This 23-year-old's open-source project gives the middle finger to Google - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/10/arkos-secure-google-alternative/ <comment><USER2> _" No need to spend hours looking up command line functions — or learning to use Linux itself."_

User-friendliness is always nice, but I think the long-term solution to a web and computing experience controlled by a handful of greedy corporations is educating as many users as much as possible. It's great to boast about user friendliness, but please don't advertise passiveness/laziness/ignorance as alright.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would someone change the title to something less sensationalized?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll believe it when it actually works. And doesn't need Terminal with Vi and eMacs to operate {shudder}.</comment>


Wit.ai (YC W14) Is Joining Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://wit.ai/blog/2015/01/05/wit-ai-facebook <comment><USER2> _The platform will remain open and become entirely free for everyone._

A nice model, this. Facebook gets a huge corpus of semantic data from the users of the app, and everyone else gets an ever-more-sophisticated classifier for their commands.

That's a win/win for everyone. Well done and congrats!

<comment><USER3> Maybe I'm cynical, but talk is cheap. I remember when Facebook bought face.com. From the face.com blogpost announcing it:

> "we love you guys, and the plan is to continue to support our developer > community."

...the API was shut down some time later. I would dispute the claim the developer community was supported as a result of that deal. A blog post saying the platform will remain open isn't a commitment, it's a vague, hand wavy promise.

<comment><USER2> The reason I don't think that will happen here is Wit's pricing model - it's completely gratis to use, with the proviso that your commands and associations are public. You cough up cash if want that to remain private.

As long as new users are using Wit, Facebook continues to get value from the product. Closing it down wouldn't gain them much.

<comment><USER4> Wit sent this email to customers today:

      - If you have a paying subscription, you won't be charged again and your instance(s) will remain private.
      - Your open instance(s) will remain open
      - If you have open instance(s) that you want to make private (for free), please wait for a few days until we roll out this feature.

I'm a paying customer and had plans to pay them significantly more (I am building an app that will be released in a few months that will heavily rely on it). Personally I'd rather see it stay a paid service since I want an SLA and support.

That said, Wit.ai is a great service, the team is friendly and responsive, and I congratulate them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A friend of mine's reaction, quoting bits of the linked post:

        <Mc> 18 months ago, we started Wit.ai with the vision that no solution is to
             be found in a closed, centralized, managed approach.
        <Mc> That is where today's big news comes in: Wit.ai is joining Facebook!

</comment><comment><USER6> I wasn't aware of Wit.ai until today's news... but now after checking out their web site and API, it will be probably a great addition of their API to Parse.com! Potentially some killer features can come up by combining both systems... Siri on steroid with cross platform solution! ouch!

</comment><comment><USER7> Pure speculation here, but it doesn't seem crazy to think that this is in part for use by the Oculus team. While voice commands are a nice to have on current mobile phones - they are likely to be a much bigger deal for head mounted displays.

<comment><USER8> This acquisition actually makes a lot more sense to me than Facebook buying Oculus. Oculus' ostensible business model was selling hardware to users, which is totally orthogonal to Facebook's business model of selling users to advertisers. IMO there's absolutely no way Facebook bought Oculus just to get the revenue from selling Oculus hardware, but I still don't see what their plan would be for integrating that hardware into their existing business model. I can _definitely_ see how a natural-language API would fit in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wit.ai is a great service and it is great news Facebook will be keeping them open. Would be a great fit for some of their other dev services like Parse. I built an app that took some users voice commands and pokes fun at the users crudely and it took so little time to build because of Wit.ai.

</comment><comment><USER10> Congrats to the Wit.ai team! For once I'm glad it was facebook who acquired them. I've been truly happy with Parse and can only begin to wonder how facebook will integrate all the developer tools they are acquiring.

</comment><comment><USER11> Congratulations on the acquisition!

I'm assuming that puts an end to my dreams of Wit.ai supporting device-local voice recognition with context-limited vocabularies to drive user interfaces though...

<comment><USER12> _... device-local voice recognition with context-limited vocabularies to drive user interfaces_

That would be really interesting to me as well. Do you know of any other project or startup working on that?

Similar to the OpenCV library for computer vision, I wish there were an "OpenVC" for voice control.

<comment><USER13> I found pocketsphinx pretty easy to work with. I use it for command voice recognition for home automation stuff. It's even pretty accurate when using limited vocabulary models, after some tweaking. There are python bindings, though they lag behind the C api slightly, and even the C api is well- commented and the code is clean.

<comment><USER14> Do you have a write-up/blog post or article about pocketsphinx? How do you create/train the vocabulary models? If you use Text-to-speech too (CMU Flite, eSpeak), maybe you know some good resources there as well?

<comment><USER13> I haven't written anything up yet. To summarize, I use the standard acoustic model (hub4wsj_sc_8k) with a combination of keyword activation and a fixed grammar (in jsgf format). It's normally listening for a wakeup keyword, and when it find one, switches into grammar mode until it hears a complete utterance, or times out, then switches back to keyword mode. It works pretty well, though tuning the keyword sensitivity is annoying.

The pocketsphinx-specific code is actually quite simple:

[https://bitbucket.org/davidn/dom/src/default/listen/listen.c](https://bitbucket.org/davidn/dom/src/default/listen/listen.c)

You can see the keyword and jsgf files in that directory, for reference. The pronunciation dictionary is generated from one of the standard dictionaries, selecting just the works present in the grammar.

Note: If you look in the whole directory, there's a mix of decent code and ugly hacks in there, and I didn't make any attempt at making it customizable. It's just for me. Btw, it all runs on a raspberry pi.

<comment><USER14> Thanks!

Btw. their probabilistic parser ([http://goo.gl/rRdRx4](http://goo.gl/rRdRx4)) might be useful for your project: "wake me up the first Friday of February 2014 at 7am"

Great to hear that RaspberryPi (and Python) is fast enough for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congratulations to the Wit.ai team.

I was never a user, but when I checked them out, did think their offering showed great promise. I suppose the offer from Facebook must've been too good to say no.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hadn't heard of wit.ai before. Seems very nice. One huge thing missing from the site is any information about supported languages. Still don't know....

<comment><USER17> Agreed with the first part. Never heard of it, looks cool.

As for the second, I disagree: [https://wit.ai/docs](https://wit.ai/docs)

<comment><USER16> I don't mean programming language but things like English, German, Mandarin etc.

<comment><USER17> Ah. I totally missed that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Congrats to the team. I had high hopes that this would become a self sustaining product. Hopefully you guys get to continue this work at Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER19> This may be the first company that's had Rust code in production get aquired: [https://wit.ai/docs/rust/1.0.0/quickstart](https://wit.ai/docs/rust/1.0.0/quickstart)

I mean, it's obviously a small part, there's absolutely no way I'd suggest Rust was a part of that, just a minor point of trivia. :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Nice to see another Clojure company succeeding!

</comment><comment><USER21> Always loved their interface. I'm interested to see if Facebook will make it easy for the tech to be shared with their Oculus developers as well to create VR agents or controls that are easy to interact with via voice.

</comment><comment><USER22> Was just telling a non-tech friend about Wit. Try, explaining NLP and classifiers to someone who isn't quite sure what dictation is, made for a quick ride up the chair lift at Kirkwood.

</comment><comment><USER23> Congrats to Wit, though I can't help but be a little saddened that the self- hosted/embedded licensing may be less likely to roll out as a result. I've been playing with the platform and could definitely find some use, but most of our target market is unlikely to accept cloud based services, especially those associated with data-mining organizations. Fingers crossed that such licenses/installations are still on the roadmap.

</comment><comment><USER24> I love wit.ai. Really hope Facebook isn't just blowing smoke about keeping them open.

</comment><comment><USER25> These Wi.AI t-shirts I have are now a collector's item!

<comment><USER26> Startup tee shirts as a "poor man's equity scheme".

<comment><USER27> And here I thought they were a currency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Congrats Alex and team!

</comment><comment><USER29> congrats

</comment><comment><USER30> Our incredible journey.

<comment><USER31> I don't think that's a fair label in this case since they are keeping the product. For context, the blog at [http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com) highlights the contradiction when an acquisition announcement is filled with flowery language about the adventure of building the product and other excitement while simultaneously shuttering the product.

Obviously everyone has the right to shut down their products, but it'd be nice if they said "We are sorry that we are going to be unable to continue offering this service".

<comment><USER32> Just wait a few months

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> rip</comment>


Open with – Firefox extension - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/open-with/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/darktrojan/openwith](https://github.com/darktrojan/openwith)

It's also useful for opening pages with livestreamer (www.livestreamer.io), youtube-dl (rg3.github.io/youtube-dl)</comment>


Free Kindle copy of "The Phoenix Project" on Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AZRBLHO/ref=pe_245070_24466410_M1T1DP

<comment><USER2> If you are in the UK you will need to go to Amazon.co.uk and then search for the title. Still available at zero cost.

Any idea why this "Chinese wall" exists for Kindle? I can buy print books from Amazon.com (sometimes technical books are cheaper there even allowing for the increased postage) but not digital ones.</comment>


Show HN: Free app to export your site's design tokens to code - <AUTHOR> https://superposition.design <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, author here. I built Superposition because I think too few people have the access to the benefits that having a design system gives them, either due to time and budget constraints, or due to (client) design maturity.

I want to make it possible for everyone to enjoy the benefits that a design system gives them, like speed and consistency. And I'm releasing it for free.

Superposition is the first step towards this vision: A super easy way to use the design tokens that are already part of a website. You can export them to code or use them in our Adobe XD plugin, with more coming soon.

The end goal is for Superposition to take you from website to design system in a single app.

</comment><comment><USER2> Cool product! Thanks for sharing! Also love you core product!!!

</comment><comment><USER3> 20 min ago I added my email address and clicked "get app". The page talks about free download, am I missing the download option?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry! After clicking on "get app", the form updates and you select your OS and then press "Download".

<comment><USER3> Thanks a lot! So error on my side. I used a second browser because the newsletter signup was blocked by my adblocker. I must have closed that too fast.

edit: just tested the app, looks awesome</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you approach learning a new topic? - <AUTHOR> I had an idea for a how to guide website, similar to wikihow or show, but with user driven curation. Sort of like product hunt for learning resources and how to guides. <comment><USER2> Google's Primer app is I think a good example of interactive learning. The approach isn't much different to other virtual courses, but the way the information is organized into bookmarkable cards is nice.

It could form the basis of the entire site, a Tinder style swipe-until-you- find-the-course-you-want initial discovery flow followed by a course flow structured into cards.

You could even go further and structure each course like an adventure game. Make choices and if you answer incorrectly you discover at the end by getting a poor conclusion.

Making learning into a game would introduce positive reinforcement as well, it could make learning addictive (in the best sense of the word).

Socialise the platform by allowing users to bookmark courses and have their selections browseable by other members, Tinder style again, swiping through a user's favourites.

</comment><comment><USER3> Never stop learning is key, however, variety is the spice of life. Naturally, most people don't have the 10k hours anything needs to become world class. For subjects, you do want to go deep, look up DISSS and CaFE made popular by Tim Ferriss in the 4hour cookbook.

</comment><comment><USER4> Dive in head first. Don't understand the subject at all. Get frustrated. Google and jump to answers found. Frustrated because the answer found was too old. Feel like I'm not getting anywhere. Finally make some progress. Discover familiar patterns. More progress. End up being pretty good at it.

Still feel it all took to long because everything changed and now you need to learn something new.

</comment><comment><USER5> Specific to development- I am a big fan of pluralsight. I have done hours and hours in courses on various topics and I think it's the best way to get going on something new for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome! My friend's father recently becme CFO of pluralsight actually

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Coursera, Udacity, etc. Additionally, books, and stack overflow for examples if lacking.</comment>


Trump's Germany troops pullout may be his last gift to Putin before the election - dmch-1 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/02/politics/trump-germany-troops-russia-intl/index.html <comment> dmch-1 Good. World's 4th biggest economy should be able to defend itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Especially one surrounded by allies, many of which are top 10 world economies. This should have been done in the 1990s as bases were closing in the United States.

<comment><USER2> This misses the point that American bases in Europe serve American interests.

Europe has nothing to fear from Russia. Looking back at history and how both sides compare demographically and economically it's rather the other way round, and that's one of the reasons why Russia has a huge stockpile of nukes (and also why they always try to derail European integration and rooted for Brexit).

The current 'arrangement' with the US allows Europe not to spend much on defence, which suits political agendas and public opinions, but the price is that the US are in control. This is obviously worth a lot to the US. There's a much bigger picture than the narrow accounting side of military presence.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may want to inquire about stolen territory by Russia in places like Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. They no longer fear. It's just stolen. Poles fear still, Belarus does too, so do people in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and Russians have all kinds of territorial claims and festering wounds that they continue to claim as their own.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Created a fake account and Facebook still figured out who I am. How? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/am1hi0/a_created_a_fake_account_and_facebook_still/ <comment><USER2> I think there's a much simpler answer than some sort of "deep browser fingerprinting" or other scary voodoo.

1) User requests account deletion. Facebook does not delete it, keeps track of his phone number via shadow profiles. (Mike is still firstname.lastname@example.com, 800-555-1234)

2) User creates a new Proton Mail address. (firstname.lastname@example.com)

3) One of his friends adds that email address to his contact. (Mike, email@example.com, email@example.com, 800-555-1234). This user is on Instagram, Facebook, or has some mobile app that uses their analytics.

4) Facebook makes the association after scraping his friends contact list.

Essentially, his friends betrayed him, likely unintentionally.

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the original poster on Reddit.

It's a great theory -- and I can see how this could easily happen to someone - but it was not the case in this scenario. In fact, doing so would completely defeat what I was trying to achieve. The email address I used for Facebook was unique, not used for anything else, and not shared with anyone else. It was completely isolated.

<comment><USER4> So...cookies? [https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/am1hi0/a_created_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/am1hi0/a_created_a_fake_account_and_facebook_still/efj6tz4/?context=3) (suggested below by eridius)

And riverdan points you you didn't seem to clear browser cookies since you last used you old personal FB account?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's what the running theory is. Kind of angry with myself if that's the case. However, as I point out in my second update, the whole endeavor seems to be awfully tricky. One misstep and privacy leaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's another, this time with LinkedIn.

I took an ambulance ride. The attendant in the back talked with me during the ride to monitor whether I was remaining lucid. Did not know him, never met him before, never saw him since.

A week later, I was scrolling through LinkedIn recommended connections and saw a face I recognized, but could not place.... until I saw that they worked for the ambulance company that I had ridden with.

Did LinkedIn track both of our locations and figure out that we rode in the same vehicle at the same time? This is absolutely possible. Did LinkedIn use voice prints to confirm that his voice came through my phone and mine through his and therefore we had a conversation? Can do.

Did they?

Color me freaked out.

<comment><USER6> Most likely explanation: the ambulance attendant looked at your LinkedIn profile.

<comment><USER7> Attendant Google'd name of the patient -> clicked on LinkedIn profile. That would be enough to get them suggested to you.

<comment><USER5> On the drive to my location... makes sense.

<comment><USER8> Why would it have to happen on the drive?

<comment><USER9> You could use it to find questions to check how lucid they are.

Equally they said something that piped the interest of employee to check after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> People suggesting outlandish, complex fingerprinting methods should read through the post comments. OP admitted they didn't clear browser cookies since they last used their old personal FB account. Mystery solved.

<comment><USER11> "complex fingerprinting methods" sounds spooky, but in 2018 that's just a pug and play library, equivalent to cookies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> While the user might have issues (like cookies and other features) - I can guarantee you Facebook does all kinds of creepy stuff to identify who you are. Worse yet, once they think they've successfully identified you - they share your details with who they think you are. Personal example:

Recently I wanted to have a look at a few ex coworker profiles (who are not my friends on FB). I didn't want to use my personal account because then it suggests me to them (something I wanted to avoid, as I'd not been in touch with them for almost a decade).

1\. I created a VM (Ubuntu 18.04 + Firefox + uBlock -> enabled everything in uBlock).

2\. Tried to create an Fb account -> asks for phone number. I didn't want to be identified so I could not continue.

3\. Tried another way to create a new account -> success.

4\. Fb obviously tried to figure out who I am -> was unable to do so at that point -> Forced me to post a picture of myself (and suspended my account until I did and they verified it).

5\. Posted a made up picture and got past the first hurdle

6\. Fb asked me for a phone number -> Logged out and used another means to log in.

7\. Fb locked my account and asked for another picture (did similar in Step 5 once again)

8\. Looked up my ex co-workers.

9\. Until now, I've not been identified, I looked up a friend's profile (this friend is also my personal friend on Fb). FB immediately identified me and showed up my entire friends list as suggested friends).

10\. I immediately tried to delete that profile (took 30+ days and they asked for Govt ID).

I've had multiple fake FB accounts, and FB's fingerprinting and data sharing is insanely crazy - I recently logged out of one my fake accounts on iOS via Safari Incognito (no FB app, Safari is always used as incognito) - it showed my personal phone number in the log in field.

<comment><USER13> You can use disposable phone numbers to receive text messages

<comment><USER12> FB blocks those numbers, I've tried those in the past. Almost all major services that use phone verification ignore those numbers out right or act like they accept it but either:

1\. don't bother sending texts

2\. shadowban you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> OP was probably not a very technical user, else he/she would've understood that

1\. They should've deleted _all_ relevant cookies (in the browser, as well as in the browsers cookie database)

2\. There are many 3rd party companies that sell data packs that derive residential IPs from VPN IPs (we use some at work). A trusted/good VPN is a must

3\. They probably came via the same User Agent (didn't mention changing browsers)

IP + Cookie + User Agent = Fingerprint (not a good one, but will work for Facebook's needs)

<comment><USER15> > 2\. There are many 3rd party companies that sell data packs that derive > residential IPs from VPN IPs (we use some at work). A trusted/good VPN is a > must

Are you implying that ProtonVPN is not trusted/good? I'm seriously interested in what you know about this particular VPN provider as this is the one OP mentions he's was using.

<comment><USER14> Yea definitely don't take that as me insinuating anything about ProtonVPN. However _absolutely_ take that as me saying "just because you're behind [insert VPN name], doesn't mean someone can't derive your actual IP" (however that may happen). There are companies that sell this service. Again, I specifically mention this because this is how we at [large, known ad tech company] deal with user VPN traffic

<comment><USER16> Can you say what companies? or at least how to find them? I tried searching but only found junk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are tens of attributes that can be used to identify you and generate a unique id of it. Cookies are just the 101.

Canvas fingerprinting, extensions, screen resolution and etc.

I read it somewhere that FB is pre-creating profiles for those who haven't even created a FB account yet (Face recognition and etc).

Avoid using it.

<comment><USER18> I've heard that a man and women are having sex, facebook already pre-creates a profile for their future child.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I know for sure if you make a second account and sign into a device like a phone or tablet where you've already signed onto another account - it will realize the connection and start suggesting you friends from your original account.

I'm not sure if that's taking MAC address of the device or the phone number into consideration or what - but it's definitely a bit creepy

</comment><comment><USER20> If he ever accessed FB by phone, that was the rat.FB is built into most popular apps, and those rat you out many times an hour...in some cases like Spotify, every song change.

</comment><comment><USER21> Of course it's possible, they use tools similiar to [https://github.com/Valve/fingerprintjs2](https://github.com/Valve/fingerprintjs2) . I found a way to "confuse" such algorithms using a browser called Palemoon, yet there lot of factors that could affect anything, a simple mistake and everything will be screwed up.

</comment><comment><USER22> If he uploaded his photo maybe it was facial recognition associating him with group pictures in his friends accounts.

</comment><comment><USER23> Browsing just/mostly the profiles of people you know is enough, I suppose. You'd have to browse the FB randomly and hide true intentions in the noise.

<comment><USER24> Don't forget data-sharing relationships with major digital retailers

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> IP address, keystrokes fingerprinting, and more

</comment><comment><USER26> cameradust, browser fingerprinting, graphic/sound card canvas, memory canvas mouse usage, keyboard usage, cpu serial number, MAC, router MAC, system logs, telemetry

<comment><USER27> cameradust? that's clever if it means what i think it means, aka looking at artifacts in a photo caused by "gunk" on your lens.

<comment><USER26> yes it does, there is also acoustic analysis of keyboard noise, quite a lot and this all happens at the time of account creation and early account use until the FB AI thinks it knows who you are, there is no need for constant listening or watching,

<comment><USER28> Do you have a source for this? I've done a reasonable amount of work on weaponizing these sorts of attacks and it's definitely nontrivial. I'd be shocked to find out that Facebook had successfully deployed them at scale.

<comment><USER29> nontrivial is in the eyes of the beholder. FB does a lot of things quite shocking, and uses zero days, and soc eng like jack the bear, dont forget zucks roots, he did this stuff from day one. BTW im not abou to distribute hack source on HN, pearls among swine goes nowhere here.

<comment><USER28> Let's please not hypothesize exotic attack capability without evidence. It makes it difficult to get people to pay attention when we really need them to be concerned about sophisticated adversaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> after reading through this thread, i find some very concerning things. The use of the word nontrivial is one thing. Calling something nontrivial does not mean you have expertise, there are a number of analytic tools that are being called non trivial or too complex, and that means it is non trivial to the caller. The rest of us who use these techniques as often as breathing find them trivial to say the least. The lack of knowldege regarding just how extensively big data reaches into our platform is another. lets look at google, the practice of asking permission for something mundane like sorting pictures according to location can be accomplished by scraping exif data, but google uses this for an opportunity to turn on location tracking in the background. Facebook most definately does not refrain from background permission jacking. The tools and API's laying around in the open for any one to take advantage of is another. win10 telemetry provides an intimate snapshot of a win10 instance, and any one can use that telemetry to fingerprint your hardware. Even encrypted telemetry is a highly individual number that doesnt need to be decrypted to indicate an individual machine across the internet.

The title of this forum "hackernews" is concerning, there seem to be no hackers here at all. All of the "non trivial" actions here are non trivial to those that know very little about CS in general, or have an extremely antiquated perspective on the nature and extent of system penetration as it stands today. A "normie" is not likely to know anything about lockpicking, but even an apprentice locksmith finds it extremely trivial, its just a matter of perfecting dexterity over a couple of months to be quick and slick about it.

Facebook is one of the biggest threats to national security we have in our back yard, and the lackadaisical attitudes displayed here regarding security, only set that threat in stone and perpetuity.

<comment><USER31> >after reading through this thread, i find some very concerning things. The use of the word nontrivial is one thing. Calling something nontrivial does not mean you have expertise, there are a number of analytic tools that are being called non trivial or too complex, and that means it is non trivial to the caller. The rest of us who use these techniques as often as breathing find them trivial to say the least. The lack of knowldege regarding just how extensively big data reaches into our platform is another. lets look at google, the practice of asking permission for something mundane like sorting pictures according to location can be accomplished by scraping exif data, but google uses this for an opportunity to turn on location tracking in the background. Facebook most definately does not refrain from background permission jacking. The tools and API's laying around in the open for any one to take advantage of is another. win10 telemetry provides an intimate snapshot of a win10 instance, and any one can use that telemetry to fingerprint your hardware. Even encrypted telemetry is a highly individual number that doesnt need to be decrypted to indicate an individual machine across the internet. >The title of this forum "hackernews" is concerning, there seem to be no hackers here at all. All of the "non trivial" actions here are non trivial to those that know very little about CS in general, or have an extremely antiquated perspective on the nature and extent of system penetration as it stands today. A "normie" is not likely to know anything about lockpicking, but even an apprentice locksmith finds it extremely trivial, its just a matter of perfecting dexterity over a couple of months to be quick and slick about it.

>Facebook is one of the biggest threats to national security we have in our back yard, and the lackadaisical attitudes displayed here regarding security, only set that threat in stone and perpetuity.

I see meetuu, zucksablackhat, and ohWARisme all posting in succession in the same places - are you all the same user? edit: Threw in parents post in case of deletion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> We all send out packets with our MAC address, which is supposed to be unique, so it seems like it would be easy to correlate the two profiles, since the MAC address is the same.

Makes me think there's not going to be an effective technological means of resisting tracking.

<comment><USER33> The MAC address doesn't leave the local network, an internet service can't see it. (Sometimes IPv6 addresses are derived from it, but any modern OS should use privacy extensions, which create randomized addresses)</comment></comment>


Using Docker for an Isolated Development Environment - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/uniphil/stuff/tree/master/dev/env/docker

<comment><USER2> Note that mounting the local directory will not work as expected on OSX since you have to run the docker server in a VM. The directory will be shared from the boot2docker VM, not from your Mac.

I haven't tried it yet, but you may be able to do some fancy sharing using vagrant and the /vagrant directory.</comment>


You Are Alone - <AUTHOR> http://mattmireles.com/blog/you-are-alone/

<comment><USER2> There is a great lesson here. For everyone on the outside of anything that requires experience to excel, it appears that there must be secrets kept by those on the inside that reveal the keys to success. But there are no secrets. You just need to persevere: fail, fail, fail and fail until you succeed. And then one day you'll stare blankly at a young face asking you "what's the secret?" and you'll realize the secret is that you don't care about secrets anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> _"In retrospect, I view this pattern as a bad habit, as an easy escape from the reality of the hard decisions I had to make as a CEO. No expert, no outsider could know what I knew. The only complete data set was in my head. I was truly free to decide and truly responsible for my decisions. The lack of structure, the uncertainty of it all was terrifying."_

This is the key point I think. One of the things I discovered early in my career was that I didn't have any trouble at all making decisions. People would ask for a decision and "Blam!" I'd give them one. This was apparently a super power and it served me well until I got to be a bit more senior and one of my decisions cost the company more than they expected it to cost. I got called in to talk to the executive vice president to explain myself. I was scared to death. As it turned out, he was ok with the unexpectedness but wasn't ok with the fact that my boss' boss didn't know why we had decided that way. I needed to keep folks in the loop so that they could keep up, but I also had to own up to my decisions.

As the stakes go up, and you think "if I make the wrong choice here, we're screwed!" you can get frozen into inaction. If you can say, "If this turns out to be the wrong choice we'll be able to tell because this, this, or this other thing will happen and then we can move on to this other choice." it can give you the courage to move forward.

I agree there aren't rules here, but there is reasoning.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yesterday one of the top rates articles was about not lying and today on the front page is an article about a guy who actually did lie (albeit not the kind of lie that I suppose is that significant) to his success.

I guess the moral of the story is that the truth is a tool.

<comment><USER5> There are different kinds of success. Getting cash is one. Maintaining integrity in the face of adversity another.

Also I wonder if the (relatively white) lie was necessary in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is great story to take lessons from.

</comment><comment><USER7> Of course you are, silly rabbit.</comment>


How I lost my faith in Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/6f75cfb5a289d3f6?pli=1 <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, the post spends most of its length on the author's professional history. It is only towards the end in which he spends a sentence or two talking about when he "lost his faith" in Lisp, but still gives not a lot of reasons. Basically, as far as I can tell, there are two major points: he used to think Lisp is great, but (1) no-one else seems to be using it and (2) the perceived superiority of Lisp was debunked when he observed experts in other programming languages.

Perhaps his priors were a bit off (seeing Lisp as the holy grail of all programming languages), but I think it is still fair to ask why Lisp has failed commercially? This has been discussed before, however (Lisp "wars" in the 80s, AI winter, etc.)

I find the way he ends his post interesting, where he argues that Lips has to evolve and improve. The article is from 2002 and in the mean time, a lot has actually happened in the Lisp world. New dialects like arc and clojure have created a renewed interest in Lisps. It would be interesting to know what the author thinks of these developments, and whether they could revive his personal faith.

<comment><USER3> _It would be interesting to know what the author thinks of these developments, and whether they could revive his personal faith._

"Erann Gat" and "Ron Garret" are the same person; you find him on c.l.l. regularly since 2004.

<comment><USER4> He's also occasionally on Hacker News:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lisper>

<comment><USER5> Is he that Ron, the xoogler, who was forced to use Java on AdWords?

Edit: Yup.

<http://www.flownet.com/ron/xooglers.html>

        So I was a little disappointed when I found out
        on day 1 that I had been assigned to the ads group.
        But that disappointment turned to dismay when I learned
        what my assignment was to be: I was the lead engineer
        on a new advertising system code named "adstoo", what
        eventually became AdWords. That part wasn't so bad.
        The bad part was, this was going to be the inaugural
        Java project at Google. Google, which had until now
        been a Java-free zone (which was one of the reasons I
        took the job) was going for Java in a big way, and I,
        the consummate Java hater, was supposed to be its
        chief evangelist.

        Just peachy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is from the same Erann Gat (aka Ron Garret) who wrote the popular lisp at the JPL essay[1], and it covers some of the same ground.

His last point, that lisp can and should be improved, is one that he makes periodically. There's a barrier to some improvements to Common Lisp caused by the fact that the standard has been long closed and doesn't look like it will be reopened, but there have been improvement in areas that are outside of the standard.

For example both Ron's extended post and the previous hn discussion of this post note the pain of finding and installing lisp libraries. Quicklisp beta was recently released which relieves a significant amount of that pain.

[1]<http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html>

Edit: I noticed this in the previous posting of this thread:

Ron> For the record, I did not submit this article, and specifically declined a request to do so. It's not that I don't stand by what I wrote (I do) but it was written for a specific audience at a specific time and I don't think it deserves the attention that it's getting now.

...

akkartik> I noticed. [http://rondam.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-are-programming- lang...](http://rondam.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-are-programming-languages- for.html) Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd submit [http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3208226254834485@naggum....](http://email@example.com) if my site wasn't blacklisted. "What I want from my Common Lisp vendor and the Common Lisp community"

<comment><USER8> Why is your site blacklisted?

<comment><USER7> Sometimes I make fun of Paul Graham.

<comment><USER8> Um, your site isn't blacklisted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2309858>

<comment><USER7> Notice how it's instantly [dead]? Same for anything on xach.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TLDR Person found out other people can be immensely productive with other languages. Then person learned languages X, Y and Z with cool libraries and is now very productive and happy using them.

TLDR TLDR Libraries make a big difference!

<comment><USER9> To add some detail.

Programming languages live and die by their libraries, i.e. vocabulary. The differences in grammar are in my opinion rather small, when we talk about how expressive a clever programmer can be. Can a person be even more expressive in Lisp? Perhaps but it's not essential. The library support on the other hand is essential. You want to stand on the shoulders of giants for the next step. In all modern languages you can write elaborate, expressive libraries (read DSLs) for your pet problems.

I think my TLDR summarizes the original author's post but if someone disagrees, then we can have a fruitful discussion :)

Disclaimer I use Java and Racket daily.

<comment><USER4> I actually don't think that's the point of the article - it may be true, but it's not supported by the text or background story. This was written in 2002, and the author's tenure at Google was 2000-2001. That was pre-BigTable, I think it was pre-MapReduce, and it may even have been pre-GFS. Plus, Google's known for it's NIH syndrome - while there are a fair number of third-party libraries in use _now_ , there weren't really in Google's codebase of 2000, which had just dumped many of the early frameworks they'd used for prototypes.

Rather, I think this is more evidence of the old "Good programmers will be productive in any language." The advantage that an expressive programming language like Lisp gives you is that it frees you to think about the problem domain and not worry too much about the details of the machine. However, if you're skilled enough that you've pushed those details into unconscious muscle memory, they don't matter anyway. And a language like C++ gives you the _option_ of dropping down to the bare metal if the need arises.

There are a fair number of Lispisms in early Google code - MapReduce is the obvious one, and there're others that I'm not at liberty to discuss. However, they're Lispisms implemented in C++, where the author took the concept and transplanted them into a language that could give the efficiency needed. This is not a bad strategy - when you understand the concept fully, you're free to tweak it and adapt it exactly as necessary for your problem.

Perhaps not coincidentally, many early Googlers were also programming language & compiler guys before Google. Urs Hoezle (employee #9 and Google's first VP) had previously done StrongTalk (statically-typed SmallTalk), Self (the prototypical prototype-based language and an early inspiration for JavaScript), and the VM that later became Java HotSpot. Jeff Dean got his Ph.D on the Cecil/Vortex compiler, one of the first optimized implementations of CLOS-like multimethods. Rob Pike worked on Plan9 at Bell Labs and invented the Limbo programming language as part of it.

<comment><USER10> When you say early code, do you mean code that was replaced or just older code?

<comment><USER4> Older code, some (but not all) of which was replaced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't speak for the author, but I had the feeling he would retract those remarks today, based on our exchanges here on HN.

In other news, STFU and hack. Enough with Lisp politics posts. It's just a language.

<comment><USER12> Do you know of any startups using a LISP as the primary dev language?

<comment><USER13> I made a list a while ago but it's a couple years out of date. It's probably a big underestimate because I last updated it before Clojure started to boom. I'll add anything people mention in this thread and if anyone knows more, email peter @ pchristensen . com

<http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/lisp-companies/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> He says norvig left lisp behind when he came to google witch is true but in Codes at Work he basiclly says that it was to hard to retrain all those C++ Programmers to Lisp was to much work and he uses Python because its a better sudo-code. He still thinks lisp is better for big projects.

It was again the problem that people where all trained in C/C++.

<comment><USER15> > its a better sudo-code

Now that's a powerful language. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Pervious discussion on Hacker News: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=107683>

</comment><comment><USER17> A more accurate title today would be, "How I lost my faith in Common Lisp".

</comment><comment><USER18> Note python.

The beginning of the article was all Lisp demolishing C and Fortran. Then he saw that Python could stand up to it. Most of the flexibility, nicer syntax and better libraries.

Lisp has stood still for the past 25 years. Is it any surprise the rest of the world caught up?

<comment><USER19> I understand that casual conversation doesn't always require one to factcheck every statement, but did you think before you wrote "Lisp has stood still for the past 25 years" whether you really know that? And did you think it would lead to productive discussion?

<comment><USER20> When I read his comment I automatically converted it in my mind to "Common Lisp has stood still for the past 25 years." 25 years is probably too much, but compared to clojure and racket Common Lisp seems archaic, like reading Shakespeare. If it has had updates they've been on the edges, making the standards bulkier and more arcane, harder to parse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Great write-up! Basically a person that was using more than 20 years of Lisp successfully and considered Lisp allowing higher productivity admits that there are now other languages that allows higher productivity than Lisp.

At the end when I read the comment:

> I think that if Lisp does not evolve it will die, and I > don't want to see > that happen. I still think Lisp is > great. I also think it can be, and > should be, improved.

I wonder what kind of improvements does the author have in his mind! If somebody knows please kindly enlighten me.

<comment><USER22> "Basically a person that was using more than 20 years of Lisp successfully and considered Lisp allowing higher productivity admits that there are now other languages that allows higher productivity than Lisp."

No, just a case of Stockholm Syndrome. [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/d11c7e5619...](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/d11c7e561908cc61)

"I wonder what kind of improvements does the author have in his mind! If somebody knows please kindly enlighten me."

As Erik Naggum said: _Erann Gat does not want to enhance Common Lisp, he [just] wants to feel better._

I encourage you to keep reading Naggum's line of thought: [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9edc8f7ee2...](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9edc8f7ee26a728c)</comment></comment>


The Restaurant Menu That Nudges People Toward Healthy Food - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/the-restaurant-menu-that-will-make-people-want-to-buy-healthy-food/375625/

<comment><AUTHOR> When I read this I though of all the articles I've read about landing page optimization. The tips are quite similar, and I suppose that makes sense. Both are trying to guide you to a specific spot(s) on a page.</comment>


The Scariest Movie Trailer in History - <AUTHOR> http://scaryjohn.com/video1.html

<comment><USER2> That is the worst movie trailer I have ever seen. Everyone in this forum is stupider from having seen it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.</comment>


If you haven't tried Firefox 3 yet, you should. It's fast. - <AUTHOR> http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been running the Firefox 3 alpha for a while now. It's gotten much more stable over the last couple weeks. I'm down to less than a crash a day now.

I find Firefox 2 to be almost unusable because rendering lots of complex Javascript and Flash eats up an enormous amount of memory. Firefox 3's rendering engine is much better; I'd recommend everyone try it and see if it works for them. There are some other nice new features, like URL auto completion suggesting your most commonly visited sites/directories first.

Use this tool to force your extensions to work with Firefox 3. <http://www.oxymoronical.com/web/firefox/nightly>

<comment><USER2> I've almost stopped using Firefox several times because of the frequency of crashes in stable versions, so I think I'll wait a bit.

<comment><USER3> I agree. Stability in Firefox 2 is significantly worse than 1.x. I have to restart it at least once every couple of days, and frequently have to wait 20-30 seconds for random things to complete, during which it is completely unresponsive. If 3 beta is even slightly less stable (which would make sense) then I'll wait a while. Hopefully those issues will be resolved.

<comment><AUTHOR> Firefox 2 being unstable is all the more reason to try Firefox 3! A lot of the instability comes from the Firefox 2 rendering engine breaking down when you have Gmail and Google Docs and Meebo and 12 Youtube videos open at once. Firefox 3 is using 230 megs of RAM for me right now. If I was running Firefox 2 with the same tabs it would be moving at a crawl and using 750 megs of RAM.

The bug I notice the most is text entry/dropdown boxes sometimes not working correctly, this happens most often in a really poorly programmed game I play, <http://www.hyperiums.com>.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No version for MacOS 10.3 :-/

I've resisted upgrading for so long, since 10.4 never had any particular appeal to me, but it's getting harder and harder to find apps built for 10.3.

<comment><USER5> well, wait for 10.5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> i installed it, i'm excited</comment>


Hacker News clone for CouchDB - <AUTHOR> http://www.hckr.it/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this because I thought it would be cool to let people host their own HN sites with very little overhead. CouchApps make it so easy to deploy your own site, simply push the code to a CouchDB. Also I learned quite a lot from building this. More info can be found here: <https://github.com/lmatteis/hckr.it>

There's still lots of work to be done, so don't hesitate to contribute :)

<comment><USER2> Wow that is neat.

I saw you use couchapp, installed with npm. Have you tried kanso <http://kan.so> ?

There is also erica, a similar couchapp deploying script written in Erlang. That one comes with an ACE on-line code editor (so you can edit your couchapp as it runs).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are stories on the frontpage ranked solely by points or do they fall off over time? I couldn't find any code like this. I was curious how you'd implement time-ranking using couchdb views, which can't emit different values as time goes on in a simple way.

<comment><AUTHOR> They fall over time. The algorithm simply needs the date the item was created at and the amount of points.

The difference is that instead of doing the calculation from the "time since submission" (which changes over time and, as you say, won't work with Couch's views which can't emit values as time goes on) it does the calculation using the "created_at" property. In essence the outcome is the same.

Here's the algorithm I use which needs some better documentation :) [https://github.com/lmatteis/hckr.it/blob/master/common/util....](https://github.com/lmatteis/hckr.it/blob/master/common/util.js#L2)

<comment><USER4> It's the reddit's algo, isn't it?

<comment><USER5> I believe reddit's gives newer posts more points, rather than taking away points from older posts.

I might be wrong, though. It's been a while since I've looked at that part of the code.

<comment><USER4> Mmm... not so sure. One of the nice features of reddit's algo is that it doesn't require to evaluate the score based on the current time, as this one. <http://amix.dk/blog/post/19588>

There are also a few similarities like max(abs(points+1),1), log base 10...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Was this inspired by antirez's lamernews? <http://lamernews.com/>

It's funny to see two different HN clones, both of them coming from Italy :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've actually never seen this. Looks very nice. The idea of mine was also to keep the same API (the HTML and the links schema) of HN, to enable re-use of already built crawlers and add-ons.

Also, this seems to depend on Ruby other than Redis. Which means you probably need to buy a VPS or some cloud hosting and set it all up with Redis and Ruby and other stuff. Lots of overhead if you ask me.

While with hckr.it, you simply push it to a Couch and you're done.

<comment><USER6> I think that antirez just wanted to make a tech demo, yours is more production oriented ;)

Buona fortuna!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very cool - sounds like it is amazingly easy to deploy too. And inexpensive: <http://www.iriscouch.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Does this have a way to counter spam votes posted from many different accounts?

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess I could keep track of the user's IP address? How does HN do this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow! That's pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is great. Except you forgot to return "Unknown or expired link." every other request</comment>


Ask HN: Complex tech idea with no coding experience - what to do? - <AUTHOR>

As my name suggests, I do a lot of stock trading. In my past experience, I've ran website development divisions and what not. I have a lot of tech experience but minimal coding experience.
I have an idea uses a lot of principles from stock trading and brings it to the consumer front without them ever knowing. Vague description, yes.
My questions is how do you go about developing an idea with not much money and little coding experience? From my knowledge, the formulas I need are extremely complex and the coding required for them is complicated as well. I would try and learn but I can't seem to wrap my head around just javascript (and I know I need more than that).
I've looked up a lot of articles on this but every time I try to find someone to help, they require a ton of money or just aren't interested in putting in the time.
Any advice/ideas? Cheers! <comment><USER2> Three options, with some color for each. In essence, this could be viewed as a time/money trade-off, although I think there's more to it than that:

(1) Learn to code. Start with a language that makes it easy to do what you need for the most complicated part of your app. What is that part? Do you use a research-grade algorithm that is only implemented in one particular language? Use that language. Do you use run-of-the-mill machine learning? Consider Python, or any language you like and just farm out the hard part to R. Do you just need to express complex algorithms without re-deriving them? Then really any language should do.

(2) Find a co-founder. This is tough because without any programming background, how do you evaluate whether someone would be a sufficiently technical co-founder for you? I'd say that this implies some aspect of #1 in that you'd need to get a bit more comfortable with programming.

(3) Outsource. This requires more money, less time. One might imagine that someone who does a lot of stock trading should actually have more money and less time than most, but I don't know you and it doesn't really matter anyway. You could outsource your technology. You'd just need to tightly control the schedule and the key elements of the product (e.g., make sure that they've correctly implemented your desired algorithms).

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers, thanks for the advice. Learning to program is definitely a barrier since much of the formulas I'm looking at using would require bit of power (makes me lean towards Python or Javascript - depending on end use).

I'm pretty leery about outsourcing. Back when I managed a web division, it always seemed that when we outsourced, things would go horribly wrong. I'll have to reach out to friends and find some good outsource recommendations.

Thanks for the advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Programmers perform the same type of risk assessment that you would do managing a portfolio. A coder is exchanging their time in exchange for your money or equity. Without a doubt, there is a challenge in finding someone with the right combination of experience, availability and interest in your project. If you are trying to attract coders, try to appeal to them my minimizing their risk. An experienced coder but first time entrepreneur will be more likely to join you if you can demonstrate a history of successes, experience executing / bringing products to market, or validation that there is a market for your product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea, thanks a ton. Thinking on it, it may be that my pitch to them is too complicated or convoluted. Its not their realm to know stocks (typically) so creating the pitch to peak their interest is a good starting point. Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's easy to have an idea - but it's hard to execute. Here's what I would do.

Step one - get an idea of the scale of the project. Usually the best thing to do is to write a description of every interaction the user will take with your service. Or, if you're able to, draw out the screens.

As a thought experiment, try doing this for a piece of software you already know. Think about all the different ways it can be used.

Ok, done?

Step two - what is the minimum thing you need to do in order to see if this idea is possible? The bare minimum.

Break it down into a series of very small steps.

For example, "The app needs to retrieve all tweets with stock symbol ___". Then, "The app needs to look up the stock price of symbol ___" Then, "If the tweet contains the word "awesome" and the stock price is over $X, sell the stock" etc.

Here's where you have to make a decision. Either learn to code each the bare minimum aspect, or find someone who can do it for you.

Having worked out exactly what you want your app to do, how many individual steps it will take to do it, and how the app should react in certain situations will make it a lot easier when you come to code it or hire someone to help.

So, refine your idea, then work on building it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great advice. Its all in my head at this point so this seems like the logical next step. I think this will also help me refine the pitch as well. Thanks a bunch!

<comment><USER3> No problem. Lean Startup ([http://theleanstartup.com/principles](http://theleanstartup.com/principles)) and Noah Kagan both have some great guides about methods to potentially validate your idea or find potential customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "brings it to the consumer"

If this a consumer product and your money is tight, you definitely want to start by making a crowdfunding project out of it (like Kickstarter or Indiegogo).

There you can raise the money and get your first critical group just by creating an awesome video out of your idea.

</comment><comment><USER6> are you rich?

if not, i don't trust your stock-trading advice.

if so, then why don't you believe in your idea enough to spend money to bring it to fruition?

if your idea requires "complicated coding" of formulas that are "extremely complex", then it's not surprising it will require "a ton of money".

and since you said you have run website development divisions "and what not", i'd think you'd know that.

-bowerbird</comment>


Beercamp: An Experiment With CSS 3D - <AUTHOR> http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/17/beercamp-an-experiment-with-css-3d/ <comment><USER2> Nice idea but it's super glitchy in both Chrome and Firefox and it's also very laggy in FF. Maybe it's my video drivers? (FF13, Chrome 18, Win7/GTX 570)

Pages using bleeding-edge tech like this need an easily accessible fallback. I can't find any way to access the content from that Beercamp page in a non- busted-3d format.

Article's example of correct 'depth-sorting' isn't demonstrating depth sorting, since depth sorting sorts entire elements to the front/back - interpenetration isn't possible. For interpenetration like he demonstrates, you have to split scene elements up into smaller elements or depth-sort at the pixel level (modern 3d cards do something resembling an approximation of this via the z-buffer).

<comment><USER3> It is indeed buggy and FF lags like crazy. The Chromium team has looked into some of the issues and many of them have been fixed in Canary; give that a go!

No, there isn't a way to access everything without a 3d capable browser. This was more of a time constraint than anything else.

Thank you for clarifying the depth-sorting issue. I've perhaps overgeneralized in that area. So, will browsers render interpenetration differently based on the hardware?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      The deviceorientation event enables us to pull alpha, beta
      and gamma rotation values. Note that these values are
      relative to the current orientation of the device. The
      image above shows the axes of a phone held perpendicular
      to the ground in portrait mode.

Does 'alpha' really run up-and-down the iPhone while in portrait? The first value is usually the X axis, and usually runs 'sideways' of an iPhone in portrait mode.

      Unfortunately, each browser implements depth-sorting
      differently and, therefore, has its own issues. The best
      we can do to combat the glitchy pop-through of underlying
      elements is to keep planes away from each other.

Is there no way to enable depth testing? ie: Using the zbuffer for per-pixel depth read / test / write? You can avoid depth sorting that way, at a small performance cost, and the result looks better.

<comment><USER5> You can't use the z buffer because layers may be transparent and require antialiasing on the edges...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's very impressive work, and the tutorial of the process involved in making it is definitely worth a read too

</comment><comment><USER7> My favourite thing about this is that here, on my Macbook Pro, my CPU usage stays nice and low, and my fans don't even seem to notice all the 3D happening in my browser.

If this were built in Flash, I'd be worried that looking at it for too long would result in my Macbook burning a hole through my desk.

<comment><USER8> Really? 100% CPU for me in Firefox and my macbook pro fans went crazy.

I decided to test Chrome - better but still peaks around 50%. Safari was the best peaking at 30% while using it.

Also, are you sure a Flash version would use more CPU? This only uses 60% when I'm walking around - <http://www.unrealengine.com/flash/>

<comment><USER7> Using Safari, and not a peep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tried in Google Chrome 20 on Debian unstable, but it says my browser doesn't support CSS 3D.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm all for pushing boundaries, but this is a classic case of form over function.

<comment><USER11> I do believe that is the intention with this demo. From the first paragraph in the article:

      Each year we abandon browser support and throw a "Pshaw" in the face of semantics so that we can play with some emerging features of modern browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This seems more responsive than the Flash page turn demos but there are some artifacts when I turn the page (other pages clipping in/out?) and the text isn't anti-aliased.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow, this actually works (although it is super slow) in firefox mobile on my droid bionic.</comment>


The Secret Plot to Rescue Napoleon by Submarine - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2013/03/the-secret-plot-to-rescue-napoleon-by-submarine/

<comment><USER2> My favourite story about Napoleon is the start of Napoleon's Hundred Days, following his escape from his initial exile:

> _The 5th Regiment was sent to intercept him and made contact just south of > Grenoble on 7 March 1815. Napoleon approached the regiment alone, dismounted > his horse and, when he was within gunshot range, shouted, "Here I am. Kill > your Emperor, if you wish."[131] The soldiers responded with, "Vive > L'Empereur!" and marched with Napoleon to Paris; Louis XVIII fled._

As the name of the period suggests, this state of affairs only lasted for 100 days before he was defeated at Waterloo and surrendered. Still pretty badass though.

<comment><USER3> The wisdom of sending a full regiment to catch a single man, who previously was a military dictator after a successful coup-d'état, is not exactly evident to me.

There might have been good reasons, besides providing him with some fresh troops to start anew for a hundred days.

Also, I have a problem with the global idea of rescuing the man who spilled blood all over Europe, became a defacto king giving up on the revolutionary ideals, then committed great treason towards his state (Louisiana purchase was a great deal for the US, for Napoleon own fortune - now imagine Obama selling Alaska to Canada and keeping the money!) - no really, I just don't see it.

The submarine thing might have been a nice technical feat for the time, but still the man was a bloody dictator.

<comment><USER4> He did indeed have a loyalist guard that came with him to Elba and would have fought for him and been annihilated if there had been a battle at that moment.

As for his being a dictator, that wasn't exactly uncommon at the time. Europe was a playground for dictators, and Napoleon was a successful one who challenged some existing, ver bad ones (although he did not infrequently change them for the worse). And he did introduce some major and lasting changes with the Code, though of course not all of it was welcome.

As for the Louisiana purchase, it's more likely he was considering it a favor to take it off his hands. The French holdings over there were not in the best position to be used, had hardly any people or settlements, and so on. He chucked it for a bit of cash because it made sense at the time.

He was a complicated guy, and they were complicated times. If you want a good biography to read, try "The Age of Napoleon" by J. Christopher Harold. It did a good job of explaining the context for Napoleon's rise and why exactly he was welcomed by the people - but also is very clear about his shortcomings.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your thoughts on TC Disrupt? - <AUTHOR>

I didn't see any real discussion here on TC Disrupt.
What are your thoughts on what TC Disrupt was, and has become?
Any thoughts on the winning team, Shaker [1], or what that represents?
[1] - http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/14/and-the-winner-of-techcrunch-disrupt-is-shaker/ <comment><USER2> You too, huh? I thought the companies were ok...for "TC Mediocre". Disruptive technologies, they were not...just recycling things that we have seen before with some twist, but generally the same. Not to say that the founders did not put a lot of time, sweat and tears into their companies - I'm sure they did and I applaude them. But if the bar for mediocrity is such, then venues such TC Disrupt will see many more startups like these - they set the precedence (but it's not entirely their fault), and the upcoming startups will continue to look more like the ones the year before. I wonder what would happen if they didnt fund any one of startups...would we get more innovative entries the next round or no startups at all? Just a thought. As for Shaker, it's a take from Cyworld - a Korean social media in the early 2000's. They didn't make it because, unlike Shaker, Cyworld did not have a social media platform like FB to work from for their contacts and links. I think Shaker is a very cool alternative for social interactions...hope they make it.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it ok for a company to treat me as a contractor during trial period? - <AUTHOR> I recently got offered a full-time job from a company that I'm excited about working for.
After the interview process, they mentioned that there would be a 30-60 day trial period, which I accepted without issue. I don't mind the idea of proving my worth.
I just got sent the contracts, though, and they want to sign me up as an independent contractor for the first month. I would need to submit bi-weekly invoices in the amount of my salary, even though I'd be doing exactly the same work as I will if/when I join as a proper full-time employee.
This seems really sleazy to me. I think I know why they're doing it (they don't want the tax burden and costs of a full-time employee before they know if I'll work out), but it puts a lot of burden on me. It complicates MY taxes, since I won't have them withheld for this period.
Is this a common/accepted practice? Should I see this as a red flag?
Sidenote: I live and work in Canada, if that makes a difference. <comment><USER2> Early stage startup founder here. I usually do a 30 day trial as a contractor for a candidate that I am confident about. This allows me to forgo the terrible interview practices a lot of places have, and focus on ironing out the kinks of working together. How it works:

\</comment><comment>----

30 days only, more than that is too much risk for both of us. The potential hire wants to find a full time job, and we don't want to lose a good person to a competitor.

We pay ahead of time: 50% up front, and 50% halfway through. This helps build goodwill and show the potential hire that we are serious about full time employment.

In this case, either of us can walk away anytime if it is not a good fit. Regardless of who makes the call, the candidate keeps the total that we've paid so far. This allows candidates to be honest when it's not working out instead of pretending like everything is fine to get paid for their work during that time. That allows us both to move on instead of wasting time when it won't work.

As an alternative, candidates can choose to get paid after the fact based on how many days they worked. In this case, we pay 1.25 times their expected salary to compensate them for the risk. Either party can still walk away at any time.

\</comment><comment>----

All of this is designed to build mutual trust, allow either party to walk away during the trial period, and show a potential hire that this really is just a trial period and we won't lead them on into further consulting.

</comment><comment><USER3> The IRS frowns on employers who pay employees as contractors if they don't meet the criteria for being contractors. If the employer dictates where you work, how you work and when you work, you probably aren't an independent contractor under IRS regulations. The fact that you send them bills doesn't make a difference.

More details here:

[https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self- employe...](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self- employed/independent-contractor-defined)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's not usual that they didn't bring it up until the end. Usually, on some kind of corp to corp type employment the rate is higher to cover benefits. If it's short term I personally would worry about it(if unemployed) working for yourself can screw up unemployment if they decide to not move forward with you(at least in US). The biggest issue would be they continue to try and keep you as a contractor with out upping the rate.

<comment><USER4> I just reread it. I think it's unusual to bring it up at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't touch such an arrangement with a 10ft pole unless I was truly desperate.

It's pretty easy to hire somebody with a probationary period and terminate them if they don't work out. I currently work for a place with a unionized workforce and probationary periods, and have terminated several new employees for failing probation.

Any startup or other company who claims to need this mechanism is lying to you. Sounds like a scheme to save a few bucks and enable discriminatory behavior with no benefit to you.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you end an industry? - <AUTHOR> Or better yet, how do you build another to displace it?
I'm looking specifically at the ones that prey on human "bugs" - casino, betting, but especially porn.
Maybe not even end an industry, but place some ethical limits, such as when someone starts harming himself you don't let him ruin his/her life, or when other people are exploited (i.e. human trafficking).
Has anyone had similar curiosities? <comment><USER2> The habit loop: cue (trigger) > routine > reward.

You can't easily change the cue and reward, but you can change the routine.

Cues can be really tricky. Something like pornography is rarely triggered by horniness. It's often things like fatigue, stress, being alone in a room, seeing someone in a certain type of clothing.

Reward can also be very tricky. For pornography, it's often an orgasm. For gambling, it's winning money. It's not easy to replace these rewards with say, a game.

What you can do is change the routine easily. For example, someone triggered to look at porn might instead look for his wife. Someone triggered to gamble could trade stocks or cryptocurrency instead.

There's also always been a "boredom" black hole that has been displaced by newspaper, TV, IRC, Netflix, forums, Facebook, Reddit and so on. These things run on the same cue/routine and are easy to displace.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting question

We know how to disrupt an industry (paper maps->google map, cd music -> spotify, etc) but to "end" a business means to reroute a human need/weakness toward something better (healthier, creative, etc)

In my country, the Slow Food Movement by Carlo Petrini successfully "ended" the Fast Food industry in the 80', by promoting the culture of good food.

As we're living times of technological solutions, I'd invest my time building an artificial mentor, a conscious entity that learns ethics from us and helps us to make good use of our life.

ej

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess that's what I'm going for... disruption, but with a positive effect to society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a very disturbing question. Why do you want control over other people, especially with regard to casinos, betting, and porn? All of those are consensual indulgences.

What is an ethical limit and who decides where the line is drawn?

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are great questions. For one, I think companies in these industries have so much data on individual usage, that they could potentially draw some ethical limit.

For example in the case of casinos and gambling, when one enters the addiction phase and takes unnecessary risks we could be nudged, at least, towards no ruining his life.

<comment><USER5> How would that work, exactly? I imagine you could extend the concept to anything that humans do in excess, which is just about everything. And then you would be monitoring every aspect of their lives for that point in time when they overindulge. In the meantime, you would have all of their actions mapped in your database, enough to determine their likes and dislikes, their wants and desires to the point where you can do so before they know what they want. And then you can stop it before it happens. With a nudge.

<comment><USER5> Build things that help people do what they want to do. Don't build stuff to stop people from doing what they want. Unless they want to stop doing those things, in which case build things to help them stop doing those things.

If you are building stuff to stop people from doing what they want and they didn't ask you to, well then you are treading on questions ground. Unless you want to, in which case, well, build it, because you want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > I'm looking specifically at the ones that prey on human "bugs" \- casino, > betting, but especially porn.

These have existed since the beginning of humans. Would be easier to just end people instead.

</comment><comment><USER7> Porn will always be displaced by technology that takes out the middle man. Right now premium snapchat stories are huge.</comment>


Join the Creation of an Open-Source "Trello": Hackachieve - <AUTHOR> Hey guys!
I am a founder of the Hackachieve project, developed here in Vancouver, BC and am considering opening the project to the open-source community.
Link: www.hackachieve.com
It's a personal productivity and business management service where you can organize your long-term, short-term goals, tasks, upload files, and so on, all in Kanban style. The main difference between this project and trello would be that Hackachieve is more of a framework than a generic project management system. It helps you define your short or long term plans in a chronological logical sequence.
You can also use the platform to work together with a team (or your own family).
In total, it's 6 months of development on its own, but since several devs have already shown interest in the project, I'm interested in making it open source. I just want to know if there are enough interested devs.
Technologies used:
- Front End: React, Redux - Backend: Django, Django Rest Framework <comment><USER2> This is an interesting space personally for me. I have always been thinking about personal goals, habit building. Curious about your project.

I already see a product built. Mind sharing what do you mean by open sourcing it and the timeframe of 6 months development</comment>


Fair play for machines: Chomsky's misreading of Turing, and why it matters - <AUTHOR> http://digitalinterface.blogspot.com/2013/12/chomskys-misreading-of-turing-and-why.html <comment><USER2> I'm not an expert in AI or NLP, but my impression is that Chomsky is opposed to any progress in formal semantics, probably because it goes beyond the formal syntax that he worked on. Luckily everyone in the field is free to ignore him and work on it anyway.

There was a beautiful attempt by Roger Schank and his students to come up with a better mathematical description of human reasoning. This fizzled out without making much progress, but who knows what the future holds.

</comment><comment><USER3> I enjoyed this article. But to clarify Chomsky's claim, he once used the analogy of submarines. In some languages (Russian, I vaguely recall?), submarines swim. In English, submarines don't swim. It's a matter of language. Any of us would be willing to accept the analogy, unless we're being really pedantic; it's not a big deal.

(I personally used the analogy last week, when I said, "I believe that was 2011, but maybe your computer thinks otherwise?" and the (non-IT) person immediately understood without comment.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Jay Gordon defends Chomsky's view more thoroughly against my criticism here: [https://plus.google.com/110181959253415840755/posts/7y2s5e9S...](https://plus.google.com/110181959253415840755/posts/7y2s5e9Sggk)

I also leave some responses on that post.

<comment><USER3> Thank you!

A little off-topic, I like the idea of seeing AI research as an industry, and looking at institutional problems which make its output worse. Anthropologist David Graeber discusses this in ([http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars](http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars)) and ([https://vimeo.com/41863599](https://vimeo.com/41863599)).

(The article and video focus on different things; the article's editors removed some arguments about bureaucratic technologies — on the internet, we fill out forms all day — and the video delves more into that.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article was incredible. A clear and simple handling of a difficult subject. Brilliant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I appreciate it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The conclusion is a pleasant antidote to the title (which to its credit got me to read it).

>It's time we all play fair.

Turing and Chomsky are both giants, but its a mistake to suggest they're operating in the same field. This mistake is also made by people who read the 'conflict' between Norvig and Chomsky as saying anything about the future of AI:

[http://norvig.com/chomsky.html](http://norvig.com/chomsky.html)

[http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/06/norvig-vs-chomsky-and- the-f...](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/06/norvig-vs-chomsky-and-the-fight- for-the-future-of-ai)

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/noam-c...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/noam- chomsky-on-where-artificial-intelligence-went-wrong/261637/)

(Norvig is also a giant - but he is at least honest about the limitations and scope of his work).

Turing was essentially speaking to his context at the time:

> Turing says the question "can machines think" isn't helpful in this process > because it invokes conceptual and prejudicial biases about "thinking" and > "machines" that themselves can't be clearly resolved, largely because they > rely on confused metaphysical (or superstitious) beliefs. Turing's claim of > "meaninglessness" reflects the positivist attitude of the scientists and > logicians that formed Turing's intellectual community.

Chomsky is coming from a philosophical and linguistic background and saying that AI hasn't gone as far as he hoped it would:

> Chomsky has a generally very pessimistic view of AI and he's trying to > enlist Turing on his side but it's simply an abuse of the view. Chomsky also > claims in this interview that the last 40 years of AI research "hasn't given > any insight to speak of into the nature of thought and organization of > action".

For some really awesome stuff in terms of the future of AI - the person to look at is Jeff Hawkins:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_w...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing.html)

[http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Brain- Computing](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Brain-Computing)

I'm massively oversimplifying - but it looks like his group has built some products by modelling a Cortical Learning Algorithm. In a Computer Science sense - this looks like a bitset corresponding to memories of facts - that you can then 'diff' \- to make higher level judgments. The example he gave was groups of idea relations on wikipedia. Taking the ideas for 'Apple' and subtracting the ideas for 'Fruit' \- left you with the ideas for 'Computer'.

<comment><USER6> Norvig claims you can make progress in AI using probability theory and statistical analysis (IBM Watson style), and Chomsky is clearly skeptical about that approach. Seems like a conflict to me.

I do like Hawkins' ideas, but so far neither he, nor Dileep George has made any significant breakthroughs, and it's been 10 years since "On Intelligence" was published.</comment></comment>


Putting Marco's Numbers in Perspective - <AUTHOR> http://www.upbeat.it/2015/01/16/putting-marcos-numbers-in-perspective/

<comment><AUTHOR> Before you jump to the "he made it so I can make it too" conclusion let's put those numbers besides other facts/numbers ...</comment>


8chan: Owner of extremist site lashes out as scrutiny intensifies - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/06/8chan-owner-statement-jim-watkins <comment><USER2> 4 out of the top 10 articles on the Guardian refering to 8chan as an "extremist" or "far right" website. I don't think that is fair to the all the weirdos and pedos... It's a broad church.

<comment><USER3> It is fairly obvious that he has a forum where he is explicitly promoting extremist speech. And that speech is far right.

The person in question openly admits to this promotion as a place for infamy, in a completely unironic way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just looking at the title there appears to be some bias: "extremist", "lashes out" all have negative connotations.

Is the Guardian considered to be a reliable source with regard to this topic? The actual URL contains "8chan-owner-statement-jim-watkins" which I thought to be more impartial.

</comment><comment><USER5> To the fellow commenters who take issue with the headline: how would you describe 8chan to someone like a parent or grandparent? If you would use something like "Internet forum or discussion group", then how would you contrast it with something like reddit? What adjective(s) would you use?

<comment><USER6> True anarchy? If Somalia in the 90s made a website? The final stage of civilization?

It is depressing how every experiment in Internet libertarianism ends at Nazism.

<comment><USER7> Makes perfect sense to me. The people who are banned and removed from all other platforms, will most likely end up migrating over to platforms that won't ban them. Other communities really have no need for such extreme lack of moderation, therefore the migration on their side never happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pretty clear this is a hit piece against sites that don't fit into what the media says the internet should be used for. Why should the actions of a few destroy what many others find as their only outlet in the "PC" world the media things we all live in?

<comment><USER9> Your assumption seems to be that _the actions of a few_ (which come with harsh consequences for others) are totally unrelated to the site at hand.

I am not sure if anybody who visted 8chan before will be convinced by that hypothesis. Other than violence in fiction and games, the discourses that take place over there at times _do_ impact people's lifes in a significant and negative way.

And it really doesn't matter if it is on the internet or not, if your newspaper would house radical islamists discussing how to blow up the next building, you'd be shut down within a day (and rightfully so). Why should society treat right wing extremism any different?

<comment><USER10> So if part of a community engages in criminal activities the whole community should be shut down, with no consideration that part of them might not be doing anything wrong? Do you know who has the same reasoning? "They're all a bunch of X, we should Y the whole place." You're doing the same, just from the other side.

<comment><USER9> No, if part of the community engages in criminal activity _and_ said criminal activity is _discussed and encouraged_ in said community, then the public has an incentive to do something about it.

Maybe the terrorist also had a membership in the local gym, but as long as they don't discuss shooting people at that gym the other gym members will not have to fear a shutdown by the public.

The problem is not that a terrorist is member of some group, but that the group is complicit in the actions that follow the communicagions within it, just like I would be complicit as an individual if I convinced my neighbour to hang himself.

If there is a direct legal link would remain to be seen in both cases, but arguing that the culpit's actions are completely unrelated to the communications about said actions within a group is a bold claim that needs evidence to be backed up (which you certainly seem to have).

Edit: I know that there are parts of the 8chan community which are completely unrelated to that incident and these will see their plattform changed by the fallout of the actions of the few. That is how it _is_. If you don't want your plattform to get that kind of press, make sure it is not used by terrorists to plan their actions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Pitching a side gig solution to the day job? - <AUTHOR> I have a corporation for creating serverless cloud components. One of the plugins I've created is AV scanning. My day job is looking for a solution to do exactly what I have already created, but I'm hesitant to pitch my product despite being on good terms.
While I do believe my solution is best for them, due to how well it can fit into their cloud infrastructure, I don't know if it's worth the risks to me to pitch:
- I haven't "outed" myself with this corporation, not that there are any non-compete or other clauses in my contract, and I don't believe there is a conflict of interest that can't be managed
- I am concerned about the pressures that will come from supporting a separate project of mine that would now be integrated with the projects in my day job
- I am concerned about perceived conflicts of interest or future claims that I must have used company time and resources to create my corporate IP (which is unfounded, but can be difficult to disprove considering the crossover of cloud work)
Has anyone been in a similar situation, and found a way to make it work? Or conversely, was it a situation you came into and now regret?
Does anyone have some tips or how I could make it work, assuming it's not too risky?
I know that I'll want to ensure I have legal help for any contracts, and I'm thinking that I may have someone else who's working with me in my side-gig corporation as a vendor point of contact to add more separation between my day job and side work.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Why would your management _want_ to 'manage' such a blatant conflict of interest? They are not incentivized to do so, even if your solution is the best in the market. Their job will be much easier if they either choose a vendor without such conflicts or fire you from your day job after signing contracts with your corporation.

Also, just by pitching this, you are admitting that your side gig is directly related to your day job, which is likely in violation of your IP agreement with the day job. Using another person as point of contact doesn't change that.

This is absurd and will get you fired or worse, unless your day job's lawyers are asleep at the wheel.

</comment><comment><USER3> Talk with a lawyer before any action!

Given that, it all depends to the company culture. In my experience, there is not a process for these matters and it will be looked at on one by one cases.

</comment><comment><USER4> Even if you're in CA and your employment agreement has a permissive IP rights clause or no clause at all, the odds are pretty good that your employer has a good case for owning what you built, even if you did it on your own time and equipment. You'd be a fool to tell them about it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have done something like this, but my pitch began before I got hired. So during the interview process I explained that I am involved with a side business and that the product is a useful tool for helping me with the day job I was getting hired for and asked if they would open to me using it for my team. They said yes and they've been using it since.

Your situation probably requires a more delicate approach but really it will depend on the culture of the company. Not every company is a massive bureaucracy. There's probably more chance if it's a smaller company that just wants the best tool for the job and deliver results, and if that's your solution that may be fine.

</comment><comment><USER6> INAL but I wouldn't mention anything to your employer.

They will either want the IP and/or use it for free and most likely let you go if it replaces your job.

If you think your product has legs I would co-found with a marketing person, you can handle the tech side behind the scenes, keeping your name off the public facing side.

Make sure you're not developing, testing or using your product at work.

I would let your cofounder market it and be the face of the product. Oh and don't even offer it to your current employer.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> You can tell that you have an idea how to optimise the process and can look into it in your free time. You can negotiate possible outcomes if you be able to finish your free time adventure.

Then you can decide if you want to finish and polish your solution and present it to the company.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sorry, bad idea... conflict of interest minefield and very high risk of having your level of dedication to your employer being questioned...</comment>


LG demonstrates wireless Linux Web pad at CeBIT (2001) - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/LG-demonstrates-wireless-Linux-Web-pad-at-CeBIT/ <comment><USER2> This article was published on 2001-03-23. However, it's interesting to see that they called it the "Digital iPAD". Wonder why it never took off? Why didn't they ever trademark the name?

I notice that Gizmodo's already published a story based on this article: [http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/09/check-out-lgs-ipad- from-20...](http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/09/check-out-lgs-ipad-from-2001/)

<comment><USER3> Even better in next paragraph: "LG's new Digital iPad comes with..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone edit the title to include "(2001)"?

Cute find, but the significance is not clear unless you note the articles published date. It took a little while to realise why LG was spruiking a tablet called an iPad.

<comment><USER5> well.. not mentioning that had a nice effect on me.

I was like WTF and then the _truth_ kicked in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, what a blast from the past. 64mb of memory, 206mhz Intel StrongARM, "Internet appliance" was still a term, and 802.11b was still new.

<comment><USER7> That strong arm CPU was way underpowered for web surfing ...

<comment><USER8> Your references please ?

I was using a similar SA1100 on the Zaurus 5000d (developer release, purchased at the Linux Expo 2001 in NYC) then the 5500 and finally on the Simpad SL4 where it drove a 800x600 screen (Both the Sharp Zaurus and the Siemens Simpad where using Qtopia, QT embedded)

Opera and Konqueror were both running fine. There was even a demo of a voice- controller Opera browser from IBM - also running fine.

OTOH, the RAM was the real problem. 32 Mb on the 5000d was really not enough. I managed to find a company doing BGA reflow to solder 128 Mb on my simpad SL4, which worked great after some minor kernel tweaks to enable it.

So the SA1100 _was_ fine for web surfing, 64Mb was acceptable even if 128 was better.

<comment><USER7> I had a PDA with a similar strong arm CPU, it was dog slow for complex pages with opera. Of cause I can't rule out the os as the culprit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So isn't this like "prior art" relevant to the recent Samsung vs Apple "patent" trials?

<comment><USER10> I think their patent wars are currently about phones, not tablets.

<comment><USER11> Their patent wars cover everything. The recent court decision was about phones though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I also noticed this

 _A spokesman for LG at CeBIT said that the product may come with other connectivity solutions, however, including possibly a "PDA style slot" for mobile phones._

which reminded me of

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/228977/asus_padfone_combines_...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/228977/asus_padfone_combines_smartphone_with_tablet_dock.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> That's very interesting. I wonder if Apple and LG ever got an agreement on the name.

Was LG's tablet ever released to the public?

</comment><comment><USER13> What a crappy website. I've tried 15 times to submit a reply to a comment on that article and each time I get 'Your comment does not pass our spam filter. Please try again.' with no indication of what part of the comment is lacking.

<comment><USER14> The website retired some time ago. It's possible that the comments just don't work anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not entirely clear to me why this matters at all.

<comment><USER16> Cuz Apple "didnt build that"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks like a lot like this - [http://www.google.com/patents?id=6BsWAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=6BsWAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false)</comment>


Safari 4's Messy Trail - <AUTHOR> http://www.thrica.com/archives/352 <comment><USER2> "this is a huge privacy concern" ... agreed!

Let's hope Apple clean's up Safari's messy behaviour that disregards the privacy of users everywhere.</comment>