Send money to a customer's checking account using their debit card number - <AUTHOR> https://www.balancedpayments.com/push-to-card <comment><USER2> The sensitivity of the traditional bank account and sort number combination is totally backwards, at least in the uk, the only things you can do with a sort code and account number is pay in funds (or set up a direct debit but that's why the direct debit guarantee requirement exists). I'd feel uncomfortable extending my data exposure with my card number when I just want to receive funds.

<comment><USER3> The direct debit system is nearly identical to the US ACH system.

Any funds pulled out of your account can be returned by a trip to the bank and signing an affidavit.

The only difference is the inconvenience of having to physically go into the bank to reverse the payment.

<comment><USER4> That might be pretty difficult for members of online banks with one or no physical bank locations. I can dispute a credit card charge by email, phone, or even the web.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's because ACH's version of chargebacks require that you sign an affidavit as part of the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Too bad that neither Balanced nor Stripe support sending money to people/companies that are not based in U.S. I guess I will have to wade through the Paypal Api !

<comment><AUTHOR> We are actively working on that, too: [https://www.balancedpayments.com/international- payments](https://www.balancedpayments.com/international-payments)

<comment><USER6> It's the only thing we're waiting on to switch to Balanced. We talked to you guys before about that (my co-founder, Adam, from Binpress) and it seemed to be progressing but then it stalled. Looking forward to May 22

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. :) Please note that that date is an 'expected launch.' Things are progressing nicely, but that's not a hard date. But soon!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think I'm most interested in balanced using crowd funding to raise money for implementing new features. Raising $50k to create a product that allows them to charge $1/use. Are there any posts from balanced about this method of getting things done?

I found these two articles: [http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/01/30651-balanced- uses-...](http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/01/30651-balanced-uses- crowdfunding-float-new-product-feature/) [http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/24/balanced-crowdfunding- produ...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/24/balanced-crowdfunding-product- development/)

<comment><AUTHOR> It was on our blog: [http://blog.balancedpayments.com/push-to- cards/](http://blog.balancedpayments.com/push-to-cards/)

This is the first time we've done this, so we haven't written a lot about it yet because the feature hasn't actually shipped.

I will also say that the money was more in the theory of lean than actually paying for the development of the feature. We wanted to gain feedback and see if our customers would actually use this feature.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. I hope you guys blog more about it. It def. shows how interested people are in the feature and makes people pony up, to prove it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm guessing they are using Visa's lesser known Money Transfer features. This stuff has been around for a little while. The company I work for recently started supporting this for insurance company payouts to customers.

[https://usa.visamoneytransfer.com/Visa/Web/Help/FAQ](https://usa.visamoneytransfer.com/Visa/Web/Help/FAQ)

BTW, you can chargeback stuff on your debit card just like you can with your credit card. Both are save and typically 100% covered by the credit card company that issued the card.

I'm still amazed that people don't understand how disposable credit card numbers are. The worst thing thing you really risk when giving out your credit card is the hassle of changing any auto-payments you had attached to that card in the off-chance that your card is compromised. Debit cards are a little different in that your funds may be held for a couple of weeks under certain circumstances so that could suck but that's not often the case. /rant

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I struggled with coming up with a title. This is way better, dang, thank you.

<comment><USER9> Don't worry, it seems Balanced did as well ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe it's because I'm from Europe, but I don't see what's so special about that.

Isn't the debit card number just the bank account number?

<comment><USER11> NOoooooo not even remotely. That would be terrible.

The debit card number is a layer of abstraction that allows you to HIDE your bank account number from retailers. If you give someone your bank account number they can do whatever they want until you shut down that BANK account.

Someone steals your debit card or the number it's super simple to get that changed and replaced. Someone steals your bank account number it's a nightmare.

<comment><USER12> I'm very confused about this.

Does that mean you should NEVER pay anyone by cheque since it has your account number printed on it?

Why is the USA one of the only first-world countries that have such prevalent usage of cheques, but it's seen as so dangerous to disclose a bank account number?

What can someone do with just a bank account number, and why isn't that problem being fixed?

<comment><USER13> > Why is the USA one of the only first-world countries that have such > prevalent usage of cheques

I'm actually thinking about writing a blog post explaining my theory behind why this is the case. Would that be interesting?

tl;dr of my theory: geographic size and decentralized gov't in the US allowed a paper cheque system to outlive other countries'

<comment><USER14> Also probably the reason slavery lasted so much longer past the end of the civil war in parts of the South. Interesting parallel I guess, as paper checks seem just about as antebellum to me now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In the Netherlands the bank account number is printed on the card. Would that solution not solve the problem being addressed here?

</comment><comment><USER16> Can I use this to pay my employees and contractors instead of using a ACH direct deposit service?

<comment><USER13> yep!

<comment><USER17> Well done guys! Question though, if a debit can settle out of my checking account through my debit card (ie my Simple account) in minutes at a traditional merchant (gas station), why do you credits take 1-2 days to settle?

<comment><USER18> (ceo of Balanced)

Under promise. Over deliver. That's the best way to answer that. :-)

We have partnerships and direct ATM network integrations to clear in real-time for ~55% of debit cards. I didn't want to promise that until we've done enough volume to see that clearing time for ourselves instead of basing it what our partners have communicated to us. Once I have enough data/proof, I'll update the language to reflect the faster speed.

<comment><USER17> Totally fair! Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is similar to Square Cash, no?

<comment><USER18> Balanced is offering a white-labeled API. Square Cash is a branded consumer product.

The mechanism of paying people using their debit cards is the same.

<comment><USER20> Any chance you can make it so I can send the balance of a debit card to another debit card, or bank account for $1?

<comment><USER18> What is the use case?

<comment><USER20> If a customer wants to pay with a debit card, I want to avoid paying the credit card percentage fees.

Sort of like how gas stations have a higher price for credit card payments versus debit card payments.

It seems to me like you guys already have a system to map debit card numbers to bank accounts, so this should technically be possible as an ACH transfer. No?

<comment><USER18> > It seems to me like you guys already have a system to map debit card numbers > to bank accounts, so this should technically be possible as an ACH transfer. > No?

That's not the way we're doing it. I've tried to find such a system, but AFAIK, it's not possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> $1 fee per transaction. Done entirely by computers. In huge volumes.

There is no reason that entirely electronic transactions should cost more than fractions of a penny to process. Any justification for this cost is complete bullshit.

<comment><USER22> Welcome to the banking system. If they're going threw the debit card channels, through Visa, they might charge a fee, Balanced's bank may charge a fee, Balanced has to pay its employees, pay for hosting its servers, make sure they are PCI compliant, etc.

<comment><USER21> Sounds like a lot of bloat and over exaggeration on the part of banks and credit card companies for how much all these things cost. They're still making a killing...

<comment><USER13> fraud is often priced into these systems since most payments instruments in the US aren't push-only. Sorry if it sounds like I'm justifying...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Another reason for me to love Balanced, other than the fact they're the only processor who wanted to work with us - will be making good use of this feature for our storefronts platform!

</comment><comment><USER24> Is there any way to use this as a consumer replacement to things like PayPal/Venmo? It can be really frustrating to have to wait a few days for payments to clear.

<comment><USER25> Square Cash does this exact thing. Uses an app or via email, deposits via debit card number, and has no fees. No idea how it works, but it's how most of my friends send me money. [https://square.com/cash](https://square.com/cash)

<comment><USER26> Yeah, for square the user can use debit card info or routing/account info. It appears that square has designed the onboarding UI to strongly favor debit cards, but there is a little link in there to account instead.

The really curious thing, however, is that no matter which one you choose, the transactions appear to be debit.

I'm pretty sure I signed up with an account number, but all the transactions in and out of my account are debit transactions.

FWIW, chase online clearly report either "ACH {Credit,Debit}" or "Debit Card Transaction"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great to see you guys continuing to add new ways to move money.</comment>


The Greatest Challenge to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter is Unbundling - <AUTHOR> http://tomtunguz.com/unbundling-of-social-networks <comment><USER2> A social networking site is only valuable to a user once it reaches a critical mass of connections.

Maintaining these connections across multiple accounts is a huge pain. None of the existing social networks have any incentive to make this process easier, whether by providing an export tool or conforming to an open "friends list" standard.

Specialized Craigslist clones can exist because no one wants to sell apartment space to the same people they buy used furniture from. Friends are friends, though; if you want to share videos with them, there's a good chance you want to see what the tweet, too.

<comment><USER3> Specialized networks have two paths. One is offer value even if you are the only user. Instagram and Pinterest do this. The other is making sure people join in groups, which is close to what Yammer does.

(There is the dark path of spamming your users' contacts from another network, but we know where it leads.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, right on. Great point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this thesis can hold true in many verticals and is overall a solid argument. For example, a user might be okay with paying for premium features on a site like Vimeo, Behance, Elance, etc. when they wouldn't pay for similar features on a generic social network like Facebook or Twitter. You're paying for these premium features because the service provided is much more targeted (and provides more value for your time) or the community is more engaged in your media or conversation (and provides a richer experience).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, agreed. Whenever there is a general platform of large scale, an opportunity exists to unbundle and take the most valuable contributors elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a general law of marketing: You can't be the best at everything, and the more you dilute yourself the more other laser-focused competitors will cut slices from your pie.

Tangentially, Google could have played upon this with plus, if they had made into the social foundation for others to create verticals to rival with Facebook. Too bad they didn't go this way.

<comment><USER6> This sounds interesting, but I'm not sure what it means. Could you explain what Google should have done more fully?

<comment><USER7> I suspect what the commenter meant is that Google could have created an open social platform for others to build upon, resulting in a plethora of specific social implementations targeting many different verticals.

Instead, what we have today is G+ as a glue that provides a social foundation for all of their products, although I hope that G+ will open up soon to allow others to build upon it.

<comment><USER5> Your suspect was right :) I remember many discussions about this when G+ was in its infancy. Obviously for Google the best thing would have been for G+ to become facebook - but that was, and is, impossible. So, the second best thing would have been (imho) to beat FB at the openness game, attracting first the developers, and then their users. Alas, they chose a different path.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The natural problem that arises is how to handle many social networks at the same time? I can think of many different specialized social networks to cover my interests but if I don't have a few or a single "console" they will be impossible to handle. Sometimes I need to post to LinkedIn and Twitter, sometimes to Google Plus depending on the audience.

I've written some articles about how I see this future integrations but being self critical I think it is impossible without full APIs. I also wrote recently an article using similar concepts for challenging Google [http://blog.databigbang.com/letters-from-the-future- challeng...](http://blog.databigbang.com/letters-from-the-future-challenging- googles-search-engine/)

<comment><USER9> I don't mind going to different sites to do different things, rather than having everything handled under one umbrella. Mainly because, for example, I find flickr to be a better photo sharing and management experience than some other site that has photo handling tacked on as a secondary feature.

Admittedly, twitter's interface isn't the best for what it is (and they keep shutting down tools/sites/apps that might end up with a better interface found via experimentation), and there have been (some successful) attempts at a tool that abstracts away the social network and technical part of different sites and lets you interact with more of them at once.

Oddly, it seems other people sometimes _do_ mind going to other sites. Family wanted to know why I didn't post photos to facebook so they could see them. I had been posting links to other sites where I had uploaded them for public viewing and apparently even clicking on a link to go see them was too much cognitive load.

However, what I do mind is the walled garden nature of the different sites that keep me from easily and effectively aggregating all my actions across the internet into a single place: both for my own purposes and as a jumping off point for other people to explore.However, twitter keeps shutting down easy access to my data (I can't tell if the v1 api call for favorites via RSS is still enabled, it seems to periodically work; last I checked, there doesn't appear to be a new way, without oauth, to get a feed of favorites). Facebook has an "export" function, but it seems to be all or nothing and single shot, and integrating. Flickr generally has good external integration via simple RSS, but I think that's because Flickr "gets it": they are a photo sharing site and they are not focused on keeping people on the site. That's most likely due to their monetization model.

Unfortunately, services that did this, like friendfeed and memolane, are dead or dying. It's really hard to create and maintain one, especially one that is more unified interface than just data aggregation, when the landscape for sharing and integration keeps changing out from under you as sites try to lock users in. The focus on creating an all-in-one do-everything experience rather than something that compliments the features of other sites contributes to this, I think.

<comment><USER8> > I don't mind going to different sites to do different things, rather than > having everything handled under one umbrella.

In my perspective things change when you are using services for business rather than personal consumption. There are SO MANY sites that can capture your interest or where you want to just duplicate that blog post or copy your tweet to other sites, and are impossible to manage because we all have 24 hours days.

In some way it is the same problem that arises in the long tail: probably there is a product that a million people want to consume but is unknown. Probably there are hundreds but we humans can't focus and handle periodically so many items. I think the problem is not the lack of resources but tools that help you to pick many of them with a simple interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://cdixon.org/2012/11/23/some-problems-are-so-hard- they-...](http://cdixon.org/2012/11/23/some-problems-are-so-hard-they-need-to- be-solved-piece-by-piece/) seems to to have the graphic as well ;-)

<comment><USER11> And Chris Dixon had the decency to give credit where it's due.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems this also means these horizontal giants should focus on adding value to these verticals - helping to develop and grow these ecosystems - focus on evolving their horizontal platform attributes?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the problem is it's hard to scale that while keeping focus on the core.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is it a challenge, though? These 'focused' competitors in many cases might not actually take market share from their more general rivals. It doesn't need to be a zero-sum thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a long term challenge I think. If the most valuable people on the network find value elsewhere....

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the biggest problem it creates for the big ones is lack of focus.

By trying to be everything at the same time, they become cluttered and complicated.

<comment><USER15> The goal is acquiring information and, in this regard, Google is one company that has extended themselves into many areas but seem to keep their focus pretty well. They may be an outlier though.

As for this article, I'm reminded of a similar story with a different point of view posted on Medium: <https://medium.com/understandings- epiphanies/aae8d5f880cc>

I do question question the long term value of social networks that operate under what has become the traditional advertising model as teens move towards apps that are more privacy conscious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> right, except craig never had $Billions to buy out all their competitors as soon as they emerge as a threat.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, balance sheet is really important. CL was never that interested in building a balance sheet by increasing revenues, going public, etc.</comment></comment>


In Bill Gates's Mind, a Life of Processing - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mind-of-bill-gates-revealed-on-netflix-11568107801?mod=rsswn <comment><AUTHOR> > Bill Gates's constant companion is a tote bag full of books. He digests > about one book per week, typically on topics that overlap with the Bill & > Melinda Gates Foundation's agenda. He says recent standout titles include > "Prepared" by educator Diane Tavenner, about helping kids find a path to a > fulfilled life; "Loonshots," Safi Bahcall 's book about nurturing creative > ideas that may initially seem nuts; and "These Truths," a re-examination of > U.S. history by Jill Lepore.

Bill Gates actively blogs about his reading at [https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books)

</comment><comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/ZSM4x](http://archive.is/ZSM4x)</comment>


Learn Delphi - <AUTHOR> https://learndelphi.org/ <comment><USER2> I don't think there is a good way to measure this, but if we settle for TIOBE, Delphi seems to be in decline. [1]

I also don't know how much money Embarcadero makes off of RAD Studio licenses, but I wonder if the cost of new developers choosing languages whose primary and most popular tooling is completely free and doesn't require payment/registration to get a license threatens the income stream that is the license sale for the IDE.

I wonder if they'd be better off making the IDE free (ideally, of course, open source, but I don't see that happening) so that the barrier to entry into Delphi development was lowered.

This is of course assuming they make money off of Delphi in multiple other ways (professional libraries?) that this could boost. If they only make money off the IDE, then this would not be possible. I don't know if this is the case, however if it is, it could mean that the Delphi ecosystem is what's slowing the language down which would be an intricate situation to get out of for the Delphi language and its community.

I don't particularly like Delphi, but I know there is a lot of legacy systems (and even some new ones) depending on it, so it would be a shame to see it fold completely in the coming decade. Perhaps the community should come together and "get with the times" in a way that makes the Delphi ecosystem as approachable as it is for other languages (like .NET, JavaScript, Rust and others - no licenses for any primary and most popular tooling there)

[1]: [https://insights.dice.com/2020/03/06/delphi-programming- lang...](https://insights.dice.com/2020/03/06/delphi-programming-language- dying-tiobe-index/)</comment>


SimCity mod demonstrates the possibility of offline play - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/14/4102966/simcity-mod-demonstrates-the-possibility-of-indefinite-offline-play <comment><USER2> I just don't get it. I've not heard one person say they are happy about the state of the game. Yet EA / Maxis continue to ignore the customers. (And they will continue to for the foreseeable future, I'm sure).

I have several friends that picked it up on launch day and a few of them haven't even tried to play it yet. I can't understand the need to have the latest game for the compulsive gamers. To shell out money just to have it perpetuates this cycle of EA selling anything they want and the masses buying it anyway.

I went to play NHL '10 a couple weeks ago on xbox and was greeted with a nice message that the game servers are shut down. At least I can still play the game. What are the odds there will be an end-of-life patch that enables offline, single city game play when EA pulls the plugs on the SimCity servers?

In any case, it's clear that EA will laugh all the way to the bank with everyone's money. I'll keep voting with my wallet.

<comment><USER3> As you say in your post, people are buying the game irrespectively. Why bother making changes? Here are the current sales figures in the UK:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/mar/11/t...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/mar/11/top-20-video- games)

Debuted at #2 in the charts. Development time costs money, and the game doesn't need 'fixing' to sell any copies. Despite the negative press in the tech community, most gamers don't actuall care about the always online requirement. I don't see the big deal myself either - most PC games from big publishers actually install malware and rootkits onto your machine! That seems infinitely worse than always-online, but no-one cares about that either.

<comment><USER4> > Why bother making changes?

One that springs to mind is that everybody you burn on this one is potentially a lost customer of the next one.

<comment><USER5> That's only a concern when continuing your behavior results in a decrease of revenue. EA has been acting like this for a _long_ time. If driving off these kinds of customers was going to create future pain for them, it would have by now.

<comment><USER4> I posit this is because EA doesn't really have a brand identity per se, but SimCity does.

<comment><USER5> In that case, they've been doing this same kind of stuff with their other brands for quite a while and either are ignoring the pain it generates or aren't feeling it.

<comment><USER4> Some companies are great at ignoring pain until it kills them. I guess we'll see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The servers have gotten a lot more stable and I've been able to play consistently. The new problem is: I'm bored already. The game isn't as deep as I first thought it was. Not sure if I'll buy the inevitable DLCs to make it more fleshed out.

In offline mode, since it doesn't save my city... maybe it'll offer a different way of playing. Sort of like old school games that didn't have any save points :)

<comment><USER7> > The new problem is: I'm bored already. The game isn't as deep as I first > thought it was.

Interesting! So you're saying the lack of fixing problems appears to be a nice cover for a the lack of an interesting game?

<comment><USER8> There are some major issues. One of them being the traffic problems that were posted on HN yesterday. Traffic is supposed to be somewhat challenging, but there is really no way to fix it unless you remove all intersections. There are also other bugs such as not being able to plop the sign for the trade HQ. Also I built the trade building with the rail road tracks (forgot the name) and it will take deliveries of items like oil but it will never hold the oil or ship it out. It just disappears.

The budget controls don't go as deep as SimCity3000/4. In the past I could shave a couple dollars of the road budget, but that would result in pot holes and less repairs. Can't do that now.

The cities are also very small. I'm waiting for EA to release some "awesome" DLC that gives you a decent sized city. The more I play this game the more I like SC4.

<comment><USER9> The cities are just small enough that doing anything to get the high-level trade buildings requires 100% dedicating your city to that purpose. e.g. oil/refining, etc.

<comment><USER10> Sim City 4 leaned towards this as well. You certainly didn't have to do it, but it was a major boost to have a city dedicated to just trash and heavy industry and a city dedicated to making power and a city dedicated to high tech jobs and a city dedicated to living.

Cities XL is another game between Sim City 4 and SimCity where the land your city is build on will not have all of the resources your town needs, forcing you to juggle two or more towns. Some locations in that game are only good for resorts, some are only good for oil, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This whole thing is starting to feel like a case of "no such things as bad publicity" - I kinda really want to check it out now that it's appeared here 10 times.

<comment><USER12> I'm about to order it, to see what the fuss is about :/

<comment><USER13> You'll probably be disappointed. Ignoring the fuss of DRM/offline-play the game just wasn't very good IMO. Perhaps if you like watching little Sims and feeling connected on the micro-scale to a city it's interesting. If you're into Macro city management simulation, don't bother. They added some interesting new features, it showed some creativity. But the implementation is poor IMO.

Even if they enabled an offline mode I still wouldn't be playing it. Course that's all subjective so I guess there will be those who disagree. I think most of the yelling and screaming for an offline mode is the gaming community making a Custers' Last Stand on the issue. People are mostly upset about the concept of not "owning" the game and that at some point in the future they might not be able to play this game. I doubt very many of those upset would actually want to play this game in 10 years time. Course I do agree with the fundamentals of that argument, but unfortunately I don't think we'll win.

Guess what I'm trying to get at, is the passion surrounding this game is more due to principles than enjoyment or zealous fandom of the game itself. Well perhaps some of the outrage is over how EA has destroyed a classic series like SimCity. But that doesn't mean the game is good and you should buy it for the playing experience.

<comment><USER14> I think they redesigned the game to be a bit easier.

I've played the previous sim city games, but I never really liked them. Looking at the videos of the new one, it seems like they made it a bit more accessible, such as not requiring players to build power lines or water pipes. It's more of a game that I would play casually for half an hour here and there and still find it fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wouldn't be shocked if a bnetd [1] like situation arose. What's stopping a clever hacker from coming up with a local proxy that just saves everything on the user's PC? From what it sounds like, the server infrastructure isn't doing anything crazy complicated.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle.net#bnetd>

<comment><USER16> It would not be trivial, since the client verifies the SSL certificate of the server, which is stored in the client binary most likely.

<comment><USER17> You can add new, custom root certificates to the system and use them to manually sign a fake server certificate.

<comment><USER16> The game is very unlikely to use the system certificates. What would it gain, other than being more easily MITM-ed?

The certificate is hard-coded in the binary, most certainly.

<comment><USER18> Changing a certificate check in a binary is just finger exercise for anyone serious about reverse engineering. "Hard-coded" does not mean what you (seem to) think it means...

<comment><USER16> I never meant that changing the certificate is impossible, just that it isn't trivial.

<comment><USER19> I only did something like that once, but it was absolutely trivial, since it included the ASCII header. Search, overwrite, add a little padding, done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Except that you can't save your game...

Still, it's a useful mod for people who have unstable connections. You can also mod the UI to link a rarely button used button to "Sync", so that you save at will.

<comment><USER21> Save state in a VM?

<comment><USER19> On Linux there are "process freezers" that work pretty well for simple applications. I wonder if Windows has anything like that...?

<comment><USER22> Can you list some of those? I've always wanted to implement a "Save State" driver for Windows, but since I use Linux now, it's nice to know such things already exist.

<comment><USER19> The ones I know are listed on Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_checkpointing>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am so not going to buy this game.

EA just don't get it so I will help them a bit by choosing to spend my money elsewhere.

<comment><USER24> I've opted for the new StarCraft 2. The launch went smoothly without an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even once all the online/etc. issues are resolved, it's just not a very good game. I'm not angry enough to push Amazon for a refund, but it's not something I'd ever pay full price for. It's actually inferior to CitiesXL Platinum (although broken in different ways; between the two, you could have one decent game).

Civ V wasn't great, either, but Civ V:G+K turned it into a decent and worthy successor. Maybe the same thing will happen with SimCity 5.

</comment><comment><USER25> I play on NA East 2 mostly and I have not had any issues with the server in a while. Not like the start. There are still lots of bugs in the game but what release like this is ever flawless? Simcity as a game is evolving and trying to become more connected. I agree that they shouldn't have lied about all the work require for offline mode when the game continues to function without a connection. I think offline wouldn't be that bad to add if they felt like the mechanics of the game still worked. TBH if it wasn't for the online mode I wouldn't still be playing. As I play mostly social games with friends. For me it is a plus. I have played other games such as LOL that have had several DAYS of no service but yet there is not much of an uproar about it. It seems like most the people commenting in this thread haven't had very much experience with SimCity 5.

</comment><comment><USER26> The funniest thing is that the whole thing is not true. Yeah, you can disable the first DRM layer in JavaScript but after 30 minutes you will get always thrown back to the main menu.

</comment><comment><USER8> The game has bugs aside from the server issues. I hope they fix those too.

</comment><comment><USER27> some interesting reads over on the gaming stack exchange:

<http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/simcity>

<comment><USER28> >Region searching is currently broken! When it is fixed, the task you are trying to do will be easy. Until then, the best you can do is invite through the friend system.

How is it that every single thing in this game is broken? I tried playing multiplayer as well once I got bored playing alone and got just as bored except faster because I was still playing singleplayer because nobody will ever join.</comment></comment>


Twitter Has a Handbook for Politicians - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/30/443128829/twitter-has-a-136-page-handbook-for-politicians-140-character-tweets <comment><USER2> I'm trying to understand the negativity of the article. Isn't trying to get our baby boomer aged politicians onto new technology and communications channels a good thing? Or are we just going to write off anybody anybody who isn't already "with it"?

<comment><USER3> That was a strange and completely unnecessary angle for the author to take. I don't get it.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, the tone of the article was "Who the hell doesn't know what Twitter is? Haha, what losers!" which is a really alienating and negative attitude to take towards the uninitiated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Twitter Has A 136-Page Handbook For Politicians."

Seems like a lost branding opportunity that they didn't add 4 more pages.

<comment><USER6> Startup L. Jackson agrees with you

[https://twitter.com/StartupLJackson/status/64938140832707379...](https://twitter.com/StartupLJackson/status/649381408327073793)

<comment><USER7> Did we just identify SLJ again? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Direct link to the handbook:

[https://g.twimg.com/elections/files/2014/09/16/TwitterGovEle...](https://g.twimg.com/elections/files/2014/09/16/TwitterGovElectionsHandbook.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> Page 1 - "Even though you may be tempted, don't put naked pictures of yourself on the Internet/Twitter, as the net result of that is there will be naked pictures of you on the Internet/Twitter FOREVER!"

Page 2 - "Young and attractive girls are not sending you suggestive pictures of themselves because they like you, these are always reporter honey traps, ALWAYS"

As a politician this is all you need to know about twitter.

</comment><comment><USER10> Surprisingly well targeted based on the extracts here... It completely makes sense for Twitter to do that...

</comment><comment><USER11> Is there a page explaining that the tweet box isn't a search box?

cf: [https://twitter.com/edballs/status/63623585020915713](https://twitter.com/edballs/status/63623585020915713)

</comment><comment><USER12> They all have media/PR staff to fill Twitter with cheap talking points, empty optimism "Let's make x great again! Retweet" or for begging for donations. There's no interaction with voters here whatsoever it's a one way channel.

<comment><USER13> I think this handbook is Twitter's attempt to change that. My guess is that most politicians don't _really_ understand social media in general and thus delegate it to their twenty-something polisci intern whose only connection to the candidate is an approved list of messages. It's no surprise they're terrible.

<comment><USER14> I work in DC - and our clients have a lot of public affairs work in the portfolio. Many members of Congress, especially on the House side are more active on Twitter than you'd realize. We've found anecdotally that especially during periods of recess or home district work periods, voter contact can be an effective way to target elected on Twitter and we've seen responses. Tends to skew younger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Be nice to politicians and they will be nice to you. Sounds like a good idea for a social media company. Twitter already does additional services for certain segments so this would be consistent.

</comment><comment><USER16> Smart way to subtly lobby also.</comment>


Ask HN: Questions for a physical product startup? - <AUTHOR>

We've been working on a physical product for a few months now and we're approaching our launch. I'm writing some articles about starting a PPS (physical product startup) and I'd like to include any questions you might have. <comment><USER2> 1\. How do you decide if it's worth it to file for a patent?

2\. How do you find manufacturers?</comment>


New CloudFront Pricing Tiers for our High Volume Users - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2009/01/new-cloudfront-pricing-tiers-for-our-high-volume-users.html <comment><USER2> anyone using it?</comment>


The story behind China's 'Minecraft' military camouflage - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160324-the-story-behind-chinas-minecraft-military-camo <comment><USER2> The US Army is ditching the digital pattern for a more traditional, splotchy pattern, Scorpion W2: [http://tacticalgear.com/ocp- acus](http://tacticalgear.com/ocp-acus)

<comment><USER3> That's a fantastic page. I was in from '03-'08, and was issued woodland BDUs, desert DCUs, and finally the UCP ACUs. Multicam and the new OCP pattern have come since. I had 2 versions of the PT uniform (which have changed once or twice since), and narrowly avoided having to purchase the new dress uniform.

Overall, the Army needs to find a uniform that it likes and stick with it. Particularly for something that does not affect combat effectiveness (PT, Dress), a single style should be good for decades.

I think that the Army should define a garrison uniform that they can stick with, something along the lines of the BDU with the additional pockets of the ACU. Then define a combat uniform for different terrain or combat theaters as needed.

<comment><USER4> > Particularly for something that does not affect combat effectiveness (PT, > Dress), a single style should be good for decades.

Completely agree.

> I think that the Army should define a garrison uniform that they can stick > with, something along the lines of the BDU with the additional pockets of > the ACU.

The garrison uniform should be what the Navy terms a 'service uniform': polished leather shoes, trousers, a long- or short-sleeved blouse depending on the weather, and a cover, with optional coat and tie. It doesn't ever need to change, except maybe slightly in cut to keep up with civilian styles.

Camouflage should only be worn when actually fighting, or training to fight. Anyone sitting at a desk outside of a war zone should be wearing a service uniform, not camo.

<comment><USER5> > Anyone sitting at a desk outside of a war zone should be wearing a service > uniform, not camo.

But how will you feel cool if you're not wearing your BDUs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ship camouflage, particularly "dazzle camouflage", is another example of a counterintuitive pattern at first making sense; see the first picture here:

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

<comment><USER7> Dazzle wasn't intended to hide the ship but rather make it difficult to ascertain it's class, speed and heading.

<comment><USER8> I'm sorry, but you're statement is contradictory:

       a.) Dazzle wasn't intended to hide the ship
       b.) make it difficult to ascertain it's [sic] class, speed and heading

       Hide = hard to find
       Difficult = hard
       Ascertain = to know, to find out, to determine

The point of camouflage is to hide 'information', and while that can be to make something blend in with its location/surroundings, it can also certainly be to make it appear to be something else, or doing something different from what it is actually doing.

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

<comment><USER9> You can't be serious with this.

"Hide the ship" means:

        All I see is open ocean, sir!

"Difficult to ascertain its class, speed, and heading" means:

        I don't know what kind of ship that is, sir! Nor do I know
        what direction it's traveling in! Hell, it's hard to see how
        fast it's going as well, sir! But I do know this, sir, there's a
        ship there.

But I think you're smart enough to figure that out.

<comment><USER8> No, these are all degrees of the same thing, concealment. That is the point of camouflage. There are two main strands to camouflage: 1\. prevention of detection (crypsis), 2\. look like something else (mimicry).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_camouflage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_camouflage) [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/camouflage](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/camouflage) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage)

<comment><USER9> Oye. Ok, so the parent comment was this:

> Dazzle wasn't intended to hide the ship but rather make it difficult to > ascertain it's class, speed and heading.

Here I am rephrasing it to fit your terms:

> Dazzle wasn't intended to [prevent detection of] the ship but rather make it > [look like something else].

But for some reason you chose instead to read that as a contradictory statement?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Digital camouflage has been used for a long time, with it's roots going back before WW2. Countries like the US and Canada who have advanced the technology. The main advantage seems to be it has more than one optimal viewing distance.

From wikipedia:

Traditional single scale patterns work well in their optimal range from the observer, however an observer too close or too far away will not see the pattern optimally. Nature itself is very often fractal, where plants and rock formations exhibit similar patterns across several magnitudes of scale. The idea behind multi scale patterns is both to mimic the cross-scale self- similarity of nature, and also to offer camouflage at close-range in addition to the traditional combat range camouflage.

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

</comment><comment><USER11> Shouldn't minecraft be replaced with 'pixelated' ... its really got nothing to do with minecraft has it?

<comment><USER12> The article's actual headline (though not the link title) uses 'Minecraft' in quotation marks. It's saying that the pixelated pattern resembles a series of Minecraft blocks -- not that there is any literal connection to Minecraft.

<comment><USER13> it's because the textures on the minecraft blocks look like the camo. has nothing to do with the blocks.

<comment><USER12> We're basically splitting hairs at this point. The camo pattern looks like the textures on the Minecraft blocks, or vice versa. It's not that the pattern literally looks like it's made of Minecraft blocks, and I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

This is one of the silliest arguments I've ever been involved in on the internet, and that's saying something. :) Can we just say "They used the word 'Minecraft' in the title because the camo kinda sorta looks like Minecraft textures" and move on with our lives?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How is this a story behind "China's" camouflage? It's clearly a small blurb about the history of digital camo (or "texture match" camo") in general. The U.S has been using this for a long time, as well as dozens of other countries. Yet, the article doesn't do much to talk about China's application other than noting they too, use it (sometimes).

<comment><USER15> Agreed, mainly just some history of digital camo. Camopedia [1] has similar information, and it looks like China has been using these patterns since 2007.

[1] [http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=Digital_patterns](http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=Digital_patterns)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was more perplexed about the camouflaged vehicles being bright blue...

<comment><USER17> Those are amphibious fighting vehicles, used for landing from the sea. The sea, as we know, are blue colored.

<comment><USER18> These are amphibious?

[http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/1600_640/images/live/p0/3...](http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/1600_640/images/live/p0/3n/y4/p03ny4g9.jpg)

<comment><USER17> These are not. But they belong to the same unit of those amphibious light tanks, so used the same camouflage. During a landing operation, these long range rockets are likely deployed on the decks of flotilla as artillery support for the beachhead assault.

<comment><USER19> Those are transporter erector launchers for the YJ-62 anti-ship cruise missile. They are deployed as shore-based defensive batteries. The coloring is likely intended to make them blend in with the sky (when viewed from the ocean surface) and the surf zone (when viewed from above).

As for deploying rocket artillery on ships, that wouldn't be a good idea. Firing platforms need to be better secured in order to be used from a ship. Regardless, China doesn't have many amphibious assault ships with significant clear deck space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Gizmodo had a pretty good write up on the history digicam. It's interesting that the US Army abandoned it after they tried a one-camp-to-rule-them-all. Instead of helping soldiers hide in Afghanistan, it helped them be visible.

[http://gizmodo.com/the-history-of-invisibility-and-the- futur...](http://gizmodo.com/the-history-of-invisibility-and-the-future-of- camouflag-1487381235)

</comment><comment><USER21> If "digital" camouflage with patterns of squares works so well, why don't animals use it?

<comment><USER22> If internal combustion engines work so well, why don't animals use it?

<comment><USER21> Engines (or wheels) need independent moving parts, high temperatures, which is hardly compatible with what's allowed by anatomy and biochemistry. But there's nothing obviously stopping animals from evolving any particular pattern of skin markings.

<comment><USER23> Skin markings are pretty complicated for an animal. Each cell somehow needs to "know" what color it should be, potentially different from its neighbors, without carrying any information unique to that cell.

Imagine billions of LEDs, and you want to make them display a picture, but you separately program them, you can't address them individually, and you can't even really have them talk to each other. You can sort of flood them with broadcasts of different strengths to influence how they turn on. The sorts of patterns you could form would be fairly limited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have to wonder why they all have the same digital pattern. This seems like a terrible idea. It would be almost trivial to make a computer vision algorithm to pick these out against any background, as long as you know what digital pattern you're looking for.

</comment><comment><USER25> An entire article about digital camouflage and they offer one measly 245 px wide photo 3/4 down the article. The linked article about the Chinese military parade only featured 1 _decent_ image. _sigh_

<comment><USER18> There are 3 images in the article, with a banner header image too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Satellite / drone camouflage.

I'm certainly not a military expert, but it seems fairly obvious that China's military would benefit from being able to hide from high altitude surveillance. They're not doing a whole lot with these vehicles in combat at the moment, but masking their position and numbers seems like a pretty important objective for someone trying to build up an arsenal without escalating tension.

</comment><comment><USER27> I bet these tanks looks low-res from satellites.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure why blocky camo seems so revolutionary. It was proven highly effective in WWI by both the American and British. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage)

<comment><USER28> One, it's not clear that you can compare dazzle camouflage to digital camouflage. The design, as well as the visual attributes, are very different.

Two, the effectiveness of Dazzle was debatable: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage#Effectivenes...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage#Effectiveness)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Next somebody is going to be telling me their camera has 20 mega minecrafts.

<comment><USER30> The use of Minecraft in the title is pretty obnoxious.</comment></comment>


The Humanity Star - <AUTHOR> http://thehumanitystar.com/ <comment><USER2> Neat, but if you're going to stand outside and night and look to the sky for shining beacons that represent our fragile place in the universe, there are already thousands upon thousands of options up there.

If I wanted to share that experience of awe with a child, I would talk about the planets and stars. About man-made objects (and people) in space probing the edges of our knowledge. About time and distance. Not about a large disco ball.

</comment><comment><USER3> Graffiti on the sky. Ironically, to serve as a "reminder to all on Earth about our fragile place in the universe."

<comment><USER4> This is a colossal advertising stunt masquerading as a humanitarian gesture. Remember when everyone got upset at the possibility of an orbiting Pepsi logo?

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=1G5UzG2Z6A4C&pg=PA99&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=1G5UzG2Z6A4C&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=pepsi+logo+in+orbit&source=bl&ots=hRhysORxHi&sig=od_g0s1WNc0rFipV7tu3v6ewZxM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMhv- pm_TYAhUHxoMKHXiGDYAQ6AEIYjAM#v=onepage&q=pepsi%20logo%20in%20orbit&f=false)

[2] [http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/reports/ac105/AC105_777E.pdf](http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/reports/ac105/AC105_777E.pdf)

<comment><USER5> It's only a matter of time -or- Please shoot me when it happens

</comment></comment></comment><comment> 52-6F-62 Hey that's pretty fun.

Thanks for posting this. I wonder if I could see it from the city. It's supposed to be visible in 41 days for about 4 minutes. It would be nice if they could have a _little_ bit more accurate timing, though.

<comment><USER6> After you enter your location, click the hamburger menu button in the top right corner of the map. It gives the ETA time to the second, the duration, and the angle from north.

Now if only there was an app that let you set a weather dependent alarm so I don't wake up at 3 am to a cloudy sky.

<comment><USER7> Hmm, for Portland OR it tells me cheerfully "You will not be able to see the satellite within the next 2087 hours. Please check again later." I guess that's only one third of the time until it de-orbits, so I may still get a chance.

<comment><USER8> Same for New York. That seems ... incorrect to me, given that it's in a polar orbit and completes an orbit every 90 minutes. It ought to be passing over me fairly often, no?

<comment><USER9> You can't see it during the day and you can't see it when it's in Earth's shadow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This would be better if it was bigger, and stayed in orbit longer, and ... had people on it, and represented international cooperation of a species dreaming of a future among the stars!

<comment> 52-6F-62 Don't look now.....

 _" Trump administration plans to cut funding to International Space Station"_

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us- politics...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us- politics/trump-iss-funding-cut-nasa-international-space-station-a8178461.html)

:/

<comment><USER10> It was funded through 2024 and Trump cut its funding to 2025? This guy has a hard time accomplishing his goals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Assuming Heavens Above [1] is right this satellite will have a maximum magnitude of 4 which is really faint. There are over 500 brighter stars in the night sky [2].

If this is supposed to be an ad for Rocket Lab(I suppose it is, after all we already have ISS orbiting over us) they could do a lot better.

[1] [http://www.heavens- above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=43168](http://www.heavens- above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=43168) (set your location in the top right corner)

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

edit: spelling

</comment><comment><USER12> Iridium already provides this no?

[https://www.wikihow.com/Find-an-Iridium-Flare](https://www.wikihow.com/Find- an-Iridium-Flare)

<comment><USER13> For a little while longer... The new fleet doesn't flare. Once all the older generation birds are retired, there will be no more Iridium flares.

<comment><USER14> That wins the "saddest news of this day" for me :(. I still remember waking up at absurd hours to chase the flares when I was a teenager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> On a similar note, the sun and the moon are the only two objects people across time and space all were/are able to see. Not even the stars are a shared experience.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure what you mean. Venus, Mars, Jupiter, are Saturn visible from anywhere on earth for some portion of the year.

<comment><USER15> You are right. I forgot about the visible planets. They didn't come to my mind since I've rarely seen them since I've only lived in light-polluted cities all my life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats to NZ and Rocket Lab for joining the elite club of orbit-capable rocketeers. It's a huge achievement.

Surprised there's so much complaining about a test payload. Everyone's a critic, so I'll be one too:

"FAQ: How long will it remain in orbit? The Humanity Star will orbit the Earth for approximately nine months before its orbit starts to decay and it is pulled back into the Earth's gravity."

s/gravity/atmosphere

</comment><comment><USER18> Whatever happened to carving your name into the moon?

<comment><USER14> That needs to wait until Falcon Heavy is in service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I mean I hate to break it to the guy but: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun) we've already had one of these, for a while now.

<comment><USER20> Pretty sure I would like the sun to not start flashing like a disco ball...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This makes me irrationally cross for some reason. A bit more pollution of the already awesome (if you can see it) night sky.

Let's paint smily faces on the side of Everest next.

<comment><USER22> At least it'll burn up on reentry in 9 months. Still, its a little bit grin- inducing to watch the big, useless disco ball in space streak by.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is such a shallow and narcissistic gesture.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the tracking server is flaking out under load.

I got "You will not be able to see the satellite within the next 2087 hours. Please check again later." for multiple places - San Francisco, Toronto, and St. Louis.

Upon retrying San Francisco: "The Humanity Star has the highest chance of visibility in in [sic] 39 days. It will last about 3 minutes."

<comment><USER22> Try N2YO[1] or Heaven's Above.[2]

You can track it yourself using the TLE, and a program like gPredict[3].

[1][http://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=43166](http://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=43166)

[2][http://www.heavens- above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=43168&la...](http://www.heavens- above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=43168&lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=UCT)

[3][http://gpredict.oz9aec.net/](http://gpredict.oz9aec.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been toying with a conceptual project that would propose to build a large-ish structure (monolith) on the moon which would serve multiple long term goals.

1\. Be large enough and positioned strategically to cast a shadow or project an image onto the surface of the moon large enough to be seen with the eye (or minimal telescopic aid). The image would be a clear indication to any intelligent beings that another intelligent being had placed it there intentionally and, with enough resolution, communicate wavelength and modulation information for #2.

2\. Be a solar-powered radio transceiver sending signals to earth on the specified wavelength which repeatedly communicate information about the monolith and additional frequencies to send codes and receive more data to access deeper, denser information. These additional frequencies and codes would be used to unlock designs for rockets, telemetry, etc. necessary for intelligent and resourceful beings to travel from earth to the monolith location on the moon.

3\. On the outside of the monolith would be carved further information on how to access the deepest storage of the monolith and decode the digital information within.

4\. The inside of the monolith would contain the densest data storage containing the sum total of human knowledge, as well as cryogenically frozen embryos and genetic information for various species of Earth from our time period (including us, of course) and data on how they could possibly be unfrozen, replicated and/or brought back to life.

Assuming what I've outlined is possible, this project would leverage our best shared satellite (the moon) to create a shared experience (the monolith projection) and also serve as a time capsule that could outlive us should any of the many existential threats posing our species come to pass before we establish ourselves in space. Call it the ultimate hedge.

Given the stability of the moons surface, nothing short of a close impact would disturb this monument to humanity and our shared knowledge. And should our surviving descendants, a future evolved intelligent species, or a visitor from another star come to find Earth, they would also potentially find our legacy, and give us the faintest chance at being restored.

Anyone think I have a chance at raising a few 10s of billion with on kickstarter? Or else got a personal line to Elon?

PS - Yes, 2001 was an inspiration and I have definitely been envisioning the 1:4:9 design when thinking about this.

</comment><comment><USER26> I can't tell if this is a real thing already in orbit or a Kickstarter.

<comment><USER27> it's in orbit

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Semi-relevant Vsauce video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8I25H3bnNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8I25H3bnNw) The Moon as a disco ball.

</comment><comment><USER29> "Orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes and visible from anywhere on the globe…"

"You will not be able to see the satellite within the next 2087 hours. Please check again later."

<comment><USER30> I got the same results for a bunch of random places. Los Angeles, Paris France, Moscow and "Texas".

Sydney Australia and Tel Aviv Israel gave me a time to view it - but it's weeks away.

<comment><USER29> Maybe that's as far out as they can or will predict its visibility? 2088 hours is 87 days, even.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Coming soon, the "RippleStar", and soon afterward the bright orange "5 Hour Energy Star", to promote the shared human desire for a long-lasting, sugar- free revitalizing experience!

</comment><comment><USER32> It claims to have 65 mirrored faces ... which polyhedral solid has 65 faces?

<comment><USER33> An irregular one ... look at the logo, and there is a photo at the bottom of the page.

(60 would have been much better [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentakis_dodecahedron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentakis_dodecahedron) :( )

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> We already have a star, called the sun.

</comment><comment><USER35> This was a worthwhile usage of time, money, and energy!

<comment><USER36> It was a test payload on an experimental vehicle.</comment></comment>


The Qt Marketplace - <AUTHOR> https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-marketplace <comment><USER2> Wait, do I read it correctly? A _GUI library_ has its own appstore now? How? Why?

<comment><USER3> Your comment may read as condescending or snarky but I was wondering the same thing. Then I went and looked at a couple of extensions and the cheapest was $2,000. The button says "Buy extension" and right above the button it says "Subscription will renew in one year". Is that for updates or what?

At the bottom of the page it says "Kuesa 3D Runtime may be used as a tool in the creation of applications. To incorporate it as a library into an application and sell on as a commercial application, ask us for Kuesa 3D Studio. Read the complete EULA."

What am I buying? Am I just buying the privilege to be able to develop with their proprietary software but I can't actually distribute it? Also, why is there a link to github. Is this open source? I'm so confused. I shouldn't have to read a complete EULA to get a basic understanding and I shouldn't have to already know what something is to purchase it in a marketplace. Marketplaces are for discoverability.

<comment><USER4> Well I think in this case the price may indicate it's a fairly specialized tool. I'm not sure the benefit of putting something like that on a marketplace, since anyone spending $2,000 on Kuesa definitely knows where to find it already...

I don't do anything even close to this space, but I found [https://www.kdab.com/kuesa/](https://www.kdab.com/kuesa/) was a fairly good overview of their offering, as far as these pages typically go.

<comment><USER5> wow this reminds me of borland delphi and mfc components and libraries. now with subscription on top of it. it might actually work because it did before for highly specialized gui components.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see this as a failed launch. The website looks like it has been knocked up using standard components by a small team over a couple of weeks. Ask yourself 'What problem does this solve?' If I wanted a C++ library that was Qt friendly I either know about it already or I Google for "doxygen qtcreator" or "qt vlc". If this site going to be more up to date than the entire Internet?

Key things are clearly missing, the description of what components do (you get a logo and a name) or their license is not forefront. A lot of KDE stuff is in there which really doesn't fit well, KDE Icons were not high on anybody's list. If I am in the 2D space, I'd want to browse 2D libraries and tools. The tag cloud at the bottom is a massive blob of un-curated words: [https://marketplace.qt.io/](https://marketplace.qt.io/)

Oh, lets pick the doxygen plugin for QtCreator and click 'Get Extension' [1]. hmmm I have to compile it myself!

This is little more that a collection of links to the real products. Often you are better going to the original source to find details of what you need. Browsing this site adds little value.

When I first hear about Qt Marketplace, I (wrongly) assumed they were going to solve package management for Qt development which would be game changing. Instead we get a wiki linking out to existing libraries which you have to take care of yourself.

Cross-platform C++ package management would be a breakthrough and I was expecting Qt to hook up with conan and a build farm. That would be a game changer.

The dev team did a good job but the stakeholders and the product management need to really reflect on what value they added to the lives of their target users. If this thing cost £50k to produce then I don't see it making that money back for the Qt company in the next 12 months.

[1] [https://marketplace.qt.io/collections/qt-creator- extensions/...](https://marketplace.qt.io/collections/qt-creator- extensions/products/doxygen-plugin-1)

</comment><comment><USER7> No free extensions allowed at first and 30% tariff for selling through the Qt marketplace.

I think platform companies, like Apple and Qt, should not be able to impose such a high percentage as gatekeepers.

<comment><USER8> Can you recommend an objectively more fair alternative? It costs money to run things, and it's fair for any vendor to charge what they will for a vig, participation in the marketplace should keep them "fair" in the sense that an unfair market wouldn't have any participants...

Also, if limiting the high percentage does end up being the plan of attack, who exactly is in charge of that?

<comment><USER9> >Also, if limiting the high percentage does end up being the plan of attack, who exactly is in charge of that?

a regulatory agency. Credit Card transactions in the EU, for example, are capped at a fraction of a per cent and they still make plenty of cash. Infrastructure providers are essentially just glorified landlords and should not be allowed to extract economic rents from market participants.

This is becoming a very blatant and obvious problem on a largely privatized internet. Enforcing low margin incentivises the correct behaviour which is openness and continued innovation. If steam would be forced to build new products rather than sitting on their platform we'd probably have had Half Life 3 a bunch of years ago.

<comment><USER10> > If steam would be forced to build new products rather than sitting on their > platform we'd probably have had Half Life 3 a bunch of years ago.

Steam is a terrible example for this. First of all, Steam isn't a company, it's a product. Valve is the company. Second of all, unlike the App Store or other similar infrastructure, it's not like you're locked into Steam, so they're not really rent-seeking. Steam has had plenty of competitors over the years(Direct2Drive, Games for Windows Live, that garbage GameStop store), they all sucked, and as far as I know there's nothing stopping me from publishing on multiple stores & ignoring Steam. Third, Valve hasn't exactly been doing nothing - they've done more than any other company to the gaming experience under Linux & have pioneered VR. Odds are good they wouldn't have taken those risks had it not been subsidized with comfortable margins they got from Steam.

If you had cited, say, the App Store, or something that has actual monopoly power in terms of infrastructure (like our good friends at Comcast) it would have been a much stronger argument.

<comment><USER9> >it's not like you're locked into Steam, so they're not really rent-seeking

rent-seeking and monopolistic behaviour aren't the same things. Rent-seeking is the extraction of economic rent without providing new wealth with one prominent example being someone putting a chain across a private plot of land and charging you every time you want to cross over. Whether you've five guys doing that or one isn't particularly relevant.

So while competition ameliorates the negative effects of these private platforms slightly the more fundamental broken part is really that they should not be allowed to exist in the first place. What is economically desirable is competition between developers and service providers on a common and open infrastructure with ideally all reimbursements beyond maintaining the platform going to the content creators.

In fact, competition among platform owners in many ways makes the system worse because it incentivises walled gardens. This is starting to become obvious in the streaming world with Netflix gaining competition and as a result, platform-exclusive content becoming more important, or companies like Spotify or Stitcher enclosing the podcast ecosystem which used to be a prime example of openness.

<comment><USER11> Their point still stands by your analogy. There is no plot of land over which a chain has been put by Steam, users can still acquire videogames outside of proprietary platforms as easily on desktop PCs as they could before Steam was created. The only thing they are extracting rent from is their own brand and infrastructure.

Smartphone OS vendors make it hard to venture outside their walled gardens, not Steam. There are no exclusivity deals (afaik), no all-encompassing SDK developers are incentivized to integrate with (Google Play services), even SteamOS doesn't lock users down.

<comment><USER4> It's a wonderful point, and the fact that _even Steam_ can monetize an App Store under those conditions just goes to show that these delivery channels are actually incredibly valuable and _worth_ a significant percentage cut due to the difficult real-world problems that they solve, and the access to a customer base ready to pay money for your product (versus pirate it).

<comment><USER7> They are perfectly capable of operating at a flat-rate service cost.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure what you mean by this? Anyone is perfectly capable of operating their business at a flat-rate pricing structure versus a commission structure. That's the beauty of our economy; that companies can make these decisions for themselves and their customers can then vote with their wallets which solution they like better.

Steam is the perfect example because it started from nothing, did not leverage any existing device-base to shoe-horn it's solution, and they exist in a marketplace littered with a long list of failed competitors who couldn't beat them in a fair fight.

And yet still people will hate on them for nothing more than being successful apparently, and offering a service that game studios throw fist-fulls of money at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Junior Qt/C++ developer here. In my opinion, the Qt community is poorly developed and not booming at all currently, which I greatly regret.

What are you thoughts about this Marketplace and it's future potential impact ? Is it gonna promote the open source and "plugin" community around Qt/QML ? It seems pretty "company" oriented.

<comment><USER13> Interesting statement, but I see a thriving community asking and answering questions on stackoverflow: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/qt](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/qt)</comment></comment>


MS Flight Simulator vs. Real Life - <AUTHOR> https://m.imgur.com/a/hdWw4ds <comment><USER2> All game data will be streamed on demand from the cloud. On one side it is neat, that only required data for the moment will be downloaded, but on the other hand, the game will require constant internet connection, and in the future, when servers will be finally turned off, it simply won't work.

<comment><USER3> Well that is simply not true. It will work, you'll have lower resolution and detailed map, but sim will certainly work.

-edit: should have refreshed before commenting :)

<comment><USER4> Why isn't there an option to download the assets? How much space are we talking about here?

<comment><USER5> Two petabytes, according to PC Gamer.

<comment><USER4> ...Oh. Okay then. I guess that makes sense.

Still would be nice for them to have a ~300 GB download option with a resolution somewhere in between the standard offline mode and full quality, but they're clearly operating at an inordinate scale here...

<comment><USER6> The game already has an base installation size of 150GB and contains an offline mode that reduces the level of detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've long wished someone would do this for racing games too. An open-world street racing game powered by real-world environments/maps would be wonderful :)

<comment><USER8> For an unrelated product demo some years ago I modded Orbital Eunuchs Sniper¹ to play on the environment outside the site we were demoing in using a few images from Google Maps. The split on whether it was fun or utterly wrong was probably 90/10, but I'm sure it would've been a different story with a tabloid paper reporting on it.

Now imagine you're publishing a game where drifting on roundabouts outside real elementary schools is a mini-game. Probably good for publicity though, _iff_ you're willing to take the heat :/

1\. [http://www.icculus.org/oes/](http://www.icculus.org/oes/) \- Still an awesome game

<comment><USER7> I mean, it's not like there needs to actually be kids in the game :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The new sim looks simply spectacular.

12 years ago I built my first new PC just to play Crysis, with money that I had saved up over some time. Fast forward to today, I just have a Macbook Pro from work, as I almost stopped gaming entirely.

As an erstwhile FSX addict think it's time for me to build a new rig again just for MS Flight & hopefully one that works well with an Oculus (Quest) too!

<comment><USER10> I've been waiting for the next flight sim or Elder Scrolls game to build a new rig. Crazy to think that it's almost surely going to be Flight Simulator that comes first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It looks great. But in all cases, it's still pretty simple to distinguish the game from the real photo. And that is because the game looks just too perfect. E.g. the wave patterns on the water just are too uniform. But this is sth which might not be too difficult to make more random, right? E.g. use sth like Perlin noise.

</comment><comment><USER12> This, the new AMD CPUs, nVidia 3000 series, Alyx, and the new generation of consoles (which means a large number of new games the coming year) means the stars are aligning for a new gaming rig again this year.

<comment><USER13> What is special about 3000 series? Any good links?

<comment><USER12> Nothing revolutionary is expected but I think it's a new process so should have more power headroom. A new generation always drives down the prices of the last generation at least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I legitimately could not figure out which one was real for several of these shots. Well done to the FS team and all related teams (my understanding is this game brings together a lot of tech). Couldn't be more excited to try this out.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's great, but it's certainly not indistinguishable. The water and clouds are a dead giveaway.

Also, except for the yellow/black silhouettes, the graphics have lower contrast than the photographs, which makes me wonder if it would be even more obvious if they increased the contrast to match. At first glance, it seems like they're using washed-out colors to hide something.

<comment><USER16> The photos may have been edited for more contrast as well. The ingame images don't look unreal, actually; haze does reduce contrast and not every day is an opportunity to get a crystal-clear magazine-quality photo everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Give Google Earth VR a try, on a recent headset. Where Google has captured data by flying over the terrain in aircraft, the effect is astonishing. It's as if Google swept a giant LIDAR over everything, mapping every nook and cranny.

I hope a VR mode will be available for FS2020 (I tried to check the latest situation on Google, who helpfully showed me an ad for a PHYSICAL hands-on hysteroscopy simulator!)

</comment><comment><USER18> I can't wait for this one!!! Especially now with the current lockdown :( X-Plane 11 doesn't quite cut it.

However it will have to support VR otherwise it's a non-starter.

<comment><USER19> The devs said they will support VR, just not initially.

<comment><USER18> Oh that's too bad... I suppose this has to do with their console focus (considering the Xbox doesn't do VR).

Otherwise, I don't understand why anyone would make a simulator now without VR. It makes the difference between day and night.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Should I get X-Plane now or wait for this?

Checking out flight sims is on my bucket list, but not urgent. Can anyone who knows better comment on this? Yes, I can try the trial X-Plane. But I'm lazy.

To give a sense of what I'm looking for: I tried X-plane on Android TV. The controls were extremely realistic. And by that I mean I never managed to land without crashing. :) I was ok with that.

<comment><USER21> All indicators point to MSFS2020 blowing X-Plane out of the water in every metric.

<comment><USER22> As far as graphics go yes. But xplane has some great mods and a well established community. For example, you can download a free 737 that has a fully working FMC with all the buttons in the cockpit working. This was made by a community member. It's the gold standard 737 people download and use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks like it's time to get the old HOTAS out.

When is this coming out?

<comment><USER2> Game is set to be released in 2020, but as with all game release dates it might change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is there a key saying which is real and which is simulator?

<comment><USER25> Second photos are real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Where is that picture of the striped land from?

<comment><USER27> It looks a bit like inverted lake in the Netherlands (man-made by mining peat)

[https://www.aerophotostock.com/media/30b15e9e-a9d3-11e3-ab9d...](https://www.aerophotostock.com/media/30b15e9e-a9d3-11e3-ab9d-f2b86e40979d-vinkeveen- nederland-14-juli-2006-de-vinkeveense-plassen-zijn?download=comp&commit=Lo- res+beeld)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is this from the new version? It looks amazing!

</comment><comment><USER29> This will probably be the best reason to buy an xbox soon.

<comment><USER16> Doesn't it run on Windows as well?

<comment><USER2> Windows 10 is listed as supported platform.

<comment><USER30> Along with Xbox:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(20...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_\(2020_video_game\))

Edit: I have this feeling that Microsoft's marketing normally oversells their games. In this case the game has been developed by an outside team:

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

Said team "only" has 140 employees, and they've been busy with releasing other major games every year so far.

I'd be cautious.

Edit: Revenue per employee is 50k EUR per employee. That is kinda low. To be fair, I compared 2014 revenue numbers with 2018 employee count numbers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>