Elizabeth Warren proposes canceling majority of student debt - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/elizabeth-warren-wants-to-cancel-student-loan-debt-for <comment><USER2> _The entire cost of the plan, Warren said, which would include free undergraduate tuition at public colleges, is estimated to cost $1.25 trillion over 10 years. That cost would be covered, the campaign claims, by Warren's proposed tax on the wealth of "ultra-millionaires" — people making more than $50 million — and billionaires._

<comment><USER3> The ultra tax will go so well that the government will never have to worry about their spending ever again.</comment></comment>


33 Thomas Street - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street <comment><USER2> Captured those reflections on the building this morning, they look like a puzzle.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/whoisstan/49074343638/in/datep...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/whoisstan/49074343638/in/dateposted- public/)

<comment><USER3> Wow, very nice photo. Are these the reflections of the windows from 220 Church Street?

<comment><USER2> I only caught that while running by for a brisk morning jog. I didn't pay much attention to the source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This video about 33 Thomas St building was awesome:

> _Field of Vision - Project X_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOJugaGK0eU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOJugaGK0eU)

> _A top-secret handbook takes viewers on an undercover journey to > Titanpointe, the site of a hidden partnership. Narrated by Rami Malek and > Michelle Williams, and based on classified NSA documents, Project X reveals > the inner workings of a windowless skyscraper in downtown Manhattan._

> _Directed by Laura Poitras and Henrik Moltke._

<comment><USER5> I came across this video from the linked Wikipedia article. It's a good video but lacks much detail IMO. I was hoping for something longer and more in depth (although it did lead me down a rabbit hole of Field of Vision videos which are all _excellent_ ). Does anyone know of more detailed vids about the building? The suggested YouTube videos didn't offer much.

<comment><USER6> [https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in- new-...](https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york- hidden-in-plain-sight/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whenever I hear about this building I can't help but be reminded of Geoff Manaugh's idea for a Ghostbusters III, where the Ghostbusters discover that the NYNEX telephone system is actually... well, I'll let you read it: [http://www.bldgblog.com/tag/ghostbusters- iii/](http://www.bldgblog.com/tag/ghostbusters-iii/)

<comment><USER8> Note, that link is actually a link to a tag page; it just happens that the post you're trying to point out is the only post with that tag. The actual post link is here: [http://www.bldgblog.com/2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of- new-...](http://www.bldgblog.com/2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of-new-york- city/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The 18 foot ceilings accommodated the then standard 11 foot, 6 inch equipment racks, with space overhead for cable racks, bus bars, AC ducts, etc. It was built about the time that the standard was changed to 7 foot racks for the new electronic switching systems.

</comment><comment><USER10> Brutalism is a strange style. It alienates but I always feel it is closer to humans than most modern buildings.

<comment><USER11> I've often thought similar things. I think it's because in comparison to many glass modern buildings, Brutalist ones tend to age in way that appears more organic. They also don't tend to have a ton of windows, which is more inline with historical architecture.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I also think that stone and rock (concrete) feel more natural than glass.

<comment><USER9> There is also no practical reason to have windows in a telephone equipment building. They cannot be opened to cool, they only would light a limited area along the wall. The entire building must be air conditioned, and lighting is only turned on when people are in the equipment aisles.

Warehouses and data centers are the same, except that they don't attract attention since they are low horizontal structures with much more utilitarian cladding.

The most interesting telecom buildings are the ones underground.

<comment><USER12> This one lacks windows because it was built to withstand a nuclear war.

"But it's downtown" you say. "No way it would withstand a direct hit."

Rumor I heard is that they thought for sure they would have SDI protecting Manhattan, and this is only supposed to survive a hit on Queens or Newark or something.

Crazy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I too watched the latest Half as Interesting. :)

<comment><USER14> I too wanted to post this comment :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> All major cities seemed to end up with similar facilities at end of the 1970s to cope with the exponential reach of telecommunications at that point. In Australia, Melbourne has 320 Exhibition Street [http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/telstra- exhibition-...](http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/telstra-exhibition- exchange/19804) and in Sydney, the Kent St Exchange Telstra Kent Telephone Exchange

95/105A Clarence St, Sydney NSW 2000 [https://g.co/kgs/3ifj5d](https://g.co/kgs/3ifj5d)

(At least they both have windows - I've been in Exhibition and they do function )

<comment><USER16> While just as impressive, that Telstra exchange point is more similar to Verizon's building at 375 Pearl Street [than 33 Thomas] which held local Verizon local switching facilities for many years (f/k/a Bell Atlantic, f/k/a NYNEX, f/k/a New York Telephone).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/375_Pearl_Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/375_Pearl_Street)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Related article from 2016 about the building: TITANPOINTE "Project X"

[https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in- new-...](https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york- hidden-in-plain-sight/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I find it funny that brutalist buildings always remind me of Nineteen Eighty Four. It is amusing then you find out it may be a hub of mass surveillance.

<comment> 52-6F-62 On the other hand, Roberts Library at U of Toronto is a haven and protectorate for knowledge and rare books. And it looks like a fortress! It's one of my favourite buildings and one of my first stops in the event of a sci-fi-level zombie Armageddon.

[https://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/sites/default/files/st...](https://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/libraryphotos/robarts- library_0.jpg?itok=T7gmCpL0)

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

<comment><USER19> Looks like a Turkey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Legend says there is a building of such importance in central London but of course it's officially denied (or at least was) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Tower)

</comment><comment><USER21> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_\(video_game\)) used this building as an inspiration for 'The Oldest House'

<comment><USER22> You barely get to see the outside of "The Oldest House" in that game. But the interior spaces designed in that game are something else. It's almost entirely white light on concrete, but the mileage they get out of that is amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It was the Snowden leak that confirmed it was an nsa site.

<comment><USER12> To be fair, there are a lot of NSA sites. This one just looks impressive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> i actually was in that building to meet a friend one time (he was working at ATT labs at the time).

the spinning door into the lobby is the most intensely rugged/durable looking thing i've ever seen, and every door was electronic lock access only.

lack of windows aside, a neat space!

</comment><comment><USER25> See also One Wilshire Blvd, in downtown LA, which has been widely known as a CIA listening point for the entire Oceania/Pacific region for years ..

</comment><comment><USER26> Isn't there another one of these in Hell's Kitchen area? I used to live right next to it.

</comment><comment><USER27> Man, I'd love to have a tour.

</comment><comment><USER28> A video all about this building was in my recommended YouTube yesterday. Deja vu.

<comment><USER29> Deja Vu is the feeling that a current event is identical to an event from memory.

This is actually a Baader Meinhoff moment for you.

<comment><USER30> Literally it is correct - 'already seen'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> >SKIDROWE

As someone who always struggles coming up with names, this acronym(?) is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER32> > The building has also been described as the likely location of a National > Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance hub codenamed TITANPOINTE.

Of course it is…

</comment><comment><USER33> See also, 60 hudson

<comment><USER34> Is 60 Hudson a notable spying location? I've been inside there and didn't even have to sign in, we just went right up to our cage.

111 8th Avenue has "National Security Agency" on the tenant directory you see when you walk in. Always thought it was weird that Google leased some of its building to the NSA after the Snowden leaks. (When I worked there, one of my pet projects was to remove the access codes for the bathrooms. Eventually it was escalated high enough and they told me that the NSA demanded it. The codes were like 1 3 5 and 2 4 6. I never understood the purpose other than to annoy me.)

<comment><USER35> The 10th avenue building Google also shares with the FBI (top floor). I've always thought that the FBI taking a floor in E-Corp's building in Mr Robot was a dig at Google because of this.

The building one block north of there is the NYC DEA office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> One of my favorite buildings in downtown Manhattan.

<comment><USER37> I like the "jenga building" near it, too. (56 Leonard)

<comment><USER23> That building is insane. Apartments are $3000 plus a sqft. There's not that many high rises in downtown Manhattan that command prices like that... Definitely on the high end. Not sure if you'd really want 33 Thomas as your main view though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't know why this type of building is even tolerable. What is this, the USSR? It looks like it could be the Ministry of Love...</comment>


The startup pitch generatr. - <AUTHOR> http://startuppitch.appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> I think the ideas are good, now for the execution. As the years go by (only 23 of them) - I find people can make an average idea fabulous; although the wrong people can make a good idea bad;

</comment><comment><USER3> | p2p IM infrastructure that leverages the basic human need to connect.

I think that might have been done.

</comment><comment><USER4> > p2p IM Firefox extension that leverages a collapsing IP regime.

Sounds reasonable. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> > Sounds reasonable. :) Isn't this scary?

<comment><USER5> Tells you how much an idea is worth, and how much is execution.</comment></comment></comment>


ASK HN: Any licensing options for Electron based desktop apps? - <AUTHOR> While looking at Electron to build cross platform desktop apps I've stumbled onto a problem when it comes to licensing a commercial project.
Is there any license generation scheme you can recommend or think is suitable for a commercial project given the technologies used by Electron?
To avoid confusion, when I say licensing, I mean generation product license key that that users use to register the software and potentially unlock "pro" features.
So far, googling hasn't really turned up any results.
Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> Look at Slack's license?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not exactly sure what you mean...

<comment><USER2> Slack is built on Electron and has multiple subscription levels. So their license should provide you with some good ideas :)</comment></comment></comment>


The Digg Team Is Going To WaPo, But The Assets Aren't - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/30/washington-post-acqhires-digg/

<comment><USER2> Rob Malda recently moved to the WaPo where _he will be the Chief Strategist and Editor-at-Large working for WaPo Labs._

[http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/03/05/202206/rob-malda- cmd...](http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/03/05/202206/rob-malda-cmdrtaco- joins-the-washington-post)

So this potentially places the founder of Slashdot heading the Digg Team at the Washington Post.

Make of that what you will. (I'll note it is 2012, and there could be another MySpace acquisition in the works.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Digg is one of those websites i used to use on a daily basis, it was my main source of news every day, now i forget it even exists until a story like this pops up.

The one thing that this teaches me is that if you have a web property with a decently sized user base, if you want to change things, do it incrementally and get feedback from users as you do it, rather than carpet bomb them with design and feature changes.

</comment><comment><USER4> I just browsed the "Trending" category on Digg for all topics. Most stories have single digit comments. Ouch. Amazing how far the site has fallen since its glory days.

<comment><USER5> They are an extremely prominent example of Second-System Effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The irony that this hit the front page of Hacker News before the front page of Digg isn't lost on me. As a Digg member since May 11th, 2006 my heart is broken...

<comment><USER7> I knew I had a Digg account, and your post motivated me to check how old it was. Apparently I joined Digg on 11/10/2005. I didn't even realize it still existed, to be honest.

Definitely sad.

<comment><USER8> 06/06/06 Member Since

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Still _very_ respectable traffic on digg (as compared to reddit and HN): <http://imgur.com/a/BMHXe>

I'd be surprised if the WaPo (or someone else) doesn't step up to take it over.

<comment><USER10> Those stats are waaay inaccurate. <http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/2-billion- beyond.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Contrary to how Facebook/Google loves to do the acqui-hire, this is just the last part. Hiring without having to buy the useless company part.

<comment><USER5> It's a pretty ignominious end, though, if it does come to pass that Digg just shutters from this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Will there be a Business Week cover story about Kevin Rose with the title "How this kid lost $60 million in three years"?

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_33/b3997002....](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_33/b3997002.htm)

Nah, that title probably won't sell too many magazines.

(This is a rip on BW's inflammatory, "let's ignore facts" writing style, not Rose.)

</comment><comment><USER13> Reddit's site is ugly and the UI is horrible. I've tried to use it and it sucks. Plus there is so much childish crap on there. I remember first finding Digg in 2005, then they opened it up to non-tech categories. It was still good, because I could get the feeds for categories I liked. They added images and pics, and I filtered that crap out as well. Then v4 happened and use went down and the categories went very narrow and it sucked.

I really wish Hacker News had categories, but it would very hard to categorize things. Right now I have a massive filter on Yahoo Pipes, but of its no where near perfect. All I can work with is the title of the story to filter things and link.

</comment><comment><USER14> This sounds like the sensible way for a company to pick up an attractive team. Picking up a junk product along with the team is a horrible thing to do to shareholders in my view.

</comment><comment><USER15> Makes you wonder whether or not you just sell and run given the chance.</comment>


Show HN: Interactive Bash Utilities - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
After some quick hacking, I have managed to extract some of the things in my .bashrc I find useful to make a library.
Maybe the most interesting part is prompt.sh. It displays the return code of the last command along with an error message. The error message comes from a look-up table using the last command run and the return code.
Please let me know what you want to see in such an utility library.
https://github.com/ertug/bash-utils <comment><USER2> You can turn all that elifs on prompt.sh into a case/esac.

I've returned to screen from tmux, since it manages vertical split. I've something similar for auto-screen. But my configuration avoids nested screen sessions (i.e. ssh to host A, and then from host A to host B, both with the same .bashrc configs), like this:

[[ -x $( type -P screen ) ]] && \ [[ -n "$SSH_CONNECTION" ]] && \ [[ "x$TERM" != 'xscreen' ]] && screen -dR

<comment><USER2> err... formating issue, delete the '\' chars for a single line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting, I don't have time to dig into it right now, but I'm always interested in cool dotfile stuff.</comment>


Symbolic Plane Geometry Calculator - <AUTHOR> https://geometryexpressions.com/gxweb/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if this offers any additional features, but it seems like a similar tool to [https://www.geogebra.org/calculator](https://www.geogebra.org/calculator) which I believe is also open source.

<comment><AUTHOR> The key word in the title is symbolic. In GeoGebra the CAS is not coupled to the drawing, and most of the computation on the drawings are numerical. In the link, everything you draw is symbolic and you get an algebraic expression in terms of the primitives you specify.

<comment><USER3> That's true, but you /can/ do exact geometric constructions that just use the CAS engine in GeoGebra eg [https://www.geogebra.org/m/ZdhcBBpj](https://www.geogebra.org/m/ZdhcBBpj)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's excellent, that is not nearly as difficult of syntax as I was expecting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many years ago I worked briefly for this company. It's nice to see them hit the big time.

</comment><comment><USER5> This _really_ needs a "new here? here's how to use this tool!" tutorial. It's no doubt super cool, but how do you actually use it, without first clicking random things until "something does a thing"?

<comment><USER6> The examples under the help menu, (?) icon, are pretty good: [https://geometryexpressions.com/gxweb/help/](https://geometryexpressions.com/gxweb/help/) ... at least the ones I looked at in the Some Geometry Theorems category now.

Very cool. Maybe I'll finally learn geometry proofs now!</comment></comment>


MooTools – 1.5.1 is out - <AUTHOR> http://mootools.net/blog/2014/08/29/mootools-1-5-1-release/ <comment><USER2> I've always wanted to try out jQuery alternatives but don't really have the opportunity at work.

What does MooTools do better than jQuery? Or is it purely a smaller binary size?

<comment><USER3> The quality of a library isn't just performance or usability. You also have to consider if other people working on your code base will be able to figure it out and use it.

Even if jQuery is worse than MooTools in almost every way (performance, usefulness, size, etc.) it has a HUGE advantage in that any web developer has used it before, so there's a minimal learning curve when someone new has to start working on your code base.

Furthermore, since jQuery uses sensible practices in terms of API stability and plugins, you can expect performance and coverage to only improve.

Edit: I realize this could have been read as "MooTools is better" but I actually prefer jQuery from every angle. If you're doing something too complicated for jQuery, you need a full-fledged framework, not MooTools.

<comment><USER2> Yea I'd have to agree with all your points but I meant more of what it actually does better as a piece of software not as a tool that others have to use/understand.</comment></comment></comment>


Is the whole lean startup thing really nothing more than UX? - <AUTHOR> http://www.iijiij.com/2011/04/17/is-the-whole-lean-startup-thing-really-nothing-more-than-ux-08451

<comment><USER2> No.

Yes, it does cover UX but it also covers how technical people and business people should think and act as well.

I have noticed a bit of a backlash on the whole lean methodology. OP isn't exactly a complaint but it does confuse what Eric and Steve are espousing.

I think the backlash comes from a impression that proponents think/say that the idea is if you practice the methodology you cannot fail. I don't agree with that at all and I am a big lover of the lean methodology. You still have to have intelligence, a good idea, a good plan and a slathering of luck.</comment>


Twitter Inspires a Dedicated and Thriving Startup Economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.briansolis.com/2009/06/twitter-incubates-a-dedicated-and-thriving-startup-economy/ <comment><USER2> "Thriving" for the short term, maybe, depending on how you define "thriving". Sustainably profitable for the long term, is still difficult to forecast.</comment>


Show HN: Otter, a one time pad tool in lisp, my Saturday side project - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ecto/otter

<comment><USER2> Way too imperative. Tons of undeclared variables. why is 'modo' a macro? Local 'defvar'.

Try to write the code shorter. You should be able to write it in about 50%.

Example, from 6 to 3 lines:

        ; generate a random list of *max-int* integers
        (defun randlist (size)
          (let ((lst ()))
            (dotimes (i size)
              (setf lst (cons (random *max-int*) lst)))
          lst))

vs.

        (defun random-vector (size)
          "generate a random vector of *max-int* integers"
          (map-into (make-array size) (lambda () (random *max-int*))))

and

        ; generate random data
        (defun gen (size-string)
          (when (null size-string)
            (setf size-string "4096"))
          (setf size (parse-integer size-string :junk-allowed t))
          (unless (numberp size)
            (error "size must be a number"))
          (defvar buffer (randlist size))
          (princ (%octets-to-string (coerce buffer 'vector) *encoding*)))

vs.

        (defun generate-random-data (&optional (size 4096))
          (when (stringp size)
            (setf size (parse-integer size :junk-allowed t))
            (check-type size integer))
          (%octets-to-string (random-vector size) *encoding*))

</comment><comment><USER3> Doesn't this only encrypt the first line of input? I thought the idea was to generate a pad-file of equal length to the whole file.

        (with-open-file (input input-path)
          (with-open-file (pad pad-path)
            (setq input-buffer (%string-to-octets (read-line input) *encoding*))
            (setq pad-buffer (%string-to-octets (read-line pad) *encoding*))

Also, I'm not sure what (specifically) read-line looks for to stop reading, but if it can occur randomly you could receive errors if this first random new-line occurs before the length of the file's first line. Or at all when using the same pad for many files as you describe. This may be handled by your %octets-to-string handler though.</comment>


Good Defensive Patents Are Bad Patents (Julian Sanchez) - <AUTHOR> http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/07/28/good-defensive-patents-are-bad-patents

<comment><USER2> I do agree that patents are broken and we should get rid of them, but ...

         The ideal defensive patent, by contrast, is the most
         obvious one you can get the U.S. Patent Office to sign
         off on

No, the ideal defensive patent is NOT an obvious one, because such patents can and do get invalidated in court quite frequently; and then you look stupid for spending billions on useless patents.

The perfect defensive patent is one that ended up being used all over the place. That's an entirely different matter and is not necessarily correlated with obviousness, but rather with usefulness.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think here the relevant definition of 'obvious' is 'readily inventable independently by competent parties.'

I.e. ideally, you want the defensive patent to be obvious _enough_ that your likely attackers will have come up with and used it in vital processes.

Yes, usefulness is an important correlation, but obviousness is too, insofar as obviousness is inversely proprortional to how widespread a method is.</comment></comment>


Mortgage Market Reopens to Risky Borrowers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-market-reopens-to-risky-borrowers-11566379802?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> > Some $2.5 billion worth of subprime loans, those with FICO credit scores > below 690, ended up in mortgage bonds in the first quarter of 2019. That is > more than double a year earlier and the highest level since the end of 2007, > according to Inside Mortgage Finance. There was $1.9 billion worth of > subprime mortgage bonds in the second quarter.

Statements like this are hard to evaluate without knowing the denominator: the total value of new mortgage bonds in each period.

All too often, an author who should know better throws the reader a scrap like the following sentence:

> The market for unconventional home loans is still tiny compared with the > rest of the mortgage market as well as its precrisis past, when > unconventional borrowing peaked at more than $1 trillion.

But this still doesn't convey what percentage of the loans are to sub-690 FICO borrowers.

I see this all the time and wonder to what extent it has contributed to mistrust of the traditional media.

If we find out that the percentage in 2019 is 1% but in 2007 it was 56%, that casts the entire story in a different light.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that most journalists are innumerate. As Matt Yglesias notes, "many reporters and editors don't really understand what they're doing. Reputable colleges hand out degrees to people who have almost no understanding of quantitative methods." [1] These journalists see the numbers as garnishes on a narrative point. They're not trying to put the numbers in some sort of mathematical context to draw sound conclusions. They may not even realize that there is a difference between using numbers for garnish and deriving meaning from numbers.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/12/innumer...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/12/innumeracy/47581).

<comment><USER4> I've noticed a trend on BBC news.

'[X market/stock] slumps as [thing related to X] [does something]'

Yet when you go and look at the long-term graph, it's well within normal variance. There's no evidence they're connected at all. I'm sure it happens with other media providers too.

Why? Because they didn't have the numbers right, or just didn't check at all. Well, if I'd written a statement like that in an essay during my schooling, I'd be marked down for unsubstantiated claims at best or admonished for plagiarism at worst.

I find it irresponsible that the news rarely cites its sources beyond admitting they bought it from AP/Reuters. I believe it should be enough to prevent them being cited as a trustworthy secondary source until they at least have their justifications to a level that would be considered adequate by a high school history class. It's the only reason citogenesis happens on Wikipedia.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that "Sellers outnumber buyers as equity markets fall" and "Buyers outnumber sellers as equity markets post gains" are not compelling headlines.

As you've noted, financial news is post-hoc analysis. It is narrative-based, and not fact-based. Sometimes the narratives and facts coincide, though.

<comment><USER6> Those statements seem odd, as well. You can't really tell how many of either there are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is anybody else making the supposedly foolish decision to time the housing market?

I am financially ready to purchase my first home, currently living in the bay area, but I think right now just looks like a bad time.

\- A lot of housing price growth is seemingly "priced in" since rents for condos/apartments significantly lower than total monthly ownerships costs (mortgage+hoa+insurance+taxes+etc.), even with 20% down.

\- The major high paying tech companies are expanding mostly outside of the area. The fresh batch of big tech companies, outside of Airbnb, have an unclear path forward.

\- Subprime lending, interest rates, the current PEs of REITS etc. seem to indicate an impending housing contraction. So interestingly, dumb money (the consumer lending market) is pricing in growth while the smart money is indicating a contraction...

\- A lot of VC backed companies are looking bubbly, so if you are at an actually profitable tech company in the area, your relative purchasing power for housing would likely improve if the bubbly companies went under.

<comment><USER8> In the Bay Area prices have already started to level off. Sites like Zillow are predicting a 10% downturn in the next year in the highest priced areas.

If you want to buy in the Bay Area, I'd wait a year and see what happens. I don't think the price increased will outpace your savings by very much if you hold out and continue to add to your down payment fund.

But I'm just a guy on the internet, so don't blame me if I'm wrong. :)

<comment><USER9> Interesting, have a link to the Zillow prediction?

<comment><USER10> This is what I could find, but doesn't corroborate the prediction mentioned above [https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home- values/](https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/)

<comment><USER8> You have to average out all the different areas of the Bay Area. For example check out San Jose: [https://www.zillow.com/san-jose-ca/home- values/](https://www.zillow.com/san-jose-ca/home-values/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For all the negative rhetoric around subprime loans, they enabled me and others I knew who were young and self employed to own homes.

They aren't always bad, they aren't always crazy balloon loans or predatory instruments. Sometimes they allow someone who has an alternative life circumstance to not be excluded.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, subprime lending often makes a lot of sense for the person taking out the loan.

If the rents are high relative to expected mortgages/recurring costs in your area, it will pay itself off very quickly (minus the risk of default you open yourself off to). And it allows you to lock in a monthly payment for potentially decades, which has a massive amount of value by itself.

It also makes a lot of sense if you have reasonable expectation of a large amount of income growth / expense decrease that will free up cash flow. For example, if a household member is finishing up school or in training for a more lucrative field (like an MD in residency) it might make sense to be house poor for a small period of time to lock in rates, take advantage of a nice buying opportunity, etc. Or if you are about to be released from child support / settlement obligations, and thus will experience some increased cashflow, could also make sense.

It's not fair to assume that everyone with poor credit or lack of capital for a downpayment is a bad person to lend to, HOWEVER, in the general case it's probably true that in the absence of impending changes in household finances, an inability to get good credit or accumulate savings is a negative signal. And unless you are a small lender, your subprime loans probably aren't discriminating against people who are about to increase income/decrease expenses while building better credit, and people who just suck with money.

<comment><USER12> > poor credit or lack of capital for a downpayment is a bad person to lend to

There is a _huge_ gulf between those who have unconventional sources of income and those who lack capital for a downpayment or who have poor credit. Poor credit is caused by things like not paying off previous loans / carrying high balances. Not having a down payment is a sign you have not yet demonstrated an ability to save enough, or don't have enough income to save enough, both of which seem reasonable criteria off of which to base a lending decision.

The parent commenter described a circumstance -- self-employment -- that is wholly unrelated to both poor credit and an inability to save a down payment. You made the leap between the two. We need to end this kind of thinking.

> a nice buying opportunity, etc

Equal housing laws mean that -- in the absence of very particular circumstances -- any opportunity for this hypothetical student would also be available to more reliable debtors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone who is interested in buying a home. This scares me. We have lots of money saved for our down payment, but I don't want to end up in a bidding war with someone who isn't as good financially, and then end up purchasing for more than the house is really worth. Also, cheap money inflates the prices of homes anyway.

Grumble grumble... we will have to stay disciplined and be honest with ourselves as to what the home is truly worth to us.

<comment> pickle-wizard I bought my house in Austin 4 years ago in a pretty hot market. The advice I can give is don't let yourself get emotional. If you get outbid on a house, there will always be another one you can bid.

I ended up putting in offers on 8 houses before I didn't get out bid.

<comment><USER13> I've been watching one particular neighborhood within my city (to be more specific, a specific section within a neighborhood), and it's had about 4 sales in the past 3 years. I can only imagine how many of those were investors were deep pockets, and if I'll ever have my day to compete with them. In the meantime, I'll continue building my down payment fund.

The neighborhood is predominantly aging Boomers, so it's possible in a decade there will be increasing sales volume, providing a better opportunity to get in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Off topic, but ?mod=rsswn in the url allows me to access any article for free on WSJ.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the tip

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> With respect to MBS pass throughs, 'conventional' means securitized through Fannie or Freddie. The opposite of 'conventional' isn't 'unconventional' its Ginnie Mae.

</comment><comment><USER17> Throwaway account for reasons that will be clear.

Few years ago, used to be have a 820+ credit score, earning £30k a year, had one barely used credit card that was always fully paid off, I would struggle to get approval for loans or overdraft, etc.

My depression and anxiety came back, got into reckless behaviour and drugs for a while, three credit cards, payday loans, random holidays on credit for no reason, down to 400s or so now. My banking app has started aggressively suggesting mortgages to me since last month, every time I open the app.

To those worried I'm turning things around, cut down on drugs quite a bit, payday loans all paid off, £2k left in credit card debt and will start earning £60k a year once I start my new job next month.

</comment><comment><USER18> There are commercials and ads everywhere on how easy it is to get a mortgage from Rocket / Guaranteed Rate etc. Ever since that started happening I kind of assumed this was coming down the pipe.

</comment><comment><USER19> So, next thing like in "Big Short" in 22 months?

</comment><comment><USER20> We were planning to start (our first) small business, which would require locking in some capital. I'm worried about the future of the economy, and have been thinking about putting it off. I know a lot of people say don't time the market, but I feel this is a bit different from timing the market in the context of investing. What should I do?

<comment><USER21> There's always a million reasons not to do something. Vague economic fears should rank low on the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Eventually the piper needs to be paid. If people are taking more measured risks in search of growth vs outlandish, then eventually we will see a gradual contraction vs sharp correction. They will expand bit by bit into risky waters, get hurt a little, but and pull back, but not so sharply.

Or maybe everyone is just fooling themselves that this time will be different

</comment><comment><USER23> Coincidentally chatted with an expert in this space recently and he talked about the feast and famine cycles for the mortgage lending business. The sentiment was that we are definitely feasting and there wasn't much indication of a near term change to famine.

Somewhat tangential comment but feels like it is in line with OP article...

</comment><comment><USER24> Is some of this in the category of "looking for new business areas as signs of possible recession loom?" Between the yield curve inversion coverage and concerns about trade war impacts I could easily see concerns and people trying to get things started while it's possible to do so.

</comment><comment><USER25> Negative yielding bonds that people only buy in hopes of unloading onto a bigger sucker?[1] Pre-crisis level of subprime lending? Time for the financial equivalent of going to the Winchester to wait for this to blow over.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20760222](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20760222)

<comment><USER26> > Pre-crisis level of subprime lending?

Nope, not there yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So, is it just me, or have we as a society/economy learned absolutely nothing from the Fiscal Crisis?

</comment><comment><USER28> Man I wish someone would give me a "risky deal" I am totally good for it but I just don't have a decent enough down payment. Paying $2000/mo for rent sucks.

<comment><USER29> I didn't have the credit score to qualify for a mortgage 5 years ago, and the house we were renting was being sold. We found a private lender and paid $150k for a nice little home in the Austin suburbs - $20k down and 7.9%.. I know, it's a crazy high rate but I'm so grateful that the guy trusted us. My credit score is now > 760 and we're closing this week on a 10-year refinance at 3.5%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> My question is, who is to say that X "FICO Score" correlates to anything _too_ meaningful -- or that the score itself has not become harder or easier to obtain?

Perhaps the data exists on this, but to my unresearched mind there's a lot of "fudging" potential within it all by itself. For instance, maybe the current 'borrower state' that gets you a 690 previously would have given you a 725; or maybe it's the opposite.

I understand how averages work, but is there any oversight or auditing done on the rating agencies and the ratings themselves? It just seems ripe for 'gaming' at that level IMO; if banks need to sell financial products and they buy the ratings from the agencies, surely they can lean on an agency to 'fudge' numbers one direction or the other (I'm speaking in aggregates here)?

Anecdotally, every time I look at my credit score I cringe -- I've never carried much debt, have always paid it off on time or early, and yet my credit score stays somewhat low, seemingly because I largely don't participate in "the system". Furthermore, every time I've ever applied for credit I end up with scores (and offers of credit) far in excess of the numbers I see when I either get my 'free credit report' from the 3 agencies, and they're similarly different than the numbers I see if I pay to see my reports from the 3 agencies.

I don't know, it just seems like a "chicken-egg" problem to me, and one where the rating agencies are perhaps incentivized in a way that does not align with the "economy" as a whole -- and is instead much more closely with their high- value customers (lenders). I also feel like there's so much "missing data", which could probably tell quite the tale, for instance, if someone such as Google was to begin a 'ratings agency'. Half of my finds that to be a scary thought, the other half of me thinks that we'd probably end up with objectively better outcomes, both economically and probably, in many cases, even individually too.

<comment><USER30> Hrm -- I'd love to be enlightened! I didn't word it very well, but my questions are primarily:

What oversight is there on the _ratings agencies_ themselves? How do we know the distribution of scores is the same today as 10 years ago (and proportionate to credit-worthiness)? Is there anything that prevents credit- ratings companies from under/over valuing the credit-worthiness for large swaths of the population?

Is there historic data available to correlate "consumer credit score" to distressed notes -- and can that be done in a forward-looking manner, to exclude credit score 'fudging' as a factor, and to better be able to know that it's apples-to-apples comparison historically speaking. Otherwise, could it not simply be that borrowers previously known as higher-quality borrowers are simply being rated more poorly/cautiously, for instance? I'm not saying that is the case, but I've always felt that the incentives seemed strange.

Are credit rating agencies paid (by lenders) based upon their prediction accuracy?

<comment><USER31> The lenders themselves spend a lot of effort on making sure that the credit ratings are good signals.

When your business is extending credit (typically very low margin) you walk a very fine line between being overly permissive in lending and not lending enough. Minor movements of that line can be the difference between profitability and not.

If a ratings agencies algorithm was shown to be changing to be too aggressive (either historically or against its peers) the lenders will dial back its importance in their own decisions. In the extreme to the point of not paying for it anymore.

This internal competition does a pretty good job of making sure the algos represent the current state of the world.

There is a question of about this system causing future systemic risk to be underpriced because no one is incentivized to investigate it fully and add it to their algorithm.</comment></comment></comment>


The Philosophy of Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://ajax.stealthsettings.com/tutorial/the-philosophy-of-ruby.html <comment><USER2> There is only one way to do it.

<comment><USER3> And what would that be?</comment></comment>


Les Paul saw a need and invented something to fill it - <AUTHOR> http://www.cleveland.com/music/index.ssf/2008/11/story_of_his_life_time_and_aga.html <comment><USER2> Whether it fits HN or not, thanks for this.

The photo where Les Paul is holding his guitar fresh off the assembly line brought a tear to my eye. It just captures the pride and excitement.

Glad to hear the old man is still rocking.

<comment><USER3> > Whether it fits HN or not, thanks for this.

Of course it does: he hacked the Gibson.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. If Les Paul was 60 years younger, he'd have been into computers, no doubt. He's very much the image of the hacker mentality. I love seeing the inventive mind at work, even if it's in another field.</comment></comment></comment>


Was the Chumby ahead of the curve? - <AUTHOR> http://montrealrampage.com/king-ludd-11-was-the-chumby-ahead-of-the-curve/

<comment><USER2> Yeah, totally. I've really enjoyed my Chumby. Good product, ahead of its time. Right now it's on meager life support, but I'm still waiting for someone to kickass in the "alarm clock hardware" market. Docked iDevices don't cut it.</comment>


Has Hacker News ever been 'trolled' (/b/?)? - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) Don't ask me about the prospect of a Wikipedia contributor coming up with the idea to research 'troll'?<p>(On a side note: my name is Alex, and I'm a freshman studying CS at Harvard. I'm trying to spend the free time that I have actively engaging on things that I think are important on the internet, like Hacker News, because I want to be a better global citizen and I think that thinking analytically is a necessary condition to do so. I'm just diving into the world of computer science, so I'm excited to ask and hopefully have answered a lot of questions that I'm generating. Thanks!) <comment><USER2> yes, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373) and likely other times too. (edit: this is more of a parody, but you could probably consider it trolling in some sense)

</comment><comment><USER3> This submission reeks of self-reference. While referring to the phenomenon of trolling, it may itself constitute a troll as the term is defined (i.e. by "sow[ing] discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people)."</comment>


Lilium tests flying car - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2017/04/lilium-jet-first-flight-test-flying-cars/ <comment><USER2> A demo without a person within the vehicle is not very impressive. Hope this tech has a future, but not mentioning this fact in the article seems like a mistake.</comment>


The brain may need sleep to repair DNA 'potholes' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/mar-9-2019-science-of-awe-blue-whales-and-sonar-chromosomes-and-sleep-and-more-1.5047142/your-brain-may-need-sleep-to-repair-dna-potholes-1.5047151 <comment><USER2> > Research has shown that sleep is important for both mind and body. Sleep is > vital for learning and memory and long-term sleep deprivation can lead to > depression, compromised immune function and other chronic health problems.

As the father of three under 5, I can testify this is absolutely correct(!)

<comment><USER3> It's most apparent in young children. Children generally behave fine when they get good sleep and become monsters when they have just a few less hours. Often being overtired becomes a feedback loop where they refuse to sleep and then become even more exhausted.

<comment><USER4> > Often being overtired becomes a feedback loop where they refuse to sleep

Often it's true for adults too. When you're overtired, it's sometimes harder to sleep. But why should that be? It doesn't make sense. Any ideas?

<comment><USER5> There should be no reason to be overtired so your body reacts by keeping you awake to deal with it until the stressful events are over but this is stressful by itself. And modern city life has no shortage of stress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The referenced 2017 paper is also super interesting: [https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2017.55](https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2017.55)

Especially the section about the impact on "Reward and incentive processing" had some fun insights.</comment>


Ask HN: H-1B Visa holders, how did you get the job? - <AUTHOR>

- How long had you been working before getting the offer? - Are there any new grads here who managed to get an H1B by any chance?<p>Thank you! <comment><USER2> My (french) college had a partnership with an american college so we could come to study in the U.S. That U.S. university then sponsored us CPT/OPT which allow you to work in the U.S. for our internship.

I found an internship at slideshare and after 4 months they decided they wanted to keep me as a full time employee and said they would sponsored my H-1b.

We missed the fist filling opportunity so we had to wait few months to get in it, at this time the race to H-1b was not as crazy as now.</comment>


"Nothing like this will be built again": a tour of a working nuclear reactor - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-like-this-will-be-buil.html <comment><USER2> When I worked in academia I did one project with Scottish Nuclear and one of their team had worked on the project to build Torness. He had a story about one of the failure modes they had to consider during the design.

AGRs can be refueled while they are operational by a huge machine that moves across the top of the reactor and allows the fuel rods to be extracted from the extremely high pressure environment of the reactor core. The refueling machine is basically a long thing container that fuel rods can be raised into or lowered from.

They had to consider the case of what would happen if the refueling machine wasn't properly pressurized before the connection to the reactor core was opened (which can't really happen for a variety of reasons). However, if it did happen they realized that the refueling machine would basically act like a very large gun shooting hot fuel rods through the roof of the reactor building powered by the high pressure CO2 from the reactor core.

Every time I pass Torness on the train I can't help looking to see if there are any fuel rods flying into the air. So far, so good....

</comment><comment><USER3> "Energy to cheap to meter". It pains me. I'm so glad to see a good writer give some strength to how massive and impressive these reactors are. But it pains me as he describes system after thoroughly redundant system adding to the costs of these reactors.

I'm much more familiar with PWRs (Pressurized Water Reactors) which yes, are a bit smaller and less efficient, but the plans and schematics are like a first time run through of a problem. Nothing re-factored, nothing elegant, just plain and simple brute force design to make it work.

There's no reason for four diesel generators when two would do. There's no reason for multiple chemical volume and control systems. There's no reason for 6 foot thick, steel re-barred concrete containment in a negative void coefficient reactor!

My take-away from working in the industry is regulation severely impedes innovation. I fear that our greatest discovery since fire is languishing. Nuclear energy will be used to great extent in the future, but I can't stand the current delays. Energy is conceivably too cheap to meter in it's current form. You could conceivably pay, not by your kilowatt-hour, but a fixed monthly subscription to unlimited energy. Just think about what you could do with that!

Edit: -- Misread the article. PWR's are less efficient than AGRs

<comment><USER4> > _There's no reason for 6 foot thick, steel re-barred concrete containment in > a negative void coefficient reactor!_

To contain the steam explosion in the event of a coolant leak. That is, pressurized liquid water at 300 °C flashing into steam as it's depressurized.

<comment><USER3> Coolant leak and steam explosion are in conflict with one a other. What you're referring to is Chernobyl, which had a graphite moderator which allowed for a dramatic increase in power and pressure with no release. Light water plants use water as a moderator and a coolant leak would relieve pressure making a steam explosion unlikely. For example Three mile Island was never in danger of a steam explosion.

<comment><USER4> > _Light water plants use water as a moderator and a coolant leak would > relieve pressure making a steam explosion unlikely._

I mean, the pressure in the containment building. Isn't that the purpose of the containment walls, to withstand steam pressure from a coolant leak? Or am I misunderstanding things.

> _Coolant leak and steam explosion are in conflict with one a other._

My mistake.

<comment><USER3> My argument is that there is no purpose for the containment walls. They are theoretically yet another barrier to leak of radiation on top of the fuel rods and the piping itself but I would argue this as unnecessary. Chernobyl should have had a containment vessel. This would have averted that disaster. Three Mile Island had a catastrophic systems failure with a partial meltdown yet only 1 inch of the 7 inch thick reactor vessel was affected. Some xenon gas and other radioactive elements were released to the atmosphere but of minimal quantities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I was getting my degree is Physics we had a lab in the "student reactor", which was still in a large building of its own. As part of the lab we got to sit down to the control console of the reactor and control it, on our own. I remember I was turning one knob increasing the power output when suddenly there was a loud noise, everything shook, and the power output went to zero. Turned out it was the failsafe (I think cadmium rods dropped into the core) as I was too agressive with the controls --- it was a normal occurence for students. (All modern reactors are designed in a way that you can't overdrive them, they'll automatically shut down.) It was great fun and a story I'll be telling for the rest of my life.

</comment><comment><USER6> > For starters, some embedded controllers in racks in the auxilliary deisel > generator control rooms have EPROMs which have been known to be erased by > camera flashes in the past

Not being in EE, I didn't know that this was possible; and, with the knowledge that a bright flash erases EPROMs, that they'd be left in a position where this could occur. More interestingly, the NRO has a notice about it: [http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen- comm/info-...](http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info- notices/1997/in97082.html)

The government verbiage for the hack here (tape over the window) is amusing in itself:

> They also confirmed that the light from the Canon flash and the Polaroid > flashbulb could be effectively blocked by "black bagging" the flash, or by > blocking the EPROM window with "tin foil" held in place by clear cellulose > tape, or by blocking the EPROM window with "standard electrical tape."

<comment><USER7> _Not being in EE, I didn't know that this was possible_

Not only is it possible, it has led to many interesting failure modes in the past since visible light doesn't usually erase an EPROM, but sometimes just flips a few bits. The n00b complaint, "it works fine until I turn on my desk lamp" used to be a pretty common one in EE labs and online help forums :-)

<comment><USER8> I don't buy it for a minute. You can leave an uncovered EPROM in direct sunlight for a week, and the data will probably survive.

I'd suspect a localized "EMP" transient from the camera flash before I'd suspect an erased EPROM. It takes a _lot_ of energy, in the E=hv sense, to erase an EPROM.

<comment><USER7> Believe it: windowed EPROMS have been used as cameras. Their light sensitivity is legend.

[edit] actually I was wrong about that. The memory devices used as cameras were delidded RAMs, not EPROM. EPROMs are light sensitive, but too slow for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This has been posted here before, about two years ago -- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=569564> \-- but (1) it's very good and (2) the old URL no longer works.

It's by Charlie Stross, a science fiction author and former hacker. It describes a lengthy tour of the nuclear reactor complex at Torness in Scotland.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention that it's an AGR (Advanced Gas cooled Reactor) something that doesn't exist in the U.S. or most of the world. Very cool.

<comment><USER9> Very clever design, much more efficent, much safer - negative temp coeff and no chance of a steam explosion.

But they never reached the critical mass (sorry) to make them standard and so cheap to build and operate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's a large (35 inches) cutaway drawing of a Magnox reactor, which gives some visual scale to the monster that is a gas-cooled reactor:

(PDF) [http://econtent.unm.edu/cgi- bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/nucen...](http://econtent.unm.edu/cgi- bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/nuceng&CISOPTR=47&filename=42.pdf)

(Note this isn't the AGR that Stross depicts, but its predecessor the Magnox). For size reference, the six boilers are 118 feet tall by 18 feet diameter (36m * 5.5m); the building is 170 feet high (52 m).</comment>


Crypto Museum - <AUTHOR> http://cryptomuseum.com

<comment> ryan-c Neat. There is also [https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/museum/](https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/museum/) which I've been to, and recommend people check out if they're ever in the area, though the hours suck.

<comment><USER2> Seconded. It's just outside Ft. Meade. They have an Enigma machine (a small device) and the "Bombe" (much larger) that decoded it.

[https://www.nsa.gov/about/photo_gallery/index.shtml#machines](https://www.nsa.gov/about/photo_gallery/index.shtml#machines)</comment></comment>


How to Build a Virtual Machine - Terence Parr building one live - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjaAToVkoTw

<comment><AUTHOR> additional links :

[https://thenewcircle.com/s/post/1617/how_to_build_a_virtual_...](https://thenewcircle.com/s/post/1617/how_to_build_a_virtual_machine_terrence_parr_video)

[http://www.meetup.com/SF-Computer-Language-Design-and- Implem...](http://www.meetup.com/SF-Computer-Language-Design-and- Implementation/events/176890602/)</comment>


My Final Post - <AUTHOR> http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?104367-My-Final-Post&p=1245087#post1245087 <comment><USER2> I've followed the RED story from the beginning; I have a friend who bought one of the first run and basically launched his career with it, so I've stayed informed for personal and professional reasons.

They've taken a lot of flak because they make big promises and only sort of keep them (or rather, they keep them with a few galling compromises, as I understand it). But the fact is they kicked the cinema industry right in the ass and made them work for it. RED leapfrogged them into the digital era and because of the industry panic we now have amazing cameras like the Arri Alexa and Sony F35.

I don't know what RED has for a future, but despite all the weirdness, hype, and inside baseball, it has a pretty glorious past. Good work, Jim, and thanks from all of us.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure the Alexa and F35 were panicked responses to the Red... the Arri D20 and Panavision Genesis predated the Red, and are very clearly the ancestors of the Alexa and F35 respectively - they use the same resolutions, sensor layouts and colourspaces, if not the exact same chips and recording formats. Not to mention the Dalsa Origin, a 4k camera out well before the Reds.

<comment><USER4> It was a pretty incredible shift though - The more common cameras of the day, such as the 1080p Sony F950, was going for over $180,000 a package, and suddenly you could get a 4K camera package for $35,000. And it could record Raw footage to compact flash cards! The F900 and F950 recorded MPEG2 to HDCAM and HDCAM SR tape at that time.

And they were pretty unprecedented (for the cinema industry) in the way they handled upgrades - dramatically improving many aspects in their cameras through free firmware upgrades and then offering a major sensor upgrade for the cameras, whereas their competitors would just release whole new camera models.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, thats a turn out for the books.

I've dealt with RED professionally on a few levels. Firstly I came across RED footage shortly after the cameras were released to film makers. Back then to transcode the output from the camera (jpeg2000 with some meta data) to something useful required a beefy mac pro, some free software and lots and lots of time (3-10FPS if you were lucky). Either way, it was expensive. (we used to charge £500 every ten minutes of red footage transcoded)

This made me sad, especially as there was no SDK for linux to allow us to use the render farm to transcode it. You could spend £5000 on an "accelerator card" however, its £5k and prone to breaking. The annoying thing was the despite the hype the camera really wasn't all that. Yes it was 4k, but it was noisy, had rolling shutter and colours were duller than dish water. It took the Foundry "reverse engineering" the codec to bring RED to linux natively

35mm film was still far better in terms of image quality(assuming decent DoP and film lab). Yet the hype still built. (Early RED films were dark and broody for a reason....)

The next generation of camera was alright, still expensive to hire/buy/use. Yes the sensor unit is relatively cheap, but you still needed to buy lenses, adapters, storage medium, handles(£250 for the cheapest handle), focus gears, etc. You then have to factor in the cost of post production. It was at the time expensive to shoot RED. On a par with film. It took at least two generations of RED cameras, and a lots of third party dev hours to make RED reasonable to use.

Nowadays RED decoding is fairly trivial to do, and the modern sensors are fairly good, assuming you down res from the 5k to avoid sensor noise.

One thing to note is this, RED fans are utterly fanatical. They will swear that anything RED is cheaper, better, faster, messianic compared to the competition. They are also prone to pirating software.

In the annals of cinema, there will be many inches devoted to RED. Evangilising its reforming power. However the camera that really stood out is the canon 5Dmk2. It was cheaper (genuinely throwaway in cinema terms) good enough quality to get by, and has cheap high quality lenses.

In short, RED camera, its alright for cinema, pain in the arse for post. REDuser.net and the surrounding noise is worse than angry 4chan.

The people at RED however are lovely, its just some noisy users that are obnoxious

<comment><USER6> Regarding the transcoding; there must be other costs at play there. Because by my calculation[1], time on your Mac Pro costs £0.67 per second...which seems quite steep.

((3 frames / second) * (1 second / 24 frames) * (600 seconds / £500 ))^-1 = £0.67 per second

<comment><USER7> You also typically need someone watching over the footage, making sure everything is transcoded correctly (especially in the early days as the software would crap out halfway through). Most producers were under the mistaken impression, at least early on, that shooting on the RED would save a day of film transfer. It didn't, it just switched that day over to the edit house, preferably to a dedicated machine with an assistant. It still took a day or two to get footage ready for the editor.

Also, early on, the camera dept. didn't want anything to do with onset media management and transcoding (the job of the newly created DIT), but over time, camera realized their mistake (in losing that control and revenue) and now DITs are typically part of the camera dept and most transcoding is done on set. Now post will get a drive of the raw footage and the transcodes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I keep getting a database Error; Here is the cached version.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?104367-My- Final-Post&p=1245087#post1245087)

</comment><comment><USER9> I followed RED closely when they first started and it's sad to see Jannard bow out like this. Their accomplishments as stated in his letter do sound impressive, but I think they are more noteworthy as a catalyst of change throughout the professional camera industry. Scarlet, when it was initially announced, sounded like a dream camera, but they were never able to deliver on that initial promise (at least not on the price and quality in the timeline that they initially aimed for). With that announcement alone though the other camera manufacturers suddenly had to compete at a completely new level. It's unfortunate that RED took too long to actually get their product to the market, because in many ways they defined the DSLR cinematography market without ever even entering it. Had they actually entered the market as they initially intended, we would have an even more impressive array of cameras to choose from today. Instead, many of the same artificial limitations exist (limited bitrate recording, lack of raw capability, smaller colorspace, etc. etc.).

It's a pity that they didn't deliver there. It's also a pity that Jannard let the hordes of basement dwelling internet trolls and self-entitled, quasi-pro blog dorks get him down, and I wonder if he had paid less attention to these toxic non-customers if they would have been able to execute their initial vision for the Scarlet.

<comment><USER5> The RED user is a very strange beast. I have witnessed both sides of the mania (I attend a lot of tradeshows for media types) They swarm around Ted (from RED, who is a nice, but odd chap) They literally eat rumors for breakfast, and then troll other manufacturers.

Trying to make software for "casual" red users is a devil's own job. They never really pay for anything, and are very, very moaney.

<comment><USER9> I understand how the RED owners have a vested interest in promoting the system. They benefit professionally from the regard that others have for the cameras. e.g. they can rent out their cameras, command a higher rate as an operator or DP if they have one in their kit, etc. What I don't understand is the users of reduser.net that don't own or even rent the cameras, but seem to be there to either froth at the mouth in either reverence or hatred for the company. I stopped going there a long time ago because the signal to noise ratio was just too low.

<comment><USER5> It confuses me too, I genuinely don't understand the motivation of the hangers on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe because I don't know the full story, but I'm having hard time understanding why a guy who has built such great companies like Oakley and RED so hurt by some guy who makes movies like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun- Li

<comment><USER3> Geoff Boyle is probably more a commercials DoP than a feature film one, but in this context he is notable for running the CML mailing list, which is a pretty incredible resource for cinematographers. I think it's the most focussed, knowledgeable online community I've ever known. It's so on-point that you can buy a physical book of the discussions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> HN has murdered the server, cache here: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reduser.net%2Fforum%2Fshowthread.php%3F104367-My- Final-Post)

</comment><comment><USER12> If I understand this correctly, the guy who started Oakley (eyewear) went on to start RED (the 4K digital movie camera). Now he is bowing out and handing the reins over to a younger guy. And he is annoyed that people get annoyed with him. Anything else I should know?

<comment><USER13> Yes. Wikipedia: James "Jim" Jannard is an American designer and businessman, and founder of eyewear and apparel company Oakley, Inc. and RED Digital Cinema. [1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jannard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jannard)

<comment><USER14> What all of this fails to mention is that Jannard was essentially forced to sell Oakley to Luxottica ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica)). Luxottica has a gigantic monopoly on the eyewear industry and one day refused to sell Oakley brands in their stores unless they sold out. The high price tag with the sale is to keep Jannard quiet.

I think Jannard has developed a kind of healthy-paranoia here, because the work he's doing is flying in the face of titans. His persona makes him want to stand up against the big boys and say, "Told you so!"

In my opinion, he's _right_ to be super paranoid and fall into the background. He doesn't want RED to become another Oakley.

<comment><USER15> Apple created their own brand stores, so why didn't Oakley? This would have prevented them from being so dependent on a third party...

<comment><USER16> Monstrous costs to do it in more than a handful of locations. Also, when you start a fashion sunglass brand, I don't know that you're all about changing the world to the point that you have to hold out for some ideal. Wouldn't have been a bad result to sell up and move on to something new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Red jumpstarted the new age of digital cameras with 4K RAW at an amazing price. They have had missteps (witness Scarlet and the late / but in the field Dragon).

It is a shame Canon really hasn't learned the RAW lesson and has been dragged by people (e.g. Magic Lantern). It is a crime for any camera to deliver less than its best because of crap codecs / software. Red had software upgrades that improved already shipping products without charging an upgrade fee. Canon barely learned with the 24p for the 5Dmk2.

Their back and forth with people making movies is pretty refreshing when you think about some other camera companies.

</comment><comment><USER18> As someone who knows nothing about cameras, that was a fascinating read.

<comment><USER19> I was really surprised to find out (because this post piqued my curiosity) that the Star Wars prequels were shot in only 1080p. I'm really surprised that that didn't look atrocious on the big screen. Hell, that's like half a centimeter per pixel.

<comment><USER20> Attack of the Clones was shot in less than 1080p, at that point the camera (HDW-F900 camera) only did 1440x1080, and it was cropped from 16:9, as they didn't have an anamorphic lens, so that's 1440x817. Revenge of the Sith used anamorphic, so was 1920x817

<comment><USER19> Am I the only one who finds that anamorphic lenses create really distracting bokeh? The lens flares are always squished, and whenever the camera changes focus, there's this strange vertical stretching effect.

Since they were switching to new hardware anyway, why didn't they just make the CCD the shape they actually wanted, rather than relying on this weird archaic workaround?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There have been dramatic happenings around RED for some time. [http://philipbloom.net/2011/12/10/nomoreepic/](http://philipbloom.net/2011/12/10/nomoreepic/)

<comment><USER2> Understatement of the year! RED produces almost as much drama as it does cameras and accessories.

<comment><USER22> But why?

<comment><USER2> RED got into the cinema industry the way you or I might cannonball into a pool. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does tend to make waves. From then on, they were constantly very vocal in criticising other camera and production companies, and it has ended up being a very polarising company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Of possible interest, RED and Jim Jannard were covered by Wired back in 2008 @ [http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/...](http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/ff_redcamera?currentPage=all)

<comment><USER23> Can someone explain this:

>Typical 2K and HD digital movie cameras keep everything in focus. The 4K Red One is more like an analog camera, allowing depth of field control, which blurs the foreground or background.

<comment><USER24> Well, that's not a very clear statement of how it works. "Depth of field" is a technical term in photography, describing the amount of an image that is in focus, relative to the out-of-focus areas in front of or behind. This is a function of the aperture (F-stop) of the lens, and the ratio of focal length to sensor size (which also controls perspective, or how wide the angle of view is).

The reason this is important is because out-of-focus areas are a very important visual cue. It isolates the subject of a shot from its surroundings. It is even more important in motion pictures than still photography, where changes in focus are used to move the subject from one person to another in a single shot (watch a conversation in a movie that's shot from one camera for an example). There's even a job, "focus puller", that you'll see in movie credits for the person who adjusts the focus on very large cameras.

Depth of field is strongly correlated to the size of the sensor in digital cameras (and also to lenses). Other inexpensive HD cameras use small sensors, which solve a lot of expensive and difficult technical problems, but at a cost of not being able to do a shallow depth of field (you see the same problem in cell phones and cheap small digital cameras). The big win of Red was to use a full-sized sensor, allowing DoF behavior on par with consumer DSLR cameras. Moreover, the Red cameras had interchangeable lens mounts that could use superb, widely available Canon and Nikon DSLR lenses. This greatly reduced the end user cost.

So basically, unlike cheaper cameras, a Red camera could shoot things that looked like real movies, due to shallow DoF and manual focus control. And it could do so inexpensively. Very disruptive.

<comment><USER23> Thanks, but I'm fully aware what dof means :). I don't understand why typical 2K/HD video cameras couldn't do small depth of field. Nikon D90 could do small depth of focus with a price tag of $900 in 2008 (only 1 year after Red's first camera), and D90 is not a full frame sensor.

The latest generation iPhone can do f/2.0, and it has a pretty small sensor.

<comment><USER24> It's more than just aperture, though. F/2 on a wide-angle lens like the iPhone won't give you the same impact as F/2 on a telephoto.

Most low-cost HD video cameras have severely compromised lenses, and professional cameras tend to have extremely expensive lenses. Red solved the problem by tapping into the Canon/Nikon lens base.

<comment><USER25> It's not about field of view (a f/2.0 wide angle and telephoto shot both have the same DOF in terms of actual length - telephoto just _appears_ to have a shallower DOF since the image is cropped.) DOF is actually a physical property of sensor size and aperture size.

[http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera- se...](http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor- size.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> i would highly recommend a documentary called 'side by side' about the history of digital video cameras and analog film cameras in cinema/film. goes into the back story behind red, arri, panavision, sony, etc.

it's on netflix.

<comment><USER17> I second this and would add that some outtakes (called side swipes) are available on youtube[1] and a podcast. The Steven Soderbergh one is great[2]. Side by Side is a little dated, but it is an amazing and accessible show.

Red is an amazing camera, but they also had good ideas in how to deal with film makers.

1) [http://bit.ly/19EQjie](http://bit.ly/19EQjie)

2) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U00AEDLLzu4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U00AEDLLzu4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have great respect for people who make things like the RED camera, which advances technology and allows people to make amazing films without requiring huge amounts of money.

I have very little respect for people who make things like Oakleys, which allow people to spend a lot of money for a small piece of plastic so they can wear a high-status brand.

I'm not sure how I feel about this guy.

<comment><USER28> >a lot of money for a small piece of plastic

Oakley lenses are practically bulletproof. They're well worth the cost if you need protective eyewear, just ask the US military. Being a fashion statement is just a byproduct of that. Some would venture to say Oakley has advanced technology more than RED.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> so is he the guy behind 48 fps movies? If so this guy has nothing to prove. It's the future of the cinema.

<comment><USER30> James Cameron has also been talking about 48 FPS for a while.

<comment><USER29> I think James Cameron is talking about 60 FPS.

<comment><USER31> James Cameron said in November 2012, on his possible usage of 48 FPS:

"If there is acceptance of 48 [FPS], then that will pave the way for Avatar (sequels) to take advantage of it."

[http://latino-review.com/2012/11/james-cameron-talks- avatar-...](http://latino-review.com/2012/11/james-cameron-talks- avatar-2-3-48-fps-high-frame-rate/)

There are going to be 3 Avatar sequels:

[http://variety.com/2013/film/news/avatar-to-get-three- sequel...](http://variety.com/2013/film/news/avatar-to-get-three-sequels- foxcameron-hire-screenwriters-1200570515/)

Time enough to iron out any issues with HFR (high frame rate). 48 OR 60.

<comment><USER29> > Some of the word behind the scenes in the SMPTE world this summer is that > 60fps could be too much of a gamble and Avatar will go out in 48fps. No one > will say this publicly, and Cameron and team are still hyping 60fps in > general while not committing to anything. But there are fears that if shot > at 60fps, there's no clean way to play the movie at 24fps in some theaters– > an easier transition for 48fps but even untested in 48 given that that issue > helped derail the move to SMPTE DCP for The Hobbit release. And fear that > current playback gear can't do 450Mb/s at 60fps. Gear manufacturers say they > can do 500Mb/s, but the studios in reality have to settle for less, due to > the bit-rate bottlenecks in various systems."

Never thought about that but yes it makes sense that the conversion from 48fps to 24fps is easy whereas the one from 60fps to 24fps seems impossible or cumbersome. If this is delaying the 60fps age, then I'm really sad about it :(

<comment><USER32> My guess is it would be something like the well-worn 3-2 pull down; you could get there, but the loss in quality is annoying.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three- two_pull_down](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Cached link via HNPremii for anyone else who is getting the site down.

[http://hn.premii.com/#/article/6239342](http://hn.premii.com/#/article/6239342)

</comment><comment><USER34> Congrats Jim. The world needs more creators like you to inspire the rest of us. There are few people willing to commit themselves at the level you did. For that I give you a standing ovation.

</comment><comment><USER35> Jim owns a beautiful island here in Fiji. He could retire and build an evil lair on Vatuvara Island

[http://vatuvara.com](http://vatuvara.com)

</comment><comment><USER36> This film (The Revenge of the Great Camera Shootout) cured my photographic buying problem.

<comment><USER37> how so?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Jim is basically the Elon of the video industry.

</comment><comment><USER39> Can't get the stupid comments and hate get to you.

I remember reading/watching somewhere where someone said (sorry for the vagueness) that you always need a solid little black box in your head you can retreat your conscience to. Where nothing can touch you. Where everything is constant.

Ever since I read that I have never gotten an ounce of hate get to me. I can honestly say I'm living a 100% stress-free happy life. In fact, the more hate I get, the happier I am, I _feed_ off it, it's my fucking _life line_. It meant I was doing something right.

If I ever let it get to me, I'd retreat to that little black box, and it would tell me everything I accomplished in my life, the things I've been through, where my roots are from. Things nobody will ever take away from me unless they murder me, and that reassurance has helped me get through incredibly tough times.

To cope with hate even further, always look at what's coming your way from their angle. Why are they spouting hate? Do they genuinely feel you have a scammy product? Why would they think that? More often than not it boils down to two things: ignorance and a result, spouting bullshit, and/or personal issues being projected. I know that myself, when I'm in a rage state of mind, I'd spout terrible things at people that I'd instantly regret after. Especially on the internet, typing terrible comments that help to vent your anger temporarily.

I've _always_ been an outsider. I've had so much time to observe people. This is what I found out.

Core human values -> projected mask (either bully, asshole, something else that is fake) -> external projection. You need to see through the mask. I've dealt with huge egos before that after awhile, cried on my shoulder and spilled their guts, all just by being understanding, not getting angry at them, and truly understanding where their emotion comes from and why. By being a source of support.

> _Somehow... I read on CML and other idiotic forums, that I an a hypester, a > scam artist. I just have to wonder what these guys are smoking. But I have > to say... they have gotten to me. I don 't need this. I don't deserve this. > Life is short and I am tired._

Revolutionized the film industry, yet lets internet comments get to him. Fuck the haters. You changed the world.

Sorry if I went off topic, it's just something I wanted to get off my chest and hopefully this perspective can help others.

<comment><USER30> In Red's case I don't think it's quite that simple. One of the foundations of Red has always been that the founders interact with the customers continuously through social media; that's how Red built their fanboy army. But that kind of aggressive social media presence always creates an equal and opposite backlash, and it's pretty much impossible to expose yourself only to one side.

<comment><USER40> That sounds like a fascinating model. Is there any explication of this online that you know of? Tricky to Google due to generic name of company.

<comment><USER30> It really is fascinating. Professional equipment combined with consumer luxury marketing to sell a dream of overnight success to aspiring filmmakers. A super-secretive company whose marketing is founded on "transparency". Over- promising and under-delivering seen as a feature. Industrial espionage. Patent lawsuits. You can't make this stuff up; it's better than fiction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I thought RED was an alright movie at best. To be quite honest, I am surprised they made a sequel.

<comment><USER42> seriously, are you high?

<comment><USER25> After spending the last 15 minutes slowly readying and scrolling down these comments, I'll admit, I laughed.</comment></comment></comment>


ShowHN: Login to any site by scanning a QR Code - <AUTHOR> http://qrauth.com

<comment><USER2> Cool implementation. Were you inspired by the Google 2-factor approach to log in to Goog websites that was pulled?

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_launches_qr_code...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_launches_qr_code- based_login_security_measu.php)

As others said, I'd love to see an android version. However, before I use it for my important Web service accounts, I'd like the ability to encrypt my passwords both on the phone app and the browser plugin with a key known only to me so I don't have to trust your service with my cleartext passwords.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was working on this when google tested that feature. I actually started the project as a 2 factor authentication system but scaled it back to this version of the initial release at least. There's a chicken/egg problem with getting websites to adopt without needing the browser plugin.

I like your password idea, its a nice feature. I'll add it to my idea list. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just tried it out. Works quite well! I think this is pretty damn cool.

Feature requests:

\- The ability to add sites to the db using the extension (unless I missed this). Typing on the iphone's a pain vs typing on my laptop.

\- A way to quickly copy the credential data from the iOS app so it can be used in other iOS apps.

\- A password auto-generator.

\- Dropbox support. That way this could sync up and work across platforms, and wouldn't require me to trust you with my precious data. (I'm already trusting dropbox, for better or worse, but at least there I can ensure it's encrypted)

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it. All those features are planned.

There is support for iCloud which tries to sync the database between phones. I've found iCloud syncing of databases to be slow in my testing, but it does seem to do it eventually. Speed probably isn't a big issue for day to day use, but it made testing the sync feature frustrating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is this better than something like 1Password? The only difference seems to be that instead of entering my master password in the browser extension, it's on my phone and I have to do extra work to log into the web site... I don't see any real security advantage, and the UX is much worse. Maybe I am missing something though.

<comment><USER3> I'm trying this out because I don't want to shell out $50 for the 1Password OSX app and then $15 for their iOS app.

I also see an advantage of not needing to constantly type in a master password, which can be seen by anyone standing around me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> what bit talks to the browser? Don't websites need to be "QRAuth" enabled? Have I just asked one of those questions which is "funny you should ask that..." ?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a browser extension (Chrome/Safari/FF) that does the hookup. Basically it talks to our server to request a QR Code. When the code is scanned, the users credentials are encrypted on the phone, sent to our server which passes them along to the browser extension.

I do have a version that doesn't require the browser extension, but that does require the website to add some javascript and do some backend work to enable it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> what problem is it solving?

<comment><USER7> It's gotten to the point that the average person needs to remember dozens of passwords for various sites. You can't use the same password for everything because one could be hacked, compromising all of them, and even if that's not an issue, every site has different password strength requirements. This approach lets you use a very complex password for each site without making you memorize it. I just wish there were an Android version.

<comment><AUTHOR> Android is in the plans. The main reason I started with iOS was that I had access to the devices.

<comment><USER7> That's great to hear! Let me know if you need someone to test with android. My wife was excited when I told her about the app...her current solution is a big Google doc with all of her important passwords!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: This app is s*#  - <AUTHOR> http://getlatis.com

<comment><USER2> I don't understand what this is or what it does.

Why would I add it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we where wondering whether the imagery and the tag line together worked. In a nutshell it's a chrome extension that adds a sidebar onto every page and let's you drag any useful content from web pages and organise them into visual stacks. Would love to hear if you have any thoughts on a better way to convey this.

<comment><USER2> The image does convey the concept, but adding a short description of it would definitely help. For me personally, this:

 _it 's a chrome extension that adds a sidebar onto every page and let's you drag any useful content from web pages and organize them into visual stacks_

... communicated better than the image did. It is saving links? Shortcuts? Copies of the content? Does it automatically update or synchronize with the remote content? Does this mean you'll be keeping a database of whatever I put into the stack? Does it save or track passwords? What about images, and form field text, and history? If I login to Facebook, is your app going to attempt to correlate my social media account and harvest my data?

Given how intrusive some apps can be, I just personally have come to mistrust minimalist approaches like this, though I understand it's something of a standard practice. It may be an unfair bias but there you are. I'm not accusing you of anything, and it seems like a neat app, but it's not hard to feel like a sheep being led up a chute lately.

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the other founder! Well of course we're going to track your Facebook account! And then we'll send a drone to thank you for subscribing. :-) Seriously, that is good feedback and appreciate the privacy concerns, I am really sensible to that too. We're storing a graph database of associations, so to be able to suggest you more interesting things to see in the future. That said, nothing in the business logic is tied to users/accounts, it's more like "a stack is related to a stack, because of their item relationships". Also, until we add collaborative stacks, it's all inherently private by default. Not going to track anything in forms or the like, just the stuff you decide to drag and drop.

<comment><USER2> Well, congratulations on shipping.

 _We 're storing a graph database of associations, so to be able to suggest you more interesting things to see in the future._

Can I opt out of that if I want? If I just want to store things and not get any suggestions or prompts or anything?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are no way near the stage of implementing that yet, right now we are just trying to find out if people find it useful. In terms of the future we are looking to be able to provide you with hints of useful content on a per stack basis, based on other users who have created stacks similar to yours. Kind of like an extension of search powered by people. We don't envisage this being a social feature as in people will not be able to see your stacks and content we recommend will not display any information relating to the users who added it. We are purely recommending the content to help people.

But this is all theoretical, right now it's not something we are working on and we might end up going in a different direction. Either way we fully intend to inform our users of the changes we make as we make them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great - I wish that scrolling back wouldn't cause the menu to pop up though because I scroll sideways to go back a page and this causes an extra step.

It would also be great if all of your images were synced to the latis cloud, so you can straight D&D a url into a textbox by dragging an item from the stack.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback it's awesome that you tried it. Yes the swipe to open seemed like a nice feature, and I don't personally use swipe to navigate and wondered how many people did and would they find it annoying. In response to the dragging off. Everything is stored in Latis and we are going to enable dragging off stacks back on to page soon :) I would love to hear your thoughts after you have used it a bit more or anything about the landing page content ? Feel free to mail ash [ at ] getlatis.com if you want to give us more feedback in private or come across any issues in future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I see a lot of potential for this. Who did you have in mind as the initial user when you came up with it?

<comment><USER3> At the start, tech enthusiasts. We think this kind of people share the same pain with us: we love technology, but hate limited implementations. We're trying to build something that removes friction from the everyday use of Internet, which is permeating our lives nowadays.

That said, we're testing to find out if we're right or not on the user profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Was doing something <quite> similar with a bookmarklet a while ago. Very cool. Installed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks that's awesome. Is what you where working on still live ? I would love to see how you tackled the problem. Please feel free to email me with any further feedback you have while using it. ash [ at ] getlatis . com

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are trying to get feedback on our app/landing page. So instead of hyping it up, we decided to go the opposite route and see the response we get when we openly declare that it's not great right now.</comment></comment>


The Web in 1994 (Video) - <AUTHOR> http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-11-n32.html

<comment><USER2> If you know RCS, you can look at the evolution of WWW software development from the end of 1994 until May, 1997:

wget <http://web.mit.edu/wwwdev/www/RCS/brlewis.html,v>

</comment><comment><USER3> I remember that.

I also remember buying my first PC around that time - probably in 1992 or 1993. It included an OEM copy of MS Encarta, which seemed like a pretty useful app at the time...

<comment><USER4> Hehe, Encarta. I used to spend hours on MindMaze.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be funny if there was a video about facebook. "This is Facebook. You can connect with your friends and see what they've been up to. Imagine the possibilities." - 2006.

Ten years later, the young people who would then be in their mid-20s would laugh at the people who did not realize its potential when they were 15. Duh!

To most of us, the web is obvious, and even Google seems obvious because many web portals and web directories existed with search ability--Google was just making it better--but to think of Facebook being huge is just not obvious to us. But, to the 14 year olds growing up, Facebook and MySpace are important for many things where Google is just good for researching stuff and images for school, and Wikipedia is good for getting basic information for school projects. In other words, I don't think most young people care about Google's apps other than search. (Sure, they might use Maps, but via embedded javascript in Facebook and MySpace in the future, and the Treos and iPhone come standard with a native GMaps application already.)

</comment><comment><USER6> What ever happened to Digital? I remember seeing them up until the late 90's but not really after that.

<comment><USER7> Bought by Compaq.

<http://news.com.com/2100-1001-207442.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Did 99% of websites really have the same background color?

<comment><USER8> They didn't have a background color. That beige is just whatever Mosaic's background color was set to, I think.

<comment><AUTHOR> By default Mosaic's background was gray, and most people didn't change it. (Using #x0000ff was reasonable for links on this gray background.)

White became the default background for more sophisticated sites in 1996. The first time I saw Yahoo and Amazon they had gray (i.e. probably no) background color.

<http://battellemedia.com/images/1995-tm.jpg>

(Notice how small it is too.)

We got so used to these gray web pages that for a few months I thought it was a crazy idea to make websites with white backgrounds-- that pages so bright would hurt people's eyes. Then I realized the real culprit was the default unvisited link color.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is this a new HN feature? - <AUTHOR>

I suddenly discovered that I can browse more than 400 submitted articles here on HN as against the previous 200 - 300. Is this a new feature? or is it tied to karma score? <comment><USER2> I believe it is a new feature along with some other subtle things like your profile (if you happened to look at it recently).

</comment><comment><USER3> It's probably a new feature; pg has been optimizing the code to make /threads and /saved much faster.</comment>