Invest In The Mess - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/12/invest-in-the-mess.html

<comment><USER2> I'm in this phase now. And it hurts.

A few observations from the trenches (in the last 6 mos having raised $, TechCrunch+ BBC launched, been through YC Summer 10, lost a cofounder, continuing to work with pivot)...

1\. The ugly adolescent stage also includes significant pressure from early investors testing founders/founding teams considering early 'talent acquisitions' as a potential out. If you're considering this, and it seems tempting, don't immediately run from that realization.

Sit down, take time to think about why it's attractive, and whether or not you're the type to take it or stick things out. Do you want comfort and some security at this stage or more risk? Are you willing to change painful parts of yourself? In short, are you willing to do _anything_ to make it work? This is a vital question that will only become amplified as the stakes get higher if you succeed and the company grows instead of closes up shop.

2\. If you've got pros investing in your seed/angel round - and hopefully you do -chances are they already consider that money gone, so if things go south in the terrible teen phase, unless they see serious potential/saving grace you're not likely to get an inside round. You've got to be showing serious gains, stamina, or ideally both to secure this support.

3\. This means the biggest asset in the startup at this phase is probably you - the founder or founding team - unless you've got some amazingly patentable/defensible tech, which, let's face it, we're not seeing much of in today's startup world. Not many VCs are funding crazy-big concepts either...they feel burned by the lack of returns in the consumer internet space, and who could blame them? Think of yourself and your cofounders this way. Stay healthy. Stay sane. Get more sleep. Drink less of every substance but water.

4\. Investors will use this stage generally to feel you out and figure out what you'll do, how you'll evolve (or not) when you really begin to show the strain of this phase.

Keep in touch. Do NOT drop off their radar. Continue to plug away at the product road map as much as you can. Show adjustments. Openly voice lessons learned, realizations, but careful about doing the same with doubts. They should be voiced to your reflection in the mirror, your priest/rabbi, your counselor, and maybe your dog, not your funders.

If you DO make the mistake of falling off the radar or voicing doubts, the good news is you can still recover if you have the kind of relationship with your investors where you're on a first name basis and they'll meet you for a drink or dinner anytime they're in town. Don't give up if you've gotten this far, feel burned out, but still can't countenance giving up.

Once you've started down this road, no one who has invested in you wants to see a young company in trouble fail, except maybe your competitors. Use your investors as assets, not just piggybanks.

5\. Prepare to field inquiries about how you'd feel about being replaced or bringing in 'more experienced executives' with 'more credibility.' These questions will come from family, mentors, investors, advisors, friends, and your own psyche.

Sometimes this means your funders think you can't do it alone and you're not evolving fast enough as a founder. Often they're right. Often they're not. It's sort of a crapshoot figuring out which scenario you're in.

Again, this is something vital to examine about yourself. If you put the company first, you'll be willing to do almost anything to save it, including bringing in another CEO. This is another thing you must know about yourself as a founder at this stage in order to move forward.

If you want to stick it out and evolve, consider making a list of your pluses and minuses, your daily habits, your work + success metrics, and renovate the hell out of them. I'm now learning Photoshop, Python, and taking Stanford's CS106 class as non-coding founder. I'm also sticking to a new daily schedule that will enable me to get through 6 mega goals (3 personal, 3 professional/product) in 30 days.

If you are not willing to go through this kind of effort as a founder, you probably won't survive this phase and should look for a 'safe' landing.

6\. Shuffling of cofounders also often occurs here, when the founding team is replaced by 'experienced' managers, or b-school friends of someone at the VC firm, or even someone within the VC firm who likes the market space.

Your cofounder might also leave. YOU might be the cofounder who leaves and goes back to grad school, gets married, doesn't move to the Valley, etc.

Try not to fault your cofounder - or yourself - overmuch if one of you leaves. I wrote up a long essay on how to handle this if anyone's interested. The situation sucks. Successful cofounder breakups are rare, but they do happen.

The good news? You can get through it. So can they. So can the company. Stay in CLOSE touch with investors during this period. Always have a plan, even if the plan is changing day by day. Communicate monthly at minimum.

7\. If you don't think you'll make it through (and this feeling occurs often EVEN if you decide to keep plugging away), the founders who are relieved to some sort of dissolution or replacement occur at this early stage have many options open.

After a period where you might feel disillusioned by the startup world and go to work within another company you can still do another startup. Even if you fail, and a VC/angel likes you, they may fund your next effort. I've been amazed to see this happen with friends who drove a first or even multiple startups into the ground after early successes.

Don't burn bridges to good people with self-indulgent behavior like feeling sorry for yourself about f _cking up. If you have to wallow, take a week, or a month, or a quarter, straighten yourself out, and then get back to work.

8\. Even if you fail here, you're still an asset as an experienced founder who got something to market and got some money in the bank.

So it also pays for VCs and investors to track these founders as they leave and go to work on other startups or within organizations, because if they stuck it out to that stage they may be valuable to 'recycle' back within the ecosystem at some point in the future.

9\. Your fellow founders/entrepreneurs may also be watching you like hawks at this point with a strange mix of emotions.

First, some of them probably don't like you, consider your skills beneath theirs, or never thought your product was that great. These founders are few and far between, but they can be incredibly useful. Ignore these folks until you can talk with them rationally about your failure. Then meet and get _really* harsh and honest criticism about the product, danger signs, outcomes, and their opinion. Hopefully they don't feel too sorry for you and dump really good data that will help if you want to start again. In the best case scenario you convert them to supporters. In the worst case you remain frenemies.

There's another class of idealistic founders who really, really do NOT want to entertain the thought of failure. They will be praying you succeed and pull through, especially if they supported you, because to entertain the thought of YOU failing means they might - at least tangentially - entertain the possibility that they might fail, even if their companies are further along.

They will not like doing this. They might stop responding to your communications. This is a pretty terrible feeling, but also pretty good sign that you're deep in the trenches and people are waiting to see if you sink or swim.

The last class of founders will be watching to see if you fail because they might want to snap you up. These folks will usually respond enthusiastically to your requests to meet up, or they may want to meet you.

This will occur if you're awesome, regardless of whether you're an engineering or design or biz founder. Be prepared. Feel these folks out and ask about 'opportunities.' Usually they'll let slip they're looking (or they have a buddy that's looking) for someone like you. You know, "if things don't work out."

If an opportunity sounds awesome to you, consider it. Even if you turn it down you'll know more about what you want and what you don't want, which makes you a stronger founder.

10\. I can't say this enough...Founder talent is rare, and VCs keep an eye on this as a developing market. Successful founder talent (in terms of winning big exits, etc) is far rarer, but sometimes a decent or 'ok' founder can be placed with a different co-founding group and be more successful the next time.

Even founders who flat out fail at this stage and drive their companies into the ground by failing to 'save' them may succeed again at different startups, or they may welcome the separation as a chance to renovate their original existing idea and start hacking away at the same problem integrating lessons learned from failure.

The mess, however, is also where founders who decide to stick it out learn invaluable things about themselves, their cofounders (if they make it through together), and their business, whether they ever secure another round for that company or not.

<comment><USER3> Just curious, what is the vision for Imoveyou (i.e. where do you guys see the product x years from now) and what is the business model?

<comment><USER2> Good question.

Vision - 5 years: Want to see an activity commerce market grow out of existing social commerce/health site models + activity data + geolocation, other data.

Intrinsic incentives for behavior change work less than 10% of the time, but current rewards are cheesy. I idealistically hoped 'social proof' and motivation using your existing social networks would be enough to incentivize not just a 1x healthier act, but repeated and routinized behavior change.

Unfortunately learned over a year of getupandmove/imoveyou this doesn't work well, and even the most motivated users drop off. Lots of room for problem- solving here, but hard to not lose first mover advantage or be cloned.

Goal: Your action should be able to provide currency, literally and figuratively (points earned for calories burned converted to rewards/reductions in insurance premiums, which lots of new folks are working on).

Business model was this: 1\. Sponsored campaigns for hospitals, health insurers, etc. (more social media than action - quant measurement of success was impressions). Enterprise model w/campaigns between 15-250k (we hit the low end but not the high end). 2\. It was "Evite for healthy actions." 3\. It was easy but time intensive to sell here given connections/experience in the space, but we spent a lot of time and human capital working on a glorified consulting model, even though we were successfully able to sell/close enterprise partnerships quickly (less than 12 weeks). Not scalable. Also, we found out we sucked at user acquisition with the direct-to-user model, and never 'went viral.' Our growth graph has a nice steady up and slightly to the right trend with no hockey stick in sight. Enter pivot.

Business model post-pivot: 1\. Verify activity. Become middleware layer for 'proving' someone has done action or challenge using different types of data (example: geolocation, social proof/logins, accelerometer/fitness devices like FitBit). 2\. Offer the verification to partners with potential for big distribution rather than go straight direct-to-consumer. Use founder strengths in this area. 3\. It "will be" Paypal for verified health/wellness activities (individual and group).

Business model includes percentages of these factors which evolve over 2-3 years: 1\. Sponsorship/campaigns (50% first year) 2\. Lead gen (% cut; 25% first year) 3\. With verification, conversions/cut of per action market completion + purchase, especially where actions include purchase of item.

<comment><USER3> My uneducated opinion is that this is very tough to accomplish, and if you guys pull it off you will have built a great company. It seems you guys are in the preventive healthcare business.

On friends: I doubt friends are helpful here, unless they are friends I see daily and take/compare actions with. Plus if I drop they will just support my new decision, or they may not even notice. I am sure you guys will figure something out here.

On rewards: Providing currency is a great idea("lower insurance premiums..."), but just knowing I am taking care of my body is a greater motivator than saving "15% on my car insurance", I mean my health insurance.

On product: It's nice that I move you, but really I want to move ME. Ideally I would want ImoveMe to be a product where I can have my health-related goals, then it will help monitor them. Better than connecting with my friends on FB, I would rather connect with people who have similar goals then compare progress. A friend who does not jog cannot motivate me enough to wake up at 6 AM and go for a run.

On product 2: _Challenge your Twitter and Facebook friends to small bursts of exercise._. Well you know what, why can't IMyou (or me) challenge me? If I tell you my goal is to loose weight, then be fun and turn this into a game. SMS me random burts of exercise to do, or email it to me in the AM, and once a week send me my diet plan. I can SMS back "DONE" then you can give me points, I guess. I cannot afford a personal trainer, but you know what, reading instructions is just ok. Plus it's a game. This game is my boss and tells me what to do. If I fail to text back DONE after x times, sign me off the service and ask me to come back when I am serious.

Again, this is my uneducated opinion about a business I have looked at only for a few moments. That being said, I watch the CEO interview on TC and she seemed hella-passionate, so I am confident she will solve this issue for all of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think Fred may be right about this adolescent stage of investing being the best. But not because I think there is a bubble on the angel side; rather I think there are just a lot of stupid people throwing their money away. I think the situation is more analogous to playing poker with a bunch of morons who are pushing the good players out by betting at random. However on a whole the good startups are only somewhat overvalued, perhaps to the point where rational people may be hesitant to invest, but not to the point where there is some crazy speculative frenzy.

</comment><comment><USER5> _We are doing many of these rounds as inside rounds, meaning the existing investors are funding the company without a new lead investor. I see this as a big opportunity for our firm and I am excited about it and entusiastic about making these investments._

 _What I don't see is a lot of firms interested in leading these messy middle stage rounds as a new lead investor. I'd like to see more deal flow from other VCs at this stage because I think this is where you want to be in the VC busines right now. I think you want to invest in the mess._

Hrmm, so which is it? The blog seems to have some really mixed messages. If you're excited and enthusiastic about keeping portfolio companies close then why would you want more outside led rounds? Just for the validation?

It is hard to not read this as a plea for more risk sharing in ongoing financing so that they can allocate more money elsewhere - like the overly frothy early stage market the reader is instructed to avoid.

<comment><USER6> i'd like to do both. we are doing plenty of the first and want to do more of the second.

sorry for confusing you with the post</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you go about building this? - <AUTHOR> I want to build an email service where people can send an email to a specific email address. such as firstname.lastname@example.com.
Then I am able to continuously read new emails, read the info on a server, process the info make API calls then generate an accurate response and send the appropriate response.
Any help with an appropriate stack and technologies would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> Some mail clients let you deliver mail to a script

[https://serverfault.com/questions/506894/how-to-route- email-...](https://serverfault.com/questions/506894/how-to-route-email-to-a- script/507024)

In that case you'd need to run a mail server where you install a script. I've done it with qmail and postfix but I haven't run my own mail server for a long time.

Another option is to use an existing mail server but write a script that polls the mail server with POP or IMAP.

Today I'd consider doing it serverless with something like

[https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats- new/2019/02/trigger-a...](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats- new/2019/02/trigger-actions-on-your-inbound-email-with-aws-lambda-for-amazon- workmail/)

So far as the "stack" I would go with any mainstream platform, mostly driven by what you like. You could certainly do this with Python, Java, .NET, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd use the inbound feature APIs of Mailgun/Sendgrid/Postmarkapp. They take care of receiving and parsing and can call a URL on your server with new email content. At least in the beginning you can concentrate on the business logic ("accurate response") and don't have to worry about character encodings, parsing attachments or such.

<comment><USER4> This is a perfect response. I'm biased towards SendGrid as I work there :)

You can totally do exactly what OP wants. Use the inbound parse webhook, get mail forwarded to your HTTP webhook/endpoint, do whatever you want, and then you can even reply using the email API of the provider. No reason to sweat the mail server stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the both of you. Will definitely jump on SendGrid and get started.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Deleted Rivals' Songs from Users' iPods - <AUTHOR> http://m.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-39221 <comment><USER2> Apple deleted all my songs that were _legally_ purchased from _iTunes_. What did I do deserve that? I bought a new iPad.

So what happened is that I was living in Canada. I bought a bunch (maybe 30-50) songs directly from iTunes over the years. I had them on my iPad mini.

Later on, I was working and living in US, so I changed the country to US and added a US credit card to my iTunes account. Everything was fine.

Then, the iPad mini with Retina display (aka iPad mini 2) came out and I wanted to upgrade to it. Normally, I have nightly backups to iCloud, but since they are (unfortunately) not as thorough, I made a full local backup to my MacBook, and restored it on the new iPad mini with Retina. All the apps and settings transferred fine, but all songs were missing. When I went to "iTunes Song Purchases", it was empty, as it doesn't consider purchases I made in the Canadian iTunes Store as purchases.

I know that if I remembered/knew which songs I bought, I could buy them again and it might not charge me a 2nd time, but it's like playing russian roulette - you have to confirm a purchase and if it matches, you don't pay, else you do. Plus it's a lot of work to find/remember which songs I bought.

At first I was pretty unhappy about it and was gonna try to do something, but then I just gave up on it and moved on. It's not completely Apple's fault, because they have to deal with countries and having separate stores. I wish there was one global store and 1 country and 1 currency and I wouldn't have to deal with this just because I moved to new coordinates, but yeah.

<comment><USER3> It is Apple's fault because they could have easily defaulted to preserving all songs rather than deleting them. It took extra work for Apple programmers to add a function to iTunes that removes songs not purchased in the same region. Were they really coerced into such behavior? It's more likely that this "feature" was a selling point for record companies, not consumers. Moral of the story: check who owns software before using it.

<comment><USER4> > It's more likely that this "feature" was a selling point for record > companies, not consumers.

From parent:

> I know that if I remembered/knew which songs I bought, I could buy them > again and it might not charge me a 2nd time

So if they don't charge you again, then what's the selling point for record companies?

<comment><USER3> Apple can say they don't automatically copy over songs purchased in another region. Allowing you to "purchase" the songs again for free sounds like a workaround that the parent found. However you look at it it's not for the good of the customer.

<comment><USER5> Correct. The back door is already written in the terms and conditions. Have fun reading them. Wasn't it Steve Jobs who said, he never signs a contract that is longer than a page?

<comment><USER6> Steve Jobs could have said whatever he wanted without it being true. The problem isn't in him saying it, the problem are certain persons who believe it and repeat the nonsense.

<comment><USER5> Is your comment in any way related to my post?

Steve Jobs may not have signed complex contracts. This does not exclude, that Apples layers make the customers sign complex contracts, does it?

Steve Jobs promoted the digital lifestyle, although he was a vinyl junkie and owned high-end audio stuff. The point is, that the advice he gave about the length of contracts is good, unimportant if he followed it or not. It is useful for customers to follow and that does certainly not exclude apples customers (although, nowadays, you may not be able to buy a slice of bread, if you insist on short terms and conditions).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every time a story like this comes along, a whole host of commenters tries to absolve Apple (or ${insert_other_company}, although the phenomenon seems to be especially prevalent when Apple is mentioned) from any wrongdoings, whether perceived or real. Why is this? It bears a remarkable parallel to the same behaviour often seen in discussions involving religion. An honest question to those of you who feel the urge to defend your favourite company from all accusations, what makes you do so? It is not as if these commercial entities have any loyalty to you, so why stand up for them?

<comment><USER8> It's about consistency. Consistency is our nearly obsessive desire to be (and appear to be) consistent with what we have already done (buying an iPhone, for example). Once we've made that choice, we encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.

If you're interested in this sort of behaviour, you might try Robert Cialdini's book, Influence, the Phychology of Persuasion ([http://www.amazon.com/dp/006124189X/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/006124189X/)).

[Edit] I'm an idiot. I forgot that I wrote a post about this a while ago - here's a summary of Cialdini's (and related) stuff: [https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=439dc4d5-33db-45a...](https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=439dc4d5-33db-45a3-9c32-176ad141b86f). It's about influence, and to that end discusses some of our behavioural traits.

<comment><USER9> I agree, but I think it runs in other directions as well.

People rush to attack companies and find unlikely conspiratorial and malicious motivations for companies' actions too. I think the reality is that we're not all that logical. We're logical too, but logic is only part of how we form opinions. A lot of it is some sort of habit. If you see bourgeoisie conspiracy and class conflict as a driving force in the world, your version of events is likely to be whatever supports that. If you see corporate conspiracy everywhere… If you see governments accumulating power everywhere.. If you see a Google conspiracy everywhere..

But I tend to side with you. There's something offensive about the loyalty consumers have to big brands. The relationship just isn't mutual, which gives it an unsavory slavish flavor.

<comment><USER10> For my taste, brand loyalty is drastically less harmful and unsavory than the equally troublesome loyalty to political parties. (At least in the US, can't say about elsewhere.)

<comment><USER7> Brand loyalty does more personal harm as it turns individuals into milch cows. As to whether loyalty to a political party or orientation is harmful depends on whether that loyalty is balanced - will the party stand up for issues you care about? The bigger the party, the smaller the chance they will. It does not get much bigger than the D/R split in the US while still maintaining the semblance of choice.

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately, political loyalty lasts far longer than brand loyalty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The past couple of years I've gone back to buying physical CDs and ripping them myself (abcde is fantastic) in the quality and format I like.

My music collection is synced to Dropbox and automatically syncs across all my PCs and to my phone.

I've also come to enjoy walking into music stores and browsing the music looking for something that I'll enjoy coding to, and a lot of the time here in Australia it ends up being cheaper buying physical CDs nowadays, especially if you're not buying the latest stuff.

There's more than just convenience.

<comment><USER8> I do the same thing. I bought music from Amazon for a while. Every now and again I bought some German music from Amazon.de. The purchase works well enough but after that none of my non-German music works in the Amazon player. The Xbox One will simply not let me purchase anything that's not from my region.

The CD or DVD just takes all that pain away.

<comment><USER13> Why not just use Amazon or Google music and download everything ? Google Music is especially good because it lets you download a .zip with complete album compared to Amazon that only lets you download one song at a time.

I used to buy and rip CDs but it takes time and space and feels really backward.

<comment><USER8> I have a wall bookshelf which has a corner-to-corner shelf in it for CDs, and another for DVDs. That makes the bookshelf more interesting and gives an otherwise really cold-looking room warmth, without taking up space. As mentioned, Amazon makes it frustrating to buy digital content from another region (although it does work). Google is not an option because I'm one of those people that avoids anything Google, no matter how convenient their products may be.

All of this is very subjective. Your points are well made, nonetheless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> CDs do not have this problem. That's why I still buy them, despite the "pain" of ripping a CD (it'll be a problem if I ever move to a skinny MacBook and have no CD drive anymore - how will I share CDs of music I have recorded with the drummer...?)

Plus, to take the songs from you, they'd have to break into my house and walk away with all my CDs.

I also have interesting sleeve notes and details on who mixed the album and the equipment they endorse, as well as photos and beautiful smelling paper in the sleeves.

Great!

<comment><USER15> > how will I share CDs of music I have recorded with the drummer...?

External / USB DVD drive, or an USB stick, or Dropbox, or Mega, or some other service like that.

<comment><USER14> Sadly my drummer isn't as technical-savvy as us on here. He lives out in the country and has a poor Internet connection, plus downloading file and writing an MP3 to disc as audio would probably be beyond him - he is in his mid-50s.

The external DVD drive offered by Apple seems prohibitively expensive for what it is; also, carrying an external drive around to save just a few millimetres on MacBook height seems stupid to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> >Augustin Farrugia testified that Apple did not offer a more detailed explanation because, "We don't need to give users too much information," and "We don't want to confuse users."

A very revealing statement about the way Apple perceives its users. Shut up, pay, and don't ask questions.

<comment><USER17> A very revealing statement about your biases.

As somebody who has had to do tech support, I fully understand the desire to provide the users with less information. Believe me, most of them confuse easily.

<comment><USER18> As someone who has also had to do tech support, I have hated Apple for this ever since, because it limits the user's ability to provide me with any information. 'An error has occurred.' Thanks Apple, real informative.

I always admired the technology and integration in Apple gear, but since the days of MacOS system software I have always hated the dumbed-down, hard-to- customize operating system, and have never purchased an Apple product. I'm going to have to pick up an iPad at some point because there are so many good apps aimed at Musicians, and I respect the fact that OS X is basically BSD in gift wrap so I can get to a command line if I really want to know what's going on. But I don't feel that enthusiastic about it, because I think there's something fundamentally user-hostile about obfuscating what's going on behind the curtain.

<comment><USER19> Apple's error messages are often no better than what UNIX system utilities give you, to be fair.

<comment><USER20> ...both of which I feed directly to Google to gain enlightenment. It's almost like no one needs to bother catching an exception ever again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's part of the move away from ownership and towards leasing and licensing of _everything_. _Because there is much more profit there._

I started out as a BSD guy, who transitioned as the *nix desktop got better to gnu/linux. The more I learned about the differences between gpl/bsd and the more I thought about the philosophical underpinnings, the more I am convinced that Richard Stallman, while eccentric and sometimes hard to bear for some, was and is a man ahead of his time, and that he is absolutely right when he talks about the four freedoms.

Despite this, at my recent new position, I gave in and decided to dive into the apple ecosystem because "spend less time fixing your system and more time working!" was what I kept getting told. I also have apple users so the ability to support them is important.

That being said, I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the whole system, both in it's functionality and its philosophy. (which is a whole post within itself)

I'm about ready to scrap it all and return to something I have more control over.

The bottom line is this: If you don't have root on your device, you don't own it. (iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android phone, Windows phone, Smart TV's, gaming consoles, we are increasingly surrounded by devices we don't have control over. I was listening to a talk about why bsd is a better ecosystem, and it is, in many ways, and the presenter said something that really struck me. He said, paraphrasing, "...and we recently found out [whichever]bsd is in the playstation 4." He said it in a way that was supposed to be impressive, as in "hey look, our shit is so awesome and business friendly that it got put on the new playstation!" An audience member then said something along the lines of, "is the source code released?" And of course the speaker had to mumble "no" and move on quickly.

It's the epitome of the problem. BSD licensing enables companies to restrict the freedom of the user, full stop.

I truly believe GPL is just getting started in the future of science, technology, and communication.

</comment><comment><USER22> hmm, I dont understand.Afaik Ipods were synced with Itunes,seems to me that one could put anything on Itunes,no matter where it came from.So if I synced my Ipod against my Itunes database,all songs should have been on the Ipod.

Did Itunes used to work differently?

<comment><USER23> No, you're correct.

I believe this refers to the case going on right now [1] where RealPlayer Music that was sold in '05 or so as 'iPod Compatible' was locked out more than once by iTunes updates.

The thing is it worked (like PlayFair before it [2]) by circumventing/faking FairPlay, which was/is quite likely a violation of the DMCA. Apple patched the bugs and thus "excluded competitors".

So because Apple "excluded competitors" (who where breaking their encryption) they artificially keep the price of music high by stifling competition (ignoring record company contracts and the fact that Real had a 3% market share at the time).

You're right thought. Throughout the _entire life_ of the iPod you've been able to play DRM free MP3s that you got through any method, legal or otherwise.

Don't forget, Real didn't have a good reputation. And they were breaking Apple's DRM so you could play files that had _their_ DRM so it's the "they were fighting for people's freedom" card isn't very strong.

I see this as the same as when Palm faked USB IDs so the Pre would sync with iTunes. Someone else hacked their way into taking advantage of Apple's software and then got mad when the hack was removed and claimed "unfair competition". Sour grapes.

[1] [http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/12/03/steve-jobs- video-t...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/12/03/steve-jobs-video- testimony-and-emails-revealed-in-ipod-itunes-antitrust-lawsuit)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay)

<comment><USER24> It's no different from Microsoft changing DOS until Lotus wouldn't run on it. I'm amazed at how many people will defend everything Apple does.

<comment><USER25> It's different in that DOS was an operating system for a general purpose computer, whereas the iPod was sold as a closed, non-interoperable consumer device. I'm not defending Apple's actions in the case (I'm not familiar enough with the details) but I don't think your analogy is sound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >Updates that deleted non-Apple music files were intended to protect consumers from those system break-ins.

How convenient that Apple chose a security solution that just happened to give them an unfair advantage over their competition. Quite the happy coincidence there.

<comment><USER27> If their intention was to stifle the competition, it seems logical that they would have prevented the device from accepting music ripped from CDs or music downloaded illegally. Alas, they did not do this, because the success of the ipod was predicated on widespread copyright infringement. Who would pay 350$+ for a music player if they had to pay for all the music too? No, this was a simple case of keeping the record companies happy with the DRM scheme. Remember, when the iPod and other players hit the market, the record companies wanted to sue them for facilitating music theft. Same thing happened with writable CDs. The consumer was not harmed.

<comment><USER24> The intention was to stifle the competition in the moneymaking part of the business. IIRC at one point Real were like "name your price" for a license for the DRM technology, and were told it was not for sale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Whenever I buy a song on iTunes (or any other online store), I immediately convert it to mp3, and move the mp3 to another folder that iTunes doesn't know about. Then I shut down that proprietary pile of cow dung and play, sync, etc. the song in any way I like, using any program I like, on any device I like. It's a bit of hassle, but in exchange, I actually get to feel like I own those files.

I think I started doing this shortly after Amazon got into a minor shitstorm for remotely deleting copies of _1984_ (of all books!) from Kindle devices. News like this makes me happy that I've been doing what I've been doing.

<comment><USER29> If you're getting lossless files, you should probably be converting them to FLAC. You might (read: will) take a small hit on quality going from AAC to MP3.

<comment><USER28> I still have some stone-age devices that can't handle FLAC, and my mediocre ears can't hear the difference anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So I've bought music from itunes and amazon. The amazon program, downloads the music, opens itunes and through some scripting magic (applescript) adds those songs to itunes which then auto sync to my ipod. Amazingly seamless.

Requiem was a drm stripper for itunes music and videos. It was a clear that apple figured out what was going on and made software updates to break it. Once apple beat it for good I stopped buying videos (and pretty much stopped watching tv).

Now music is DRM free. Video, saddly is not.

<comment><USER31> I too started by purchasing MP3's from Amazon because f*ck DRM. However once Apple ditched the DRM, I started buying from iTunes, and rather like it's ability to "sync" music purchased on another iOS device to the device I'm currently using (I have a family with 5 iOS devices).

I tend to purchase most songs while in my car (after hearing it on Pandora/Sirius) and don't know if it would even be possible to purchase and play immediately a track purchased from Amazon on an iOS device (without a computer).

<comment><USER32> I switched to Amazon once they started doing digital music sales. You can purchase and immediately play music from Amazon on iOS devices, without a computer, using the Amazon Music app. By default, the music streams from Amazon, but you can also download it to your device.

In fact, I can stream/download music from CDs and vinyl I bought years ago through Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've stopped buying music from musicians I can't contact directly and communicate with, without having a middleman/record-company in the mix. Its not hard to find great, quality music, made by real people out there in the music world. So much great stuff goes unnoticed because people are distracted by the majors, but I think the industry has changed. There's nothing quite so rewarding as listening to a great album, then mailing the artist and paying them directly, and getting a response from them personally.. The record companies don't offer anything near this level of personal contact and I think its changing everything.

<comment><USER34> > There's nothing quite so rewarding as listening to a great album, then > mailing the artist and paying them directly, and getting a response from > them personally.

Bandcamp seems to be doing about the right thing, actually. It allows to keep the interaction between artist and listener reasonably personal, while at the same time offering options to make the process easier and more streamlined from artist's perspective. It also is very transparent about their fees—you know your money will go directly to the artist (though I'm not totally sure how it works with labels, for them Bandcamp seems to offer a separate kind of account).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm curious to hear more about the meaning of "The system was totally hacked".

"Farrugia told the court that hackers with names like "DVD Jon" and "Requiem" made Apple "very paranoid" about protecting iTunes. Updates that deleted non- Apple music files were intended to protect consumers from those system break- ins. "The system was totally hacked," he said."

Is he stating that the iPhone OS (was it called iOS back then?) was completely hacked, or that the work-around to get music onto an iPod outside of iTunes was "hacked"? I'm assuming the former, just curious on the background there.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's interesting that I don't hear these stories from the Android or Windows Phone ecosystems.

I think this might be a situation where Apple being first-mover has been a disadvantage to them; they started with a "sync to one single computer" design, and have been patching on that over and over to move into the new ecosystems. The other options in the market started with a "sync to cloud" design, so they had to solve issues of merging and collating data from multiple devices out of the starting gate.

<comment><USER4> > I think this might be a situation where Apple being first-mover has been a > disadvantage to them

Also, when Android started, music was only sold without DRM. And incompatible flavors of DRM is what this whole thing is about. Windows Phone was around then, but I don't know much about music on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Not cool. I love my apple products and ecosystem; but an effort should be made to identify and reimburse.

</comment><comment><USER37> >Farrugia told the court that hackers with names like "DVD Jon" and "Requiem" made Apple "very paranoid" about protecting iTunes. Updates that deleted non- Apple music files were intended to protect consumers from those system break- ins.

Deleting DRMed media files and system software somehow solves system intrusions? That's rich. Pretty clear who the bad guys are here.

<comment><USER38> You're assuming that when two companies have a fight, one of them is a good and the other is a bad guy? They can't both be bad?

<comment><USER37> I was thinking more about the consumer who might wish to use the files he/she purchased.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Your first problem: You bought Apple.

Your second problem: you expected a bad actor to suddenly be good.

Your third problem. You kept buying Apple because it's 'shiny'.

Guess you should have listened to Stallman. He may be a nut, but he does call it right.

<comment><USER20> He's nutty, not a nut. Subtle but important difference.

His calls are amazingly far-reaching. But yes, he can call 'em. The trouble is, his Al Gore beats his delivery. They both gotta up their PR game.

<comment><USER39> Good point. He is nutty, but still is right on.

I work in Emergent technology/ R&D at a university, and we get questions like "what can I buy that will just work"? I look towards Free Software, and what is published. If there's a free software solution for it, it'll never go away. However, if there's a loose corporate control, then it probably will fade. But if there's iron-grip control, the device will go away as soon as something shiner comes out to take its place.

That last one is Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> How is that a problem?

The official way to upload Songs in the Ipod-Iphone is using Itunes. I have uploaded myself lots of music purchased on other services or my own into Itunes without a problem.

It will be a problem if Itunes restricted the music it loads in the devices, like the misleading tittle implies, and like other devices did(and are History now),it does not.

I have also uploaded music from Linux programs, caring not to update the firmware of the device over the supported ones, but I would not have made a drama if it were not to work.

</comment><comment><USER41> They still do the same type of thing. Glad I paid 930 dollars for a device I can _only_ use with music from their store from _one_ computer.

edit: Those downvoting seem to be seriously hostile towards consumers. If people are giving you 700 dollar profits per sale, I think you should be a lot more upfront about your limitations. Hiding a disclaimer in fine print on a support page is just plain wrong.

<comment> SG- Ok, but you're completely wrong. It can play any mp3 or aac that doesn't have any DRM weather it's from Amazon, some other store or pirated.

<comment><USER41> Well, firstly, I believe Amazon music is DRM locked, the only way you can _download_ it on an iPhone/iTouch is through their 'app', and you cant export it.

Secondly, yah, that's true, if you only use one computer. If you're like any one of the millions of people who use more than one computer, the second you plug your iPhone/iTouch into a different computer, the only options you're given are to 1) Eject or 2) Erase.

Considering what I spent on the iPhone, I _should_ be able to do whatever I please, but that's clearly not the case.

<comment><USER42> Amazon music isn't broken/DRMed, and hasn't ever been. It is just standard MP3s, and I play them in iTunes all the time.

It is (very marginally) more hassle to buy them from Amazon and then drag them into iTunes, but hey, it feels good to fight The Man. (Plus, albums are often $2 or $3 cheaper on Amazon than in the Apple music store.)

EDIT: history of the DRM-free Amazon Music store: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Music](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Music)

<comment><USER30> I buy from itunes and Amazon (plain mp3s). The music downloader auto imports songs into itunes if you tell it too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Audio of Trump and Barr Advocating Using Force Against Protesters Leaked - <AUTHOR> https://soundcloud.com/the-daily-beast-politics/trump-audio <comment><USER2> Trump: _When [Occupy Wall Street] was over, it was a beautiful thing._</comment>


Capitalization of largest banks 1999-2009 - <AUTHOR> http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/05/capitalization-of-largest-banks-1999.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting. The first show of a Chinese bank on the list is not till '07, but 3 of them pop to the top all at once in '07. This was before the U.S. recession was even recognized.

The actual SWF is here: [http://media.ft.com/cms/7a7a1484-17a3-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac...](http://media.ft.com/cms/7a7a1484-17a3-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.swf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Whoa! Market capitalization != capitalization

<comment><USER4> Elaborate then, what's the difference?

(another summary sentence would make this an informative comment, instead of a clever remark)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting to note that one of the reasons ('bullshit lines' would be more apt) Gramm and others who pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999 used was that American banks needed to be deregulated because they would be overtaken by bank from countries with looser regulations.

Oh the irony...</comment>


Test predicts which children will grow up to be drain on society - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/12/12/test-predicts-children-will-grow-drain-society-just-three/ <comment><USER2> I dunno if this is pointless moralizing, but I have a problem with the expression "burden on the state."

Some citizens consume a disproportionate share of society's resources, but words like "burden" and "drain" seem to be examples of heavy editorializing on the part of the author and/or editor.

Reading the article, we could just as easily say that the test optimizes resource allocation by providing assistance earlier to those who would otherwise need greater amounts a decade later.

I might just be depressed by recent developments, but the tone smells like a lead-up to proposing that if we really want to eliminate these "burdens," we load them onto cattlecars at age three.

<comment><USER3> I agree with everything you're saying. Additionally, "burden on the state" is both an antiquated statement and, in a global economy, more and more tied to opinion than fact. An simplistic example of such could be a very wealthy person, who despite paying a lot in taxes, causes considerable (far greater than average) damage to the environment - causing longer term externality and burden on the "state" than immediately recognizable.

Furthermore, Is the "inverse" of this burden an _asset to the state_? If so, does that mean high taxpayers are valued moneymakers for the "states" coffers? Does that not go outside of the scope of what a government is supposed to be/provide?

Finally, I'd be very careful to read the actual research and compare it to Telegraph's reporting. There are some laypress misinterpretations that are confounded but dont cause as much harm - such as the belief "eating chocolate everyday will make you live longer." Then there are _far more toxic_ laypress misinterpretations that have far worse consequences (such as this article) if people were to accept it as fact.

<comment><USER4> > An simplistic example of such could be a very wealthy person, who despite > paying a lot in taxes, causes considerable (far greater than average) damage > to the environment - causing longer term externality and burden on the > "state" than immediately recognizable.

Or a wealthy person who causes great damage to the environment, pays no taxes, and takes public subsidies anyway. The greater burden on the state are the people exploiting the society around them without giving back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a disgusting title.

It can't possibly be that the society is unlivable for some people.

Not to mention that there are far more harmful effects out there, such as messing up the climate, but nobody says those people are a danger to society.

[also, something something growth mindset]

</comment><comment><USER6> It's quite hard to take anything objective from this article. Unless I missed it, I don't see any link to the source material and there is no mention of what the specifics of the test were, or the sample (aside from the sample size). The three links provided on the article are links to mentioned universtiy landing pages or a link to another Telegraph article regarding a /different/ study.

It would be interesting to see the details of the study to determine if there is potentially more of a link to some other criteria (e.g. wealth) than the test questions themselves (which are never mentioned).

<comment><USER7> The actual questions will probably never be distributed publicly, if they are planning on actually using this for something. If people can see what the questions look like ahead of time, it can bias them and lead to inaccurate results, so it's standard practice in psychology to keep the details private.

But yeah, there isn't a lot of content here regardless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's the research paper.[1] "At 3 years of age, each child in the cohort participated in a 45 minute examination that included assessments of neurological soft signs, intelligence, receptive language and motor skills. The examiners (having no previous knowledge of the child) then rated each child's frustration tolerance, resistance, restlessness, impulsivity and lack of persistence in reaching goals. This examination yielded a summary index that we have termed brain health, a global index of the neurocognitive status of three-year-old children. Variation in brain health at three years of age significantly predicted economically burdensome outcomes in each sector, except injury claims."

The Prof. Terri Moffitt quoted in the article has a web site.[2] The data seems to come from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, where all 1,037 babies born in the city of Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1972 and March 1973 were followed for their entire lives.[3]

[1] [http://www.moffittcaspi.com/sites/moffittcaspi.com/files/fie...](http://www.moffittcaspi.com/sites/moffittcaspi.com/files/field/publication_uploads/Caspi_NHB_Childhood%20Forecasting%202016.pdf) [2] [http://www.moffittcaspi.com/content/terrie- moffitt](http://www.moffittcaspi.com/content/terrie-moffitt) [3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AITcsYRjZuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AITcsYRjZuo)

</comment><comment><USER9> Another WMD (Weapon of Math Destruction) ready to be deployed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why (on earth) was this article flagged?

If anything, it seems to serve as a (most prescient) warning on the dangers of this nefarious cottage industry known as "predictive analytics."

Kindly do please actually read the article, and unflag.

</comment><comment><USER11> Did I miss it or does the article not go into the nature of the testing?</comment>


Show HN: Product recommendations by TOP tech bloggers - <AUTHOR> https://bubblehunt.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everybody! This is search platfrom for content creators, where we indexing Youtube channels and providing content, goods, services which are recommended by bloggers. If you know some interesting bloggers - you can write in comments below and we add all products and other content by them and make this data searchable. You will can to ask some request like "keyboard" directly and get all keyboards which they already recommended. Enjoy! And ask me questions, if you have, feel free to do this)</comment>


How to Be Competitive in a Post-Covid World - <AUTHOR> https://www.bmnt.com/post/how-to-be-competitive-in-a-post-covid-world <comment><AUTHOR> The businesses that think everything will go back to "the way things were" are operating on a going-out-of-business strategy. The businesses that will thrive in this new environment are those that will continue to leverage the tools and processes they adopted during the crisis. They'll be the ones to capture new opportunities and drive their recovery faster than the competition.</comment>


Will Robots Inherit the Earth? (1994) - <AUTHOR> https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/sciam.inherit.html

<comment><USER2> Yes, if you mean vs humans.

Mars is the only planet known to be inhabited entirely by robots

<comment><USER3> Upvote because that is a neat line and I laughed! :)

Also comes with a solution for the AI threat. Ship all AI computers to Mars and let then colonize it! Organic life seems useless to AI, it is a easier path to grow on a dead planet, with no atmosphere to filter sun energy.

sama can relax now, we just solved the AI threat problem. :)

<comment><USER4> Any AI that can survive Martian conditions can survive interstellar travel.

"Will it be a nice god?"

[http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence- revolu...](http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence- revolution-1.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since the article was written, bowhead whales have been discovered to live 200 years, making them the longest-lived mammals.

</comment><comment><USER6> I really enjoyed the article and the look into the future. It is still yet to be found if there's a spark of life in us or not.

</comment><comment><USER7> I found the article great in that it articulates thoughts I have had over the years.

<comment><USER8> It was a good read

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> it's a qn of when, not if.</comment>


GitHub Arctic Code Vault: Tech Tree - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/github/archive-program/blob/master/TheTechTree.md <comment><USER2> The text uses the words "culture", "human history", and "the world/our world". But reading the list of sources included, it seems to mean "the English culture" of US + UK. That's a bit of a shame IMHO.

<comment><USER3> I am assuming, based on the fact that it's a project by an American company, that this is largely being done by functionally monolingual English speakers. I wouldn't want them to attempt to speak for other cultures. And I wouldn't want to shame them for not attempting to speak for others.

It's a bit unfortunate that they use the word "human" so expansively when the scope is so limited, it's true. But it's a new project, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that that's meant to reflect the project's aspirations. Even if the reality, after only a few short months, doesn't quite achieve it. Tech culture is supposed to value iteration, and accept that things won't necessarily get it all right on the very first try.

A more constructive way to make sure other cultures are reflected would be to say, "Hey, this is a great idea. But looks like you're only covering Anglophone sources right now. Can we help by contributing additional sources?"

<comment><USER2> I'm all for iterative work. I'm just pointing an issue in the current state of this project. It's a common behaviour from huge and global US companies (GitHub IS huge and global) to kind of forget that other cultural groups exist, I'm used to it. It's a bit dishonest in this specific case because they present the project as a "humanity preservation project".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some curious selections there:

\- 4 books on SQL but none on key/value, graph, document, time series, bigtable etc databases.

\- 3 books on C, 2 on JS but none on Haskell (leading FP language) or Scala (first to bridge FP/OOP).

\- None on search engines / algorithms even though it's the most widely used aspect of computing.

\- None on anything mobile even though it's the dominant computing platform.

<comment><USER5> I was also surprised they picked "Programming Rust" over "The Rust Programming Language" book.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure Steve Klabnik will eat me alive, but having read both I think it's the better book!

<comment><USER7> Nah I think it's also a good book, and am glad that both exist! For many people, it will be the better book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's strange that they've omitted video-games which are the intersection of software and culture these days.

<comment><USER9> Yea, I mean video-games are THE way of software sneaking into culture.

I mean there is also programming culture but it's constantly changing, split into a innumerable number of sometimes conflicting variants and is often more like work culture then art. But it's also art, it's complicated tbh. I mean how many opinions are based around what feels nice and/or looks nice instead of what works most reliable and well? Through then this is also where innovations sometimes starts, with libraries which do look and feel nice but do not yet work supper well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As an archivist with work in Svalbard, I'm broadly in support of the notion here.

But the 100 Classics approach to media that seems to be showcased in this provisional reamde fundamentally dooms the collection to irrelevance.

<comment><USER11> Not knowing much about archiving, this also struck me as a fairly superficial way to build an "archive" \- seems more like an opinionated "best of" than an actually useful archive for future humans. I would like to see an actual OPAC!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Computers are great, but in a way, so 20th century; it's networked computers > which are, at least arguably, the real technical revolution of the 21st.

It then goes on to list all things created in the 20th century: TCP/IP, ethernet, DNS, HTTP, etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> > We believe women's unique role in founding and shaping computing and > technology deserves its own section.

Hummm, ok, what about men's role ?

One of the biggest complain women make, is the world keeps reminding them that they are a women. Well this is one of them

<comment><USER14> It's kind of counter intuitive, but writing about women's role in computing directly sheds light on men's role in the same. It is one of those sentences, where what is not said is just as important.

> We believe women's unique role in founding and shaping computing and > technology deserves its own section.

> <Hidden> _And men 's role doesn't deserve a section, because literally > everything else you read about was done by them_. <\Hidden>

I too think, the on-the-nose-ness of communicating women's roles here, is annoying to both men and women of 2020. However, this document is written with societal-recovery in mind. In that case, I would rather it be explicitly mentioned that women deserve just as relevant a role in tech development, lest some post-apocalyptic male-supremacist historian notice that almost everything important in tech was invented by men and postulate that, 'Tech should be the domain of men and only men.'

I do hope they also talk about the internal culture of nerds, societal- outcasts and less-than-macho men, that shaped tech as we know it. I don't think the uniqueness of nerdy tech culture is explored enough.

Better safe than sorry.

<comment><USER15> > <Hidden> And men's role doesn't deserve a section, because literally > everything else you read about was done by them. <\Hidden>

I'm not sure why anyone would assume men did all the work, until some patronising head pat of a section is added to show that "women do things too".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How often are tech trees used in software development/ project management?

I'm leading a hardware development project and I made a tech tree for my team- but I had only ever seen them in video games. Would love some professional examples

<comment><USER17> Could you elaborate on how you made a tech tree for a development team/project? I'm struggling to imagine how that would look.

<comment><USER18> Usually when joining a fairly technical team, the team has put together "learn these things" to get up to speed. For example, on our team where I am currently, you should be fairly familiar with statistics and maths after the first year on the team.

<comment><USER17> Okay, so it's just an onboarding-type list but with "dependencies" to structure them like a tree?

<comment><USER16> For us it's less about onboarding to the team and more of what tech do we need to develop for this product to meet client spec. I'm using it more as an organizational tool to structure which tasks need to be done sequentially (i.e. the API needs to be complete before we can test it with the software) and the tasks that can be done concurrently (i.e. the hardware can be developed and tested the same time as the software, up to a point).

I think you could use a gantt chart to accomplish the same thing. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart)

And your comment about the dependencies is still accurate for my team since we have to be efficient about doing the concurrent parts together to make sure we get this product to our client on time.

It's been useful for me to visualize all the moving parts of my project and see options that I have in a way that is familiar to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> No books on SML or other ML-derived languages, or Haskell, or Prolog? But somehow there's space for books on Golang and Java??

</comment><comment><USER20> It s missing solid pieces, like how to bootstrap a C compiler from nothing: [https://github.com/oriansj/stage0](https://github.com/oriansj/stage0)

or how to use that C compiler to bootstrap the rest of the software: [https://guix.gnu.org/](https://guix.gnu.org/)

<comment><USER21> How to actually read QR codes, untar/decompress, bootstrap a C compiler and so on is supposed to be part of the index on each reel, but I'd really love to see these instructions! They are mentioned as the "Representation Information" (see [https://git.io/JJDLP](https://git.io/JJDLP)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The books under Fiction, Culture, and History - meant to demonstrate our "current culture" \- include a number of pretty bleak titles.

<comment><USER23> On the topic of "bleak" and "societal collapse", it is notable that they chose "Blood Meridian" over "The Road" in Cormac McCarthy's works.

<comment><USER24> Blood Meridian is an account of how we got _here_. If civilization falls apart to the extent that they need this resource, they'll at least presumably know how they got _there_ and won't need a fictionalized account of societal collapse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ugh, there's a basic PostgreSQL book listed on there, which (from the Amazon reviews) seems to be the worst possible pick. eg it's rated as 1 star. :(

[https://www.amazon.com/PostgreSQL-Development-Essentials- Man...](https://www.amazon.com/PostgreSQL-Development-Essentials-Manpreet- Kaur/dp/1783989009)

That's really unfortunate, as there are a _tonne_ of PostgreSQL books around, many of which are very good. eg:

[https://www.amazon.com/Practical-SQL-Beginners-Guide- Storyte...](https://www.amazon.com/Practical-SQL-Beginners-Guide- Storytelling/dp/1593278276)

[https://www.amazon.com/PostgreSQL-Running-Practical- Advanced...](https://www.amazon.com/PostgreSQL-Running-Practical-Advanced- Database-ebook/dp/B076C4WLBP/)

Conversely, the MySQL book right above it in the list seems to be one of the highest rated ones on Amazon:

[https://www.amazon.com/Learning-MySQL-MariaDB-Heading- Direct...](https://www.amazon.com/Learning-MySQL-MariaDB-Heading-Direction- ebook/dp/B00VDHRFJI)

As GitHub uses MySQL internally, this _seems_ like favoritism.

</comment><comment><USER26> I did not immediately see anything on standards? ISOC, IETF, W3C, ISO...

Do they hope to redevelop a single standard to rule them all from the books alone?

</comment><comment><USER27> I am not sure how civilisations thousands of years in the future, with potentially a lower level of technology could be able to decipher the data from the archive, seeing the encoding complexity and the number of steps required. Considering how much money GitHub received from microsoft, I think they could have recorded all uncompressed, engraved in stone...

</comment><comment><USER28> A bit disappointed that this would favor Flask over Django, particularly if RoR is favored over, say, Sinatra

</comment><comment><USER29> > In addition to this technical documentation, we have also included a > selection of artistic, cultural, and historical works, to help describe the > overall cultural context in which this archive was created.

Since a lot of the culture described later is specifically related to Western culture, I find it interesting that the Bible is not included.

For good or ill, the Bible had a profound cultural effect on Western civilization, and specifically the King James Version on the Anglosphere.

</comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone else feel like it is a HUGE miss that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy isn't included. :P

</comment><comment><USER31> Marvellous. Now GitHub attaches its brand to the entire work of open source.

This is the most _real case_ of cultural appropriation in the last decade.

But the corporate smoke screens focus on bogus cultural appropriation and related issues, so this one will yet again go unnoticed.

I'm thinking about updating my OSS licences.

<comment><USER32> Seems fair enough to me... they're footing the massive bill of organising, transcoding, archiving and documenting all this.

It's OSS, so if you want to do something similar but without GH branding nothing stops you (assuming you have enough cash on hand to pull it all off).

<comment><USER33> > they're footing the massive bill of organising, transcoding, archiving and > documenting all this.

Which is done out of self interest and completely pales in comparison to the time that OSS contributors have donated.

> It's OSS, so if you want to do something similar ...

Yeah, yeah, just because you can does not make it right. See Google groups.

<comment><USER34> Unfortunately for utopianists, self-interest is how things get done that would otherwise never get done. It powers most open source work.

If a company or individual does something just to slap their name on it, so be it.

The combined open source effort vs Github's effort shouldn't be compared as it doesn't make sense. Just like it doesn't make sense to compare the work of a translator vs. the work of writing the original material—the translator is still doing valuable work regardless. The translator isn't "taking credit" for the original work.

You should compare what Github is doing with other endeavors doing the same thing.

<comment><USER35> This is a rambling discussion style that cannot be responded to. The GitHub shills win. May you enjoy your undeserved SV webshit salaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Uber like platform needed for the entire software development consulting. Don't say that we have freelancer! Still it has to go a long way to reach this level

</comment><comment><USER37> Dumb question... do they have to purge code when fielding a GDPR request?

<comment><USER38> I don't think the archive itself is publicly accessible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Where is SICP?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Tech Tree is a selection of works intended to describe how the world makes and uses software today, as well as an overview of how computers work and the foundational technologies required to make and use computers.</comment>


"Healthy lifestyle.." - <AUTHOR> http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/11/healthy-lifestyle.html

<comment> a-priori For weight maintainence, healthy eating is definitely more important than exercise. It takes a hell of a lot more effort to burn 500 calories than to cut 500 calories from your diet.

I'm no exercise nut, but I do a lot of cycling (70-75km/week this summer). I don't find it relaxing; if anything, it's the most stressful part of my day. But, it wakes me up in the mornings and forces me back into the real world at the end of the day. More than the exercise, I really do it for the cognitive benefits.

But exercise has to be something you like doing. Cycling is the most enjoyable exercise I've found so far that I can easily integrate into my daily routine (that's how I commute to school and work).

<comment><USER2> as somebody that watches what I eat, just healthy eating is not good enough.

If you don't exercise, you loose muscle, replaced by fat. Even if your weight stays the same, your fat/muscle ratio will change, and you wont look good, or feel healthy.

Exercise is a must. Gym, running outside, playing co-ed sports (soccer, volleyball, whatever) are a must. If you don't at least one of them, your body will suffer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _Sure, some people apparently get a runners high and really enjoy exercise, and they'll say how much people like me are "missing". My dad is apparently one of those freaks, as is my wife. I'm not. I have never in my life felt like exercise has made me feel that way._

The diet and exercise comment isn't like the Amazon suggestions of the type "If you love being healthy you'll also enjoy good diet and regular exercise", it's more about reminding you that, as far as weight is concerned, it's more or less simple accounting: deposits without caloric withdrawls = increased balance.

I understand that it's frustrating to hear this message all of the time (especially if you are unsuccessful at meeting your weight goals or don't like exercise), but nobody's implying that it's going to be fun, just that it's how the numbers work.

Furthermore, there's more benefit to exercise than burning excess calories, which is why credible dietitians and doctors don't just say to eat less: there are innumerable cardiovascular and muscular benefits; maybe not so important at 25, but definitely something that can make a difference between a youthful and a pre-elderly 50 year old.

Disclosure: I don't do any of this stuff. I do not live a healthy lifestyle and am not chiding anyone for doing (or not doing) anything. I'm just saying the math is what it is and that getting frustrated about it doesn't accomplish anything.

<comment><USER4> As my Crossfit coach once said, if you squat when you're young, when you're 80 you'll be able to go to the bathroom without someone to hold your hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have lost 20 lbs in the last 6 months, so I have just recently gotten into the exercise craze. I run 10 miles a week, and do 30 minutes of ellipticals on my off days. It sounds painful as heck but there are really 3 major reasons for exercising on a daily basis.

1\. You'll look better.

2\. You'll feel better.

3\. You'll think better.

Ultimately, it's about making a conscious choice in life, do you want to sit around waiting for magic pills to get you in shape, or do you want to take control of your life. I've taken the latter, and I highly recommend it.

As a side note, I recently became a vegetarian too, that has really helped me maintain my weight, and I can still eat all the good stuff (Chocolate, Ice Cream, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/09/inactivity- and...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/09/inactivity-and-weight- gain.html)

 _overweight predicts inactivity but inactivity does not predict overweight. With the usual caveat that these are just associations, this is not consistent with the idea that inactivity causes overweight. It is consistent with the idea that overweight causes inactivity, or they are both caused by something else._

 _overweight is largely caused by diet composition. If that's the case, then changing diet composition is obviously going to be a more effective treatment than exercise, which doesn't address the root cause of the problem. This idea is supported by numerous diet intervention trials._

challenge your assumptions. I did.

<comment><USER7> Activity level _does_ predict fitness level, and that is more important for your health than just your weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> He sure is whiny sometimes.

First of all, there are things everyone should do even though they don't like to do it. Suck it up. Financial planning is boring, but hey it beats outliving your money. Dental work is painful, but it's certainly better than trying to chew steak with your gums. Wearing a condom is so not spontaneous, but I prefer it to having my penis fall off. Writing documentation sucks, but I have to do it if I want more than 3 people to use my code.

Second, using drugs as opposed to a natural method often gives a suboptimal result, and not just in a holistic / living closer to the earth kind of way.

Third, if you want to be fat, all the drug is going to do is give you permission to eat even more, similar to the way people take more risks when driving as cars became safer.

</comment><comment><USER9> Human bodies are not evolved to sit idle in office chairs for exceedingly long periods of time. All the science points to a reasonable diet and exercise as being important. It's just that most hew-mahns don't like to.

</comment><comment><USER10> I must be one of those people Linus wants to kick. Too bad for him. I love taking a break from staring at a screen, and I feel way better, physically and mentally, after a good run or a good rowing session. My lower back starts to feel stiff and cramped if I go for more than a day or so without exercise.

Also, I can't imagine life without skiing, and that requires a pretty decent degree of fitness. Anyone who doesn't ski, or doesn't ski hard enough — you don't know what you're missing, and I feel sorry for you. :) (<\--- Smiley for the humor-impaired!)

<comment><USER11> I have to agree. Both skiing (and snowboarding, which tends to have a bad reputation among older folk, sometimes for good reason) are something that everyone should experience at some point in their life. Going 6 to 8 hours without seeing a computer screen, just you and the snow, is amazing. Those who haven't tried it - I strongly suggest you do! If you want fast results, try snowboarding. Snowboarding tends to be faster to learn initially, and harder to improve once you're good, while skiing is rather difficult at first but then is easier once you're past a certain point.

Disclaimer: These are, of course, just my opinions. I've been skiing for 10 or 11 years and snowboarding for 4 or 5 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I always enjoyed running around in the woods like an 8 year old. That burns most of my junk food diet, so i don't have any weight problems. Recently i started some other types of exercises, till now everything i tried, except running, got boring, but we'll see if i can actually stick to a regime or not. Apparently Linus has the same problem, but i at least found one thing that doesn't bore/frustrate me. He could try soccer, that kept my interest for the whole summer until it got boring last month.

<comment><USER13> Have you tried orienteering? You get the running around in the woods like an 8 year old plus the mental challenge of navigating and route selection. The community is also generally intelligent and you get to see some awesome places too.

<comment><USER12> No, not in the woods, but i tried parkour when i was 17 and it was fun for a while, but then i hurt myself and that was the end of it. I could try orienting next spring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's always funny when people who know a lot about computers sound off on unrelated topics.

<comment><USER14> It's even funnier that they still get votes on HN, if they have a rockstar status among hackers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The only sort of exercise I can tolerate is the type where it's you versus a landscape or individuals. I hate team sports of all types, and running faster or lifting more to beat my personal best doesn't keep me interested either. I think most geeks are this way. The most enjoyable sports for me end up being hiking, climbing, exploring in general, biking, boating, and racing.

<comment><USER7> Most geeks feel that way? I think you're generalizing your own feelings onto a group that you self-identify, assuming that if you have _this_ in common, you probably have _that_ in common.

If you've ever gotten satisfaction out of improving your skills in a videogame, or from a team-based multiplayer game, then you have the "enjoys self-improvement and team based competition" part of the brain. It's just the physical aspect you don't enjoy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> And don't like running but I do it it anyway.

P.S.

Linus is a big baby.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would really like to see more research on the relationship between metabolism and aging (not passage of time, but actual cellular aging, I think referred to as mitochondrial aging?)

I had thought that low metabolism, meaning a low pace, or clock to the body's energy consumption, would imply a slower aging action, but a cursory search on google immediately turned up some research that says it may be just the opposite: that high energy consumption (not food consumption, energy use by the body) in mice seems to lead to greater longevity...

Anyone with a more detailed understanding, please?

</comment><comment><USER18> cliche... torvald totally would take a pill to boost metabolism...</comment>


Hydroxychloroquine in vitro against SARS-CoV-2 [abstract] - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32150618 <comment><AUTHOR> the "background" says that " Currently, there is no evidence to support the use of hydroxychloroquine in SARS-CoV-2 infection." but the results and conclusion are :

RESULTS: Hydroxychloroquine (EC50=0.72 μM) was found to be more potent than chloroquine (EC50=5.47 μM) in vitro. Based on PBPK models results, a loading dose of 400 mg twice daily of hydroxychloroquine sulfate given orally, followed by a maintenance dose of 200 mg given twice daily for 4 days is recommended for SARS-CoV-2 infection, as it reached three times the potency of chloroquine phosphate when given 500 mg twice daily 5 days in advance.

CONCLUSIONS: Hydroxychloroquine was found to be more potent than chloroquine to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro."

can someone make sense of this?

<comment><USER2> this is an in vitro [in glassware] study of prophylaxis of cultured monkey kidney cells

>RESULTS: Hydroxychloroquine (EC50=0.72 μM) was found to be more potent than chloroquine (EC50=5.47 μM) in vitro.<

EC50 is the effective concentration 50%, this means the dose that yields the desired effect in 50% of the subjects/individuals, cells,etc

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

>Based on PBPK models results, a loading dose of 400 mg twice daily of hydroxychloroquine sulfate given orally, followed by a maintenance dose of 200 mg given twice daily for 4 days is recommended for SARS-CoV-2 infection, as it reached three times the potency of chloroquine phosphate when given 500 mg twice daily 5 days in advance.<

this is saying that comparing the EC50 to a pharmaco-kinetic model suggests an oral dosage regime that will produce the EC in blood plasma that was observed to be effective

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

>CONCLUSIONS: Hydroxychloroquine was found to be more potent than chloroquine to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro."<

the lower EC50 of Hydroxychloroquine leads to a 3fold increase of effect vs a larger dosage of chloroquine, in the cultured cell model

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


Amber: A new language and live environment made for the web - <AUTHOR> http://amber-lang.net/ <comment><USER2> How old is this? It looks pretty interesting and I haven't heard of it, even reading HN.

I am constantly looking for the ultimate live environment. This has a chance of being that.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any summer internship opportunities for high schoolers? - <AUTHOR> Anything in the Chicagoland area with a focus on tech? <comment><USER2> While I think it will tough to find high school student specific internships, a few ideas:

1\. Talk to your guidance counselor at school. Many schools have contacts within the community to help students find internships or entry-level career- based jobs.

2\. Check non-profit organizations. While the opportunity may be volunteer- based, meaning you won't be paid, many offer real-world opportunities. For example, in the DC area you can search the Washington Post job site for volunteer jobs. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of positions for everything from office admins to web developers. I would bet the Chicago Tribune has similar listings.

3\. Building on #3 you can also search for internships in the job postings, although not sure how many will show up.

4\. Attend meetups in your area and network with other attendees. Talk to them about opportunities.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> I suspect no one will post any jobs targeting high school students. If you want to get something, I suggest finding a list of startups in the area and email them individually, listing the things you've built.

<comment><AUTHOR> Know of any resources for finding startups?

<comment><USER3> AngelList

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Summer intern for highschoolers == spend your commitment free life doing tutorials online and learning how to code!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Past that point. Looking for things to do now!

<comment><USER4> Well, if you can't find an internship I would suggest you make a new Soundcloud. Soundcloud is terrible and needs to have a better new version made!

<comment><AUTHOR> That could be fun. What issues do you have with soundcloud?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


4chan Intrusion Postmorterm - <AUTHOR> http://blog.4chan.org/post/84289353232/concerning-a-recent-intrusion <comment><USER2> I find myself wondering who in their right mind pokes 4chan with a stick. It is not an angry mob I would care to have ambling in my general direction.

<comment><USER3> I think that the userbase is rather fickle and it depends on who you piss off. Each board has its own culture so, for example, if you piss off /b/ then you might get an angry mob that gives you grief but I doubt that would happen if you pissed off /g/ or /tg/.

<comment><USER4> In this case the user who gained access to the database was seen as doing it for a reasonably "noble" reason, relatively speaking (to find information about another user whom some disliked), so from what I can see there hasn't been much backlash against him even though his full name was posted in a few places. It was kind of a self-hack.

<comment><USER5> Please don't miscontrue the person's intentions as noble, or even put that word in the same paragraph as 4chan. It was misogynistic, sexist harrassment.

<comment><USER4> I did say "relatively speaking." I wasn't making a judgment as to whether it was moral or immoral, just that 4chan as a whole mostly saw it as reasonable, which is why most of them found the intrusion humorous instead of an affront.

This is in stark contrast to when UG Nazi hacked 4chan a while ago by hijacking Cloudflare's CEO's Gmail and pointing 4chan.org's A record at their own server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Moot mentions refunds for targeted users. I was unaware 4chan offered something purchasable. Anybody know what he's referring to?

<comment><USER7> 4chan Pass, which enables you to bypass the annoying CAPTCHA (and is a kind of CAPTCHA in itself, since a computer can't own a credit card); much like Reddit Gold

<comment><USER8> Is a credit card like a captcha? A computers may not be able to own credit cards, but they can use cards owned by someone else.

<comment><USER9> Most of the spam on 4chan isn't that serious to be worth using fraudulent cards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, now that is a response. Full disclosure of what happened and a nice payout to victims who weren't even harmed that much.

</comment><comment><USER11> This makes an excellent testimonial for Stripe. Consider the ROI just realised.

<comment><USER3> 4chan gets a lot of of traffic and is well-known so I think anything they use gets a boost in popularity :)

<comment><USER12> Eh, Stripe has way larger/more high profile customers than us, but yes we've been very happy with them.

<comment><USER3> While that is true I think you might have more impact than you realise :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Way to not give any details about the vulnerability...

<comment><USER14> chippy1337's comment is marked as dead, but here it is for posterity:

Rumor is it was an SQL Injection in the "days" parameter of the stats system. Details here -> [http://pastebin.com/Fq96ndB6](http://pastebin.com/Fq96ndB6) \-----

<comment><USER4> Ah, chippy1337. Haven't seen that name in a while.

Is "he" the original?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can't read it here, could someone post the text?

<comment><USER16> I suspect a lot of people will be unable to read it if they use HTTPS everywhere: the 4chan blog does not support https and the EFF is currently in a ruleset freeze so they cannot reflect that until the next stable version is out.

<comment><USER17> Tumblr only recently added SSL support, which is likely the reason Moot hasn't implemented it yet.

That said, I(unfortunately) doubt that HTTPS-everywhere is being utilized by that many people.

<comment><USER18> That's only for the dashboard. Blogs are still cleartext. It's possible to do SSL for *.tumblr.com domains but not (easily) for custom ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They should spend time to refactor their code, it's a mess: [http://pastebin.com/a45dp3Q1](http://pastebin.com/a45dp3Q1)

With that source is much harder to make a security analysis and is easier to create side effects leading to security holes

<comment><USER12> Per meowface's comment, this code is ~4 years old. It's in a much better place now, but there's still a lot of room for improvement.

The vulnerability wasn't in the main application. I'll write more about it on my personal blog in the coming days ([http://chrishateswriting.com](http://chrishateswriting.com)).

<comment><USER20> Have you ever thought about re-writing 4chan and making it open source? I think a large portion of the community would be willing to contribute.

<comment><USER21> IIRC they had open source code called Futabally, but as time went on they closed the sources to protect their interests. Projects like it exist, such as Kusaba X.</comment></comment></comment></comment>