New Programming Language, Lisp syntax, but ruby semantics - <AUTHOR> http://programming.nu/

<comment><USER2> I don't see the point in this as a serious production language. As a project to just have fun, of course it is a cool idea.

Lisp systems moved to generic functions for a reason - Lisp dialects for some time used a Smalltalk-based message sending model, but it just isn't as flexible.

But if the desire is to get Ruby semantics with Lisp syntax, I think the much more reasonable approach is to run a Rubyesque Lisp on Rubinius (which the lead devs have already talked of doing). At least by doing that you get the advantage of piggybacking on an advancing VM and a language that already has libraries.

Establishing a new language is hard.

</comment><comment><USER3> Disclaimer: I haven't tried Nu yet, just read the FAQs. Nu isn't about Ruby semantics, it's about Cocoa and Objective-C semantics. It's a Lispy/scripting way of interacting with the Mac OS programming paradigm. The author is also the author of the RubyObjc bridge, and Nu was a result of his frustrations with the "impedance mismatch" between Ruby objects and code and Objective C.

</comment><comment><USER4> My first reaction is that I am surprised to see Lisp syntax with Ruby semantics. I would have expected things to be the other way around.

<comment><USER5> Yeah like Ruby syntax with Lisp semantics. Now that would be a sight to behold huh? although looking at it more closely it looks quite elegant. Worth a shot to learn.

<comment><USER6> Ruby has a fairly complex syntax. Why would you prefer it to Lisp's simple syntax? The nice thing about Ruby is message passing and dynamic method lookups, not its syntax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slightly off topic, but there was an interesting example on one of the documentation pages:

            % (set laws "Asimov defined #{(+ 1 1 1)} laws of Robotics")
            % (puts laws)
            Asimov defined 3 laws of Robotics

Are there any other standard ways to embed s-expressions in strings?</comment>


Sex with Google Glass - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2014/01/21/sex-with-glass/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder, does the dev do QA with his wife/gf?</comment>


Ask HN: Google I/O costs too much for developers, Where to go instead? - <AUTHOR>

Google I/O admission is $900 and it's unlikely that my company would pay for a developer to attend.  What are some other conferences this Spring and Summer that are more geared towards working developers?  Goals for attending would be to learn new technologies and network with other developers. <comment><USER2> You know, when computer security conferences started getting too expensive, the BSides Security conferences were born. The idea was this: security conferences are too expensive, but all the speakers are in town. Let's ask them to come and talk for free at a free conference in the same town at the same time ... and it worked! Today, there are BSides conferences that take place all over the world. Learn more at <http://www.securitybsides.com> ... Maybe something similar could happen in the developer world?

</comment><comment><USER3> Silicon valley code camp is free, but not until fall. What area of development are you interested in?

</comment><comment><USER4> Where are based/where would you be willing to travel?</comment>


Ask HN: Would YC alumni be interested in a get-together with new entrepreneurs?  - <AUTHOR>

Just to gauge interest (at the moment)...<p>Would any of you YC alumni or successful start up founders be interested in a meet up with future entrepreneurs?  I was thinking a casual social event at a bar or something with the YC crowd would be great for everyone. <comment><USER2> YC already do something similar with StartupSchool[1] and the founders do other stuff as well [2][3]. Similarly if you have any questions, most of them openly 'advertise' their emails on their blogs etc as well.

[1] <http://startupschool.org/>

[2] <http://askolo.com/ycalumni> \- Additionally some YC founders and YC Partners have profiles there as well

[3] [http://blog.iamexec.com/post/20415502048/rent-a-tech- company...](http://blog.iamexec.com/post/20415502048/rent-a-tech-company- founder-through-exec-for-donors)</comment>


Dangerous Ideas: Sorry Paul Graham, I Think it Does Matter Where You Went to College - <AUTHOR> http://calnewport.com/blog/?p=67 <comment><USER2> WHAT A BUNCH OF BALONEY!!!

Let's call a spade a spade. College is another world. A vacation. Detached from reality. Please, please, please, don't confuse success in school with success in anything that actually matters.

"They got there because they're on the ball."

WTF?!?!?!?

Try paying a mortgage, raising children, staying healthy, caring for ailing parents, making it to work by 8:00 am, and completing 167 other required transactions each and every day, and still keep a smile on your face.

Versus reading books between beers, parties, and hookups.

Face it, what people in the isolated world of college call "work" is what people who pay their bills call "time off". After another 1000 lines of code, 3 more meetings with idiots, 27 more phone calls, hell in traffic, and a deep sigh of relief (it's Friday), I think I'll go to Barnes & Noble and read a little Kant to relax.

Paul was right on. Now STFU.

<comment><USER3> Let's not get carried away and take a reasonable argument in new directions and also to the extreme.

\--> "College is.. a vacation. Please, please, please, don't confuse success in school with success in anything that actually matters."

There are some fields where discipline, jumping through (seemingly arbitrary) hoops, and ability to study/capture knowledge is a reasonable indicator of success, e.g., medicine. I'll bet that a student who can't stick through the pre-med requirements is not going to get through the four years of mind- numbing med school and another four to seven years of residency.

\--> "Face it, what people in the isolated world of college call 'work' is what people who pay their bills call 'time off'."

I'm not sure if you'd be studying organic chemistry on your time off, and I'm very sure some college students pay their own bills. (I did. I got classified as a grad student very early and paid my way through Stanford via half-time research & programming jobs.)

So while I'm probably going to be down-modded for sticking up for the feckless idiots who decide to spend their time learning things in college, particularly the "elite" ones, I figure I should point out when the anti-college viewpoint gets taken too far. While some may view college as a "vacation", others actually use the resources of a top institution. They get access to cutting- edge faculty, computers, lab equipment, and research that's not being done at smaller institutions. Not everybody is hoping to build a business. And for some professions, there's a wide and deep knowledge base that has to be mastered before you can start work. I know one mother who returned to college after raising her kid and slogged through pre-med studies. It was hardly a vacation. Her success in school mattered.

<comment><USER2> First of all, you should never be down-modded for engaging in good debate. And if so, who cares.

You bring up many good points which are, sadly, exceptions to the rule.

I have a B.S. in mathematics and an MBA, both from supposedly "elite" institutions, and I am convinced that almost nothing from any of my classes has contributed to my career as an IT professional (with the exception of the "mind" exercise). I suspect this is true for most college graduates.

As president of my undergraduate fraternity, I learned 100 times more (things that I would need later) than from all my classes combined. Things like managing a budget, running a project, caring for a facility, interpersonal communication, leading others, achieving in teams, etc., etc., etc. If I knew then what I know now, I would have skipped the classes and just joined the fraternity.

And, yes, I do go to Barnes & Noble and read "Men of Mathematics", "GEB", and the work of Dawkins just for fun. Funny, I didn't appreciate any of it when I was forced to read it.

<comment><USER3> When I think of the things that made Stanford special, I think of the exposure to world-class researchers. Some classes were simply not available at other institutions. For example, I took "Medical Artificial Intelligence" from the guy who was the pioneer in expert systems for medicine. I remember a two- quarter sophomore seminar with class size limited to six undergrads. We were taught plate tectonics by the Dean of Earth Sciences and worked with a grad student to develop a simulation in C. Then there were all the opportunities to join research labs because there is so much world-class research going on at Stanford. (This was back in the 80s.) I am convinced that (1) you get out of college what you put into it, and (2) the main advantages of big research universities, aside from the diploma, is tapping into what makes them unique.

When I think of "success in school," I don't immediately think of GPA. It's not all about the courses, and in the debate of name-brand schools, I think it's rarely about the standard classes.

<comment><USER2> "you get out of college what you put into it"

I guess I'd be a fool to argue with that.

Funny, I only remember 2 things a professor every said in class:

1\. A degree in business is a degree in nothing. 2\. Never put a lit pipe in your jacket pocket.

Maybe I should have paid more attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The student who got an 'A' on her Kant essay is, quite simply, someone who really understands Kant"

This is the point where my bull shit meter hit the red area and then went on to roll on the floor and laugh :)

<comment><USER5> Ditto. Can any subject require more subservience to a teacher than the 'Kantian interpretive' type he uses here?

<comment><USER6> Once I completed an essay assignment for a college Shakespeare class, filling in everything I knew the teacher wanted me to say. At the end however, I wrote something like "However, I don't actually believe what I wrote above."

When I got the marked essay back, there were lots of positive comments in the margins, until the last paragraph. There the comment was, "Jim, I think we should discuss this."

I got an A in that class.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This guy not not only misunderstood what I was saying, but literally made up quotes; e.g. "obedience to authority."

<comment><USER8> Predictably, yes.

I've learned at least two things watching people misunderstand essays. First, when an essay touches on a polarizing issue, people tend to peg it as one end or the other of that polarization. Second, once people peg an essay as making an argument that they disagree with, they stop paying attention, if they keep reading at all.

I'm not trying to be critical of anyone; I tend to do the same thing.

Quote: I hear variations of this same tired argument probably once or twice a month. (It comes with the territory when you write a book titled _How to Become a Straight-A Student_ ).

He has you lumped in with the rest of his critics. "Obedience to authority" is a collective quote from the lot of you, with your words "index of obedience" as just one fuzzy part.

What's funny is in the end he agrees with your last three paragraphs. Quote: It's fine to make the point that college and grades aren't everything. In fact it's important.... I'll be the first say it: _College is not necessary for success!_

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Whatever the reason, however, don't put down the kids that got the A's. > They didn't get there because of obedience to authority. They got there > because they're on the ball. They can process multiple streams of > information, and they have trained their mind to think hard, produce subtle, > nuanced arguments, and find deep connections between ideas -- all traits, > ironically, that most entrepreneurs would say are important._

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

</comment><comment><USER10> PG wasn't putting anyone down, just saying that there's very little correlation between startup success and where someone went to school. That's a narrow enough statement, and he has enough data on it, that I think it's convincing.

<comment><USER11> Enough data?

1) keyword #1: startup 2) keyword #2: software (80% www, 20% shrink-wrap)

what about other fields? commerce, business, law, agriculture, medical, dental, pharmacy, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> if I am not mistaken pg's point was that where you got your education doesn't contribute to the success of your company, not that if you are a Harvard student its meaningless like this guy sais!

Philip Greenspun made a similar point in a shorter fashion not many days ago,

"What about homework? Students would do homework either in the library or at home. In 1865 both places lacked television, video games, email, etc. In 2007, the students who do best may be the ones with the best study habits, not those who are the most able. Companies do not rely on lecture+homework for getting work done; they create an environment with limited distractions and keep workers there for most of each day." ([http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2007/08/23/improving- unde...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2007/08/23/improving- undergraduate-computer-science-education/))

, and overall it's a notion that meets acceptance from great hackers and successful people who recognize quality in people, because being early self- taughts gives them this inner understanding.

do these people actually read something before they reply to it?!

if we all look outside our windows we will see that not everyone wants to risk their ass for starting up. So, yes there is also need for colleges, a system to rank individuals abilities.

</comment><comment><USER13> Let's get Don Dodge (Microsoft is dead hater), this person, and we'll all PG hate for flash-in-the-pan attention.

My favorite:

"Let us not then, Paul, put her (straight-A student) down. She too, just as much as any homegrown entrepreneur, has worked hard and made use of her talents."

Or she drinks with the TA, or her Dad plays golf with the dean, or she's book smart, none of whom I'd probably want to hack with.

</comment><comment><USER14> in my experience, the school you go to has a huge impact on what jobs you can apply/get recruited for - i definitely could see it having little impact on startup success...also doubt it has much impact on people who go into sales. both are sink or swim scenarios. but, the education you receive at harvard or mit might be no different from what you get at bunker hill cc, and if you go launch a company you may be no worse off coming out of bhcc, but if you are going into the mainstream workforce, the average MIT/Harvard/Stanford grad has a massively better shot at getting a job at NASA, Goldman, Citadel, Google, etc. Not because the students are necessarily better at those schools (although many would argue that they are) but simply because the alumni base is already embedded in those institutions. i think it is under emphasized for undergrad, but in large part matriculation choice is a decision of what alumni base you want to "buy into".

<comment><USER15> "but, the education you receive at harvard or mit might be no different from what you get at bunker hill cc"

There is no way that is true.

<comment><USER14> haven't you seen good will hunting?!

seriously though, one dedicated teacher at bhcc might give you way more than all the TAs you get at harvard. of course the same student that gets a lot out of bhcc would probably soak even more out of harvard. who knows

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> hhmmm, guy who makes his living selling books about how to do well at college blasts essay from guy who says 'college... meh'. nuff said.

<comment><USER17> doesn't that count as ad hominem?

<comment><USER18> Yes; and conflict of interest is a perfectly valid basis for questioning impartiality as a matter of jurisprudence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I guess the only reason people upmodded this crappy article is so that other ppl on yc can see their own posts?

There are good arguments for college, but this isn't one of them...

</comment><comment><USER20> Paul: I think the problem is that you're measuring something slightly different from what everyone else wants to measure, and thus the claim in your first paragraph winds up being too strong.

One way attending an elite college helps is that it makes it easier to learn-- both in that the resources are more obviously available, and in that the institution is pushing you to do work. You can graduate from Northwester Louisiana University going out drinking six nights a week and never really doing the work; you can't pull that off at Harvard. But if you're driven enough, 'easier' doesn't matter all that much; if you're determined enough, you can learn to the limits of your own abilities at Harvard or at NLU. Or, hell, you could pull a Ramanujan and teach yourself entirely out of books.

The problem is that most people aren't that driven; most people will get a lot more out of the college where it's easier to learn (I know I've needed the push more than once to keep going aggressively). But those people aren't the ones you're looking for at Y Combinator. If you need that kind of push, you're not going to succeed at a startup, because a startup requires drive and determination more than almost anything else. So your evidence says something like, "in the set of people to whom the institution matters the least, the institution doesn't matter very much." Which is probably true, but doesn't say much about the people who are going to settle down into a nice comfortable job when they graduate (doctor, lawyer, middle management), and aren't driven enough to go for broke the way you did.

Also, institution matters much more when you're doing something where letters of recommendation make a huge difference (say, applying to grad schools, like I am). When my profs write a grad school and say I'm in the top 25% of the math majors here, or whatever they wind up saying, that tells programs something; they've accepted students from my college before, and they can compare me to those other students to get an idea of how good I am. Sometimes this is explicit; I think one of my profs has written a rec letter along the lines of, "this student is about as good as student X whom you accepted three years ago." This gives them very precise data about whether they want me. But if I were going to a weaker institution, they wouldn't be able to get that sort of gauge of my ability; this makes me a riskier pick, and so I'm less likely to be accepted. But once again, this shouldn't factor much into your particular dataset.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think it may have been better to say that the more capable you are, the less it matters where you go to school. (Use your best judgment to apply boundaries to that statement.)

</comment><comment><USER22> _[UPDATE 9/7/07: Welcome new readers. Before continuing, I want to point out that the "Dangerous Ideas" series on this blog aim to be purposefully over the top. The idea is to push an argument to its extreme to generate interesting discussion. So take what follows with a grain of salt]_

I had a better idea: just not reading what follows. Thanks at least for being upfront about your trolling intentions.

</comment><comment><USER23> Rule of thumb: When empirically testable statements are framed as philosophical arguments it's because they aren't supported by the numbers.

</comment><comment><USER24> ugh. what is this doing here? this is the kind of stuff i expect hacker news to be free from. why can't i have a "vote down" button?

<comment><AUTHOR> Its here to provide another viewpoint for people to discuss (criticize) in (supposedly) intelligent debate.

<comment><USER24> yeah, i totally don't agree with that. this is just noise and distraction, which fritters away the coherency of this site.

if paul graham is able to create a site such as this one that is NOT eventually destroyed by its own popularity, then it may well be a first. noise like this article isn't helping in the least.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're arguing that opposing viewpoints are noise and shouldn't be allowed? Sorry, but I don't want to live in that type of world/community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The author was obviously looking for attention.Sadly, he got it.

<comment><USER26> Cal's a pretty smart dude (grad student at MIT) with a couple of books under his belt (both about doing well at college). I think this essay isn't a fish for attention; it's his worldview. It's actually not so far divorced from what Paul Graham is saying anyway, since he readily admits that you don't need a good college nor good grades to be successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _Cal Newport graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 2004, and is currently a Computer Science Ph.D. candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology._

Something about a buck fifty in late fees at the public library.

</comment><comment><USER27> I love it when PG riles the internet because he's normally right.

<comment><USER11> To you he is. Not to others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Paul Graham has his own Valleywag.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think there was a study that showed that Ivies, MIT, Stanford, etc. are really good at finding and admitting very talented, driven people.

However, that same study found that equally talented, driven people who chose to attend a less prestigious school did just as well in their careers as the people who went to the big name schools.

So there probably is a correlation between "I went to Harvard." and "I will be successful." But not necessarily causation.

</comment><comment><USER29> But does it matter what college you DIDN'T graduate from?</comment>


Show HN: Letsencrypt (and other) certificate dashboard - <AUTHOR> https://keychest.net <comment><USER2> Interesting, thanks for sharing.

How does the support for multiple protocols (so non https but tls protocols) work? I was able to add my imaps server but it doesnt' show in the certificates. This could be because the same certificate is used by my https server. But your site should not take it for granted that both, imaps and https will always use the same certificate. I would love to see a report per "server".

<comment><AUTHOR> If I get it right, you should be able to see your email server (if it uses TLS - we don't support StartTLS atm.), if you add it to the list of servers as, e.g., my.email.server:465

We want to simplify adding servers with multiple services. The plan is to allow setting a list of ports to check per server.</comment></comment>


Websites' servers hacked to host child abuse images - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23551290

<comment><USER2> I seriously don't understand why people are doing this. It's sick.</comment>


A way to find defects in automotive ICs - <AUTHOR> https://semiengineering.com/finding-faulty-auto-chips/ <comment><AUTHOR> Why are chips defective?</comment>


Update: George Hotz's $1,000 self-driving car kit - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/6/11866868/comma-ai-george-hotz-interview-self-driving-cars <comment><USER2> What's the update? Looks like the original article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just an update on his progress since the feature Bloomberg did last year.

<comment><USER2> Oh, that verge article is exactly a month old. Pretty sure I saw it near the top at that time.</comment></comment></comment>


SourceForge grabs GIMP for Windows' account, wraps installer in adware - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2015/05/sourceforge-grabs-gimp-for-windows-account-wraps-installer-in-bundle-pushing-adware/

<comment><USER2> Well thanks for posting, I hadn't quite hit my extreme outrage quota for today.

> Since our change to mirror GIMP-Win, we have received no requests by the > original author to resume use of this project. We welcome further discussion > about how SourceForge can best serve the GIMP-Win author.

How about, you know, just leaving shit alone?

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9612152](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9612152)</comment>


Ask HN: Modestly priced mobile SDKs for 1 to 1 customer support messaging? - <AUTHOR> I am trying to incorporate a real time messaging customer support system into my mobile app for users to contact me right away and chat with me in real time for any issues. This is a fairly common feature of many websites, I am not sure of the marketing name but it's that small pop up that allows you to instantly message a support person and chat with them without necessarily being registered. I would like something similar for my app. I have been googling but I don't think I am using the right terms because I am stumbling upon a lot of solutions which allow regular chat like person to person but not any for person to app master for support..<p>Ideally the solution would have a centralized access point like an app or web site for me to view and reply to my messages.. although I am not strict on it, I would also like to be able to receive a notification evertime a new massage arrives so that I don't have to constantly check for new messages.. is there such a solution out there, or will I have to implement this from scratch? <comment><USER2> smooch.io is great</comment>


Rapid DHCP: Or, how do Macs get on the network so fast? (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://cafbit.com/entry/rapid_dhcp_or_how_do# <comment><USER3> That's at least the 3rd time I see that article posted here!!!! It's _NOT_ exceptional or some special kind of wizardry. Even NetworkManager now does that.

If you have an old setup, you can get matching speeds with dhcpcd and the following options added to the bottom of debian /etc/dhcpcd.conf:

ipv6rs #ipv6ra_own #ipv4only noipv4ll noarp

The latest 2 options are the helpful ones for speed. The rest is for my IPv6 setup - can't remember if the Macs give you a dhcpv6 lease that fast.

Since it's bragging time, my debian+systemd thinkpad x60 laptop using coreboot want to say it resumes from suspend in about 1 second, and it boots its kernel in 0.7s and the userspace tools in 0.5s (add another second for X thanks to SNA, and another second for LXDE/conky/etc.)

What is the boot time for mac already?

EDIT: linux laptops properly resuming is still impressive for me as I remember a time not so long ago when one had to use some kernel patches, tweak the drivers or at least do a few rmmod, and even then a proper resume could take several seconds due to the drivers reinitializing.

Linux has come a long way since them. What might have been surprising before is now taken for granted (as it should be!).

EDIT2: I see downvotes. I guess some fanboy is quite sad that linux can do the same or better.

<comment><USER4> No, let's not kid ourselves. You're being downvoted for being a bit pompous.

<comment><USER5> More than just a 'bit'.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, I'm very pompous since I'm quite proud of what a modern linux install can do.

Sorry if I don't partake in this unwarranted Mac adoration.

Instead, I explain how to do the same on linux, and actual results when it's possible to do better (with among other things i915.fastboot=1)

$ systemd-analyze

Startup finished in 781ms (kernel) + 648ms (userspace) = 1.430s

Add ~1s to the above to start X with SNA if you prefer a graphic mode - <USER2> that's on a 2006-era laptop, a 8-years old machine, so color me unimpressed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_X_Series#X60_Tablet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_X_Series#X60_Tablet)

<comment><USER6> You despise "fanboys" and "adoration," but you're "proud" of an OS that (I'm guessing) you had nothing to do with the development of?

This, right here, is the problem. People choosing to attach their personal and tribal identity to an operating system. It doesn't matter what operating system it is, or how good it is. It's no more noble than doing the same thing with a football team or a comic book character.

<comment><USER3> You're guessing wrong, even if I'm less involved in free software that I was a few years ago.

But indeed, I'm quite passionate about GNU/Linux and say the gluglug X60 since it's a unique offering to respect ones' freedoms: [http://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified- to-...](http://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified-to-respect- your-freedom) but I'm actively trying to improve boottime.

In case you are curious, here's a kernel patch integrating a few things I (badly) fixed to get such boot times, and an explanation: [http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.bios/80414](http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.bios/80414)

You see, it's a very small patch - yet it took some work. There's no magic, just effort.

And for those who think that's not replicable anywhere beyond the confines of my workstation, I intend to release very soon a debian based distribution with "proper" systemd support that gets me from grub to dwm in less than 2 seconds instead of 3s, kernel and systemd time included, on the X60 (I had some inspiration tonight!!)

It's a work-in-progress, it could be improved on the non-tablet version, but it's still something that's possible _right now_ on _8-years old hardware_. That's what I call hacking.

For me, free software is not a tribal identity. It's very practical, with great benefits far beyond fast boot times.

Things change because people work on them, and yes they're usually proud of their work, sorry about that. Pride is part of hacking.

I must say I have been quite surprised by the general tone of this thread, including the ad-hominem attacks ("Seems he is working for Intel on CoreOS") on the OP that was trying to explain stuff. Many people don't post content, they just criticize.

<comment><USER6> That's good that you're contributing to free software. I _like_ free software, you understand. But your sneering at "fanboys," your acting like someone's choice of operating system is a moral stance rather than a matter of convenience and personal preference, still says that you are not being as rational as you think you are. Only fanboys accuse people of being fanboys. Your choice to use free software may not be a tribal identity, but your choice to mock people who don't absolutely is.

<comment><USER7> >acting like someone's choice of operating system is a moral stance

It certainly is when you pick a free software/open source OS over a proprietary one.

<comment><USER6> > _It certainly is when you pick a free software /open source OS over a > proprietary one._

A whole lot of people have convinced themselves that it is, at least. I'm not quite ready to accept that using the wrong operating system makes you a bad person. I'm kind of amazed that I even have to say that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In my pretty extensive tests, a long initial lease time is almost always the DHCP server's fault. I didn't see really any time wasted in DHCP REQUEST in my tests across many devices and operating systems. I think setting your DHCP server to authoritative will usually cause it to do a DHCP NACK in response to a bogus DHCP REQUEST, which prevents any delay there as observed in the article.

I measured lease time when connecting a client as "time from DHCP DISCOVER to DHCP ACK", which I found effectively represents the time between a device connecting to WiFi and being available on the network with an IP address.

With stock dnsmasq, the shortest "new connection" lease time I observed on an uncongested network was around five seconds. Almost all of the time was spent waiting for the DHCP server to respond.

With a modified dnsmasq, the shortest time to lease I observed was 20ms. That was also the _longest_ time to lease on every platform I tested except iOS, which spends about a second trying to ICMP ping the IP address before it takes it. On iOS devices, the time to lease was almost always exactly 1s20ms the first time, and about 20ms on subsequent attempts with the same device.

You can do the same tests yourself by sitting on a wireless network with Wireshark and connecting with a device that has had the network forcibly "forgotten". Mark the first DHCP DISCOVER packet you see, and set the timestamps to relative. Filter the traffic to just show the MAC address of the router and connecting device, then look for the DHCP ACK from the router.

<comment><USER9> Wish I could upvote more.

I wanted to say something like it, plus that most home routers do their DHCP serving with ancient versions of dnsmasq.

<comment><USER8> It's still a problem with the latest version of dnsmasq. Look for `if ((count < max) && !option_bool(OPT_NO_PING) && icmp_ping(addr))` in `src/dhcp.c`. Most of your lease acquire time is spent in `icmp_ping()` which actually just sends ARP requests for 3+ seconds then gives up. It's actually not even very reliable when someone is using the IP already, because many devices won't respond to ICMP.

There's an option to disable it (OPT_NO_PING) which does improve lease performance with pretty much no downside (as ICMP is a flawed way to check if an address is in use anyway).

      -5, --no-ping (IPv4 only)
      By default, the DHCP server will attempt to ensure
      that an address in not in use before allocating it
      to a host. It does this by sending an ICMP
      echo request (aka "ping") to the address in question.
      If it gets a reply, then the address must already be
      in use, and another is tried. This flag disables
      this check. Use with caution.

So, if you're configuring dnsmasq, these flags will give you some nice performance gains:

      dhcp-authoritative
      no-ping

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This has not been my experience; after resuming my macbook, it takes up to 30 seconds for it to reconnect to my home network. It is much faster if, after resuming, I disable and re-enable WiFi.

There is probably something wrong with the way I have my home network setup, but I haven't been bothered enough to dig any deeper.

<comment><USER11> Mine is slower than reported too. My circa-2010 MacBook Pro takes 10-20 seconds on my home network, whereas the 2014 MacBook Pro I'm using right now takes about one second on the same network. I had suspected it was just the newer hardware being better, but this story is from 2011 and they were already seeing one-second connections back then, so I'm not sure what does it.

<comment><USER12> I notice that when I return from work, it often takes 10-20 seconds as you say, but when I have been at home for a few days, it seems to take only a second. Maybe it's related to how long you've been using the current network or something?

<comment><USER13> Same experience here with a MacBook Pro circa 2012. Often seems slow to re- establish network connection after sleep. I've seen this on a variety of networks. Really just an annoyance, but better management of this on my Mac would be nice.

<comment><USER14> Go in to Network Prefs, and get to the list of known networks. Drag the ones you use often to the top.

<comment><USER15> it'd be nicer if that list of known networks was, say, searchable, sortable and perhaps even, who knows, taller so I could see more than a handful at a time. It seems like it's written for people that connect to 4 networks and never move around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Previous discussion from 2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2755461](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2755461)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd rather my Mac were more reliable about getting on the net -- or if failures to do so were easier to fix and to understand.

Sometimes it takes fussing around (e.g., rebooting the cable modem, telling the Mac to try again to connect) to get on the net, and this time spent fussing around never seems to leads to an insight that would help the next time I need to fuss around.

It is a small thing, but this is one aspect of "client computing" where I would probably prefer the Linux way of doing things in which it is more tedious to do simple things, but when something goes wrong, it is easier to understand the problem.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, just yesterday I went to a local cafe and they'd changed the wireless password. I had to search online for a way to change the current password for a remembered wireless network! Turns out there's no way really, you have to run this wireless wizard thing and input the password that way. What?!

<comment><USER19> If you're talking about OS X, You can change the password in the keychain, or forget the network via the Network prefpane.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I've never had problems with just changing it via the keychain. Also, manually connecting after it fails to connect causes it to prompt me for the password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Dated. DHCP can be done in milliseconds, 50ms over a WiFi connection:

[https://plus.google.com/+TomGundersen/posts/eztZWbwmxM8](https://plus.google.com/+TomGundersen/posts/eztZWbwmxM8)

</comment><comment><USER22> Connman, used by many mobile Linux distros, achieves this even quicker. AFAIK, Jolla uses it. So do I in Arch, and it's wonderful.

</comment><comment><USER23> This might be true for connecting to a wired network, but like others stated in this thread, Macs can take a surprisingly long time to connect to a wireless network.

If you want to see a client connect to Wifi very fast, check out the electricImp [0] module. I've never seen mine take longer than two seconds to go from power-on to it being registered with the server (EC2 instance).

[0] [http://electricimp.com/](http://electricimp.com/)

<comment><USER24> The article specifically mentions that the Mac is connecting over wi-fi, several times, and gives a connection time of 1.3s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Don't get it. Unless the wifi hardware fails to initialize i have never found Android to be a slow connector. Are we so stuffed with stimulants these days that we can't handle those seconds?

<comment><USER26> Before it was a marketing term, "Hacker" meant someone who tried to understand things at a deep level, and pushed that understanding into new techniques, uses, and better performance.

I assume thats why it was submitted.</comment></comment>


"The Dirty Dozen" Marketing Processes that every Internet start-up must master - <AUTHOR> http://blog.publisha.com/articles/42202--the-dirty-dozen-marketing-processes-that-every-internet-start-up-must-master

<comment><USER2> I'm all for sharing ideas, and I'm happy that these ideas have been working for this company. However, I do wish people in the start-up community would stop presuming that there are two ways, theirs and the wrong one. Reading too many articles like this, one might conclude that the only viable business model is:

1\. Identify mildly useful/interesting idea.

2\. Produce cheap implementation.

3\. Sell to the general public for peanuts.

4\. Refine to maximise number of people and size of peanuts.

Given that the culture around HN seems to be heavily biased towards businesses that do follow this model, I think it would be interesting to hear from investors and/or successful founders about other ideas as well. Does this model dominate HN simply because of the emphasis on angel investing, which maybe doesn't fit as well with other models?

Do investors like YC also fund businesses producing products/services for niche markets rather than the general public? What about products/services where getting to launch fundamentally requires some serious R&D that is going to take time and money, and you can't just produce a MVP in a few weeks and iterate, but where the prices you can charge customers/users are much higher? Maybe this happens, but we don't tend to hear about them so often because there are not so many and/or the people doing them happen not to be the ones who participate here or post their progress on a company site/blog?

If so, what extent do the sorts of ideas in the linked article generalise, and what sorts of processes have proved most useful/important in successful businesses with more specialised/long-term/high-value products and services?

</comment><comment><USER3> I've heard about Plan Do Check Act before, but isn't it just a glorified/marketing version of the whole scientific process? Design studies to test hypotheses (oftentimes educated guesses), conduct said studies, analyze the results to draw theories, and refine them with further studies.

The PDCA version only replaces the "advancing human knowledge" goal by "making money", but I think the similarities are quite striking.

<comment><USER4> Plan Do Check Act sounds like exactly the kind of crap that some jerk would come up with in order to sell business books. Take something bloody obvious that everybody knows, come up with some fancy-sounding (yet understandable to any six-year-old or middle manager) jargon to explain it, then somehow blow it up to two hundred pages with repetition, examples, case studies and testimonials.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Those who went from programming to tech writing, how did you do it? - <AUTHOR> How did you break into tech writing?
Are you happier than you were before?
Are you making comparable salary? If not, are there any perks (less stress perhaps?) that tech writing gave you which programming didn't? <comment><USER2> I don't fully fit your target audience but will try to provide info. I was a tech writer (software) for a number of years but became unchallenged at the end and so am in my transition to programming. If you have any API programming experience, I think you would have a good niche documenting for programmers. I started writing for users, administrators. Then around the end was transitioning towards API docs.

Not sure if this is relevant now but I found a first job in a newspaper. There is a trade group, Society for Technical Communication. You might try to network with them. Each chapter usually has a regular weeknight meeting (monthly). But membership is not free and usually the meeting is not free.

I was fortunate that my first company was small and treated me as if in a startup. They gave me a software product, gave me a license for help authoring tool (RoboHELP) and expected me to figure it out. Right now I'm not sure what the industry tool is. Some jobs just require using MS Word and some places have their own in-house help publishing tool. It was handy to edit HTML/CSS for small issues with the final HTML output (bad nested list formatting usually).

I'm not sure about the happy part. As a tech writer, I liked having a variety of things to learn but found after 6 months at a new company, the job would feel a little stale. The things I liked were having autonomy. But the downside was typically I was the one person department and usually I wished I had a team for belonging.

After working over 10 years, I think I felt my salary capped out about mid 70K (I think that was including bonus and raise for that job). But the main concern for me was I felt the opportunity for learning significant new things was capped out and I did not feel ready to be in a retirement mental frame.

These were my observations about differences with release for tech writer vs developer. On the release weeks I still stayed late but where programmers might stay until 11p or past 12a, I would typically go home latest about 8 or 9p. At the smaller companies with less process, I still got a bit of stress during release time b/c I would have to find the product changes that programmers snuck into the QA build and update the docs for.

At the end, I got a little burnt out b/c during majority of my career, I was working overtime regularly and doing long commutes but felt like my work was a necessary evil rather than impactful to the company or the product. So that has been my motivation to switch over to programming. Overall I think the main thing I felt wrong with tech writing was I did not feel a lot of job security because maybe it was not as hard as programming or some product managers assumed anyone could do it. The exception was when I had one very good tech writing manager. But if you are strong at selling yourself/marketing within the company then this is probably less of an issue. Best wishes and I don't log in here often but if you have any follow up questions, let me know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I was having serious doubts if my question made any sense at all, as there were no replies.

Could you please talk about the kind of documentation you wrote? Was it always for the products that your company developed - was it end user manuals or docs for programmers? I am not sure exactly what I want to write, but at this point I am leaning towards writing for programmers (as it is more technically rewarding) than end users. I am also interested in articles like the priceonomics blog - data analysis and commentary.

It is disheartening to learn that after a decade your salary was capped at mid 70K. This is not the case with programming, I can assure you. Good luck with your transition - programming definitely can be (and it usually is) stressful, but it is more rewarding compared to a lot of other careers. I'm done with stress, that is why I am looking at other options.

<comment><USER3> I also probably don't fit your target audience, but I'm an entry level FAANG technical writer. I make ~105k (salary + bonus + stock). My more experienced coworkers make much more than that – in my experience, tech writers definitely don't cap out at 70k (far from it!).

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry, just saw this comment.

Could you please comment on the type of documentation that you write on a daily basis?

<comment><USER3> I write developer docs (internal).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gene Simmons: Rock is dead, file sharing killed it - <AUTHOR> http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/gene-simmons-future-of-rock?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1456_85172828

<comment><USER2> Horribad commerical glam rock is dead, there's probably more bands than ever right now my local concert listings section is 7 pages long clearly people are still making music.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure rock died in the 80s. If anything file sharing will help revive it.

</comment><comment><USER4> someone guide him to setup a patreon account or kickstarter project pls!

<comment><USER5> Exactly what was going through my head when I read this article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pathetic imho - music (or rock) is not dead because people shared files... I'd argue it's stronger than ever. What died was the old-school business model of how to monetize music -- and new business models have sprung up like Pandora, Spotify, etc.

Music is an experience. In order to have an experience one must consume large amounts of music. No sane person is going to own 10,000 songs @ $.99 each ~ $10,000 sitting on their hard drive. That is just unrealistic. Concerts, swag/merch, etc are a better way to fund music, or via services like Spotify that remove ownership and change the monetization structure (why do I need to own a copy of a song? why not just charge me a very small amount every time I hear it - ad-supported music is a form of charging the consumer).

Not to mention there is a large argument and some evidence that file sharing did nothing at all to the industry since the people pirating files were not going to purchase the music anyways -- as-in their two options were pirate the music or don't have it at all. (I'm not condoning piracy, just pointing out that a large amount of piracy is not actually monetarily hurting the industry like is claimed because that money would not have entered the industry anyways). And in some cases, piracy has been proven to _help_ the music industry -- such as Metallica (and many many other bands) becoming famous off of bootleg tapes. There is an argument to be made that they would not have come to critical mass if everyday joe did not have access to the music.

Services like Pandora and Spotify have introduced me personally to artists I would never have considered before - and now I support said bands when they come to town on tour or buy purchasing merch like t-shirts, etc.

When KISS comes to town... you bet I'm going to the show.

<comment><USER7> > Services like Pandora and Spotify have introduced me personally to artists I > would never have considered before - and now I support said bands when they > come to town on tour or buy purchasing merch like t-shirts, etc.

I think this is the difference someone like Gene Simmons is overlooking. He and his band are one of a gazillion bands just like they always were, but with one difference: the other bands have much more exposure now due to these new services.

<comment><USER8> All Simmons sees is the money he would have made had there not been file sharing, and so everything is bad. He is is not paying attention to how people are making money making music today in the same sort of environment, I suppose because that has no impact on his personal revenue.</comment></comment></comment>


ShowHN: Hacky 2 – Hacker News for Mac with Favorites, iCloud, comments etc. - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackyapp.com?2

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, app developer here. First of all thanks to everybody who bought Hacky! After Hacky was released it immediately entered several top lists in the Mac App Store. Huge thanks also to all the people forking and following it on GitHub (made Hacky trending there also). Based on your feedback and pull requests I created Hacky 2 which has some huge improvements:

 _1\. Favorites with iCloud support_

Being a HN reader myself I often find myself in the situation where I know there was a pretty interesting story some time ago but not having any idea how to find it. For this reason I built Favorites into Hacky that lets you save stories and sync them with iCloud so you never have to worry about losing them.

 _2\. Comments_

To be honest, the comments are one of the most entertaining things on Hacker News, so why should I NOT want them in Hacky? ;)

 _3\. Categories_

For the people who already read all top stories, now you can also read /newest and /ask.

 _Relevant Links:_

Hacky in the Mac App Store: [https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/hacky/id584949645?l=en&m...](https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/hacky/id584949645?l=en&mt=12)

Hacky on GitHub: <https://github.com/eliaskg/Hacky>

Official Hacky Website: <http://www.hackyapp.com>

Found a bug? <https://github.com/eliaskg/Hacky/issues?state=open>

Original HN story: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170182>

Here are some Promo Codes for Hacky in the Mac App Store:

        WKWWFM9WJWK7
        99FF49K9PXWE
        XFJATKR4JNHM
        LWWTKFL6XLYF
        H99LNFWAHKET

<comment><USER2> All the codes have been redeemed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've got a really strange problem with Hacky, I haven't seen something like this before in Mac OS development.

When dragging the window, it 'jitters' a lot. I have run it a few times and it happens each time, and no other windows currently open are having this issue which leads me to the conclusion it's a bug in Hacky. This is using the current master from GitHub.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sorry to be "that guy", but there's a typo in your subheading: "Never ever loose your favorite Hacker News stories"

</comment><comment><USER5> Great job! I love that strategy, you could either pay for it or if you know how - fork it on Github.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks interesting and I will check it out later. Just an FYI, if you up vote a story on HN it is saved on your user page under saved stories.</comment>


The Secret Document That Transformed China - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-secret-document-that-transformed-china <comment><USER3> "Work hard, don't work hard — everyone gets the same," he says. "So people don't want to work."

Many people point to this idea as the main weakness (or stupidity, depending on whom you speak) of Socialism as originally proposed by Marx. However, AFAIK (and I'm definitely not an expert on this), Marx saw socialism as a post- industrial step, to be developed in countries like German, France and the UK. On the other hand, his ideas were instituted mainly in mostly feudal countries like Russia and China. His model of human nature and projections for capitalistic growth were also totally off.

Wikipedia says "Despite Marx's stress on critique of capitalism and discussion of the new communist society that should replace it, his explicit critique of capitalism is guarded, as he saw it as an improved society compared to the past ones (slavery and feudal)."

<comment><USER4> _His model of human nature and projections for capitalistic growth were also totally off._

Correct. The model of human nature proposed by Karl Marx was demonstrably incorrect, and the demonstration continues in the few countries that continue to proclaim allegiance to Marxist thought.

An interesting fact about free-enterprise (Marx might say, "capitalist") economies is that they are based in part on the writings of Adam Smith in the book On the Wealth of Nations. But before Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, he first wrote a book called The Theory of Moral Sentiments, pondering what motivates human beings to behave morally. Smith had deeper insight into human nature even before he began writing about economics proper than Marx ever had.

<comment><USER5> They aren't in competition. They both were geniuses.

Smith did not advocate laissez-faire capitalism. He was against any kind of cartel, oligopoly, or monopoly, and wanted the state to be more powerful than corporations, not controlled by corporations. Marx was right about capitalism but wrong about incentives.

Both of them should be drawn from in the creation of a next generation economic system.

<comment><USER6> How do you get a state that is "more powerful" than Corporations? I don't think Government size has anything to do with it. Are you referring to having many strong law enforcement agencies to threaten the corporations? I'd say the US Government already has that, and Corporations still seem to control it. And if you want to give China as an example, that's not an acceptable model.

In a democracy, the best way for the Government to be more powerful than Corporations, is for the people themselves to have more direct power over the Government. The more the people loosen up their grip on the Government, the more one of the 2 things happen:

1\. The Government becomes more powerful than both the people _and_ the Corporations.

2\. The Corporations become more powerful than the Government, who in turn is also more powerful than the people.

<comment><USER5> The solution is radical meritocracy and an end to privileged elites (nepotism & cronyism).

Society must not tolerate the creation of an aristocratic class, or that class will engage in anti-meritocratic privilege (nepotism & cronyism).

Meritocracy is the next step from democracy. In a meritocracy, ONLY non- privileged competent people are allowed to hold positions of power.

Corporations control the government through privilege games (cronyism and nepotism).

End the privilege games by outlawing elites from government.

End the dumbocracy (rule by the dumb) in favor of meritocracy (rule by those who have proven scientific credentials)

So the health minister should be elected by all who can prove they are informed about health - they hold medical degrees, biology degrees, or can pass the relevant exams. These educated meritocratic voters from the science community elect the health minister.

The real problem of corporations controlling government is a problem of aristocratic dynasties and privileged super-rich elites gaming the system to consolidate wealth and power. It's simple game theory.

The solution is cutting off the power of elites and placing power in the hands of non-superrich meritocratic highly educated experts who have no sex appeal but do have proven competence in their scientific field. These meritocrats, given power by the votes of informed people, would be able to reign in the out of control disasterous cronyism and nepotism that has destroyed our economy.

The solution is meritocracy. Democracy itself needs to be modified in such a way that a tiny group of elite families no longer dominate it. One big way to remove their power is instituting a wealth cap, say $100 million per person. Another way is through inheritance tax. The tax dollars from the superrich should go to empower the poor through high quality education at the private schools where the superrich send their children currently.

When stupid people ask you how our country is going to get out this mess, you respond, "by empowering scientific experts and disempowering the (a) stupid Christians (b) privileged war-mongers (c) nepotists and (d) crony capitalists"

Meritocracy is the only way out of this broken country. Credible, sensible, rational scientific policies can save us. Dumbocracy and privilege will destroy us.

<comment><USER7> It sounds very pretty, but our evolutionary heritage is all about exploiting opportunities in order to secure a more advantaged position.

The problem with a meritocracy is that it must be policed in order to make sure that it is indeed operating as a meritocracy. However, all it takes is a little leverage over the watchmen to change it into a meritocracy in name only. All systems requiring policing have this weakness. And since there is a strong economic incentive to subverting the system for personal gain, corruption is an eventuality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article is well written but a little light on facts.

From my bad and distant memory;

The terms of the contract stated that you had to give X amount to the collective from your land, anything over and above this you kept. The X amount was originally set to be the same as the previous years harvest. The local collective had to raise the amount X a few times so it would appear that they where role models within the system.

It was only after other farmers in the region saw the results that they copied the process. It was eventually turned into the standard for a lot of China.

There are differing versions of the same story around depending on what the politics are for the writer. This version sticks to the American line of "The officials swore at him, treated him like he was on death row.". The Chinese version probably made the villagers look like model, conforming, hardworking and communist loving citizens.

I am neither American or Chinese, I am just fascinated by history and the differing ways it is represented. "History is written by the winners."

<comment><USER9> >"The officials swore at him, treated him like he was on death row."

Presumably since they interviewed him, this is his account of the story, not an American slanted version.

<comment><USER10> In fact, you can hear him speak on the podcast: [https://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/13/145184551/the- fri...](https://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/13/145184551/the-friday- podcast-the-secret-document-that-transformed-china)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting article, but I find this part a bit disingenuous:

 _Within a few years, farms all over China adopted the principles in that secret document. People could own what they grew. The government launched other economic reforms, and China's economy started to grow like crazy. Since 1978, something like 500 million people have risen out of poverty in China._

Though not explicitly stated, the passage seems to imply that the rise from poverty is wholly due to the capitalistic reforms, and a china without these reforms would not have seen any (at least major) similar change. Now this is a china that just decades earlier was destroyed by both the japanese and a civil war. Improvements take time, and these kind of cheap tricks ignore both that and a historical perspective. Sorry for the rant, but these tricks are all too common, and I think we can afford ourselves some more intellectual honesty rather then let things pass with these ideological slants, unintentional though they may be.

<comment><USER12> Western Europe was destroyed by the bombing campaigns of World War II, yet sprung back to wealth within 20 years.

China was devastated by Japan, by civil war, _and_ by ruinously stupid communist policies. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were directly imposed by the CCP with Mao as the leading figure.

It is not a "trick" to point out the objectively verifiable consequences of the decisions made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How in the world does the article end where it does? It finally gets interesting and then it cuts off.

</comment><comment><USER14> What?! Right as that was getting good, it ended. I looked to see if there was a second page. How does it go from the changes in the 1970s to empty factories today?

</comment><comment><USER15> > "Each family agreed to turn over some of what they grew to the government, > and to the collective"

Despite the articles pro-capitalist rhetoric, note that the 'collective' is also creating its own taxes (presumably to help those less well off) - <USER2> it unhelpfully doesnt say what these were.

<comment><USER16> "Despite the articles pro-capitalist rhetoric"

Ah, so it wasn't just me who heard "Closer to the Heart" play ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For an interesting twist on the tired old communism vs capitalism debate, read Michel Bauwens of the p2p foundation philosophize on how aspects of Marxism were 'ill-conceived' while alternativley, the thriving p2p economy is a viable successor to capitalism.

[https://snuproject.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/and-the- debate-b...](https://snuproject.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/and-the-debate- begins-peer-to-peer-and-marxism-analogies-and-differences-jean-lievens- interviewed-with-michel-bauwens/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm getting down voted to oblivion for this...

Even in the year 2012, after all these years, Americans still need to hear stories that directly outline why communism doesn't work, and good old competitive capitalism is the way of the future.

I wonder how many of you reading this in America even stopped to think about the message you're being fed.

I wonder how many of you reading this in America have absolutely no clue the rest of the developed world does not feed this kind of thing to it's citizens.

Stay clear of those evil commies...

<comment><USER19> What? So you think this is nothing more than propaganda?

<comment><USER8> Pretty much everything written by one country's media about another country is propaganda.

There is just as much propaganda in American media as there is in Chinese Media.

Does Rupert Murdoch support SOPA or is it the fine informed editors at the Wall Street Journal? Rupert wouldn't use his media as a propaganda network for his own benefit would he?

There is no propaganda in American Media, none at all. It's only the evil commies that have propaganda.

<comment><USER20>
      > Pretty much everything written by one country's media
      > about another country is propaganda.

You say this, yet you only attack American media for propaganda. Would you say the same thing about a BBC article on Iraq? A French article on Spain?

<comment><USER8> In general, yes I would say the same thing. I am certain a German article on the economic situation in Greece is going to be quite different to an article in a Greek newspaper.

My intent wasn't to attack Americans or American media so much as to outline an example as to how Rupert Murdoch (and others) uses the media for his own gain. This is by no means limited to the US. He has a multinational media network.

People like Kim Jong-un also write propaganda but are limited by the reach of their media network.

My apologies if I offended any anyone, this was certainly not my intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's interesting to revisit events like this in the present-day US. One can only wonder what sort of change might take place if rather than giving up 50% of what we make, we were allowed to reinvest it into our homes, businesses, and communities. Perhaps states like Texas and New Hampshire could be held up as the poster-children for a new direction in US policy? Unlikely, but one can dream, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER22> If everyone works hard, everyone gets to keep more. Because more is produced. If only some work hard, then the whole group cannot produce as much.

Perhaps every worker has a different threshhold for what they will settle for in terms of what amount of the harvest they would like to retain.

All the HR people reading HN know exactly what I'm talking about.

<comment><USER23> You're missing the classic game theory element. If everyone is working hard, everyone gets X. But if I decide to slack off, everyone gets X minus some tiny fraction, _including me_.

Game theory tells us this kind of system will fall apart practically instantly.

I forget the details, but I think Marx tried to dismiss that problem through an appeal to nationalism.

<comment><USER24> Marx also believed that no capitalist country would ever, say, abolish child labor, institute universal education, and create universal health care.

He further believed that a government can 'wither away'.

Marx has been proven wrong in ways that have nothing to do with how well Communism/Socialism works as a system.

<comment><USER25> > Marx also believed that no capitalist country would ever, say, abolish child > labor, institute universal education, and create universal health care.

Could you provide some reference to support that, please?

<comment><USER24> This is a surprisingly good summary:

<http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Marxism.html>

Aside from that, you can read Marx in translation or in the original.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This was a Planet Money podcast. I don't know if it was any different (I just skimmed it), but I always really enjoy the presentation and style of Planet Money.

[http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=944...](http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=94411890)</comment>


Whirlpool's "Internet of Things" problem: No one wants a "smart" washing machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/28/whirlpools-internet-of-things-problem-no-one-really-wants-a-smart-washing-machine/

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that ones a bit of overkill. I just want one that notifies me via my phone that it's done washing, and reminds me when I've forgotten it and there's clothes rotting in the basin.

<comment><USER3> That, and maybe some sort of way to scan the care tag inside my clothing to auto-set the washer/dryer to the right setting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This thing will be sought when it will become a commodity, unlike a premium as it is now. Also, I think the "intelligent" factor in things has yet to mature, as it can not yet anticipate all the new ways of usage that the infusion of computing and connectivity empowers. The difference between what "intelligent" vs. "simple" things are will only get bigger.</comment>


UK government confirms Windows XP support deal has ended (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2406304/windows-xp-government-support-deal-ends-leaving-pcs-open-to-attack <comment><AUTHOR> > "It is therefore essential that all NHS organisations put in place robust > plans to migrate away from Windows XP, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003 by that > date."

This is fair enough ... but then they conspicuously failed to fund IT upgrading the XP to something supported. There have been swingeing cuts across the NHS in the last several years. Leading directly to last night.</comment>


The Future of Coal Country - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/03/the-future-of-coal-country <comment><USER2> _Shutting the mine could eliminate more than seven thousand jobs, in a county of thirty-seven thousand people. "Greene County will become a ghost town," the neighbor wrote._

Isn't that the normal fate of towns built around resource extraction after the resource is economically exhausted? The American West is littered with ghost town remnants around depleted mines. It doesn't make much more sense to stay in a coal mining town in Someplace, Appalachia after the coal is gone than to stay in a silver mining town in Someplace, Colorado after the silver is gone.

I saw similar grievances from dying logging towns when I was growing up in the Pacific Northwest. The flashpoint was government action to protect the remnants of old growth forest that the endangered Spotted Owl lived in. The underlying problem was that loggers were exploiting old growth forest faster than it could regenerate. Deregulation wasn't going to make their way of life sustainable. You can't extract what isn't there any more.

If the residents of these coal-centered towns can find a way to reinvent the local economy to _not_ depend on declining mines, that's great. I wish them luck with that. But most probably won't. We need to prepare to help people transition to other regions and other opportunities when the mines are no longer making money and the towns around them no longer prosper.

<comment><USER3> I'm originally from an area not in coal country, but right by it and heavily influenced by it. I couldn't agree with you more. Both my home state and the federal government are already essentially subsidizing these people to live in these communities simply because it's where they were born. There is no infrastructure for jobs because there are no industries other than coal and growing marijuana / making moonshine (although these are done on either an amateur level or highly consolidated).

I am normally a big fan of welfare and similar social services, but especially when they empower recipients to get back on their feet. There are plenty of communities in appalachia with sky-high unemployment and a huge percentage of their residents essentially draw SSI for most of their lives. They need to move, because they and their children will just draw welfare in perpetuity at the expense of everyone else.

Of course, there aren't a whole lot of ethical ways to get them to move. Forcing them to move is obviously a terrible idea. Making welfare/SSI contingent on moving could work, but will be absolutely terrible for those with all their wealth tied up in their house. It's a hard problem to solve, especially since a lot of these people are okay with / used to just making enough to get by.

<comment><USER4> How is this different from the narratives of "welfare dependence" and "inter- generational poverty" advanced by republicans to advocate for deep cuts to urban welfare?

If there are more people in a city than it provides opportunity for it seems to me to be a similar cruelty to incentivize them to stay in one place because they have "roots" there or something equally vague.

<comment><USER5> Good point.

I know folks on the right screamed about the 'welfare queens' living on the tax payers' dime in the inner cities for generation after generation. In reality, this was a coded attack against blacks, and the majority of the claims were hyperbole.

But now the left has begun making the same mean-spirited attacks on uneducated whites from Appalachia, the Midwest, and the south.

Both types of stereotypes are annoying to hear repeated again and again.

<comment><USER2> I agree that people should remain compassionate. I understand why some people experience schadenfreude when it's rural Republican voters failing to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" after hearing that advice given to urban Democratic voters, but tit-for-tat shaming is not humane. These people largely don't vote how I vote but they are still my fellow citizens. They have dependent children and elders. Some degree of suffering is probably unavoidable, because relocation is painful and many of these towns don't have long term futures. I don't want their residents to experience unnecessary suffering as some sort of lesson. We should try to help the people transition to better opportunities in other regions.

If the residents refuse that sort of help and instead demand that the government somehow make the old mines profitable again, _then_ one may indulge in some exasperated eyeball-rolling and mockery, but I'm trying not to do that preemptively.

<comment><USER6> Shaming is an important part of society. It's how we incentivize positive behaviors and discourage negative ones.

<comment><USER7> Like slut shaming, gay bashing, nerd bullying? Or maybe you'd like to better qualify or narrow your assertion? Because multiple generations did this, for exactly the reasons you state: it was good for society.

<comment><USER8> Except for the crucial difference that progressives generally don't think sluts, gays, or nerds are engaging in negative behaviour.

<comment><USER7> The point is that society can be confused on what is positive and negative behavior, and end up scapegoating. And it is effective only in a reptilian brain context.

It'd be similarly ignorant to praise murdering your enemies. Sure no doubt about it, it's really effective. Doesn't mean it's legal or ethical.

These things are brute force hammers. If you really think shaming has value, read the Scarlet Letter.

<comment><USER8> Of course shaming can be abused or misguided, just like almost everything in this world we live in. The idea that we shouldn't use something just because it can possibly be abused is ridiculous. Like everything, it has a degree of risk that we weigh and judge as moral agents.

And we all live in a "reptilian brain context". I'm not sure what other context there is. It makes no sense to reason about society as if we weren't all half a chromosome away from a chimpanzee.

<comment><USER7> Your idea of shaming works only because you've had success bullying weaker opponents who back down, and appear to learn the "lesson" you're generously handing out.

Find an on par opponent and you'll get escalation of shaming, get your ass handed back to you with wit, or the person will just ignore you.

So I refuse that it's effective. It's perhaps been effective for you, self selective bias. You probably don't shame people you've sized up who won't respond to shaming the way you want.

<comment><USER8> In case you've forgotten, this discussion thread is about societal shame, not individual bullying as you seem to imply. Societal shame isn't individuals engaging other individuals in some kind of shame battle. It actually consists of collective exclusion and isolation. Society (and the institutional structures that comprise it) doesn't get its "ass handed back" by people who buck its pressures; at most, these pariahs ignore society and get ignored in return.

But yeah, I totally only believe this because I'm a successful bully (◔_◔)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, when I look at what Norway has done with its oil money, I wonder what prevented communities like these from doing the same thing. Removal of the coal from the ground generated excess value, otherwise the mines would have lost money and been closed already. Where did this excess value actually flow? Did the community actually capture enough of the value flow to change its fate? Or did it only capture enough to survive, and now since that value flow is ending so does its survival?

<comment><USER10> That excess value was captured by a select few, rather than by the government (as in Norway).

<comment><USER11> And Norway was basically warned about the problem by an Iraqi that had experienced it once before.

Not that the oil fund is perfect. Using it can drive the currency haywire.

<comment><USER12> The problem is that extractive industries drive Dutch Disease. A Sovereign Wealth Fund can fight it, but Dutch Disease will have an effect. (The other thing that can be done is to have the entire country save more, by running a budget surplus and encouraging individuals to save more as well. This is... somewhat hard to do, in practice, without incredibly strong social cohesion.)

<comment><USER13> It's a lot easier to do when important sectors of your economy aren't addicted to consumer credit. People don't buy tankers full of oil on credit cards, but they do buy Fords.

<comment><USER14> Blaming debtors for indebtedness is like blaming heroin addicts for drug- running. It's a two-sided market, and savings gluts can and will drive down the price of credit until the market clears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Trump says he is going to bring back coal as a part of his program to make America great again.

But the reason America was so great is that it was at the leading edge of technological change. That is relevant because in the 19th century, coal was the hot new technology. It was used for powering factory machines, electric generators, railroads and steam boats, heating, and producing steel.

But technology continued to advance, and coal has gradually been replaced. It survives today only for steel production and part of electric generation, and even there it is being replaced by gas and renewables.

So when Trump wants to revive coal, he is going backwards technologically, and that would mean losing out in the global economy, too.

Any Trump defenders want to disagree?

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't say we are going technologically backwards if you take a systemic look at energy, manufacturing, & infrastructure.

Steel is needed to rebuild existing infrastructure (roads, bridges, railroads) that have been falling apart over the years.

Steel is also needed to new infrastructure (buildings, electrical grid, solar panels (including those which will line the Mexican border wall), walls, housing, equipment, manufacturing).

Coal power is also inexpensive, transportable (power generation can be localized), & cleaner than ever. There's also a lot of coal left to be mined (> 260 bn short tons; 200 years).

[http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Energy.html](http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Energy.html)

Coal can also be converted to diesel allowing states to create their own energy & reducing our need for foreign fuel sources. This will have geopolitical ramifications. Even if we decide to move toward renewable resources, having this coal stockpile in our back pocket will give leverage in acquiring the rare earth minerals needed for batteries & solar cells.

Also note that China & India burn a lot of coal, even though they could leap frog to a new energy infrastructure, giving more evidence that there must be compelling reasons to do so.

<comment><USER17> "Cleaner than ever" still ain't clean.

"I murdered fewer people last year!" would be a terrible defense for Jack The Ripper.

<comment><USER16> > "Cleaner than ever" still ain't clean.

Ok, less dirty. Happy?

> "I murdered fewer people last year!" would be a terrible defense for Jack > The Ripper.

By that logic, solar & wind are not clean either. You still have to mine for & process rare earth minerals for solar cells & batteries. Not to mention the poor Chinese workers who process the electronics in poor working conditions. How about the extra infrastructure needed to support solar cells & wind turbines everywhere, as you have power loss with power transmission over a distance.

Neither is fission clean. Perhaps Thorium is relatively clean?

> China and India burn a lot of coal... because they have a lot of > inhabitants. But they have also got much more renewables than the US.

China & India are also building infrastructure, which uses steel. I don't think there's any qualms about using renewables in the US. It's a matter of letting the technology mature in the free market & reducing the Federal Budget & lowering taxes. When renewables are more mature, the US will adopt them more.

Note that there are several alternative technologies being developed. Thorium, Biogas, Fusion, etc. When these technologies mature, we can use them all in combination; taking "the right tool for the right job" approach.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


US blacklists 17 firms from applying H1-B - <AUTHOR> http://gulte.com/movienews/61927/US-blacklists-17-firms-from-applying-H1-B <comment><USER2> This does nothing. The 'little guys' have gotten scape-goated.

I don't see Infosys, CapGemini, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), Cognizant, Tech Mahindra or for that matter any of the Top 10 H1B Visa Abusers [1] in this List.

Business as Usual.

It's strikingly similar to the list of countries in the Trump's Muslim Ban wherein countries that sponsored terrorism, but that in which he had business interests in ,were not listed, incl. Saudi Arabia ( 15 of the 19 911 hijackers were Saudi Citizens)

EDIT: Addressing @praneshp's question. Microsoft might be a red herring, but the rest, esp. the Indian Companies like TCS, Infosys, Congnizant are also the TOP 10 Abusers of H1B Visa. Speaking from personal experience here. I've written at length about this on Quora, so don't want to re-hash it. You can read it here => [https://www.quora.com/Being-on-H1B-is-it-worth-joining- TCS-i...](https://www.quora.com/Being-on-H1B-is-it-worth-joining-TCS-in-the- US-1/answer/Shiva-Kumar-1902?srid=C5p)

Not only do these Indian Companies abuse the H1B Visa program, but they also abuse and underpay the workers they bring on the H1B Program. I've written about this also in my Quora answer linked above.

[1] Source: [https://sc.cnbcfm.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/files/...](https://sc.cnbcfm.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/files/2017/04/18/H-1BVisas-01_0.png)

<comment><USER3> Asking because I have no clue: You just linked to the top-10 H1B holders, not abusers, no? I see Microsoft on that list, and find it difficult to believe they are abusers.

From what I know from extended family, firms like the ones in the link do things like faking a job/resume, etc. Do the large Indian firms do that as well, in addition to flooding the lottery pool?

<comment><USER4> Microsoft hires thousands of H1B workers for generic roles like project manager and software developer.

Do you really think there aren't Americans that could fill those roles? Of course there are but it would cost more. A true shortage would not affect Microsoft at all. They have as much money as anyone.

This is a dirty secret of tech that you can't discuss without being labeled racist or xenophobic no matter how untrue that is.

<comment><USER5> I have hired a few H1-Bs, and here is how the first step goes:

Before you file for a H1-B visa with USCIS, employer needs to get Department of Labor (DOL) certification. Employers have to advertise the job in local media for 30 days. Jobs have to offer median salary for the given skill based on DOL numbers (Roughly $104K per year).

All resumes received, and interview notes must be included in DOL application for labor certification. If a qualified American applied for the job, DOL rejects the certification request.

I would love to hear where you see a material flaw in this process. To me it signifies there is a real talent shortage.

<comment><USER6> Here is the flaw, material or otherwise: (a) companies post jobs with descriptions that filter out all but the candidate they are filing for DOL certification. Next time, look at your company postings with exacting requirements: 3 yrs of experience in the stack A, 5 years in the language X, 6 years in Y, etc. That's how the game is played. (b) During green card processing, I have seen companies setting up fake interviews only to disqualify whoever comes for the interview. I was a victim of that.

<comment><USER5> I have seen pretty much every company be guilty of (a), so it is hard to regulate it away.

(b) seems downright malicious and/or stupid. Why conduct fake interviews if employer is going to pay the same amount? Especially when you future foreign worker won't be able to work for you till next October at the earliest?

<comment><USER6> (b) is to file I-140 for those who have been already on H1B. If I were an employer, and if I wanna apply for I-140 for one of my employees who is on H1B, I need to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The actual source list: [https://www.dol.gov/whd/immigration/H1BDebarment.htm](https://www.dol.gov/whd/immigration/H1BDebarment.htm)

"The Wage and Hour Division maintains the list below of willful violator employers under the H-1B program."

One really odd stand out on the list... Popeyes chicken?!?

Yummi Enterprises, Inc. d/b/a Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen 1310 El Camino Real San Bruno, CA 94066

<comment><USER8> I'd guess this is a single franchise owner abusing H-1b petitions, not Popeye's corporate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Strange move given that all you could do to stop the current abuse is to start prioritizing the applications by salary rather than picking them randomly until the cap is reached.

<comment><USER10> That would penalize startups, giving only large companies access to the foreign labour pool. It's rare that a problem like this has a simple solution.

<comment><USER11> Startups do not use H1B workers. A startup is actually hiring someone for a role and they can't take the risk that their guy will lose the lottery. Plus, the application is just beyond what most startups are going to have the time to do.

<comment><USER12> That is not even remotely true. Anyone who can afford a software developer can afford an immigration attorney to handle applying for an H1B.

Plus it usually takes 2-3 years to know if someone isn't going to get the H1B lottery during their OPT which is a longer time horizon than most startups are concerned with anyways.

I think most startups simply hire who they view as the most qualified person regardless of immigration status.

Source: Have a startup that hires software developers.

<comment><USER3> > That is not even remotely true. Anyone who can afford a software developer > can afford an immigration attorney to handle applying for an H1B.

The problem with using sweeping statements like "anyone who can..." is that one example is enough to disprove you. There'll be Who's Hiring thread in a couple of days, watch how many young startups say no new H1Bs on that.

Your OPT case is only true when hiring a student on F1

<comment><USER12> > The problem with using sweeping statements like "anyone who can..." is that > one example is enough to disprove you. There'll be Who's Hiring thread in a > couple of days, watch how many young startups say no new H1Bs on that.

We don't have to wait - we can look at the one from last month: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15384262](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15384262)

I did a Ctrl+F and nothing came up for "H1B" and the only thing that came up for "citizen" was a job posting for the US government itself.

<comment><USER3> Did you keep clicking on see more and get the entire page? Give me an hour or so, I'll find you a few links when I'm off the Caltrain.

Edit: I had to get to page3, but: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15391862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15391862)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15386201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15386201)

(Though I believe the second one is some team specific thing, I know that at least AWS sponsor H1Bs for fresh grads).

Then on p5: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15384311](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15384311)

(I was confident about this because I was job hunting about a year ago, and was exclusively looking at companies under 50 people. Most of them were fine with H1B transfer, but explicitly said no new applications.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wouldn't it been better for there to have been a silent blacklist? Won't these companies just rename themselves now to get around this restriction?

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't see how by only blocking firms will help clean this H1B abuse. The H1B visa abusers and spammers should be screened out before the applications are put into the lottery. Having this process in place, companies like Infosys, TCS etc. can't misuse it as all the 'real' and 'well-deserved' applications are in lottery.

</comment><comment><USER15> What would keep these affected companies from creating new companies to engage in the same behavior?

<comment><USER16> Or outsource to a company that does the visas for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Surprised to not see Infosys on this list.

Business as usual for H-1B cheaters.</comment>


Google swaps "Video" search with "YouTube" - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/mQUzD.png

<comment><USER2> I saw this today and was wondering how long that'd been like that.

The other thing I thought I saw was they stopped hijacking the search result links for me briefly, but it's probably too much to hope they get rid of that permanently.</comment>


Grunt Work - <AUTHOR> http://ninjasandrobots.com/grunt-work <comment><USER2> Such a humbling post. There's not many people giving this advice: "So you want to create an app that helps a customer? Why not work for that customer at minimum wage first?"

</comment><comment><USER3> Another option might be to offer your product to some potential customers for free in return for their letting you observe them running their businesses for a few days.</comment>


How to Become a Data Scientist from Software Developer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@venkateshpnk22/how-to-become-a-data-scientist-from-software-developer-9ae868287fdd <comment><USER2> "they can make more money being a data scientist than a software developer". DS roles are over hyped. It's not always that DS earn more than SDE guys. Anyways, thanks for sharing resources.</comment>


How to pitch a VC - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/pitching-a-vc-why-financials-matter-2011-10

<comment><AUTHOR> Great questions to ask yourself, and your financial models.</comment>


TV After YouTube - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2010/05/tv-after-youtube/

<comment><USER2> _You can't pause it, you can't record it, you just have to watch it, like broadcast or cable TV pre-TiVO. And that makes it an ideal commercial medium and one very good for preserving intellectual property rights, unlike all those others._

There's just one little problem, consumers don't want to go back to a pre-TiVO world. Emulating broadcast TV on the web isn't going to fly. It reminds me of 'push technology' which ultimately failed because consumers didn't want it.

<comment><USER3> Well, it might work if you could deliver the content when the consumer wants. Broadcast TV works because I know every half hour something new is beginning or I can look up in the TV Menu when something is going to come on.

P2P Broadcasting will always be chaotic in nature and thats the underlying problem. If they could somehow guarantee order and reliability, then they could pull it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I sure hope the future of consuming video content is more similar to YouTube than TV. There are still obvious economic problems, that's why I only hope, not predict.

The continuos nature of broadcasting always seemed like a big downside to me. Being able to watch the same content whenever you want – not whenever the broadcaster wants – seems like a obvious advantage to me. That just wasn't feasible until a few years ago. Maybe it still isn't feasible. But I sure hope we are coming closer.

P2P TV might still be the future for all the stuff that really should be broadcast live (breaking news, ceremonies, sports) but I don't think we will need more channels in the future. What we have now might do.

<comment><USER5> The future of "online television" isn't YouTube or Veetle, it's Netflix On Demand and subscription Hulu. Quality, organized content, modest subscription prices, and while I'm not stupid enough to hope "no ads" I hope there's at least a "no ads" option for $$$.

<comment><USER4> Both of which is as of yet only available in the US :(

I also don't hope that the future is exactly like YouTube, just that there will be YouTube-like (i.e. on demand) services – like Hulu or Netflix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think he's spot on when he says "The aha! moment with Veetle is when you realize it is just like having a cable TV system with a million channels."

However, what Cringely doesn't address is how these programs will be _discovered_. Discovery and search on TV is still in the Stone Age although there is abundant metadata. The situation is already bad with the current ~200 cable channels. Having thousands (or millions) of channels will necessitate a Google for TV.

<comment><USER7> Apparently 200 channels has already necessitated a Google for TV

<http://www.google.com/tv/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > that can't be interrupted, paused, or changed and can't be very easily > recorded, either.

Umm, it's very easy to record anything on your screen, e.g. with Snapz.

</comment><comment><USER9> He's saying YouTube isn't profitable because it's content is crap, at least partially.

The counter-point, of course, is that in the age of targeted advertising.. isn't broadcast advertising (in terms of CPM) completely over-rated?

I have a feeling that contextual video advertising is currently underrated, just as traditional broadcast advertising is overrated. In terms of dollar amounts spent.

</comment><comment><USER3> Youtube though is almost always reliable. The problem with P2P TV is that if you are in the middle of watching your favorite show and your broadcaster's computer goes down because their cat is walking on the power cables, you blame the _service_ for its bad quality, not the broadcaster.

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't a traditional delivery model for video work as a failover if the P2P traffic is not high enough and have that always acting as one of the P2P video seeders?

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what their model is going to be. If they are going to host video, then yes, that will make it much more reliable. However then they will be liable for DMCA takedown requests and whatnot.</comment></comment></comment>