A Portable Cloud Experiment: SFTP Cloud Storage Sync - <AUTHOR> http://www.evanjones.ca/portable-cloud-experiment.html <comment><USER2> Have you looked at [https://rclone.org/](https://rclone.org/)? Also written in Go, and handles more cloud providers (and SFTP) than you can shake a stick at.

<comment><USER3> +1 for rclone, it is fantastic and I am using it to sync both local filesystems to backblaze b2, as well as directly from a remote SFTP filesystem also to backblaze b2 or local.

Have also used it to back up my Google Drive, it exports all of the google documents as like docx or xlsx (or whatever you request). Critical for a small non profit where we use Google Drive to keep all our docs, theres no good easy way to back it up otherwise.

It's really a fantastic bit of software.

Having said that it seems OPs use case was really to explore "Go Cloud" so it's probably not that helpful input in the context of the actual article, but great context for anyone reading the comments that might actually want such a working solution.

One thing I keep getting errors from rclone about that is sortof related to this, is that it can't sync symlinks from SFTP as it doesn't really understand them - something that can be fixed but it's an example of the fact you always have side cases to cover- even though rclone seems to have done a good job at handling many of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's true that you usually get the lowest common denominator when you build abstractions, but cloud storage has a pretty broad set of useful common denominators. The fact that the author runs into so much trouble says more about the library than the approach.

</comment><comment><USER5> Relevant: The Law of Leaky Abstractions [1]

[1] [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of- leaky-a...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky- abstractions/)</comment>


Eclipse Dirigible 4.4: Cloud Development Platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.dirigible.io/ <comment><USER3> Since it took a bit of digging, I figured that I'd put this here: "Eclipse Dirigible is an open source project that provides Integrated Development Environment as a Service (IDEaaS) as well as runtime containers integration for the running applications" [1]

\</comment><comment>

[1] [https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/ecd.dirigible](https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/ecd.dirigible)

</comment><comment><USER4> Would be very curious to know if anybody has ever enountered this in the wild?

It's on the one hand alluring and on the other horrifying to me. I'm very curious what the real-world experience is of trying to develop and deploy an application this way. There appears to be an enormous amount of work in it ... so I'm assuming some non-trivial amount of people are using it in anger out there?

<comment><USER5> It seems on the surface like Rails in a sense, just with an IDE out of the box and... in js.

It's actually pretty nifty make me at least want to build a ToDo (or something) app with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a good approximation of what we want to achieve indeed - <USER2> productivity in building applications of a selected list of archetypes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has Eclipse improved in recent versions? I do .net so I use Visual Studio 2019 mostly, and just used Eclipse back in the day for Java development, and then for Android. When Google did a fork of JetBrains as Android Studio I felt it was a pleasant improvement and an indication that the Android community wasn't happy with Eclipse either, but I may have read too much into this change.

<comment><USER4> It's improved a lot (I use it every day, alongside IntelliJ and they both have pros and cons, but I probably prefer Eclipse) - but this isn't really related to the classic Eclipse IDE as far as I can tell. It's something completely separate.

<comment><USER6> I see, that's interesting. Thanks for the update on Eclipse. Release notes for dirigible said they switched to xterm.js, I've been using that lib a lot in both an electron and a web app and it's been impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The first thing I noticed is how similar the interface is to VS Code. Is this some Frankensteined version of Code? If so, then a lot of the extensions from the marketplace should be compatible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dirigible's WebIDE indeed provides a simplistic look&feel of a modern WebIDE, which in fact is a bit similar to VSCode, but it is quite different from goals, personas, target scenarios, behaviour, etc. perspectives. In short, if you are looking for a general purpose IDE/WebIDE to write your "standard" Java, Node, Go, Ruby, Rust, PHP, etc. you should better choose Eclipse, VSCode, IntelliJ, Theia, or any other of this kind. In case you are in the "business applications" development side, where the time to deliver a product with a higher complexity, with many integrations, on different infrastructures maybe Dirigible can be your choice. The most recent newsletter can shed more light here: [https://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2020/ma...](https://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2020/march/2.php) As it is a "niche player", any feedback and feature requests are very much appreciated by the team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We changed the url from [https://www.dirigible.io/release/2020/04/04/news_new_release...](https://www.dirigible.io/release/2020/04/04/news_new_release_4_4.html) to the main project page, since this project seems never to have been discussed on HN before. At least I couldn't find it.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a horrible name for a SW product.

<comment><USER8> We've asked you before to stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. Could you please really stop? This is a site for curious, thoughtful conversation, which comments like this are poisonous to.

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


Show HN: Tiny Guitar reaches 1 million downloads - <AUTHOR>

I'm an indie developer making iOS games.
My guitar app, Tiny Guitar, has reached 1 million DLs after about 14 months on the App Store.
Check it out here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id504720445
It reached 128K weekly active users this March, and is currently hovering at around 100K weekly actives. http://i.imgur.com/Z4Zha73.png
I'm anxiously waiting for the new Nexus 7 to get released, so I can explore porting some of my apps over to Android. You may have seen me post about my piano app in the past: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id477014214
I'm currently also exploring Tiny Drums, a natural follow up to my two music apps... but I'm not yet sure how I can make it simple yet engaging.
Lemme know if you have any questions! <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable Links:

Tiny Guitar: [https://itunes.apple.com/app/id504720445](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id504720445)

Tiny Guitar Weekly Actives: [http://i.imgur.com/Z4Zha73.png](http://i.imgur.com/Z4Zha73.png)

Tiny Piano: [https://itunes.apple.com/app/id477014214](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id477014214)

</comment><comment><USER2> How did you go about dealing with licensing the various songs used in the app?

<comment><AUTHOR> In short, I do not, since I could not find an appropriate type of license through HFA or similar outlets.

Specifically, the app does not contain any samples from the MP3s. It also does not include song lyrics or any printed sheet music.

It DOES include link outs to iTunes, so our apps drive downloads to the artists songs. My goal is to compensate artists by generating more downloads for their songs (not that they really need my help).

If any music executive ever contacts me regarding licensing, I'll be more than happy to accommodate them. In fact, I'd LOVE to make a branded app for artists such as Bruno or Taylor or Katy. Or, if they are not interested in including their song in my app, I can simply remove it.

<comment><USER3> While I'm not a lawyer, I believe claiming ignorance won't keep a lawsuit away if the record labels choose to come after you for using their copyrighted material.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I am not trying to feign ignorance, and I would like to find a way to properly license the content and compensate the rights holders.

However, I've looked into it and I don't currently think there is a license type (mechanical/synchronization) that is appropriate for these apps. The apps do not contain any recordings and do not offer un-aided playback of the "songs." The user has to tap out his/her own interpretation of the notes, to make it sound like the song.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> General open question: How could someone make money off this? A free app with millions of downloads.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ads, primarily. I use iAd and AdMob.

<comment><USER4> What has your experience been like?

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty good. Making a free app with ads means that you need to increase engagement (i.e., make the app more fun). That sort of aligns your interests with the user's interests, since the user wants more content, and you want more eyeballs looking at the ads.

I also offer in-app purchases which will unlock more content, and also remove ads permanently. About 1.5% of users will upgrade / remove ads.

<comment><USER4> Awesome, best of luck to you. What app if you don't mind my asking?

<comment><AUTHOR> Both of my apps, Tiny Piano & Tiny Guitar, use the same business model. Free + Ads, then IAP to remove ads and unlock more content. It works great for indie developers because I don't have a big marketing budget to convince a user to spend $0.99 on my app before they've even tried it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kik could pave the way for more mainstream tech company ICOs - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/12/kik-ico/ <comment><USER2> I don't think I'm stupid, but I still just don't get it...

I give you money, and in return I get...a token.

I can't eat a token. I can't live in it. I can't wear it. I can't buy Starbucks with it. It doesn't promise to return me more dollars or tokens if I hang onto it. It doesn't offer me any right to the governance or management of the money raised. It doesn't offer me a claim of ownership of some portion of an enterprise.

I read the article closely and its really just a lot nonsense. There is a lot of handwaving and 'community blah blah' but it lacks a simple, straightforward explanation of how these tokens are to be used.

I don't think I'm a stupid person, and I'm not trying to be obtuse. This just doesn't make any sense to me.

As best I can tell, the transaction which best resembles an ICO is buying chips from a casino. They have all of the qualities I describe above -- that is they're not good for anything. They can be used to gamble in a casino however. That is their sole usefulness. So I guess maybe that's how I should be thinking about it.

<comment><USER3> >I can't eat a token. I can't live in it. I can't wear it. I can't buy Starbucks with it. It doesn't promise to return me more dollars or tokens if I hang onto it. It doesn't offer me any right to the governance or management of the money raised. It doesn't offer me a claim of ownership of some portion of an enterprise.

You can't do any of that with a lot of tech stocks actually either (ex: SNAP). SNAP pays no dividends, offers no guarantee of paying future dividends, you can't vote, you can't get more dollars if you hold on to it aside from the fact that someone else might speculate on it in an exchange. In a certain obtuse sense, newer tech stocks are becoming tokens and tokens are becoming quasi-shitty securities while trying to dance around securities laws. Honestly, I am not trying to troll, but I don't think there's any real difference between SNAP stock and Kik tokens in essence aside from a piece of paper saying that the SNAP stock is "stock" and the Kik token is a "token."

<comment><USER4> SNAP is a traded equity listed on a regulated exchange that by its very nature has significant liquidity. Very different in practice

<comment><USER3> Actually not at all different in practice. It's different in THEORY but actually almost identical in practice. In theory, SNAP stock is legally classified as a security and recognized by the United States government as providing some kind of weird, abstract ownership of the Snap Inc organization (although all classical markers of ownership are not present in the stock). In practice, my post was pointing out it's basically as bad or even worse than a token.

<comment><USER5> It's not remotely 'identical' in practice.

Kik can do whatever they want with their currency, there's no oversight, no transparency, no nothing.

\----> The _whole point_ of doing an ICO instead of an IPO is because they can paper over and gloss over issues, avoid regulation and transparency, and take advantage of wide-eyed and under-informed speculators.

It's just a way to leverage over individuals keen to make it big on speculative mania.

If Kik were in a position to do an IPO - they would. But they can't. Because they are slowly dying, and have almost no revenues. That doesn't sound like a good position to be in. So how could they possibly raise money otherwise without a lot of smoke and mirrors?

Why not simply 'raise a bunch of USD' and then 'pay developers' some of that USD - instead of fabricated coins?

Because the terms of an ICO to them vis-a-vis 'investors' are incredibly better.

Yes - an argument could be made that 'regulations are onerous and limiting and create undue friction' \- and that's on some level a good point.

But this won't end well in the long run.

These ICO's are speculative mania. They'll be a 'good investment' for some, but there's nary any actual value being created.

ICO's are 99% a 'net zero gain' scheme whereby a lot of money changes hands - and it will go from 'dumb uniformed people to smart, informed, empowered and slightly greedy' people.

The only long-run winner for these things are the Hedge Funds getting in early, backing the ICOs, and then dumping their positions over time.

ICO's are not a financial innovation.

You can't create value out of thin air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mainstream tech companies don't want to be accused of fraud, or even seen to be somehow connected with fraud. Naturally they want to avoid ICOs, that instantly undermines their credibility.

I talked to a guy who runs a successful ICO prepararion consulting, just told him 'i am a successful developer who did these and those things, is there a way to partner with you to make some leverage out of it?' and he told me that there is nothing technical in what they do, that is a machine to make money out of money, like, you bring in $150-$1000K and make $5-$10M on ICO with minimal effort and luck needed, that's it. No programming needed, they copy- paste all the minimal technical stuff needed. They never ask 'founders' if they have any programming backgrounds or if they actually plan to build anything, just to avoid embarrassment as everyone kinda knows they aren't. More, usually they aren't even under their real names, which is sensible for a criminal.

Everything blockchain-related is at best a Ponzi scheme and usually, outright fraud, except the structures that provide technical means for these frauds, like Ethereum itself.

And yes, these events make me feel that the next financial meltdown is coming. There is already too much too easy money around. If blockchain was ready in 2009, that just couldn't happen.

<comment><USER3> >Everything blockchain-related is at best a Ponzi scheme and usually, outright fraud, except the structures that provide technical means for these frauds, like Ethereum itself.

Oh please. Quit your whining. Yes, there are criminals and fraudsters in crypto trying to squeeze money and run since it's not regulated, but "everything blockchain-related is at best a Ponzi-scheme"?? That's like saying facebook stock is a Ponzi scheme because Peter Thiel got it 100,000x less in price than the people who bought it today on the exchange.

<comment><USER6> No, Bitcoin valuation is fine! Until some better crypto - which will really solve scalability problem - replaces it.

What's not fine is that all or nearly all 'entrepreneurial' activity in blockchain space is aimed at pulling money out of pockets of clueless people, presenting it as 'investment', but really gambling. People who are building nearly all projects just _know_ they aren't going to even start building anything, they are just after collecting money. Those limited who do, have no chance because their tokens will inevitably collapse too once this Ponzi scheme explodes, people will just sell every kind of shitcoin when they know it was a scam, and even 'investors' in those who aren't scams, will inevitably lose money too.

<comment><USER7> There are plenty examples of responsibly run ICO's. OMG for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> IMO Kik messenger is a classic case of a company that had 5 funding rounds, never really took off, and are now jumping on the blockchain bandwagon with a 'feasible' idea for a coin use case just to please their investors. I've been following them for a while. They claim to have a lot of users but not once they released DAU or MAU, only "Users" which they claimed to be 500mm (registration with no verification). + They've had a range of different scandals (child pornography, pedophila, just google it) which they are not planning to solve.

*[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kik-interactive#/ent...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kik-interactive#/entity)

</comment><comment><USER9> I think people need to be very careful about what assets they're selling with ICOs.

Check out this framework put out by Debevoise and Plimpton[0] and make sure you're NOT selling securities.

If your asset is a security, it won't have any liquidity because exchanges must now be licensed to be a security exchange (which doesn't exist in crypto- land yet), so there is no upside for investors. A lot of this is heavily pulled from the SEC's investigation into the DAO[1].

If you're selling a token/coin as anything else, it seems the SEC is taking these things by a case-by-case basis to determine if what type of asset class they are.

If you're looking to ICO (pre-sale and launch) use management and KYC (Know Your Customer) software[2]. It saves a ton of pain and suffering in the long run.

And as always rule number one is: Don't commit fraud.

[0] [https://www.coinbase.com/legal/securities-law- framework.pdf](https://www.coinbase.com/legal/securities-law-framework.pdf)

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf)

[2] [https://presale.synapse.ai/](https://presale.synapse.ai/)

<comment><USER10> I guarantee you Kik spent at least $1mil in legal bills for their ICO, I assume they know what they are doing

<comment><USER2> I think you're optimistic. There's gonna be a lot of tears and recriminations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminder: kik is the company who demanded from a contributor to remove his npm package with the same name and the whole sequence of events led to npm havoc.

[http://blog.npmjs.org/post/141577284765/kik-left-pad-and- npm](http://blog.npmjs.org/post/141577284765/kik-left-pad-and-npm)

<comment><USER12> Pretty standard for a company to defend its trademark, indeed NPM sided with them.

The article you link to places the blame for that "npm havoc" solely with the contributor you mention.

>Under our dispute policy, an existing package with a disputed name typically remains on the npm registry...

>In this case, though, without warning to developers of dependent projects, Azer unpublished his kik package and 272 other packages.

>It was abrupt unpublishing, not our resolution policy, that led to yesterday's disruptions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just for interest's sake, the Kin ICO has been a fizzer compared to many other ICO's.

In the first 24 hours in which preregistered participants were eligible to buy equal amounts of tokens only 20% was sold. Now, almost at the end of day 2 during which contributions have been uncapped, around 60% of the total has sold.

Compared to other ICOs where they sell out within a minute or two, or where whitelisted participants snap up 75% on day 1, this is pretty slow. I think it probably won't reach the 75 million cap.

Here is why I didn't get involved: 1) They presold $50million tokens to polychain capital, pantera capital and blockchain capital at a 30% discount very recently. 1/2 of these tokens had no freeze and could be dumped on the market at any time. Polychain capital has already shown that they are willing to dump large amounts of tokens within days of an ICO if the price is right last month with 0x project.

2) They are offering 1 trillion tokens but minting 10 trillion, allowing them to basically dictate monetary policy. One of their employees even posted on twitter that they don't want "too much" price appreciation, and if it occurs they would intervene in the market (eg. dump more tokens into the market).

Come on. If you want me to buy your made up, meaningless, nothing token, don't take the piss by selling it at a massive discount to hedge fund dumpers, and don't tell me that you're going to control the price. If I'm going to take a dumb risk, and it is a dumb risk, I want the possibility of some upside.

<comment><USER12> Isn't the fact that it didn't sell out in an hour a good thing?

Compared to other ICOs, the required pre-registering, first day buy limit and other things made this much less hectic for potential buyers, vs say Filecoin's one-hour window where you could actually participate. I'd like to see other ICOs adopt some of the practices that Kin used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > "we asked ourselves how do we answer the question about how we will become a > profitable business [...] We didn't have an answer we really believed."

So we decided to raise money from unsophisticated investors in an unregulated market, where nobody asks such inconvenient questions!

Seriously, can you be any more devastatingly transparent? I predict that the SEC will not look kindly on this.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think that a mainstream company starting using Tokens and showing the potential of Blockchain to others is more important than the ICO. In this moment, we need a successful case of use of Tokens in large scale.

<comment><USER16> Doesn't this just show a company so desperate for publicity that they tried to wrangle a blockchain between them and their potential customers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just wanted to add that Kik is the evil people from the npm issue. Say no to legal abuse. Say no to Kik.

If I have [https://foo.bar](https://foo.bar) I have full rights to [https://foo.bar/kik/](https://foo.bar/kik/)

Any idea otherwise is absurd.

</comment><comment><USER18> fraud and fraud.

The guy who managed the ICO, Daniel Peled [1], is a major fraudster [2]. Plus just Google his name, he has another failed startup [3]. Wonder if his investors know that he runs two shows at the same time...

1] [https://kin.kik.com/papers/Kin_Whitepaper_V1_English.pdf?ver...](https://kin.kik.com/papers/Kin_Whitepaper_V1_English.pdf?version=1a9e783a4ccdf9936d1dd7d319fdeac4)

2] [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1585607.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1585607.0)

3] [https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/30743/body-blow-for- pay...](https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/30743/body-blow-for-paykey-as- apple-orders-westpac-off-its-turf)

</comment><comment><USER19> The amount of negativity towards the cryptocurrency space on HN is staggering. Even worse is the fact that a lot of comments are coming from people who obviously have no clue how the whole ecosystem works. I guess a lot of them are bothered by the fact that ICOs allowed wealth to move in a direction opposite of them. I honestly expected a lot more from this community.

Those of you that are not yet corrupted by the 'everything cryptocurrency related is a scam' attitude: try to keep an open mind. Yes, there is a lot of shady stuff going on, but that doesn't mean there is no potential in this space. We are witnessing a creation of a new industry with tremendous potential to change we do business. You should be excited!

<comment><USER20> I think the big problem is that most cryptocurrency proponents are anarcho- capitalists, and most people here don't agree with that ideology. If for one am fascinated with the technology, did some trading and some programming stuff, but I'm afraid of cryptocurrencies allowing rich people screwing normal people even more than now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How do you buy ICO tokens in Kik? Using Google Play In-app Billing and sharing 30% with Google?

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure what you're asking, you cannot participate in the ICO from the app as far as I'm aware.</comment></comment>


TypeScript support added to Create React App - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/pull/4837 <comment><USER2> offtopic, but I'm in the middle of trying to convince my small team to pick up typescript for a new significant node backend for our company. It seems like a no-brainer from my perspective. Compilation is fast, we would use `strict` but would allow devs to default to `any` if the types got too hard. There are no downsides but so many upsides - better refactoring, intellisense, documentation, communication of interfaces, protection against the javascript and library minefields. Glad to see there are lots of other people thinking this is valuable - wish I could figure out the right way to convince my team.

<comment><USER3> > There are no downsides but so many upsides

I've not used TS, but from what I've read the types from TS are not js compatible, so once you go into TS you have code that just isnt js.

(As opposed to flow, where you can just have it not be used)

While transpiling is normal, I'm as hesitant to tie myself to TS as I am to, say, a non-standard decorators syntax. Anyone coming to me with "there are no downsides" in such a case doesnt sound very credible.

Assuming I'm wrong, how would you address this?

<comment><USER4> You're wrong.

Once you transpile the TS, you have standardized ECMAScript. Want to stop using TS? No problem. Just delete your TS files and work from your JS files.

And, beyond that, TS is intended to be a superset -- never incompatible, just "extra".

Finally, you can use TypeScript the same way Flow is used, through comments.

Tying yourself to TS isn't really something you can do, and there's zero risk in using it. You can always throw it out later.

<comment><USER5> > No problem. Just delete your TS files and work from your JS files.

This is quite an irresponsible comment.

The JS code generated isn't really meant for editing especially if you used a feature that isn't present on the runtime (like async/await in browser), not to mention all the formatting is rearranged.

If you're willing to go back to JS, you want to keep the original source.

<comment><USER4> "Irresponsible" is a bit of an overstatement, don't you think? The TS team explicitly says their goal is to generate readable JS, unlike (for example) Clojure or Scala.

Also, the async/await thing isn't an issue if you target the latest ECMAScript version. That's the only really ugly thing, and it's been easily avoidable for over a year.

<comment><USER5> Readable JS doesn't mean, convert back to the file in the format you used to for editing.

That comment could make people throw away the original and end up with machine generated code when going back.

<comment><USER4> Have you read transpiled TS before? It's sometimes almost identical to the source. It's as close as you can get to just removing the static typing. Variables have the same names, for example.

I used to have a problem where I'd be debugging the JS instead of TS file because visually, they were almost identical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Diff of the pull request: [https://github.com/facebook/create-react- app/pull/4837/commi...](https://github.com/facebook/create-react- app/pull/4837/commits/506d1734e02823ad8094ede96a9aa4110381e586)

<comment><USER7> Interesting that the first line of that pull request removed the Oxford comma.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure it wan't intended at first place though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is awesome. I recently moved from Typescript to plain Javascript for a project and it is quite frustrating.

You don't realise what you had till it's gone!

<comment><USER10> For someone stubborn that refuse to use TS, what are you missing ? Is it the IDE tools or the compiler error messages, or writing type annotations ?

<comment><USER11> In addition to icholy's points, stronger typing means one traps a whole class of errors at compile/build time, as opposed to runtime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> BTW, anyone here used ReastReason, BuckleScript is it? I've been meaning to look into it but don't have a sense of the payoff. I read that it can coexist which is a great feature. Wonder how it compares to a TypeScript workflow.

<comment><USER13> As much as I want to love it, I've found it far too restrictive, which makes it difficult to play around with and learn (although error messages have recently improved).

And while I like that JSX is built-in, I don't like that it's so different. And having to use <div> ReasonReact.stringToElement("Blah") </div> (The spaces are required) everywhere instead of <div>Blah<div> makes it feel like a poor imitation of JSX and isn't fun at all. But maybe they've fixed some of that.

Someone else said Reason is "better". The type system might be more sound but TS is far more flexible and forgiving, and doesn't have ugly and off-putting syntax for promises/async and interop.

<comment><USER7> I find the benefits outweigh those disadvantages, but I would never suggest switching to Reason for a non-experimental project at work because I think the disadvantages scream "this isn't quite ready yet."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pretty much just file extension support and docs. The support mainly comes from Babel 7.

<comment><USER15> I'd call that a good thing, really. Not needing ever more dependencies.

I think this is a solid direction to go.

Let's just say I give the React devs... props.

<comment><USER16> Funny, cause just using typescript to compile means you get to drop a lot of Babel dependencies / eslint dependencies.

<comment><USER17> There's still react-scripts-ts [1] which drops the majority of Babel in the CRA pipeline for solely Typescript. Presumably, it will remain active as it is still a useful alternative if you know you are going to want Typescript from day one. (This Babel-based support is perfect for those unsure and looking to experiment, which is great.)

[1] [https://github.com/wmonk/create-react-app- typescript](https://github.com/wmonk/create-react-app-typescript)

<comment><USER16> I use react-scripts-ts. There's an open issue discussing the future of it now that CRA does it on its own.

[https://github.com/wmonk/create-react-app- typescript/issues/...](https://github.com/wmonk/create-react-app- typescript/issues/431)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to use TypeScript, but I've hit walls of errors that are nearly as bad as the old C++ template errors! (Though to be fair, this was a while ago, the compiler may have improved).

SO: Any _good_ way to learn TypeScript, particularly the more complicated types?

<comment><USER19> What sort of errors are you running into, and what project setup are you using?

If you're using Create-React-App-TS, that's a separate fork of CRA 1.x that adds TS support, and has _horribly_ restrictive lint rules (many common style practices are treated as _compile_ errors). See [https://github.com/wmonk/create-react-app- typescript/issues/...](https://github.com/wmonk/create-react-app- typescript/issues/333) for discussion. (I ran across this while trying to set up a TS project for another team.)

I'm happy to see the TS support in CRA 2.x, because now I can actually recommend that people use it to get started with TS support.

I personally had never actually _used_ TS at all until this last week, when I was helping that same team rework some of their code. They'd been slapping `someVar : any` across the entire codebase just to make the compiler shut up. I tried adding a type representing their API response object, added it as a prop to the appropriate React component, and showed them how you could start getting autocomplete and compile-time catching of mistakes, and suddenly they began to see that there were actually benefits of using TS, not just overhead. I'm hoping to try adding TS support in to my own team's codebase in the near future.

<comment><USER20> I use TypeScript every day, and I like it way better than JavaScript, but here is an example of a bad error message: [http://ss.nican.net/photo_2018-10-22_22-09-58.jpg](http://ss.nican.net/photo_2018-10-22_22-09-58.jpg)

<comment><USER19> Yup, totally agree - that's pretty tough to read.

In that _specific_ example, I think the key part is the "... is not assignable to ServerRoute | ServerRoute[]". It's just giving you all the fields in the type of the object you _are_ returning, and trying to tell you "I can't go from an A to a B". But yes, hard to pick out the key bits of info in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Great to see. Any javascript project of reasonable size quickly eventually collapses under its own weight.

<comment><USER22> Typescript looks interesting and increasingly appealing -- it is high on my list of tech to explore.

However, absolutist statements are not very useful... It shouldn't even need saying, but clearly large javascript projects do succeed from time to time.

<comment><USER23> "Time to time" is reductive even. Large Javascript projects succeed all the time, and have done for decades. This whole thread needs a bit of perspective, no matter what you think of Typescript, the web wasn't invented in 2015...

<comment><USER22> Very true. I was being soft with my language in an effort to make my point more digestible.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SHA1 collisions down to 2^52 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://eurocrypt2009rump.cr.yp.to/837a0a8086fa6ca714249409ddfae43d.pdf

<comment><USER2> Quick context:

A reasonable attack against SHA1 is cause for alarm. The "next step up" is SHA256, which is a function that designers actively avoid because it's expensive. Virtually everything that used MD5 had a trivial upgrade path to SHA1.

Most SSL certificates are signed with SHA1.

Interestingly, the SSL protocol itself uses both MD5 and SHA1, but is not vulnerable to these attacks, because Paul Kocher got them to use _both_ MD5 and SHA1 (on interleaved portions of the handshake).

<comment><USER3> Using both MD5 and SHA1 helps very little. If you can find a collision in one, you can find a simultaneous collision for the other as well. (Since both are semi-broken.)

Basically if you use two you are as strong as the strongest one - but NOT stronger.

So it was a gamble of sorts on which one (MD5 or SHA1) would break first. But if both break (as has semi-happened) it doesn't help at all.

<comment><USER4> That assumes that the attack can find a collision for a chosen hash value, not merely two inputs that collide to some random value. Are the attacks that strong?

I am amused that the URL for a hash-is-broken paper is based on the file's MD5 hash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What is it about hashes? Every single one gets broken eventually.

Encryption doesn't seem to suffer from this - the keyspace might be small enough to search, but they don't get broken.

2^52 isn't small, but it's a lot less than the expected 2^80.

<comment><USER5> _Encryption doesn't seem to suffer from this - the keyspace might be small enough to search, but they don't get broken._

DES is vulnerable to linear cryptanalysis (2^43 plaintexts). RC2 is vulnerable to a related-key attack (2^34 chosen plaintexts). RC4 is broken in too many ways to list. Khufu and Khafre are subject to differential cryptanalysis.

<comment><USER2> DES, RC2, RC4, Khufu, Khafre. Now can we get an analysis for something that isn't in the "don't ever use" list in Practical Cryptography?

Because it _is_ the case that hashes are less well studied (and thus possibly less "hardened") than our workhorse block ciphers.

You're the expert here, can we wheedle you into giving us the real answer?

<comment><USER5> _DES, RC2, RC4, Khufu, Khafre. Now can we get an analysis for something that isn't in the "don't ever use" list in Practical Cryptography?_

I wasn't aware there was such a list... but if those were on a "don't ever use" list, I'd expect MD5 and SHA1 to be on the same list.

 _Because it is the case that hashes are less well studied (and thus possibly less "hardened") than our workhorse block ciphers._

Historically speaking, yes. If you stop a random man on the street and ask him what cryptography it, he's far more likely to say "keeping secrets" than "unforgeable authentication". Cryptographers have known for a long time that authentication is important, but because of the public bias towards secrecy, encryption has tended to receive more attention than authentication.

I don't think this is the case any more, however -- with these recent attacks I'd say that the state of the art of attacks on hashes is roughly on par with the state of the art of attacks on block ciphers.

<comment><USER6> It is also worth noting that historically hash functions have had the implicit requirement of being "fast" and "small". Because hashes are used on both encrypted and unencrypted data there is a pressure on hash designers and the people selecting from available hash options to factor speed and output hash size into the selection criteria. This inevitably leads to the selection of hash functions that compromise security for other (practical) considerations.

We could have moved from MD5 to Whirlpool a long time ago, but I and everyone else looked at doubling storage requirements and chopping throughput to a trickle and selected SHA1...

<comment><USER7> It's not that. People just know so little about designing good crypto hash functions. Basically right now nobody knows what they're doing.

<comment><USER2> I don't know why someone would mod this comment down. It paraphrases pretty accurately points made by professional cryptographers.

Percival's response is also accurate. He's saying, there's a baseline for secure hash functions: those that adapt block cipher constructions. But that's just the baseline. Nobody does that, because hash functions need to be fast. And making that tradeoff of speed versus proven constructions seems to put us into the weeds.

<comment><USER3> So is that my answer to the question that started this thread? We know how to make good hashes, but they are slow. And all the fast hashes get broken eventually?

<comment><USER5> _And all the fast hashes get broken eventually?_

I'd phrase it as "because hashes have historically attracted less attention than ciphers, it took longer for us to figure out how much of a margin of error to design into hashes".

For both block ciphers and hashes, the vast majority of designs rely on iterated mixing functions, and long before the complete designs are broken cryptographers figure out how to attack reduced-round versions. There's nothing inherently broken about the designs behind either MD5 or SHA1 -- if you created an MD5++ hash which exactly followed the design of MD5 but used twice as many mixing rounds, I don't think anyone would be able to find collisions for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 2 ^ 52 = 4,503,599,627,370,500

If that equals a number of seconds, then it is equal to 142,808,207 years. If kilometers, it is equal to 476.03 light years.

So 2 ^ 52 is still a big number anyway.

<comment><USER5> _If that equals a number of seconds, then it is equal to 142,808,207 years._

Yes, but it isn't a number of seconds. It's a number of cryptographic operations. My laptop can perform 2^23 SHA1s per second. SHA1 collision- finding is getting into the "idle resources from a university computing lab for a few months" range.

<comment><USER9> _"idle resources from a university computing lab for a few months" range._

Out of curiosity, what sort of time frame does that translate to for a government agency such as the NSA?

<comment><AUTHOR> ISTR that the "rule of thumb" is that the NSA is a couple of years ahead of the mainstream for _both_ Mathematics and computer tech. I don't know how valid that is, but it probably is a decent baseline for paranoia.

<comment><USER5> _ISTR that the "rule of thumb" is that the NSA is a couple of years ahead of the mainstream for both Mathematics and computer tech._

For cryptographic research, that's probably true. For "computer technology" in general, probably not -- they have a large budget, but not so large that it would make sense for them to independently replicate all of the work companies like Intel and IBM do on lithographic processes.

I'm sure the NSA has access to fabrication capacity, though -- almost certainly via deals with US companies to allow them to run a few wafers here and there.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Digital Media companies are viable in Africa, but it's a patience game - <AUTHOR> http://www.dignited.com/11903/digital-media-companies-viable-africa-patience-game-chat-tom-jackson/

<comment><USER2> Yes it is a patience game. I think HumanIPO has taken the decision in hurry or the team is not that much optimistic as much it should be.

They are claiming that online consuption of news in still in state of infancy in Africa and still they are leaving that space and shutting down their operation.

Its a long term investment and they gotta believe that in upcoming time they are going to be market leader in Africa. They have to be trend setter but they are leaving the battle ground.</comment>


When your child speaks a language you don't - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2015/03/18/when-your-child-speaks-a-language-you-dont/ <comment><USER2> I have a friend who grew up in a home where her mom and grandma spoke to her only in Spanish and her dad only spoke to her in English. She was surprised when she went to Kindergarten and her teacher spoke English. She thought Spanish was what women spoke and that English was for men.

<comment><USER3> I am American and my wife is Cambodian. We live in a Cambodian neighborhood in the United States. We have a daughter, born in Cambodia, who is now 4. I speak to her in English and her mother (and everyone else in the neighborhood) speaks to her in Cambodian. Until she started preschool last September, virtually everyone except myself talked to her in Cambodian.

Not too long ago, she asked me why some person (I think it was a waiter at a restaurant) spoke English and not Cambodian. For her, everyone spoke Cambodian, and then some of them also spoke English. I tried to explain that in America, most people actually speak English and not Cambodian. After that explanation, she kept asking "is this place America?" everywhere we went for a few days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm German, and speak that with my son. My son's mother is French, and she uses that with my son. She and I speak English when we converse. He goes to a bilingual French/English nursery school, which has mostly French expats' kids in it, and (happily) four kids that also speak German.

We never really discussed this when my son was born - it just happened, because doing it any other way was alien enough to not enter our heads. Seems to be the norm in Europe.

Yes, I struggle with French (his mum's German is pretty reasonable). I have a secret weapon though - I'm also native-fluent in Afrikaans, which I use when I scrape a shin, drive angry, or tease.

Being fluent in three languages never seemed like a big deal - my mother spoke _seven_. It _is_ a big deal when you speak to a Brit about it, or to an American. I guess when you're used to chicken, beef might seem a little odd.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately languages other than English are not pushed very hard in American (public) education. It's really quite sad compared to the rest of the world. My first exposure to another language in school was 8th grade, which was the choice of an elective Spanish or French class. To prevent having to take a class at the college level, the minimum requirement (if i remember correctly) was only 2 years of a foreign language in high school.

I'm probably biased, or maybe it's because i went to a smaller school system (graduating class of only 120), but there's not nearly enough available with regards to programming, statistics, finance (you should learn how to at least do your taxes while in high school), language development (foreign and speech), and writing (we really only learn boiler plate stuff). Instead we get more 'teaching the test' so schools can keep what little funding they have.

<comment><USER6> In (non-Quebec) Canada, there's often an option to do French Immersion, even though the primary language is English. My parents put me in this program for elementary (K-8) school, and gave me the choice for high school, which I opted out of. There's a few positives and negatives that I found watching myself and my peers:

Pros:

\- The 9 years that I spoke French in the classroom for every class except for English was enough to make the language stick. I'm 31 now, and I can still speak, read, and write French. My vocabulary is weak since I don't use French on a regular basis, but when I was in Paris, I had no problem understanding what was going on, ordering food, taking a cab, etc.

\- I feel like having the 2nd language has made it easier to pick up other languages. I'm by no means fluent in Spanish, but when I was regularly doing DuoLingo Spanish lessons, I felt like things stuck very quickly.

\- I also feel like some kind of structures in my brain from this help me pick up different programming languages. It seems like, compared to most of my peers, switching between new languages and learning new languages is generally a straightforward task for me, including weird ones like Erlang and Haskell. The majority of the effort goes into learning the concepts, not learning the syntax.

Cons:

\- After graduating high school doing full immersion all the way through, many of my peers struggled with writing in University. I distinctly remember my first roommate getting an essay back and he was freaking out about the terrible mark he got. He asked me to look over it to see if I could see what was wrong with it. I read through it and just told him "Well... the problem is that you used English words, but you wrote it in French."

\- Likewise, many of them had difficulties in math and science, where they understood the concepts very well from high school, but didn't have the English vocabulary to describe what they were doing.

All in all, I'm super happy that my parents made the choices they did, and that I dropped out of immersion before high school. I think, too, it helped a lot that I read a _pile_ of English books growing up, both fiction and non- fiction, which hopefully helped supplement my English vocabulary while I was learning French at school every day. I was the 10 year old who held on tightly to his copy of the Peter Norton pink shirt book :)

<comment><USER7> I found the same thing. In the bit of rural Canada where I grew up, it was pretty standard for french elementary students to go on to english high school (with 1-2 classes/year in french, usually french & history or geography). We can all still speak french (with weaker vocab if we don't practice) but we didn't have issues with math/science jargon or having enough practice in english. A handful of students went to french high school but generally because they intended to go to a french university.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is almost OK. Wait until you have twin boys, like me. They are 20 months now, grown at home, no day care ( KiTa as in Germany ;Kindergarden is later on).

They don't speak, but very few words with a meaning ( mama, papa, apa ). But! Here it comes: they speak between them and communicate using a almost invented language. The language is so strange, because is based on using the same word ( twin 1 uses 'bahdi', twin 2 'budji' \- approx phonetic rendering), repeatedly but changing tonality, like in cantonese. It's really amazing to see how they can talk each other and coordinate while playing for hours using this language, me and my wife feel we are completly left out :).

<comment><USER9> I did the same with my twin. It's quite common from my understanding.

<comment><USER10> Fascinating - do you remember it? (As opposed to being told about it / vague memories-of-memories). Are there any remnants in how you communicate with your twin now?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My wife is a native French speaker, and she's always spoken French to the kids. Unlike the author of this story, I've never really felt like I was getting left behind.

Before the kids were born, I spent a while studying an Assimil course (a fine course, from a French publisher, for people who like to learn mostly through osmosis with some notes). Afterwards, I plowed my way through 450 pages of a French non-fiction book, understanding maybe 75%. So when my wife started speaking French to the kids, I could kinda-sorta follow.

Several years later, I decided to improve my French. I forced myself to speak it as much as possible, and I read another 10,000 pages (about 40 novels' worth). I also bought DVD box sets of easy series and watched them straight through. Happily, my brain decided, "Oh, so it's French or nothing. Better learn some French, then."

Today I watch French TV and read French novels without much trouble. I can converse with French preschoolers, but adult conversation is a bit tricker—my spoken vocabulary is more like that of a bookish 9-year-old than that of an educated adult. On a good day, this doesn't slow me down much. I could probably work as a programmer in French, but I'd have trouble negotiating a consulting deal without more immersion.

Ironically, I currently speak French better than my kids do, because I get more exposure. Given the right environment, the brain seems to adapt.

<comment><USER12> > Given the right environment, the brain seems to adapt.

In high school, I had a German immigrant, fresh out of college as an instructor. The moment one stepped into that classroom to the moment one stepped out, nothing but German.

Hell, it didn't stop there. If you tried to talk to him at all, in or out of the classroom, he wouldn't acknowledge you unless you spoke to him in German, and he would only speak German to you.

Strangely enough, the German students were the only ones capable of holding conversation in a foreign language.

I graduated in 2008, haven't 'used' German in 7 years, but I still find myself thinking in German every once in a while.

Immersion (even for ~50min, 5 days a week) is easily the best way to learn. I don't know why anyone wastes their time with anything else.

EDIT: Hah, I just remembered how he never cared that we talked to each other during class about whatever, just that it was in German, not English.

<comment><USER13> >Immersion (even for ~50min, 5 days a week) is easily the best way to learn. I don't know why anyone wastes their time with anything else.

I think once you're somewhat proficient in the language, this is true.

I'm currently taking Spanish courses in uni, and my professor is from Cuba. She's the sweetest lady, but has a tendency to ramble off in Spanish. About 50-60% of the time I can (vaguely) follow her, but the rest of the time I'm just hopelessly lost. And judging by the silence the rest of the class has a tendency for, I'm not alone.

Anyway, I'm certainly not trying to counteract your point, just to say that there are steps up to 100% immersion that I feel are necessary.

<comment><USER14> Yup, and this is especially true of languages that are completely different than your own.

Immersion and osmosis are going to work a whole lot better if you're going from French to Spanish, or English to German, etc. There's enough shared vocabulary and culture that it's easier to make assumptions about the intent of the speaker.

That will not be the case if you're going from English to, say, Korean. Immersion is important for any language learning, but some prerequisite learning is needed to take advantage of it. I think those prerequisites stack up as you move further away from the foundation of your current languages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm going to share this in case someone finds it useful...

I am Canadian and married to a Spanish women and living in Spain. While my son started out sponging up both languages, he eventually took off in Spanish and left English behind. In order to have some form of relationship with him I had to speak Spanish with him.

People would lecture me, "oh, give him that gift of English" or "how can you not be speaking English to him?".

Now that he is older and has discovered the Internet, he has a need to learn English. And he's learned. I'm sure it was there all along, he went from not speaking English to speaking it in about two weeks.

My wife and I would speak English around him, and sometimes I would speak English to him, but it really wasn't until he needed to, like the child in the OP story, that he learned English.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, unfortunately kids get pretty clever about this and resist doing language acquisition that isn't necessary.

<comment><USER15> When I came to Spain a lot of (Spanish) people would give me the "why do we need to learn English?", and then the market crashed. To this day I interact with younger folk who continue this line of thinking; the ones who leave and learn English and find work are going to be much better prepared...

<comment><USER16> What I mean by "necessary" is "necessary to a child, for his day-to-day life." Very often kids pick up that Mom and Dad understand (at least to some extent) the local language too and then stop picking up whatever the second language is.

Anyway, at least Spanish people are speaking one of the world's most widely used languages... I think the top four are Chinese, French, Spanish, and English, but don't quote me on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17>
      Your children are not your children.
      They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
      They come through you but not from you,
      And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

      You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
      For they have their own thoughts.
      You may house their bodies but not their souls,
      For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
      which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
      You may strive to be like them,
      but seek not to make them like you.
      For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

      You are the bows from which your children
      as living arrows are sent forth.

...

[http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html](http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html)

<comment><USER18> Just curious why you chose to truncate a few lines away from the finish, rather than simply pasting the poem in its entirety? Was it because the last few lines take a vaguely-religious turn, and you thought the audience here would be hostile? I have no strong opinion either way there, I just find the edit interesting.

<comment><USER17> It's not because I thought the audience would be hostile, but I don't like those last few lines (mainly because of that turn), and think it's a better poem without them. Do you think it's better to leave it intact?

<comment><USER19> I'd agree with you. The last few lines add a completely new agent and change the meaning of the poem.

<comment><USER20> >change the meaning of the poem

What? Those lines __are __the poem!

<comment><USER21> In the short time I've been reading HN, it's become clear that its readership likes to think of itself as more enlightened than the average mouthbreathing yokel. It doesn't mean they don't have their own orthodoxy, though, and religion is one of those things We Don't Acknowledge Around Here.

Hell, I'm an atheist and I would have added the last lines anyway[0]. Of course, he didn't attribute the poem to the author anyway so we're supposed to imagine he wrote it, right?[1]

[0][http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html](http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html) \- the first thing I ran across, but at least the author's name is on it. EDIT: hey, he finally did the same google search I did!

[1][http://nedroidcomics.tumblr.com/post/41879001445/the- interne...](http://nedroidcomics.tumblr.com/post/41879001445/the-internet)

<comment><USER17> I included the link in your zeroeth reference in my original post, well before anyone had replied. I had no intention to take credit for the poem, and assumed most readers here were smart enough to infer authorship from the link I included. Please, a little more charity in interpretation and a little more attention to detail would go a long way in keeping discourse friendly here.

<comment><USER21> Says the guy editing poetry because he doesn't agree with the sentiment. Sure, I'll go easier on you next time.

<comment><USER17> I omitted the last few lines while including an ellipsis to indicate I had done so, and including a link to the original so people could see the full poem (as well as authorship) for themselves. I don't think I changed the meaning of the part I quoted, so I think the omission was fair, though I was conflicted about doing it since there really were only a few more lines remaining.

Your accusation that I deliberately didn't name the author in order to take credit was false and assumes bad faith, especially given that, contrary to your assertion, the link to the full poem with named author was in my original post. I haven't seen a retraction or apology from you for that assertion despite its demonstrable inaccuracy, nothing but the assumption of bad faith and hostility. It's possible to express disagreement without either, which is what has generally made Hacker News discussions great. You can disagree with me without assuming every possible bad thing about me, and with a good faith desire to reach common understanding.

I'll let you get the last word since I don't want to turn this into a flame war, but please be civil. Take care.

<comment><USER21> "It's not because I thought the audience would be hostile, but I don't like those last few lines (mainly because of that turn), and think it's a better poem without them. Do you think it's better to leave it intact?"

This is the part with which I disagree. Let's just drop the nonattribution that you did indeed fix after the fact.

You said you edited the writing to alter its meaning. Is this not the case? While I was indeed blunt, I was not incorrect in pointing out you took the writing of a noted Lebanese author and removed the lines that offended your sensibilities.

Like I said, I am a nonbeliever. Misquoting (and that is indeed what you did when you removed those three lines) makes you look petty. Take care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I kept waiting for the payoff from the title. It never arrived. It's not the language her daughter speaks at daycare, it's that she's at daycare. That's the cause of this. Same thing happened to my son and he went to an English- speaking daycare. They grow apart from you, for a reason.

<comment><USER16> You found yourself smiling and nodding at daycare teachers who were saying things you could understand less than half of?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm the kid of parents who didn't speak my nursery's language, and the parent of a kid who also speaks a different language at nursery.

It's really not a big deal. They may speak a little slower, but they get it. I was a little worried a few months ago when my kids wasn't speaking well, but it's come on very suddenly.

One thing I think about is immersion. When I was a kid, there was only one TV station, and it showed stuff in Danish. You couldn't get away from learning the language when you spent all day speaking it with other kids, and then going home and watching TV in the same language. Nowadays, you can get TV in just about any language you like. I wonder if it makes a difference.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can speak two other languages fluently, but I live in England and neither of those two other languages are native. As such, my infant son rarely hears them.

I know others in my situation who have given up, resigning themselves to being able to help with language homework.

I'm tempted to push on though, much like the (possibly misguided) attempts of a man to speak to his son only in Klingon for the first three years of his life in the 90s.

I have already accepted that the result will be along the lines of my son having a passing familiarity with the sounds and basics of the two languages. Better than nothing.

\--

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_Language_Institute#d.2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_Language_Institute#d.27Armond_Speers) // [http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/mustread.html?pg...](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/mustread.html?pg=8)

<comment><USER4> Far be it for me to suggest to another how to raise their child. If it were up to me I'd so totally stick with it. The insane pace of development in these early years will never happen again. Another language is another life. The mind is also very good at adaptation, so anything you teach incorrectly today will auto-align/correct when your son is older and experiences that culture for real. What you're doing takes courage. Respect.

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the encouragement. Did you do something similar yourself?

I'll give it a bash, I think, based on your words. Just think of the influence that comment might have had on his future life if it does pay off. Thanks again!

Edit: I see from further up the thread you've got a complex situation of your own underway. It's great when you've two native languages at home because English seems to always be an easy third to pick up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The sentence, "The truth is this: I think Noa is raising us as much as we are raising her." and the paragraph it heads really resonated with me as a parent of a young child.

Upon seeing the title, I expected the article to be about the unknown languages infants sometimes seem to invent. We speak two languages to our son, but my wife and I both understand each language quite well. Our son was very vocal as an infant, but less than half of his words were English or Portuguese. He's nearly three now, but he'll still use some of his invented words to unnecessarily lengthen phrases. I imagine this is to mimic adults who express themselves with more words. He may believe that longer phrases are given more consideration as he tends to do this more often when making a request with a small chance of success, like asking for another treat after being told he can only have one.

</comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me a story a friend and former coworker told me. She's of Cambodian descent, and whenever she has to talk to her mom, her mom can only understand her English if she affects this incredibly thick Cambodian accent.

I always found that interesting, having to put on a fake accent so people can understand you.

<comment><USER27> It's the same for me in French. I can understand Americans (who have a thick accent) much more easily than natives. I think it's because my brain can tune into the palette of sounds produced by Americans more readily. Some sounds that are very distinct to natives sound the same to me; it artificially inflates the number of homophones I have to deal with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> My wife is Japanese, I'm Israeli, and we both live in Berin, where our son was born. We talk to him in our native language, and between us in English. He goes to the Kita, where they speak only German...

He's still fairly young (17 months), so doesn't really talk much, but we can spot a few German words (Ja! Nein). He does seem to understand Hebrew and Japanese when we talk to him, and says one or two words in Hebrew (Aba, means Dad) and in Japanese (Wanwan, means Dog).

We're very curious on how things will evolve from here. It's very likely that his German will be his strongest. But we're sure he will understand and can speak with us. Our biggest hope is that he can help translate German for us though ;-)

<comment><USER29> wanwan is the sound the dog makes (like ruff-ruff in English). wan-chan is a colloquial term for dog. [just to be a nit-picking ass].

<comment><USER28> I'll make sure to tell it to my son (and my wife!) so he learns things the proper way ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I know this situation too well. It gets worse when child is asking for pacifier, favorite tv show, playground etc. Also child does not pronounce clearly, and its very hard to understand for non-native speaker.

I wonder why author had not learned German in advance, they had almost 2 years time. English speaker can pickup German in 5 months, very similar and easy language.

</comment><comment><USER31> It seems there may also be an additional (and potentially larger) cultural element here that goes beyond language, though it would be less pronounced at such an elementary age. Further, it would be interesting to explore how this family's experience maps to first-generation American families in the US.

</comment><comment><USER32> My 18 month old daughter has a full time nanny who has spoken to her only in Spanish (at our request) since she was 3 months old; my wife and I speak to her only in English, and we don't speak any Spanish. It's been really fascinating to see what my daughter chooses to say in Spanish instead of English: always agua (her first word), siéntate ("sit"), mas ("more"), wacala (spanish slang for "yucky" \- for poop)... other words, she can interchange depending on who she speaks to. Sometimes I can't understand her, and can't tell if she's trying to tell me something in Spanish, or her diction just isn't good enough yet. I suspect it's the latter, I think she's already adept enough at recognizing mommy and daddy don't speak Spanish...

</comment><comment><USER33> If you want to read up more on this, look up third culture kids. The wikipedia page is a good start.

</comment><comment><USER34> >Viennese daycares—known here as kindergartens—have a very long Eingewöhnungszeit—literally translated as "getting adjusted period" or "acclimatization." Dropping your kid off on Day One while she shrieks "MOMMY!" is looked upon as child abuse.

I went over this in Germany (living here since 10 years) and it is just ridiculous. During my second child "acclimatization" after seeing a mother in tears and making progress for her absence in intervals of 5 minutes each day, I realize this long "acclimatization" period was for them, not for the child.

</comment><comment><USER34> My children (ages 5 and 3) were born and raised in Germany. We only speak spanish at home. They both went to day-care very early.

Today they speak like natives. When they play alone or between them, they do it in german, and while I defend myself in german quite good, he corrects me all the time, especially with the right pronunciation.

Sad true is, lot of people, including educators are ignorant about multilinguism. They did at some point ask me and my wife to speak german at home with them because they were behind with the language.

I will not even mention stupid ideas politicians have had about the topic.

</comment><comment><USER35> I suffer from the opposite problem: my mother speaks a language I don't. She is French, but despite giving me a French name never spoke to me in French while I was growing up. She'd speak to her family in French, but never to me or my brother.

I've studied to B2 level on my own and managed to osmose a fair ability to distinguish words and sounds, but I'll never be able to get the native-level fluency I could have. It's something we both regret.

<comment><USER36> I could never understand how this is possible. If you have a child, wouldn't it be natural to speak to her in your native tongue? I would NEVER speak to my child in anything other than English, even if I lived in France, if only to avoid propagating non-native grammatical errors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> As a parent of a bilingual 18 month old, my experience is totally different. I speak english most of my day at work, my son speaks english at daycare, and we speak french together at home. When I get to daycare he immediately switches to french and this feels like we have a shared secret. I left a CD of french songs at the daycare and they play it when he needs soothing.

I think this boils down to the fact that I think of myself as an immigrant, not an expat.

</comment><comment><USER38> tl;dr: being a parent is totally different from what you plan to be as a parent

(and that's actually awesome)

<comment><USER39> The military have a saying:

        No plan survives contact with the enemy.

Seems appropriate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Does anyone else think it kind of shameful that the author could live in Austria for 12 years and still speak such poor German? Now you can't understand everything your child is saying. Congrats.

</comment><comment><USER41> Kindergarten isn't day care. Kindertagesstätte (or KiTa for short) are day care. Kindergarten is equivalent to pre-school.

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't understand the authors point of view.

My toddler is teaching me Spanish.

I am not being left behind, I am simply catching up.</comment>


Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-acquire-tumblr-120000116.html <comment><USER2> There seems to be a massive anti-Yahoo struggle going on in HN at the moment but I feel we need to look at this impartially. For better or for worse, the fate of the company is tied directly to the actions of Marissa Mayer now, this is no longer 1999 and Yahoo is no longer the same company.

They have this image (which they rightly deserve) of being a big, bumbling ancient Behemoth of a company which provides no real use or purpose to the internet, but this could well be part of a bigger revitalization.

Cutting off the fat of the company, bringing in new properties _with the intention of keeping them alive_ , changing the company dynamics to make it a better place to work, bringing in more talent and having a much more youthful outlook on things... These are all good things.

It remains to be seen whether or not Yahoo can perform this transition but things look good for them, if they stick to their guns and simply improve Tumblr without lowering its value to the community, I can see a real future for Yahoo, one where it isn't just irrelevant, but where it makes it's _own_ products and creates _new and exciting_ applications.

What I really want to see, is whether Yahoo is capable of making the move to generation XI and what it brings to the table now it's finally left the time warp it was stuck in.

<comment><USER3> A portion of the recent disdain / negativity seems to come from the recent cull of work from home employees and statements regarding the value of working from an office to Yahoo, there was quite a bit of anger directed at Mayer for that.

<comment><USER4> You must be new around here (said in jest).

HN has had an anti=Yahoo bias for a long time; the reasoning behind the bias keep changing ("layoffs", "delicious", "WFH", etc.), but it always seems to be there.

<comment><USER5> If Google continues its current growth trajectory and Yahoo! sticks around, I wonder how long it will be before people start rooting for Yahoo! as the "underdog".

<comment><USER6> Given the sizes of those 2 companies. I'd vote for <https://duckduckgo.com/> to be the ideal underdog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe this could have been Posterous had they won that battle with Tumblr. Posterous had the superior product early on, but for some reason it never caught on. I wonder how that works, who wins for what reasons. It does not seem to be for product or technology reasons as I think Posterous had Tumblr beat. It's almost luck and magic who picks up the right kind of early users that lead to success. Admittedly it did seem like a bit of an uphill struggle since Tumblr got started a little earlier? Maybe that's it. Tumblr and Posterous were a new kind of microblog platform a couple of years ago, now Tumblr is massive and Posterious is dead.

Another thing that seems interesting to me is that whenever someone exits into an acquisition it's like this space becomes open again for new startups. Someone should make a new microblogging platform that now disrups Tumblr/Yahoo. It's kind of like the dragon Ouroboros, eating its own tail, around here sometimes.

<comment><USER8> Porn. Tumblr has porn.

As always, when two technologies are battling, the one porn picks will win.

<comment><USER9> That's a strange and interesting theory. I can think of a few anecdotal places where this is the case, but I wonder if anyone has done a study of porn as a predictor of platform success/failure...

 __Edit __: Just thinking about the business of porn, this is probably a decent heuristic for simplicity and cost effectiveness. Porn is usually very low budget (compared to other mass market media), with a very high volume of consumers. From my experience in non-profit oceanographic research, nothing focuses an engineering effort like trying to succeed on a shoestring budget (wow, I never thought that'd compare to working in the porn industry).

<comment><USER10> > but I wonder if anyone has done a study of porn as a predictor of platform > success/failure...

For better or worse, FB could be a good example of "platform success" that partially relies on that. It's not porn per se, just beach/bikini photos of one's lady-friends, or his work-mates, or the wife's friends.

<comment><USER11> Perhaps, but what do think of the JCPenny catalog?

<comment><USER12> Proves the point: No JCPenney Catalog, profits falling, oust the new CEO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I do like how this article from yahoo finance has this heading and subheading:

      Yahoo! to Acquire Tumblr
      Promises not to screw it up

Fair enough. That probably is most people's biggest concern and expectation of what Yahoo will do.

<comment><USER14> Does yahoo have a good track record of acquiring services and not frakking them up? Not a troll question, I stopped using yahoo in 1999 but for the occasional openid.

<comment><USER15> They didn't screw up Flickr. Then again, they didn't do _anything_ with Flickr.

<comment><USER16> They kind of did screw up Flickr, just by virtue of letting it stagnate. They got lucky in that no one else really made anything better in the meantime.

<comment><USER17> ...and then Instagram

<comment> UVB-76 ...not to mention Facebook took over as the place for most people to share photos with their friends

<comment><USER16> I don't think Flickr and Facebook/Instragram really compete, except in the situation where people didn't need Flickr but Facebook/Instagram didn't exist yet. Flickr is more for professional photographers, not a social network for youths to share their photos with their group. If Flickr loses professional photogs, then they're hurting. But they haven't yet.

Instagram is not going to replace Flickr for Flickr's core audience.

<comment> UVB-76 I think flickr gradually _became_ a place "more for professional photographers" as the rest of its uses were eroded by other social media sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't work for Yahoo, but I must say I would seriously consider working there now with Marissa Mayer at the helm.

Mayer appears to be doing everything she can to drag Yahoo back to being relevant, and to me that sounds like an interesting (and potentially rewarding) challenge.

I just hope she is looking for innovation from within as well as from acquisitions.

<comment><USER19> On the contrary i would seriously consider getting another job because i would feel like the management is totally broken.

Yahoo is not going to be relevant again because they bought Tumblr. They cant even make their own product relevant.

I cant even understand why anybody would buy Tumblr 1 billion or more.

Dailymotion would have been a good deal, this service is relevant and people are starting to be willing to pay to watch videos. They could have bought loads of usefull stuff for 1 billion.

To me it just feels like a publicity stunt to make the stock go higher for a few days , but what is the long term strategy ?

At that rate Mayer will be out in 1 year from now.

<comment><USER14> Well yahoo has things to offer to the tumblr team - a lot of technical and scalability know how. I won't be surprised if they are able to shave operating costs a lot and utilize better the labor force.

The problem is that the valuable asset of tumblr are its users. And users are fickle bunch.

<comment><USER20> Cutting costs is nice and all, but these are Internet companies. It's expected that an acquisition will bring about much more substantial synergies than they would for the merger of two ketchup companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up

That line is a winner. Hahaha. It's a good thing though that they recognize the general sentiment that they do tend to screw up the products they acquire.

Also, TechCrunch reports that the price is $1.1B [http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/20/its-official-yahoo-is- buyin...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/20/its-official-yahoo-is-buying- tumblr-for-1-1b-promises-to-keep-it-independent/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Off the cusp, $1.1 billion seems like a staggering amount of money to pay for yet another content hub. My gut is screaming that this is sure to go down as a horrible waste of capital. Yahoo has much stronger footing in open source than many other companies. They still have a vague sense of coolness about them, and I feel they're pissing away a ton of money for no reason here. First they prevent employees from working at home, stomping out what could've blossomed into at the very least a novel and progressive work model. Now a billion for tumblr. What in the actual fuck are they thinking? What is the long term strategy here for Yahoo?

They'd get more out of their money by selecting 1,000 open source projects on GitHub at random, and investing $1M into each.

</comment><comment><USER23> 'Promises not to screw it up'. I think Yahoo are keenly aware people are expecting them to fail _badly_ at this, and want to try head it off at the pass.

So Yahoo now has Mayer running the ship, and Karp involved ostensibly with Tumblr but I'd wager he'd have some input with the direction of Yahoo. He comes across as being a smart, focused guy in profiles, so he might have some bearing on where Yahoo is going.

</comment><comment><USER24>
        The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance the user experience.

A closer look:

       "to create advertising opportunities...that enhance the user experience."

Yahoo, Seriously?

<comment><USER25> You can argue (half reasonably I think) that a more targeted advert is better for the user...

<comment><USER26> I certainly enjoy them a lot more. I saw an ad for an inexpensive VPS service on Facebook a few days ago that I wouldn't have heard about otherwise. It's a lot better than random Vistaprint ads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It seems to me they tried to buy a young and hip userbase. MySpace was once young and hip. It was where all the bands were. Tumblr is young, but not hip in any way. It's full of strange and not particular "social" (as in communicating and influencing the mainstream alot) people. Tumblr is full of (besides pron) homestuck fandom and feminists. It's full of some subcultures that are ridiculed by the mainstream (like MLP fans) and passive aggressive tweens. I'm not sure if Yahoo wanted that.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, seriously. My first reaction was, "Wait, you _wanted_ this userbase?"

Yahoo is so unhip that they don't even realize what they've gotten themselves into, probably.

I'm sure some sane people have blogs on tumblr, but they're vastly outnumbered by the "social justice" retards who think that screaming about how all straight white men should be auschwitzed for their sins is some sort of legitimate activism. (Where sins = having been born.)

A lot of the tumblr community's response to the acquisition has been downright hilarious, naturally. They're pretty offended that someone bought "their" blogs without their permission. Any explanation of how the world works is, of course, met with accusations of "privilege" and shouting about how the poster/yahoo/etc is trying to "oppress" their precious PEE-OH-CEES.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wow, so does this make Marco Arment a millionaire? Apparently he still has a financial stake in Tumblr: <http://qr.ae/pKNI7>

<comment><USER30> I always believe that Marco is already a millionaire with his blog and Instapaper earnings. But I'm curious how much of Tumblr he and David still owns.

<comment><USER2> I read somewhere on HN yesterday that David still had a 25% share, though I can't find the link so no citation unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am genuinely confused about something because my realization does not coincide with my previous held beliefs. So I would appreciate if someone else could validate or make a good argument for why I am wrong.

These companies, especially the biggest ones and the ones that are acquired by them; they all seem to have one thing in common. They are all not at all about what they built, but, once you control for the variables, what you are left with is that it all comes down to users. These acquisitions have zero interest in the "product" as it is rarely unique or even innovative (image filters, "micro"-blogging, task management, etc.); it is all about acquiring the users.

Is there anything that could point to these and most other acquisitions not being solely about the users. I find it hard to believe that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc couldn't build what are, essentially, usually, rather simple technologies.

It seems like it all comes down to the human factor and that changing versus creating new habits is rather difficult and costly, i.e., more than $1 billion dollars costly.

Sorry for the redundancy. I had to throw it together while being interrupted with work. Damn work.

<comment><USER32> I think you're spot on. Cloning the technologies is relatively easy. But getting attention is a hard problem.

As a general rule, companies rarely[0] win because of superior technology. Rather, they win because they use their tech in a way that provides superior value to their users.

This is something all aspiring entrepreneurs should keep in mind. Nobody cares if your company uses incredibly elegant code or highly sophisticated Machine Learning/NLP/Functional Programming/whatever. All users care about is whether your product provides value. And remember that "value" is highly subjective- _you_ may not think that Facebook is useful, but many people will disagree with you.

[0]: there are certainly exceptions. If you know that the problem you're solving has major market demand, then you can win with superior execution. Viaweb is a good example, as pg tells it they won mostly because they could roll out features much faster than their competitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> "75 million more each day" -- those aren't "blog posts", those are expulsions of reposted Internet content, perhaps with an additional comment

</comment><comment><USER34> Don't get it why people are bitchin' about this so much. From what i understand Tumblr was running out of money so there was no other way out for them and their users.

So we have option: a) cry about it online all day, make petitions ... and the whole system closes in a couple of months and you end up with nothing OR b) yahoo buys it and the site lives on

<comment><USER35> People en-mass are often short-sighted, self destructive, and like to feel like victims. I'm sure they would have been perfectly happy with option A.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's terrific that Tumblr and its investors get to make a lot of money.

I just don't understand all this talk about Tumblr remaining independent of Yahoo. Yahoo is mostly a pretty stagnant company that needs new ideas and ways of thinking and doing business. Tumblr offers that opportunity - making the central point of interaction a user-defined dashboard rather than an overly- programmed portal that fewer and fewer people visit out of inertia.

Sure, let Tumblr be Tumblr so you don't scare off its audience. But unless Yahoo itself becomes more like Tumblr, what's the use of spending $1.1 billion?

</comment><comment><USER37> If it was an acquhire they paid 5.8 million for each employee (187 employees). If it was to capture their revenue stream, they paid 85 dollars for every one dollar of revenue generated last year (13 million).

</comment><comment><USER38> Wow - this came out of nowhere! How did they keep it so quiet until now?

</comment><comment><USER39> Here is Tumblr user's reaction to being acquired by yahoo: <http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/yahoo>

<comment><USER40> The largest concerns seem to center around: Yahoo attempting to make Tumblr family-friendly, re-branding Tumblr into a Yahoo property, and where David Karp is going to be (now and in the future).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Ask HN: who is the biggest winner in the Yahoo-Tumblr merger?

David Karp?

Marco Arment?

Marissa mayer?

Union Square Ventures?

Greylock Partners?

Sequoia Capital?

<comment><USER42> New York City

<comment><USER43> The same way the Groupon IPO was good for Chicago?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If there is any interest, I'm trying to start a meta discussion on successful acquisitions. I'm genuinely interested in examples, as I can think of none: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5738288>. All the ones I've been part of (five now), have been total crap.

<comment><USER45> Youtube. Android. Applied Semantics. That L.A. co that became Adsense or Adwords. Google Maps, I believe. Writely (Google Word). That Israeli co that became Google Sheets. Somewhat Blogger and many more just for Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Can yahoo repair the broken email experience?

Can yahoo repair the broken Flickr experience?

Can yahoo do some interesting product that delight users?

If not, what is the point?

</comment><comment><USER47> I hope this isn't a silly question... Reports say that tumblr is running low on cash and could only afford to operate for the next few months. This deal is going to take a few months (article says next quarter) to close. Is it not possible that they would run out of money before the deal officially closes?

<comment><USER48> I'm sure Yahoo could help them out with that.

<comment><USER49> Indeed. This seems to be the motivation behind the sale. I'm sure David Karp would have liked to keep tumblr independent, despite the huge payday, but it seems to me that he failed to develop a cohesive business model.

I loved the focus he put on the market sector he was serving, and I share his hatred of intrusive advertising, but he didn't present a realistic alternative. It's a shame - we keep losing innovative businesses that don't think enough about long-term business models, so we have to hop onto the next big thing until it too gets snapped up. Much as I dislike Facebook, you have to respect Zuckerberg for not selling out... at least he's tried to build something sustainable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. Now is a very exciting time to work for yahoo.

</comment><comment><USER51> "We're not turning purple. Our headquarters isn't moving. Our team isn't changing. Our roadmap isn't changing." - D. Karp

Spending 1.1 billion on a company that says it's "not turning purple" may have some impact on morale in Sunnyvale and on Wall St.

<comment><USER52> YouTube didn't grow primary colors when it got adsorbed by the GOOG.

I think there's precedent for letting a subsidiary group retain its own branding and culture, and for that to not cause morale to drop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Does anyone know a tumblr-like service that's open-source that I can stick on my server (Nginx/PHP-FPM/MySQL).

I should point out WordPress is far too heavy for a Raspberry Pi, I need something lightweight.

<comment><USER54> Jekyll? There's not much more than a repo and text files on the admin side, but enables super-fast blogging on light hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Does anybody here think that this is a good deal for Yahoo?

<comment><USER56> It'll take at least a year before we have any idea. For now, just grab the popcorn. It's going to be fun to watch.

Remember people thought Facebook was crazy to pay $1 Billion for Instagram. Now it's probably worth several times that...

<comment><USER57> > Remember people thought Facebook was crazy to pay $1 Billion for Instagram. > Now it's probably worth several times that...

Is it though? As far as I can tell it still has $0 revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> What happened to that alleged Flickr press event today? Is that a thing that's going to happen?

</comment><comment><USER59> I'm curious to see where the integration ends up on the spectrum of mergr vs. yacquisition.

<comment><USER59> To be clear, I'm not just word-playing.

Will Yahoo smother Tumblr with integration projects like single sign-in, leaving insufficient resources to do anything new? Or will it be benign neglect? Or will they actually invest in it as a social platform (instead of as a database like they did with Flickr)?

With new CEO, hopefully bad history won't repeat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> _Promises not to screw it up_

Yes, they promise they won't screw it up __Officially __

</comment><comment> B-Scan It looks that lot of their users don't like that idea:

[http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-yahoo-from-buying- tu...](http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-yahoo-from-buying-tumblr/)

Disclosure: I work for iPetitions.

<comment><USER23> I like how reactionary that is, much like when people expected Instagram to suddenly gain pokes and sidebar ads when Facebook bought them. It may as well say 'WE DON'T LIKE CHANGE'.

<comment><USER61> Kinda reminds me when Kraft was about to acquire Cadbury there were thousands (Ok not literally but there was quite a bit of noise) of facebook groups saying that this shouldn't happen because "the chocolate will taste like dairylea cheese" as if Toblerone wasn't a thing that Kraft made.

It's funny how when there's news of a company acquiring another people think straight away that it'll change drastically and overnight, making the huge assumption that the company is A) going to change anything B) doesn't know that changing something will break trust with users making their billion dollar purchase useless.

Or maybe Yahoo will change things on tumblr who knows? I'd like Yahoo to add a feature to change your primary blog on tumblr. That would be nice to have..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Such a classic exit - "and then sell it to Yahoo"..)

</comment><comment><USER60> I hope it's fate will not be similar to Posterous.

</comment><comment><USER63> "our promise not to screw it up"

</comment><comment><USER64> Hope they'll keep promises

</comment><comment><USER65> stumblr</comment>