways? We've learned a lot about social media in the last few years and you're still agile enough to incorporate all the lessons and make things significantly better.

As an example, my biggest issue with Twitter is the noise, which mostly stems from a single issue: people I follow don't only share interesting things, but they also share a lot of irrelevant stuff such as pictures from family hike. I'm sure this is interesting to some of their personal friends, but not to me. I want to subscribe to that person on a "coding" stream, and leave the "personal" stream alone. People are multi-dimensional beings with many orthogonal interests; Consider giving them multiple stdouts.

Also, I have to say, 140 is often too little :) Will you also force me to write up the occasional longer post on Google+ and then link to it?

This looks nice, I just hope you won't be a Twitter bare bones re- implementation that I have to pay for. Ideology gives you many points, but I'm not certain about just to what degree a sponsored tweet here and there really bothers me.

<comment><USER3> As someone who doesn't use Facebook, Twitter, G+ or other crazy social networks, I must say that for the first time I can see myself using a social network _if_ it was like what you described (i.e. multiple streams).

Though, in practice I don't think it would be as successful as you (and maybe I) hope. People who use twitter want to say something and they want to say it fast; they don't want to stop and think "is what I'm sharing ( _for example, iOS 6 download links when it comes out_ ) code related, or related to Apple, or work?"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I made a Twitter clone with a Bootstrap UI, I don't think I could generate much buzz. Kudos to these folks, I suppose.

<comment><USER5> This seems almost too obvious to mention, but they generated buzz based on their differentiator (business model) before showing any hint of the UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know it is very, very early, but I would have expected more than slightly above Twitter Bootstrap...

<comment><USER7> These are only the first screenshots of the UI built on the API to show this isn't vaporware. You should follow that dribbble account, because there is much more to come!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's awesome that App.net is trying to build something new, but I think the Hacker News market is somewhat saturated considering how many articles have been on the front page lately. If people haven't donated by now, I don't think a few screenshots will sway their opinion that much. I'd guess that turning your effort towards other avenues would be a better use of time.

<comment><USER9> First I'd ever heard of App.net was Siracusa's "Hypercritical" podcast last night. This post on HN reminded me to check it out. I added my support. Just wish someone would do something like this for Path (and all the other web services that I love, but don't want to become the "product")

It's times like this that I realize how much I take HN for granted. Great service. No Ads. Fantastic Community.

<comment><USER10> Hacker News is an ad for Y Combinator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sorry but either you see your project more important than it is, or you don't know how to present it. (I think both is true.)

</comment><comment><USER12> I understand the problems Twitter poses, but what's the problem with Identica?

<comment><USER13> I have found Identica (Status.NET) to be very slow. Other than that, I dislike the UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sure I'll sound horribly impolite, but why did you choose such an Apple- esque style?

You all could be a revolutionary team, but as far as I can see the UI is not a revolution at all. I'm not telling you that a drastically innovative interface is needed, but to be future-proof you should go fully-digital, if not something farther.

The interface must be perfect, cool, useful, built tightly around the user and functions, not _nice_.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the feedback. I know I probably sound redundant at this point, but we are still very early in the development this product. These screenshots are meant to show a working prototype built on our API and also to spark your imagination!

<comment><USER14> @comex for example expressed his likes about the UI, do not take my opinions as simple critics about the style. But looks like an UI that every UI designer could come up to. Well, it's pretty and curated. Thinking about it you have to account for customers/users with strong expectation from such a service, it's not that stupid to go for the well-trodden path.

I hope you're not going to be flooded by a too common design...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow. The fact that some teaser screenshots are getting so much attention is great news for App.net.

Honestly I wasn't sure about Dalton's prospects at first -- but with the developer community hanging on to his every word, he might have a shot.

I still remember the days when Twitter was just a bunch of geeks tweeting about how much they hated MySpace. Now they can update their App.net statuses about how much they hate Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks pretty.

I definitely want to support entrepreneurs and App.net. But, quite frankly I don't see how they are going to build a user base.

<comment><USER7> That's the beauty of how we are going about this. If our campaign succeeds, there will be at least 9,999 like-minded individuals with you on day one!

<comment><USER16> I do want to support you guys.

But just having 10K people who want App.net successful is not enough to get me to put in $50 (or to even try it out for free).

Now, if this a community of a 100 entrepreneurs, I might be more interested. Perhaps, you guys need channels for various groups or something.

My point is that I cannot yet find an excuse to see why you will be successful and therefore would want to bet anything on you. Help me find that excuse :-)

<comment><USER7> I understand your uncertainty, however I encourage you to search twitter for people who have pledged their support (we have highlighted a handful on join.app.net). I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _Builds twitter clone... uses twitter bootstrap_

<comment><USER18> Now that's #ironic

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is this a screenshot of a Photoshop mockup, static HTML + CSS, or a live app running on a server somewhere?

<comment><USER7> The screenshots are of a live app built on our API.

<comment><USER19> Cool :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seems like the name of this project alone is enough to guarantee traction problems. Having a searchable name these days counts for more than having a name that is clever, short, appealing, or anything else.

<comment><USER21> status.net has the perfect name, yet little traction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why don't they just build on <http://status.net>? Hasn't this all been done before? <http://identi.ca>

<comment><USER23> because they have an ego, and want to take credit and praise for creating it. They dun care if the idea becomes a reality without them being involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What happened to the clean branding that the current splash/Kickstarter campaign page have? The textures here are really distracting, even in 400x300.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the feedback. The app is nowhere near finished, but we just wanted to post initial screenshots of a live app built on our API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Am i looking at a twitter clone running stock version of twitter bootstrap? A bit ironic.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think that whatever comes out of this campaign (i.e. certain failure), the team of app.net should continue developing this service bc the need for it will emerge one day in the future. It's just that right now, this point hasn't been reached yet. But being able to move first when the time has come is a good thing. Right now they should, instead of associating this project with failure, provide the service for free but be clear about the fact that they will start charging for it at some point in the future. Or maybe offer a free and a paid plan with the former being limited in possible API calls.</comment>