Ask HN: Any good book recommendations on distributed systems design? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://dataintensive.net/](https://dataintensive.net/)

<comment><USER3> Yes, DDIA is the bible for this stuff with regards to getting a good overview to modern practices.

There's also good resources here, even though it is interview oriented: [https://github.com/checkcheckzz/system-design- interview](https://github.com/checkcheckzz/system-design-interview)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> After digging through my ebooks there is also this book by Maarten van Steen [1]. You may also be able to find along with ratings in the comments by searching hacker news [2].

[1]: [https://www.distributed- systems.net/index.php/books/ds3/](https://www.distributed- systems.net/index.php/books/ds3/)

[2]: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=distributed%20systems%20book&sort=byPopularity&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://github.com/papers-we-love/papers-we- love/tree/master...](https://github.com/papers-we-love/papers-we- love/tree/master/distributed_systems)

Thank me later

</comment><comment><USER4> A few weeks ago this distributed systems course from MIT was posted on hacker news [1].

[1]: [https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/](https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/)

</comment><comment><USER6> If courses count, I can recommend those 2 courses from UIUC on Coursera - [https://www.coursera.org/learn/cloud- computing](https://www.coursera.org/learn/cloud-computing) and [https://www.coursera.org/learn/cloud- computing-2](https://www.coursera.org/learn/cloud-computing-2)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://www.amazon.com/SYSTEMANTICS-SYSTEMS-BIBLE-John- Gall-...](https://www.amazon.com/SYSTEMANTICS-SYSTEMS-BIBLE-John-Gall- ebook/dp/B00AK1BIDM)</comment>


Startup Pack for Marketers - <AUTHOR> http://www.startuppack.org/?hn <comment><USER2> I understand the need to spread the word, etc... and you are giving out free stuff.. but _forcing_ people to follow and retweet your message, without even giving the option to edit the text.. I don't like it.

<comment><USER3> The act of forcing someone to retweet a message could be reasonably construed to violate the consideration clause in Federal and State sweepstakes laws.

[http://contests.about.com/od/c/g/consideration.htm](http://contests.about.com/od/c/g/consideration.htm)

Any sweepstakes that requires consideration from an entrant is illegal.

<comment><USER4> In addition tweeting a message that appears to be an endorsement without disclosing that you received something of value in return might technically put _you_ in violation of FTC rules.

[http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus71-ftcs-revised- end...](http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus71-ftcs-revised-endorsement- guideswhat-people-are-asking)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not really interested in signing in with Twitter.

<comment><USER6> Also not happy that they Tweet from your account without making it explicitly obvious that they're going to do it.

<comment><USER7> To be fair with them you can see this line below the registration form.

"Therefore, by applying you will automatically follow @startuppack and tweet the above pre-formatted tweet."

<comment><USER6> True - I went back and checked, but I would prefer if they didn't do it at all. When a brand tweets on my behalf in this way, it always makes me feel less favourable towards that brand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish some of these bundle sites would reach out to me. I'd gladly offer free months or discounts for Improvely to startups! By the time I hear about the bundle, it's too late to be included in the offer.

<comment><USER9> There's a link on the bottom to submit your own startup. Improvely looks awesome btw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Forcing to tweet AND not making clear it's a sweepstake?

That some two dark patterns.

</comment><comment><USER11> Great pack and even I read all your comments on forcing to tweet etc. It is still a non profit initiative that gives away to startups really great pack worth a lot of money !

</comment><comment><USER12> Impressive list of some of the best tools / SaaS out there. If they add Heroku and New Relic next year that's basically all I need :)

</comment><comment><USER13> This pack contains a lot of valuable tools, well done to who ever put it together.

But please, indicate clearly that it is a lottery where 500 people will win.

</comment><comment><USER14> My favorite combo: Unbounce + Optimizely + Kontest + mention can already do a lot of things only with these 4 :-)

</comment><comment><USER15> Has anyone on HN been successful in a previous startuppack round?

<comment><USER3> Had no idea what you meant until I saw:

 _We check applications then draw lots for 500 winners_

To put it mildly, it's very misleading to submit a story that states, "Startup Pack gives away $5,000 worth of tools" when the reality is "Startup Pack holds sweepstakes for $5,000 worth of tools".

<comment><USER16> +1. I was about to recommend it to a startup I'm friendly with until I saw that. No one likes to be deceived.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I want the developer one :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Filed.

Will be contacted before Nov 28th.

Cool though.

</comment><comment><USER19> Thanks Mat!

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it! Would not have been possible without all partners!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Move Loot Moving Services – how can we make it more magical? - <AUTHOR> https://www.moveloot.com/sf/moving_services

<comment><USER2> My friend just tried Bellhops. Her experience was bad. The movers were clearly not professionals, so even though their hourly rate was low, they were more expensive than a local moving service.

The takeaway is this: be like Uber by having aggressive, two-way ratings (clients rate movers; movers rate clients) and be willing to blacklist people who abuse the service or fail to provide a good customer experience.</comment>


MIT Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mit-challenge-2/ <comment><USER2> Without doing problem sets, you cannot meaningfully say you have taken the class like this. Though surely you'll have learned some things.</comment>


Spleen - Monospaced bitmap fonts - <AUTHOR> https://www.cambus.net/spleen-monospaced-bitmap-fonts/ <comment><USER2> Very cool! If I ever get around to my hobby-OS project, these would be great.</comment>


Show HN: DETA – An integrated scripting runtime - <AUTHOR> https://deta.sh/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN, developer here.

I built DETA to scratch my own itch. I like to create small scripts and tools to automate my tasks but it felt awkward sharing them with my non-technical colleagues.

Any feedback regarding the features is very welcome!</comment>


Ubuntu 7.04 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download <comment><USER2> If you're planning on upgrading ... might want to wait a couple days. The update servers are slammed right now. It too me 12 hours to download some 1400 update packages (from 6.10). Though I'm happy to report that the update went very smoothly.</comment>


BonziBuddy - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy <comment><USER2> "In 2002 an article in Consumer Reports Web Watch labelled BonziBuddy as spyware, stating that it contains a backdoor trojan that collects information from users."

My, how times have changed. These days that would be considered expected behavior.

<comment><USER3> Turns out there was _so much_ money in spyware, spam, scummy ad sites, and so on, that the corporate benevolent overlords of the Web went all-in on those exact things. All those bad actors won the war. If you want to help run the show, or if you want those who do to shower money on you, those bad activities are what you do.

Also Flash (in spirit if not in fact—thanks Javascript and modern web frontend development), popups, et c. In many ways all the worst things about the mid- period Web are thriving more now than they did then.

<comment><USER4> > the corporate benevolent overlords of the Web went all-in on those exact > things

The marketing and management arms might have been the ones to make the decision to go "all-in", but it was the web developers who implemented it.

Sure, a paycheck is a paycheck and all that, but let's not pretend that the developer community has clean hands in all this.

<comment><USER5> let's be real every piece of code written has the ability to destroy lives. Just like there are people out there willing to shoot you in the face for your wallet. There are people willing to write code to spy on you for a paycheck.

<comment><USER4> > let's be real every piece of code written has the ability to destroy lives

Not really, but then I work in emergency services infrastructure and every line of code in our product is intended to help first responders save lives.

I agree with the rest of your comments though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember going to see a friend (a cs grad) and he had BonziBuddy installed on his computer. I asked what it did and he couldn't give me a coherent answer. Then at one point he pressed BonziBuddy to "leave" and the bear dived into the screen and disappeared into a little dot. I asked him what happened expecting a tech laden answer and he said "it went in there" and pointed to where the dot/portal had been.

This odd conversation has always stuck in my mind about the power a little bit of graphics and animation can do to distract users from a bit of code's true intent.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed imagining how your friend pointed and said "it went in there."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked PC tech support for a major PC hardware company back then.

It was really a chore trying to tell people who complained their PC was slow to uninstall their 8 toolbars and that stupid monkey... they couldn't explain what good it did them or when they ever used them, but they sure as hell didn't want it removed.

<comment> john-radio Quick, list every app that's on your phone, the reason why it's installed, and the reason why you trust it!

<comment><USER9> I trust it because it came from an app store that has humans reviewing submissions, was programmed against an API that requires it explicitly ask for every permission it's given, with an OS that allows me to revoke that permission whenever I want to, with an assurance that it cannot break out of that permissions structure, and a knowledge that it cannot run arbitrary code in the background without me knowing it.

Windows (and Linux and macOS and other desktop OSes) offer none of these security features without third party software.

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, that still doesn't prevent a large number of them tracking you using permissions you've granted, or permissions it doesn't need to explicitly ask for.

There have been a number of articles recently about iPhone apps phoning home regularly without user knowledge.

iOS is arguably significantly better than the alternatives, but lets not kid ourselves as to how far that trust should go.

Services like Guardian Firewall for iOS[0] wouldn't be in continued active development if the OS or review process was sufficient. Of course, there'll be plenty of snakeoil as time goes on, but at this stage, there's a lot of credibility behind the need for these services.

[0] [https://guardianapp.com/](https://guardianapp.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I stayed at a bed & breakfast and they gave me free cheesecake after uninstalling Bonzi for them. I just wanted to browse the web faster! Didn't take much to uninstall malware back then. I probably added years to the useful life of their computer, it ate so much CPU.

<comment><USER12> I remember trying to remove BB from a PC we had and having a hell of a time doing it. It wasn't just asking it to stop in Programs & Features, I was rooting it out of the registry for hours and if you rebooted without getting all of it, the talons spread.

You got lucky.

<comment><USER11> Lucky, or an earlier version with shorter talons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I remember installing this on my Mom's computer when I was 8 and my dad cussing trying to uninstall it. good times.

<comment><USER14> Ditto! For some reason I used to think the more tray icons the better.

But not as bad as when I tried to delete C:\Windows before it would try to stop you. (For science, of course.)

<comment><USER15> When I was a youngin', I used to create meaningless shortcuts all over the desktop using those PIFMGR icons ([https://i.stack.imgur.com/I1YqC.jpg](https://i.stack.imgur.com/I1YqC.jpg)).

I think kids and adults aren't so different; we all just really want to collect and stare at colorful juicy berries—er, "apps"—on our screens (re: the research that turning them greyscale makes us look at them less.) Adults just have a greater need for rationalization toward practicality on top of an entirely aesthetic desire, and thus download apps with nice icons (or toolbars _containing_ nice icons) that _seem_ like they'd do something useful... and then just never use them.

<comment><USER16> Oh my, I completely forgot about this. I would change all the icons for the shortcuts on my desktop to "better" ones from this list too. Good times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Anthony-G I used to work in an Internet café in the early-mid 2000s and the first time came across BonziBuddy, it was a very frustrating and time-consuming task to remove it (and similar malware) from a Windows OS. I ran Mandriva at home but I became quite familiar with the Windows registry after lots of time spent removing various toolbars/spyware. When you learned the tricks the malware- writers used, you could remove their crap quickly enough.

Still, it was like playing whack-a-mole if there were multiple different malicious programs installed on the system and I recall that removing some malware required rebooting into safe mode before attempting to remove it.

Soon after this, I started to install GNU/Linux distros on the computers of friends and family to avoid the problem altogether. There was a lot more satisfaction in helping people administer their sensibly designed OS than in continually having to remediate their Windows systems where every user was an administrator and it was so easy for them to install malware.

<comment><USER17> Wasn't it a headache dealing with hardware compatibility/drivers in linux if you were dealing with an assortment of computers?

<comment> Anthony-G Ah no. In case it wasn't clear, I was installing GNU/Linux (Mandriva and later, Ubuntu)was for only a _small_ number of family and friends – who had previously been asking me to "fix" (remove the crap from) their Windows systems or who were already interested in trying an alternative. They weren't gamers, running particularly exotic hardware or business users. Interoperability between OpenOffice (no LibreOffice back then) and users of MS Office was the only real issue they came across. Otherwise, I had to provide very little support – once their systems were up and running.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This was on all the computers in my middle school, back in 2002 or so.

I wonder if this made it up to the front page because of nostalgia, or because an even younger cohort has never heard of it. What's the lower bound on ages for people who actually remember BonziBuddy?

<comment><USER9> Warning: bad math and faulty assumptions incoming.

Considering it was discontinued in 2004 and people generally have reliable long term memories starting around 5-8 years old, I'd say the youngest person to reasonably remember BonziBuddy would be 20-23 years old. The peak of popularity would probably be 2002, when the lawsuit that shut the company down was filed, so the last group of people who would be widely exposed to BB and have memories of it would be 22-25 years old at the youngest.

As someone quite older than that demographic, I had completely forgotten about BonziBuddy and seeing this brought up is definitely nostalgic for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want a warezed BonziBuddy, Ramzi will help you out:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x7teBrEGJE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x7teBrEGJE)

<comment><USER20> If this is the youtube video thread, Bonzi Buddy can still be made to sing... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF26ZyZRJbU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF26ZyZRJbU) (RIP Harambe.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone remember Kevin Rose and The Broken?

Ramzi's "hacker tip" \-- "how to use Bonzi Buddy" [https://youtu.be/oYYnF1ZeOo8?t=454](https://youtu.be/oYYnF1ZeOo8?t=454)

'Be careful, some software cost money'

<comment><USER22> Yep! I used to love their videos.

Related to Bonzi Buddy, does everyone remember search toolbars for web browsers? Everyone had their own toolbar that would hijack your browser: google, yahoo, ask Jeeves, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks like the list of supported activities is say that Alexa does today. Business model seems to be the same as well.

</comment><comment><USER24> One of my few friends who had a desktop computer at home had this thing installed when we were kids. He used to make it shout swear words in our native language. Can't say it wasn't fun.

<comment><USER25> We were in school (computer electronics class) and we had two machines on opposing sides of a row with this installed. Granted, we had other games and stuff installed too, but the highlight was when two people would man these particular computers and use it to trash talk the person on the other side. The voice was so bad it made the whole experience more comical than it was insulting.

Good times with bad software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's Clippy for your entire OS! I'm very familiar with the monkey image, although I instantly recognized what it was and what the experience was probably like, and luckily never touched a computer that had it installed.

Now we've got Alex/Siri/Google assistants, which certainly have a lot more utility, but they are cross-platform, always-on, and far more invasive because we allow them to be.

</comment><comment><USER27> I really hated that program, you always had to be careful when installing software because it was getting prepackaged

</comment><comment><USER28> Nowadays you don't need a Trojan to collect user info.

edit: pun unintended.

</comment><comment><USER29> Almost every single feature BonziBuddy ever "offered" was already included in Windows, but no one ever used the Windows components, or even knew they existed. So you could whip up a "buddy" using stuff already in the OS, claim it's a $40 value, and then spam them with ads.

And it worked!

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, I opened the Wikipedia page and immediately felt a twinge of anger. What has it been, 20+ years now?

</comment><comment><USER31> I remember when BonziBuddy and Comet Cursor were the go-to trolling tools for gamers. If someone asked how to "hack in counter strike" one of these solutions were suggested.

</comment><comment><USER32> A great retrospective: [https://youtu.be/L958sMz1kWs](https://youtu.be/L958sMz1kWs)

</comment><comment><USER33> I would love to build a harmless and open source version of BonziBuddy. One day I'll do it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Despite all the hate there was a kernel of a great idea here. This was a proto-alexa

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder what the creators of BonziBuddy are doing these days?

</comment><comment><USER36> Oh my god I forgot about this. Brings back good memories.

</comment><comment><USER37> I liked the green parrot version more.

<comment><USER38> Petey the Parrot. The model was originally stolen from the Microsoft Agent SDK, and about a year after launch Microsoft got wind of it and made them swap it out for their own 3D model. The lovable purple guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I can't wait to eat that monkey

</comment><comment><USER40> Ah, purple simian Windows AIDS. fond memories</comment>


Question for the UX guys (interface video) - <AUTHOR> http://refaktor.si/d/uj/usrjoy.html

<comment><USER2> I don't claim to be a UX guy, though I do all my own UX work, and have read up on the subject some.

I'm not a fan of drag-and-drop for the tasks you are looking to accomplish.

a one button 'delete' on each of your comment 'boxes' or whatever they are is much more elegant and takes fewer moves.

For 'assigning', again you are only assigning to one comment/task at a time. How often does this action take place? I would think it would be much cleaner and more efficient to have an 'assign' button on the task or area to click on a task which would pop-up a modal with the available people to be assigned, and then just click the person you want to assign it to.

With drag-n-drop, there is too much opportunity to drag onto the wrong item and I find most people don't get it for simple tasks like this. Drag-n-drop has it's place, these examples are them.</comment>


FCC Proposes Changing Comment System After WSJ Found Thousands of Fakes - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/fcc-proposes-rebuilding-comment-system-after-thousands-revealed-as-fake-1531315654 <comment><USER2> Some background:

28 senators, and the New York Attorney General, had to tell Pai to stop the FCC voting on new rules last year because of all the fraudulent comments. The fake comments were made apparent over a year ago. [https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-fcc-ajit-pai- bots-s...](https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-fcc-ajit-pai-bots- senators-letter/)

The FCC refused to provide records to the NY AG in order to investigate the possibility of fake comments. In other words, the NY AG was the only part of the government investigating the fake comments, and the FCC actively worked against investigating them. [https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/10/0037222/fcc- refuses...](https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/10/0037222/fcc-refuses- records-for-investigation-into-fake-net-neutrality-comments)

Pai's office issued this response to calls to delay the vote:

      This is just evidence that supporters of heavy-handed Internet
      regulations are becoming more desperate by the day as their effort
      to defeat Chairman Pai's plan to restore Internet freedom has stalled.
      The vote will proceed as scheduled on December 14.

As promised, the FCC voted to repeal Net Neutrality.

And now, 7 months later, the FCC is saying there were fraudulent comments, and maybe they should redesign their website.

<comment><USER3> So basically, it doesn't really matter if comments are fake or legitimate, if pai is going to ignore them anyways.

<comment><USER4> They're also going to drop unofficial complaints against ISPs. You'll have to pay the $230 to make an official complaint if you think they're doing something illegal.

<comment><USER5> Making people pay to report illegal activity is just insane. This is literal fascism - and I'm not just being hyperbolic.

<comment><USER6> > This is literal fascism - and I'm not just being hyperbolic. reply

Tragic that you have enough insight to realise you might be misusing either "literal" or "fascism" and not enough to pull yourself back from the brink...

I know "fascism" has been misused to the point of meaninglessness but can we all agree there has to be at least a small amount of - I don't know - death or torture involved - before we wheel out the big guns?

<comment><USER7> Here's a summary of Mussolini's Fascist Manifesto, lifted directly from Wikipedia:

Politically, the Manifesto calls for:

Universal suffrage with a lowered voting age to 18 years, and voting and electoral office eligibility for all age 25 and up; Proportional representation on a regional basis; Voting for women (which was then opposed by most other European nations); Representation at government level of newly created national councils by economic sector; The abolition of the Italian Senate (at the time, the Senate, as the upper house of parliament, was by process elected by the wealthier citizens, but were in reality direct appointments by the king. It has been described as a sort of extended council of the crown); The formation of a national council of experts for labor, for industry, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made of professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a general commission with ministerial powers.

In labor and social policy, the Manifesto calls for:

The quick enactment of a law of the state that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers; A minimum wage; The participation of workers' representatives in the functions of industry commissions; To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants; Reorganization of the railways and the transport sector; Revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance; Reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55.

In military affairs, the Manifesto advocates:

Creation of a short-service national militia with specifically defensive responsibilities; Armaments factories are to be nationalized; A peaceful but competitive foreign policy. In finance, the Manifesto advocates:

A strong progressive tax on capital (envisaging a "partial expropriation" of concentrated wealth); The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor; Revision of all contracts for military provisions; The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.

<comment><USER8> Okay, but he came with a healthy dose of putting people in prison, murder, actions in Africa that were reprehensible. I'm not sure I get your point. Facism's official goals don't match what they did?

<comment><USER7> My point is that "fascism" is used interchangably for "oppressive government" when it's not the same thing. There are many systems of government that put people in prison, murdered, and did bad things in Africa besides fascism. What's _your_ point?

<comment><USER9> While this is a fair point for general systems of government, in this case you have to reconcile the creator's words with his actions.

You have to take the whole story here. If I create a document that describes my system of governance as X but execute it as Y isn't it disingenuous to ignore Y?

<comment><USER7> Really I was making a point about the definition of fascism and how it's mis- applied these days. But if you want to talk about how it has been executed, history shows us when people cede so many of their natural rights to the state, even for good causes or causes that sound good, it's just a matter of time before those powers granted to the state by its people are abused by agents of the state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this is an interesting problem to solve.

The FCC, and other government agencies that require input from Citizens, need to know the comments they are getting are from actual citizens aka taxpayer id, aka social security #.

As a Citizen I'd want to submit comments with some superficial guarantee of anonymity. EG the bureaucrats can't attach my comments to my name, only my comments to a valid US Citizen. (1)

As a mechanism for verification there should be a preliminary "two-factor" registration system via postal mail to verified citizen addresses. And a secondary "two-factor" to execute comments.

Will this cut down on the discourse? Dramatically.

Will it improve the integrity of the comments? Absolutely.

Will the politicians still ignore the desires of its constituents vs special interests? No question.

 __ _This has been a paid ad by the People For Campaign Finance Reform._ __

(1) Of course the NSA is watching everything anyways, and probably reading our minds with lazer brain topography rays, but we 'll leave that concern out for now.

<comment><USER11> They should consider something like this:

[https://www.cipheredtrust.com/using- irs/](https://www.cipheredtrust.com/using-irs/)

Every citizen can generate cryptographic certs that they can verify their identities with, even anonymously.

<comment><USER12> The proper way of doing this is to have a trusted* (because the process is open, monitored, and audited) observer (probably run by the government) that consumes messages enciphered to it which contain a signed delegation. It would then (daily, weekly?) release a signed batch of public keys with designated metadata.

Metadata might include simple yes/no statements or very short string tags.

        * Country
        * State/Provence
        * County/Locality
        * City
        * Is Locally Contract Age
        * Is Locally Unrestricted Purchases (alcohol/tobacco/etc)
        * Is a Driver
        * Is a Voter (might not be registered or might be serving time for crimes)
        * etc

Ideally someone would have a unique key for each slot, and of course their primary (high security) civic key could be used for cases where proof of identity is required anyway.

<comment><USER13> No. Including this metadata would make it trivial to de-anonymize.

<comment><USER12> You've misunderstood the way to publish the data:

"These keys are X" (for each type of metadata flag).

If a given user keeps their metadata keys operationally separate from their full ID, and also updates them at random intervals, then it would be possible to have unique 'cards' (of sorts) for each given type of check.

The locality specific checks imply outer levels, obviously, but different keys might still be desired and it would be best practice for all to keep different keys to make it harder to de-identify by virtue of being one of the paranoid users.

<comment><USER14> To be clear, in a world where people still haven't solved password security, you're proposing a solution that has people generating multiple functionally composable metadata keys in order to retain anonymity on an otherwise massive public ledger?

The original problem is that it's too easy to make fake comments on a basic website. You're talking about users keeping their metadata keys "operationally separate from their full IDs" and "updating them at random intervals." How did we get here?

<comment><USER12> Yeah, that's not even the hard part for the average user...

How could (should?) they use these things securely? You need to trust the hardware that's handling the keys too.

I can't escape the need for something like a no-closed-blobs dongle that /only/ does digital wallet stuff (and maybe storing files) which MUST have at least a method for the user to read the text of what they're signing, and if it has that use that to also control the 'presentation mode' of that device to the attached system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm glad they're looking into fixing their comment system, but:

Fake. Not fake. The comments wren't a vote -- they were comments. If anything they should be used to add ideas to the mix. Things that may have been overlooked. People who might be impacted but haven't been considered. And smart, well-meaning people should've synthesized those into useful and not useful piles to _help_ inform their decision.

The core problem is that Ajit Pai was determined to ignore _all_ signal from people who supported Net Neutrality.

<comment><USER16> However, based on what you just said, the pro-NN people might ought to consider other views as well. The pro-NN crowd is guilty of one-sided thinking and has had no interest in actually considering other viewpoints. So the FCC should consider everyone's comments, but then regardless of those comments, uphold NN anyway? Is that what I'm reading?

Regarding the ignoring NN supporters — at least a few of those supporters engaged in credible death threats against Pai and his children. At that point, I'd be done. I would give no credence to the pro-NN side if they are going to threaten my children. As soon as some NN supporters started acting like racist jackasses, that point of view ceased to matter to me.

<comment><USER17> As a pro-NN person, I'd appreciate a _good_ explanation of the benefits of removing NN that reflects the current reality of the situation. If you could kindly explain to this one-sided thinker why Pai seems like he just does the bidding of the companies he used to, likely will again, and (one would argue) currently works for, that would be a boon to my jackass brain.

Thanks in advance for your hard and thankless work.

<comment><USER18> Its really a very simple argument, for me at least: this shouldn't be regulated at the federal level. State and city regulations (or even outright ownership) are fine though. Heck the cities literally own the streets.

Beyond that, how did the net neutrality policy makes sense? If two parties want to communicate with each other, why does it matters which side gets what percentage of the bill? It makes sense for the health of the network for big companies like Netflix to have business relationships with the ISPs to push the servers closer to the edges. The main argument for net neutrality is they are monopolies so we should beat them up, but I fail to see how net neutrality does that.

You read a lot about the FCC chairman's bad motives (who can say, maybe true?), yet in the same opinion piece the author will want him to have more legal power over the conduits of free speech and media.

<comment><USER19> > It makes sense for the health of the network for big companies like Netflix > to have business relationships with the ISPs to push the servers closer to > the edges.

From what I've read, (I haven't followed it too closely as I'm not from the US) the issue is that repealing NN enables an ISP to throttle Netflix for users who don't pay more for (for example) a 'Media' plan WITHOUT even needing to make a deal with Netflix. Monopolies then become a problem because certain areas of the US can only get connection with one ISP, so there is no room for them to choose a better option if their only available ISP starts charging through the roof for access to specific websites.

I could be completely wrong, but this is what I took away from most of the pro-NN arguments.

<comment><USER18> >> >> If two parties want to communicate with each other, why does it matters which side gets what percentage of the bill? It makes sense for the health of the network for big companies like Netflix to have business relationships with the ISPs to push the servers closer to the edges.

>> ...the issue is that repealing NN enables an ISP to throttle Netflix for users who don't pay more for (for example) a 'Media' plan WITHOUT even needing to make a deal with Netflix. Monopolies then become a problem because certain areas of the US can only get connection with one ISP, so there is no room for them to choose a better option if their only available ISP starts charging through the roof for access to specific websites.

These are essentially equivalent statements, no? On the one hand ISPs want Netflix to pay them, and on the other hand ISPs want Netflix to pay them.

Again I want to reiterate, for me this is all about the 1st amendment to the Constitution. I would love for the telecom monopolies to get broken up.

<comment><USER20> > On the one hand ISPs want Netflix to pay them, and on the other hand ISPs > want Netflix to pay them.

Not at all. On the one hand, ISPs want Netflix to pay them because Netflix is a source of high traffic volume. On the other hand, ISPs want Netflix to pay them because Netflix is a competitor to their own video services, and Netflix happens to be a source of high traffic volume because it's a better video service for the money. _Metered_ pricing isn't the evil we're trying to prevent, _discriminatory_ pricing is the problem.

If it's just metered pricing on the table, then the market will always choose the simpler option of the full bill being paid by the last-mile subscriber, rather than a needlessly complex system of trying to bill at both ends of the network.

<comment><USER18> I still find the two statements equivalent if you ignore the positive and negative sounding spin. As you point out, the market will always choose the simpler option. How could an ISP have a business relationship with every server in the world, even those not physically being on its fiber? It can't its an explosion of complexity, so an ISP has to discriminate against a couple big, identifiable companies.

If the pro net-neutrality position was something to break up the telecom monopolies, I'd be all for it.

<comment><USER20> > so an ISP has to discriminate against a couple big, identifiable companies.

No, they don't. They already have paying customers, and infrastructure to credit packets to those customers' quota/bill. There's no need to expend any effort tracking the other end of the connections, even if some targets are relatively easy to identify. They have everything they need to bill a responsible party for cost increases due to heavy traffic, without trying to single out (read: extort) companies like Netflix in a monopoly-abusing fashion.

<comment><USER18> Why do you think we have a right to interfere in the business and choose how they make money and administer the network? Because they are a monopoly? Then I agree we should break them up. Because they are a utility? Then I agree cities and states should regulate or own them. Federal Net Neutrality does none of these things.

What about extremely bloated news sites that clearly spend no effort decreasing data size? Should end customers just pay for that lack of incentive?

<comment><USER20> Why are you unwilling to accept any regulatory recourse to monopoly abuse aside from breaking up the monopolies?

Last-mile ISPs are always a natural monopoly at the neighborhood level, regardless of whether they are part of a multi-state conglomerate or a local entity. The monopoly needs to be regulated no matter what the larger ownership structure is. Many local governments do not have the capital or technical capability to build, own or operate an ISP, and there are clear advantages to consolidating the ownership and administration of the network, provided that it is still subjected to effective regulation.

<comment><USER18> So city/state ownership and state level regulation? Sounds good, no first amendment trouble there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >Among the changes proposed by the senators and accepted by Mr. Pai was to require commenters to fill out a Captcha—a system designed to prove humans rather than bots provided the information.

Great, so instead of costing $0 to post 100,000 fake comments, it costs $200 ($2/1000 solves is the going rate on captcha farms)

<comment><USER22> Don't underestimate the magnitude of the difference in skills & knowledge required to script an HTTP request vs. buy Captcha solves. Basically everybody in America would know a friend who could help them submit an HTTP form in a loop. I don't think everybody in America would know somebody who knows how to orchestrate the contracting of a Captcha farm.

Any discussion of security should include a discussion of the threat model. A captcha is quite effective at dissuading abuse by casual or unsophisticated parties. It's not at all effective against a sophisticated and well-funded adversary.

<comment><USER5> [https://anti-captcha.com/](https://anti-captcha.com/)

Done. All I had to do was Google it.

You really don't think that the kind of people who want to swing policies affecting a multibillion dollar industry wouldn't be able to get some office workers in India to solve Captchas?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Adding a captcha seems nice but will hardly prevent fake comments.

I doubt there is any online comment system that could prevent people's names from being misused really. It's not like we have a national ID card with private crypto keys issued to every citizen or something.

How are you supposed to verify someone's identity online without going through a laborious and expensive process (e.g. an in person interview, or requiring upload of a state or military ID number that is then used to send a postcard to the address on file asking for verification) that would then be criticized as discouraging public comment?

<comment><USER24> >It's not like we have a national ID card with private crypto keys issued to every citizen or something.

Good luck with that. Every so often it is suggested that voters should verify their identity when going to the polls. Just presenting a drivers license, passport, state ID or social security card should suffice. It's a similar policy as in many European countries. And every time, there is a huge number of people who oppose it. A very surprising amount of otherwise reasonable people fight tooth and nail against any forms of verification.

<comment><USER25> I know there are lots of rational arguments, but it's still funny to picture a vocal, outspoken radical voter worrying that if ID was required, the government might be able to figure out they voted for the vocal, outspoken radical candidate.

(I assume it's the more outspoken, more radical voters who do most of the objecting to ID laws- as it is typically those voters that get involved in just about any policy fight)

<comment><USER26> I've never heard the idea that opposition is because of government finding out who you voted for. I've always heard it be a case of voter suppression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Alex Howard, an open-government advocate and founder of e-PluribusUnum.org, > which has urged safeguards in the comment system, said the FCC fixes are a > small step. "Adding a Captcha to try to prevent spam, unfortunately, sounds > like a solution from the last millennium to a decidedly 21st century set of > problems," Mr. Howard said.

What they really need to do is check to see if the referral header is also from the FCC site to make sure people are using the website and not just hitting the API.

/s

<comment><USER28> Ahh yes! and check the IP to make sure it is not just someone from a single computer faking the referral header.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> [http://archive.is/HLBOW](http://archive.is/HLBOW)

<comment><USER30> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If anyone wants to help make US government systems better:

[https://code.gov/#/help-wanted](https://code.gov/#/help-wanted)

[https://www.codeforamerica.org/](https://www.codeforamerica.org/)

<comment><USER32> interestingly, codeforamerica has no posted openings for software developers.

<comment><USER31> Check for other CFA opportunities here:

[https://www.codeforamerica.org/join-us/partner-with- us](https://www.codeforamerica.org/join-us/partner-with-us)

[https://www.codeforamerica.org/join-us/partner-with- us](https://www.codeforamerica.org/join-us/partner-with-us)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Umm this is an internet problem .. as long as their isn't a verified identity system on the web then fake comments/news will remain an issue.

Either govt mandated or something the public embarrasses something commercial like twitter verified identities where posting anonymously no longer holds any weight vs. using your verified Twitter identity.

</comment><comment><USER34> I may be cynical but when I read they want a new system to create 'safeguards against abusive conduct', I really think they mean they want a system to suppress the sudden influx of actual public opinions (similar to that of the rush of traffic Last Week Tonight referred during their segment on Net Neutrality) and not flood out the machine driven comments supporting their decisions.

<comment><USER35> I'll see your cynicism and raise you.

Next up: pay-to-play/kickback-dealing single source contractor (crony?) brought in to make a new system, over budget and years late.

<comment><USER36> Is Diebold still around? Gimme five on Diebold by decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Kinda sad that a group with "communications" in its very name was able to let communication break down so much.

There is no way to "rebuild" a comment system without solving more fundamental security problems first, as it is simply too hard to believe what you read online.

Some ideas:

\- Costs have to be _ingrained in the system_. It can't be "easy" to spout crap in forums, nor should the hurdles be resolvable through traditional advantages (like having enough money to pay lots of people). One example would be: in order to post, you must donate X CPU cycles to Y.

\- Webs of trust, one of which would be run by the government itself, seem like a reasonable step toward being able to partially verify where stuff even comes from. The webs must be decentralized so they are hard to bias, where the reliability of a circle is decided by the network at large. If Anonymous Poster X doesn't have many reliable circles associated, that is equivalent to "take this comment with a grain of salt" (if not "ignore this drivel").

</comment><comment><USER38> The federal government had already decided to get rid of net neutrality so the number of comments for or against it was irrelevant at that point. So this strikes me as a whole lot of who gives a damn and is a distraction from the actual issue.

There seems to be a weird tendency to use the regulator (FCC) as a scapegoat and to give the actual people making the unpopular decisions a free pass. It's as if the actual political process has become entirely invisible...

</comment><comment><USER39> Someone had a site where you could search to see if your name was used when it came to the Net Neutrality comments. I was horrified to find mine was on there .... then I realized no wait. I actually did sign a thing about it and it appeared to be an appropriate comment that was associated with a petition that I agreed with. I think, it was actually hard to tell....

</comment><comment><USER40> Let me guess... Ajit Pai has a brother / brother in law / sister / somebody who happens to own an IT consulting firm.

</comment><comment><USER41> A new comment system won't cure any of their ailments. So long as Pai and other industry lobbyists remain at the helm of the very organization that polices them, nothing will change. This is true for every agency of this administration. A coal lobbyist is running the EPA. A cable lobbyist is running the FCC. etc etc.

<comment><USER42> Stuff like this really makes me think the next economic collapse is right around the corner.

America has become the kind of Govt the founding fathers hated for it to become.

The issue is, it's the lesser of evils compared to other countries. We have a long way to go before we sort out better ways to govern nations of a planet.

<comment><USER41> Victim of its own success. Money and power corrupt both parties. Inability to rein in corruption produced just more corruption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> But didn't they KNOW which comments were fake? Or that at least an estimate? Captchas don't stop internal malice. That's why everyone was mad. It was easy to tell it was happening and a large number of comments could be identified as fake. This more seems like they are trying to save face.

</comment><comment><USER44> I guess they discovered you can't really make $8000 a week working from home part-time online.

</comment><comment><USER45> Or maybe, what if policy decisions were made based on experts?

Not internet comments or lobbyists or donors.

<comment><USER46> Sounds reasonable, except it would still backfire when those in power believe their "feelings" are more important than widely acknowledged and vetted scientific data like many appointed in the current administration. And when need be, any corrupt official can buy an "expert" to tout whatever point of view fits them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> After the fake comments Ajit Pai wanted to be submited, now they want to fix it?

</comment><comment><USER48> Here is another article without a paywall: [http://thehill.com/policy/technology/396490-fcc-proposes- to-...](http://thehill.com/policy/technology/396490-fcc-proposes-to-overhaul- comment-filing-system)

Note that this is an effort to post alernative sources when one is behind a paywall.

<comment><USER49> Firefox extension to bypass WSJ and FT paywall

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/read-ft- wsj/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/read-ft-wsj/)

<comment><USER50> Or just prepend any url with "archive.is/"

[https://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/articles/fcc- proposes...](https://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/articles/fcc-proposes- rebuilding-comment-system-after-thousands-revealed-as-fake-1531315654)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Yes because Sybil attacks are trivial to fix right

</comment><comment><USER52> Oh really. No shit. How about that.

<comment><USER53> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.</comment></comment>


What Fat Ladies In Bikinis Taught Me About Investing - <AUTHOR> http://weakonomics.com/2010/08/25/what-fat-ladies-in-bikinis-taught-me-about-investing/

<comment><USER2> What a total dick this article is. Why would fat people be denied going in bikini? Since when we have to all be thin?</comment>


Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals - <AUTHOR> http://www.nwpr.org/post/firestorm-erupts-over-virginias-education-goals

<comment><USER2> [After edit: the submission title has been changed to match the original article title, in accord with the Hacker News guidelines. This is an interesting article on an important issue.]

On the underlying policy issue, of course it is a good idea to set high standards for all pupils in a public school system and to manage the system so that as many pupils as possible can meet those standards. One example of good practice in the charter school sector, serving mostly low-income minority students, is the work of the Uncommon Schools charter school network,

<http://www.uncommonschools.org/>

where Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion principles have been carefully monitored for their effectiveness in boosting student learning.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html>

[http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470...](http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470550473.html)

Economist Roland Fryer is convinced that improvements in classroom practice can do much to improve educational outcomes for the most disadvantaged learners in the United States.

[http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Fryer_R...](http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Fryer_Racial_Inequality.pdf)

AFTER EDIT: A story from National Public Radio, "Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning"

submitted to Hacker News by another participant yesterday

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4773019>

(alas without comments after not appearing on the front page in time) is a very good supplement on the idea of different teaching practices producing different learning outcomes. That article is based on a comparison of classroom teaching practices between the United States and east Asia. I have lived in one of the countries profiled in that story, and can confirm the general correctness of the facts reported in the story.

I look forward to thoughtful discussion about the policy issues being brought up in this thread.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think there is value in taking into account the starting point of various schools in setting goals, but I can't believe they would be dumb enough to use a suspect classification (race) as the metric instead of something like socioeconomic status or the original passing rates for individual schools.

<comment><USER4> Why can't we measure a student's progress longitudinally? It can't be a cost problem.

A student's improvement should be measured based on that student's previous level, not the level of that student's race.

edit: Basically, wouldn't it be both smart and possible to keep track of a student's education records just like we do with a person's medical records?

<comment><USER5> We can. This was, if I'm not mistaken, the fundamental idea behind NCLB. Schools had been hiding behind average test scores that obscured the fact that some kids were excelling while others were being shuffled along. So you test every student and grade schools on the absolute fraction that are hitting desired progress toward grade-level competency, not on averages or relative rates for different subgroups.

But schools and teachers hated the added testing, and hated being labeled as "failing" when they failed to get a substantial fraction of their students up to grade level. Parents hated their schools being labeled "failing" (and feared the corresponding property value hit) while _their_ children were doing just fine.

So now we have waivers from NCLB and we're unsurprisingly back to the "soft bigotry of low expectations".

Sorry to sound cynical about this. Really, I wish the Federal government would get out of the local education business entirely, besides making sure civil rights aren't being violated. But if they're going to be involved, they should be pushing for exactly the kind of student-by-student accountability that NCLB (no doubt with many imperfections) tried to impose.

<comment><USER3> > Sorry to sound cynical about this. Really, I wish the Federal government > would get out of the local education business entirely, besides making sure > civil rights aren't being violated. But if they're going to be involved, > they should be pushing for exactly the kind of student-by-student > accountability that NCLB (no doubt with many imperfections) tried to impose.

The reason the federal government is involved in local education is that states do a terrible job of delivering uniformity in educational quality. White flight in the 1960's left urban school districts like Chicago as 85%+ low income and 90%+ black/hispanic. These school districts just don't have the property taxing power that homogenous suburban school districts have, and the federal government comes in to make up the difference.

<comment><USER5> Sure, and it behooves the Federal government to be certain those tax dollars are furthering their goals.

It is fascinating to browse around the "report cards" issued under NCLB for schools in, e.g., Illinois:

<http://schools.chicagotribune.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I attended Virginia schools from grades 4-12, and my particular school district decided it would be a good idea to have a "prestigious" grading scale (A=93-100, B=87-92, C=78-86, and so on). It seemed like a good idea at first: A public school system would be known for having "higher standards" than others. The problem? Colleges didn't give a damn what grading scale you used. Your GPA was the same as anyone's, which made it harder on every student without any real benefit.

My question is what does this "achievement standard" do if the grading system stays the same? It doesn't really seem to affect anyone, except maybe takes another step toward eliminating "survival of the fittest"

<comment><USER7> My college had the same idea. To 'boost' the program they made the average GPA 2.8.

The result? About 60%(instead of the usual 50%) of the graduating class was automatically denied interviews at company's that had a 3.0 minimum GPA requirement.

<comment><USER8> Since when is a B the 50th percentile?

<comment><USER7> It doesn't matter what a B 'is'. Students and hiring managers both know B's are worthless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The HN title, "Grading kids by race" is misleading. It's not grading kids by race, it's setting different passing rate goals for different minority groups.

"Virginia's expectation is that all students, regardless of race or ethnicity, will correctly answer the same number of questions to pass the state tests."

</comment><comment><USER10> I think this should be judged on its merits (results and intent). In the end, is this system better able to track progress and lift academic competency for affected children? Arguably race isn't and should not be the best or even the preferred selection criterion. Maybe economics, entrance exam results, etc., should guide the classification and tracking, regardless of race.

</comment><comment><USER11> President Bush may or may not have been an idiot, but his speechwriter coined a useful phrase, "the soft bigotry of low expectations".

</comment><comment><USER12> While I think this is interesting in that the state is trying something new (I didn't even know states could get waivers for no child left behind) I can't help but think this will have a negative impact on the kids.

They're basically being told that because of their race they have a lower expectation. Regardless of what historic data says, is lowering expectations for certain minorities ever the right approach? This just sounds like treating a symptom.

<comment><USER13> Think about it in the other direction too- if you're an asian who isn't the best at math you're considered a failure for not getting consistant B+ and A grades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If I understand this correctly, they're not saying asian students have to score almost twice as highly than black students. Instead, they're saying, "Okay, a majority of asians are passing our standards and proportionally fewer of black students are, so let's set those as a baseline and seek to improve from there."

I find it questionable they would set the bar for what portion of students should pass state standards based on race, but if black students statistically struggle compared to asian students, I can see why they would do this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Policies like this are a result of ignoring good science in social cognition on the reality of stereotype threats. See for example <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570773/>

<comment><USER16> Being informed that you're attending a 'failing school' strikes me as just as much of a stereotype threat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Florida is doing something similarly horrible.

<comment><USER18> I think it would be more horrible to expect everyone to get 85 regardless of whether they're starting at 82 or 52.

<comment><USER19> I think it would be a good idea to expect everyone to learn the material and be evaluated on their ability. If someone does a better job, they should get a better grade.

If people find it hard to do understand the material, the solution isn't to let them scrape by with less understanding. That's doing the students a disservice. Instead, we should be investigating why the students are doing poorly, and at least attempting to fix the root causes. Bring people up to the desired standards, don't drop the standards.

I think it's horrible to think that just because someone started off behind, they're too incompetent to produce the same quality of work as another student that started off with an advantage.

<comment><USER20> "I think it's horrible to think that just because someone started off behind, they're too incompetent to produce the same quality of work as another student that started off with an advantage."

People who start off behind tend to not spontaneously catch up. And yes, it is horrible. "incompetent" is a bit of a loaded term to describe their current levels of understanding, however.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
few weeks ago one of the partners of one of europe's largest VCs told me that he couldn't concentrate at my pitch because i sounded to much like http://vimeo.com/7595897
This kinda kept sticky in my mind. ;)
As i am moving now with my company[1] to London i would like to use this opportunity to improve my english, my accent and my grammar/spelling.
As a typical non-native i have regular problems with spelling e.g. with similar sounding words. I do have this problem especially in hectic faces.
Additionally I have trouble with incorrectly translated german expressions. Some of them are really below all pigs.
How would you suggest to level up english in a time efficient way?
Are there online services/startups you would suggest? Do you have other experiences here? (e.g. writing blog articles?) How did you improve you (once mediocre) english?
ps: i left by intention more than 4 mistakes in this post just to prove my point.
[1]: My Company - http://www.Garmz.com - Feedback Thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1788016 <comment><USER2> Spaniard in London with the same problem here.

The _BEST_ on-line material is BBC's "The sound of English" [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pr...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/) Just watch it and practise with a mirror many, many, many times and you will improve.

If you are willing to spend some money, I recommend doing an elocution "soften your accent" course. I did it a couple of years ago (sorry, don't remember the name of the company, it was close to St. Pancras Station) and I improved a lot.

Pay special attention to "intonation patterns". Even if you make every individual sound right, natives will have trouble understanding you. You have to make all sounds in a sentence flow together in one of the few predefined sound patterns found in British English in order to get understood. Just changing the intonation pattern changes the meaning, even in the same phrase.

Example: 'I like _YOUR_ new blue dress' vs. 'I like your new _BLUE_ dress' vs. 'I like your new blue _DRESS_ '.

<comment><AUTHOR> Found one that looks interesting - maybe it helps other HN users as well:

[http://www.londonspeechworkshop.com/our-courses/dates-and- pr...](http://www.londonspeechworkshop.com/our-courses/dates-and-prices/)

Do you have any other recommendations maybe?

<comment><USER2> It took some fiddling with my old email archive but I found it, Joe Hudson was my teacher:

<http://www.pronunciationlondon.co.uk/joe.html> <http://www.anenglishaccent.com/author.html>

He is very good. We spent half of every session learning 'high level' stuff (phrases, paragraphs) and the other half practising 'low level' elocution (where to place your tongue and your lips for each sound).

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks contacted him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You'll stumble upon so many biz partners in London that will surprise you with much worse accents. Big cities demand funny accents - so we Austrians are safe… Just pay attention to the tones and stresses in conversations with Brits & try hard to notice the differences. Changing from American English to British feels a bit ridiculous if you're not used to it (overpronunciation?).

edit: btw: <http://www.dict.cc> shows translations of whole spoken phrases, it's hard to find something there, but in general the database of <http://www.phrases.org.uk/> is ok. Probably you'll find something on <http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/> but I think the level is too low.

<comment><AUTHOR> The permanent overdose of US Media makes UK English really sound different. You are right about that ;)

Unfort. most of the online learning material is by far too low. If you have any other suggestions let me know!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My preferred way of gaining a good intuitive feel for a language is to read tons of published written material (print magazines, books etc). The language is edited and proofread so you're guaranteed a level of correctness.

This trains your mental 'correct-language-pattern-matching-AI' with a constant stream of correct examples to compare all your produced language with, and for me at least, has been the best long-term method of producing correct target language (in my case Japanese).

The idea is that you constantly expose yourself to what correct language sounds like, and based on the accumulated experience of reading those you can have an intuitive feel for when a bit of produced language is wrong or right.

tldr: read more!

</comment><comment><USER5> The good news is that there are very few native speakers in London :).

I'm still nowhere, but three things helped me a lot at the very beginning:

1\. BBC iPlayer <http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer> \- it may not help a lot, but is good fun :).

2\. I put my CV online - the very next minute recruiters started calling. They're 99% completely useless (even more if you're not looking for a job, haha), but you can have the same conversation over and over again :).

3\. Chatting in the pub. The circumstances are the absolute worst, so if you manage to get across anything in the pub, you will be much better off under better conditions.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a lot for your feedback

i am not worried of spoken language

we use english in my company as default language

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't used it myself but Lang-8 sounds useful:

<http://lang-8.com/>

Example:

<http://lang-8.com/184023/journals/661147/English-Class-No3>

PS: I just checked an entry written in Portuguese (my native language) and there were lots of incorrect corrections, so beware.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem with theses pages is that they advocate the same errors you make in spoken language. Because even natives do them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The "easiest" thing would be to live somewhere where you speak English with native speakers on a regular basis.

<comment><AUTHOR> as said.

i am moving to london.

and spoken language is not the problem.

its about mistakes in writing. spelling and grammar

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you are right about the part about the accent. I missunderstood your argument.

Actually i am not doing it on purpose. I just got used over the years to write small-letters in forums/comments and email. Maybe you are right to make this kind of a starting point.

<comment><USER7> (You missed the 'reply' link)

Yes, that definitely looks better! The fact is that you will surely make a few errors, so not capitalizing and the other 'intentional' errors compound those that naturally creep in, making the whole thing look like a big mess.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. If you don't bother to follow the rules you already know, how do you expect to learn more?

It's not like native speakers don't have problems writing correctly. At one point, I couldn't spell the word "necessary" to save my life. One day I decided I would simply refuse to write any word I didn't know how to spell without looking it up. Now I can spell almost every word I know without looking it up. I got a D (a very bad grade) on my first college essay. On every other essay I wrote, I made absolutely certain I wasn't making the same mistakes. I got a B+ (second-best grade) or A (best grade) on every essay after that.

Aside from that, I would say immersion is the best thing you can do. Immersion, not language courses, is how native speakers learn to speak like natives. Devote an hour (or more) a day to reading modern English fiction and an hour (or more) to reading modern English non-fiction. Write about what you read. Ask native speakers to review what you've written. Don't just ask them to find mistakes, ask them to rephrase anything that sounds awkward how they would say it. Fluency is imitation. What you want is to say things the way a native speaker would say them, not just to say them grammatically correctly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Your fellow Seedcamp company www.wordy.com would help you on a written basis - check the feedback you receive and learn from it. Being here in London, reading english books and newspapers, and going to the movies will also help. Disclosure: I work at Seedcamp...

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually i did that approach already. (Although not with wordy but a native PR professional)

This would basically mean writing regulary articles and getting them checked with wordy. Interesting approach but i would prefer a system that shows me instantly errors i do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you can find a penpal, that would help I think in spelling and grammar.

</comment><comment><USER11> Time-efficient? Native speaker girl/boyfriend/partner.</comment>


SproutCore 1.5 Release Candidate 1 Released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sproutcore.com/post/4280548884/sproutcore-1-5-release-candidate-1-released

<comment><USER2> Sproutcore had lots of promise, but it seems really to be struggling. Biggest issues (that everyone has known for some time) is the huge learning curve, lack of training materials / docs, and really clunky default ui. I was really sad to see Erich Ocean's book proposal fall flat. Just seems like Sproutcore as a dev community is on its last gasp.

I've recently been ramping up on ExtJS and Sencha Touch. Licensing issues aside, Sencha seems to be spending their time on producing good demos, sample apps, videos, and fostering a solid user community behind it. The tech is actually pretty decent as well (though sproutcore had much greater potential I think).

<comment><USER3> Amen: I really want to like it, but found the documentation completely impenetrable. It doesn't help that there's a big refactoring effort underway, and the entire views system seems to be changing to Template.

I wouldn't write it off already though: the team knows that the documentation is an issue, and there's definitely a push towards improving it. <http://guides.sproutcore.com/> for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Man, those are some ugly demos.

<comment><USER5> which demos are you looking at?

<comment><USER6> I'm looking at <http://demo.sproutcore.com/> (not sure about OP).

In Chrome 10, I can't get greenhouse to load any of the projects. In the family tree demo, clicking Add for Male, Female, or Pet doesn't seem to do anything. Trying to open outline hangs the demo page (and I can't then load anything else in the demos page without refreshing the page). Sorting by clicking on column headers in the table_view demo doesn't seem to work (maybe that's not meant to?).

Hope that helps!

<comment><USER7> Got family tree to work, you've gotta click the plus sign to create a family, then click on the family to give it focus, then the "Add Male..." stuff works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a point of pride I don't publish broken web resources, so it's disappointing to see that they still lack any kind of progressive enhancement support and don't seem to be working on it.

<comment><USER9> SproutCore, as its homepage states, is meant for "desktop-class web applications," not sprucing up static content. Progressive enhancement is meaningless for this. If you don't have javascript, the web app simply won't run. Accessibility is still an important consideration, but that is a distinct concept.

Principles are important, but principles divorced from context is dogma.

<comment><USER10> A message telling people to please turn on javascript wouldn't hurt though, would it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Videos at [http://blog.sproutcore.com/post/4214558845/catch-up-on- the-s...](http://blog.sproutcore.com/post/4214558845/catch-up-on-the-sf- meetup) may give a better perspective</comment>


Dropbox Automator extends the functionality of your cloud storage - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/1/2672920/dropbox-automater-cloud-storage-batch-manage-features?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> _It's entirely free as well, so there's nothing to lose by giving a shot._

So basically it will stay up for 6-12 months and then shut down.

</comment><comment><USER3> I took a look, excited about this software, but giving a third party access to my entire Dropbox to an organization that doesn't state it's security policies, and says that the only way to delete my account is to drop the founder an email seems like I'd be exposing myself to more risk than I would like.

<comment><USER4> A better way would be to share a folder to their Dropbox email account, so you only expose to them what you want.

<comment><USER3> The best way would be to make desktop software that did the required tasks without exposing third parties to the data at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm looking for some app that uploads a file when I recieve an email. Anyone?

<comment><USER6> Does iffft do what you want? I'm not super familiar with it, but it might.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> first action: inform me of new files in public folders.

<comment><USER7> We at <https://cloudHQ.net> are actually doing something like that for couple of our big customers. It is not yet completely polished and finished, so, if possible, I would like to ask you if we can learn more about your requirements. My email is in profile. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Guildbit: deploy a mumble server - <AUTHOR> http://guildbit.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe a weird submission, but I just think it's a really clean, well-designed site.

Even having never visited the site before, the user's immediately invited to just type a password and go. You don't need to browse around and think about all the options.

The philosophy is "do now, learn later" rather than "learn now, do later." It's really appealing for a user flitting around the internet with a 2 second attention span.

(EDIT: If you have no idea what Mumble is, you'll need "How it Works" of course...)

</comment><comment><USER2> Hey all, I'm the author of this app. It's late here, but feel free to leave any questions and I'll answer when I can!

<comment><USER3> The upgrade sizes seem really small; I am not sure how many people will need at least 16, but never more then 25.

<comment><USER2> I agree. I plan to increase the upgrade sizes or offer more variety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a really nice thing to offer people, but with places like DigitalOcean offering one-click Mumble deployment for $5/mo[1], Guildbit might be a service looking for a niche.

[1] [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- use-...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-the- mumble-server-one-click-application-image)

<comment><USER5> Same question as "Why should I use github, I can host the git repo myself"

<comment><USER2> Yep, this was the idea. The target audience are mostly gamers who want to get a quick server up and running, especially for PUGs (pick-up groups in MMOs). Most guilds already have some type of voip server they setup or are subscribed to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mumble is an amazing VoIP app! It uses TCP for control, and UDP for data. There's a training wizard, and cellphone-like sound quality is possible, even with limited bandwidth and high latency. Even, in my experience, via OpenVPN via Tor. Latency was 1-2 seconds, but sound was clear, with no clipping.

</comment><comment><USER7> this is awesome! i will definitely give this a shot next time i queue up! though i'm traveling right now so that will be a week.

i'm trying to reconcile the difference between my excitement and the skepticism of the other posters.

i don't use Mumble because i am typically queuing with randoms. and i don't really have any interest in maintaining my own mumble server on the off chance some random i queue up with wants to join it.

i would, however, be happy to click a simple "deploy" button on a case by case basis for the same purpose. first, i don't have the cognitive load of _another server i have to maintain_. and the effort required to set up a server on your app is near 0- much closer to 0 than the cost of owning and maintaining a mumble server.

</comment><comment><USER8> Non VPN (bare metal) VoIP server with automatic deployment: [http://www.mizu- voip.com/Services/VoIPHosting.aspx](http://www.mizu- voip.com/Services/VoIPHosting.aspx)

Configure and deploy: [http://voipserver.mizu- voip.com/?function=allinone](http://voipserver.mizu- voip.com/?function=allinone)

This actually uses the SIP protocol with all kind of traditional VoIP features such as voice, video, conference, chat, voicemail and others. Instead of imaging a VPN, this uses scripts to setup a new server instance with its own database.

<comment><USER9> It's the same idea as: "Why use GitHub when I can host my own repo" and "Why use Dropbox when RSYNC exists"

It's a nice, well presented website that serves an actual purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In theory this is really nice (the design and user experience is well done).

But Mumble servers are already so cheap ($1.65 a month for 15 users at the 'gold-standard' host) that I wonder how important this is.

I don't really mind the markup on their upgrades though since I know that it's subsidizing the cost of others. And paying with Bitcoin has to be convenient for some people (though I assume they could grab your IP when you connect to the server if privacy is your main concern anyways).

<comment><USER11> What is the 'gold-standard' host?

<comment><USER12> He probably means Multiplay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to use Teamspeak and Ventrilo a lot and even ran a server. Mumble is a good open source alternative. Too bad it's hosted on SourceForge.

These guys look like they're using the same sort of tech to help remote working teams: [http://speak.io/](http://speak.io/)

<comment><USER14> Mumble's source is on GitHub, maybe they might move binaries there, too.</comment></comment>


Some Australian catfish have been feasting on mice - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/4/12771184/catfish-eating-mice-australia-study <comment><USER2> Fishing for them as a kid, they were notorious for playing dead, then jumping out of the bucket and waddling back down the bank. Smart fish.</comment>


Show HN: Fluxo – Build a financial model in minutes, not days - <AUTHOR> https://www.fluxo.ai <comment><USER2> Also the buttons at the top inside the navgation (HOW IT WORKS, PRICING, DOCS, SIGN IN) have too little contrast with the blue background. There are white but have an opacity of 0.6. Set the opacity to 1 and they look much better. Add maybe a border effect on hover.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I've just changed it. It's definitely looking better. I tried border effects but I think they're too much for my (almost nonexistent) design skills.

<comment><USER2> I think you have problems with the mobile navigation now :) The hover effect makes the background white, however the text is now white too. I would do somethink like: .navigation:hover { border: 2px solid white; margin: -2px; } And tweak the border-radius/border-color a little bit maybe. The hover effect on the non mobile navigation is fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't need to write CSS, built the website with Webflow :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Probably a time saver but IMO building a model from scratch is the only way to really understand any business. You can use a tool like this and it will certainly let you "get a handle on it" but I would still recommend the manual method.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback.

While Fluxo lets you automate a bunch of tedious things, it's still on the user to create the whole business logic of the model.

The idea is that you can build a model exactly as you would in Excel, just easier. Some examples: \- instead of copying and pasting data from other places, integrating through an api \- instead of duplicating entire sheets to create multiple scenarios, just add a scenario to a dropdown \- instead of having to create separate tables for monthly, quarterly, and annual views, select how you want aggregations to work and change the view with a toggle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing to maybe explicitly stated, to compete with adaptive insights and anaplan, is that the model (assuming) auto updates with actuals monthly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, good point. The way it works now is: if an actual is coming from an external source or a formula, it updates automatically (if it's manual, it doesn't). Once a month is closed and you want to start using that month as an actual, not a forecast, you just need to press a button "finalize all actuals for current month", and it all happens automatically.

We are positioning our product as much more lightweight and affordable solution than Adaptive or Anaplan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> At the subscription plans you have a weird looking outer border which wraps the four plans. I would just drop it, looks much better without it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch, that was not on purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> On smaller viewports the footer has a left and right margin of 15px. I would drop that and always make the footer fill 100% of the width.

<comment><AUTHOR> done

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be nice to have a sample table just to see how it works :-/

Looks great, though!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Two of the features we are considering next are templates and a guide/in-app training. Which one do you think would be more valuable to you?

(Also, I can answer any specific questions on the chat if you are logged in)

<comment><USER5> I think it's helpful when if you open an empty dashboard, there is an example that uses all the features that you can play with.

I logged out because I couldn't really gauge the product without doing a lot of work.

Zenkit does what I'm talking about pretty well, if you're interested in this pattern.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it, thanks for the feedback. Certainly something we're going to work to improve

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats on the launch!

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


Air pollution drops in European cities: how does your street look? - <AUTHOR> https://sifted.eu/articles/pollution-maps-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> I find headlines like this problematic. Yes, NO2 and CO2 levels are decreasing, but they will return back to previous levels as soon as possible or maybe even increase. [1]

The problem is, that due to headlines like this, the general population will believe, that our world can reduce C02 simply as soon as it will be necessary due to climate change. But then, it will probably already be too late.

We humans have a hard time coping with slow processes, which applies to things like corona virus and climate change alike.

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-51944780](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51944780)

</comment><comment><USER3> i find the title a bit misleaing. "your street" only if it is in Madrid, Brussels or Paris.

<comment><USER4> Actual source of the maps has more cities: [https://air.plumelabs.com/bruxelles-air-quality-map- bKDg](https://air.plumelabs.com/bruxelles-air-quality-map-bKDg)

</comment></comment><comment> squarerootof-1 Is there a slide map for London?

</comment><comment><USER5> And it's more quiet.

<comment><USER6> If you live close to a ER location or on the road to a ER location then that is not really the case. Source: me, living one tram station away from my city's biggest ER hospital and 3 tram stations away from the city's infectious diseases hospital (which is now a covid hospital). But there's definitely less (almost no) people honking anymore, that's a huge plus.

<comment><USER5> Well, it's obviously going to get busy around the hospitals.

What I observe is that there are way less of small cars, some buses got shorter and almost nobody drives at night.</comment></comment></comment>


Millennials are flocking to the Pacific Northwest, study finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-19/millennials-moving-west-portland-seattle <comment><USER2> Title: Millennials are flocking to the Pacific Northwest, study finds

Article: 2017 data suggests the westward trend has faded in recent years, in favor of areas like New Haven-Milford, Connecticut; Madison, Wisconsin; and Syracuse, New York.

So it sounds like the title should have been "Millennials are flocking East, study finds"

<comment><USER3> It almost felt like reading one of those machine-generated finance articles that fill in sentences with some stock statistics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am not a millennial (born in 1977) but the combination of the strong regional economy and access to natural beauty (Puget Sound, Pacific Ocean, Olympic Peninsula, etc) is really amazing.

On top of this, the area has a significant resistance to the kind of temperature highs that are hitting most of the country right now. I spent the weekend camping on Vancouver Island where the high was 71 when I was there.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Seattle metro has grown by more than 10% every decade since 1940:

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

I think this trend has a few decades left to go, especially as trans-Pacific trade (hopefully) continues to increase.

</comment><comment><USER6> They saw the Francis Mallmann episode from Chef's Table on Netflix?

</comment><comment><USER7> PWN FTW.

PS. Spokane is terrible nobody should move here.

<comment><USER8> Spokane is great, so long as you don't need a job

You might be able to make $80k as an engineer if you really push for it

You can buy a lordly mansion for $700k and the floor's the limit on normal houses

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Millennial logic: Move to a place with a growing population, but expect rent to go down, and complain when it doesn't.

<comment><USER10> Boomer logic: oppose every new construction project anywhere near your neighborhood and mock millennials when they find there is a scarcity of affordable housing.

<comment><USER11> Also Boomer logic: cut down every rezoning proposal for no reason

<comment><USER12> I don't think this is inherent to Boomers so much as the general reaction of people who have chosen to live someplace specifically because it has a small town feel.

Instead of finding new ways to cram people into smaller spaces, we should be trying to incentivize businesses to spread out and open new branches. This has the side effect of encouraging diversity and social mobility.

Converting sprawling residential areas into high-density urban areas without upgrading infrastructure and public transit like we have been doing leads to a lot of issues.

People are gradually getting stuck choosing between skyrocketing real estate prices and massive contention for shared resources in urban areas, or languishing opportunities and pay in rural areas.

Not to mention the consequences of climate change, and the additional risk of concentrating more people in fewer places. Or the impact on political power due to the way the Senate and Electoral College are structured.

So I disagree that this is just a "housing crisis" where building more housing is the obvious solution. That will lead to secondary costs and problems that could well be crises themselves. Plus I think we have enough housing, it's just that there aren't equal opportunities across the country where the housing surplus exists.

<comment><USER11> Rezoning plans usually include refactoring to current infrastructure and public transit. If you let things sprawl then you make infrastructure and public transit cost more and less likely to ever happen. Take Austin for example, they've spent millions on rezoning plans and they always get shut down from the NIMBY types. Meanwhile lower income individuals in Austin suffer due to poor public transportation and increasing cost of living. Additionally adding more efficient and convenient public transportation cuts down on personal vehicle usage and having people live in higher densities incentivizes public transportation efforts. If there is too much sprawl they can't really meet the needs of everyone and remain convenient.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Do you know about OpenBLAS alternative Mir GLAS? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/libmir/mir-glas <comment><USER2> There's a bunch of POCs about writing a BLAS equivalent in Julia. Theoretically, one day it could be a viable alternative. See [https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-paddedmatrices-jl- juli...](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-paddedmatrices-jl-julia-blas- and-partially-sized-arrays/38215)

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the issues with the various OSS BLAS/Lapack implementations is that they're inevitably researched heavily for a while and then fall out of maintenance. If you're a commercial developer, unless performance is absolutely critical, you're better off just paying and using MKL as at least it's stable.</comment>


Ask HN: What tech companies are most like grad school? - <AUTHOR> Very subjective, but at which companies is work closest to a grad school experience?<p>Things like some or all of the following (and perhaps other characteristics I'm neglecting):<p>* have the "feel" of a college campus<p>* deal with math- and CS-heavy projects<p>* promote continuing education<p>* collaborate with academia <comment><USER2> The thing about being a graduate student is they work you like a dog and pay you peanuts, it's not a kind of environment I have any desire to go back to.

<comment><USER3> I'd rather know which company is _least_ like grad school, because this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've heard great things about Two Sigma, they sell themselves as having a very academic environment (lots of PhDs, tech talks, etc.).

<comment><USER5> I started there a few months back having just finished graduate school. I wouldn't call it 1:1 with graduate school. I like it far better, and I enjoyed graduate school.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you share what interviews are like for positions like data analysis or data visualization? Algorithm heavy? Will studying for a Google-style interview leave me adequately prepped?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Obviously...Google. You should think about including (not Google) in your title.

<comment><USER7> As a recent grad working at Google, it's probably a lot like being a janitor at NASA. Some really cool stuff is going on there, but you're still just a janitor.

Google has a couple interesting projects, but most people are doing the grunt work associated with keeping a large corporation running.</comment></comment>


Revl (YC W16): stabilized action camera - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/revl-arc-the-first-stabilized-4k-action-camera--3/ <comment><USER2> The view from the leaning motorcycle was awesome. I took it for granted that stabilization meant seeing it from the vantage of the rider, so seeing it from the aspect of an external viewer was a bit shocking and really cool.

</comment><comment><USER3> What kind of storage space do you need for the recording and can you use this from a laptop?

<comment><USER4> Well, if it's 4k RAW an hour runs about 50 GB. That's of footage on high-end prosumer RED 4k gear at 24 FPS. I'm sure higher-end gear with larger CCDs and more accurate sensors will sample at a way higher rate. I've seen numbers as high as 1.5 TB an hour. I've played around with the entry level RED 4k stuff just for fun on my last-gen Core i7 and it's just fine with Avid.

It looks like it's designed just like the SteadXP[1]. In which case, it uses the gyroscopic sensors to act in tandem with whatever gimble/mount/steadycam you have, and it crops/reframes according to the movement the sensor picked up. 4k is just a marketing wank word anyway, just like megapixels, megahertz or "4G". None of those mean anything unless you know what sensors, what your workload is like and how many instructions per second you average, and what your dB loss is. Ten year old Sony cameras shooting at a quarter the resolution with ARRI lenses will easily outperform whatever you could possibly provision for $450.

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1091165875/steadxp- the-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1091165875/steadxp-the-future- of-video-stabilization) \-- About a year head start, which is already shipping. I'm not a patent attorney I'd be real concerned if I were the founders.</comment></comment>