Panetta Warns of Dire Threat of Cyberattack on U.S. - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/world/panetta-warns-of-dire-threat-of-cyberattack.html <comment><USER2> The money wasted on these pork bills and civil rights violations that will probably pass with flying colors regardless of who wins the election could be better spent buying every 0day for sale. Imagine a few billion in a fund just for buying zero days for sale and forcing the companies with the vulnerable product to tell its customers that it had vulnerabilities and that they've now been patched. Heck, tax companies that write insecure software more.

Instead, we'll see some federal guidelines that do nothing but enrich connected defense IT contractors milking the endless cow of defense spending.

<comment><AUTHOR> relevant > [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/local/highest-i...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/local/highest-income-counties/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > They could derail passenger trains, or even more dangerous, derail passenger > trains loaded with lethal chemicals.

Why are passenger trains loaded with lethal chemicals in the first place?

<comment><USER4> Even worse! They could derail passenger trains loaded with lethal chemicals and nuclear weapons!

<comment><USER5> Mock him if you must.

Panetta raises the issue that a combination of attacks could cause loss of life and a new sense of vulnerability among the public. (From the article: "...would cause physical destruction and the loss of life, an attack that would paralyze and shock the nation and create a profound new sense of vulnerability.")

The last time the public had that sudden sense of vulnerability, on 9/11 of course, there was a tremendous and partly counterproductive reaction that we're still dealing with.

It could be smarter to put in place laws to force private companies to report cyberattacks, so the government can understand the scope of the problem, than to pay for the reactive spasms that would follow a successful attack.

<comment><USER6> The last time the public had that sudden sense of vulnerability, the government did everything in their power to stoke those anaphylactic fires. Panetta wants more money, pure and simple, and he knows that fear of the unknown is the best way to get sound bites and the Congressional ear.

They don't _want_ smart - otherwise we'd already be doing the smart thing.

<comment><USER5> "government ... stoked": yes, I agree. It's a shame.

I think Panetta partly wants money, but even more, wants laws changed so that privately-operated infrastructure has to have certain security provisions. His agency can't compel it without a law.

History has shown that market forces are not always sufficient to guard against catastrophic events.

<comment><AUTHOR> He Can always testify before congress...No? Every political fundraising memo is form of "Guy X warns of Doom...Act Now...send your $$$" Where was he for Bhengazi?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a friend who works for Saudi Aramco. They tried to play down the effects of the attack, but they had to replace 30,000 hard drives. My friend's work for the past year was wiped out. The only people who were saved were those who made local back-ups on USB drives which were not connected. In most large companies, there are strict rules about connecting personal hard drives to the company's network, but in this case, those who violated the rules were able to survive the attack best. Back-ups were compromised as well. It is not clear why Aramco did not have back-ups which were offline and accessible.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have a genius plan to protect computers and networks from cyber attacks, I plan on selling it to the Government I really think it's a good idea. My asking price will be at least $1.2 billion for a minimum 10 year contract, but I'd be willing to negotiate a little bit to stay competitive with competitors like Lockheed.

1) Disconnect any computer from the Internet that controls anything that can be compromised.

2) Keep the computers disconnected.

BAM! no Internet connection, no cyber-security threat. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to fire up my Ubuntu terminal and derail a passenger train full of chemicals whilst simultaneously breaking down a dam wall in another terminal window.

Seriously though, I think we're all doomed if dams, nuclear reactors, airports and passenger train networks are as accessible from the Internet as Panetta says they are in the first place...

<comment><USER9> I wonder if autonomous Internet surveillance understands sarcasm. You're probably on some watch list now, sad as that may be.

<comment><USER8> I thought the exact same thing as you after posting and re-reading my comment. If they come after me, I guess I'll have to open up another terminal window and hack into their car computer system and make them drive in the wrong direction, after I hack all traffic lights to slow them down of course ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What the hell is a "defensive" "cyberweapon"? Are we going to shoot down an incoming SSH session? Poison a compromised SSL session? Like screaming aircraft in space, these people have no idea what cyber warfare looks like.

How do they expect to defend against it?

<comment><USER11> If you look closely at what they are proposing, the new bills and the new budgets almost always go into "offensive cyber capabilities" not defensive ones. So while they keep the fearmongering about cyber attacks, all they are doing is building better weapons to attack others themselves, and has nothing to do with protection, which also creates a loop where if the US does get attack because the networks are not protected, they get to demand for even more funding, and continue the cycle.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. This is a ploy to spend money building our offensive weapons. Pork for a campaign contributor, sharp sticks for the intelligence agencies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think we can safely assume that these bureaucrats know nothing at all about Cyber-anything. I don't think we even need to ask where this statement ultimately leads. It leads to a total loss of internet anonymity. It may take a generation for that to be a given, but that's clearly the goal. That goal provides about as much value to the nation as the "war on terror." The end of the cold war sure left quite a vacuum. It took about a decade to find something to take its place.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good thing we didn't provoke Iran by attacking with cyber-warfare.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wish that every headline of this type had windows in parentheses ... "Panetta Warns of Dire Threat of (Windows) Cyberattack on U.S."

How many years ago were we up on that stage at defcon while bo2k was demoed ? And 12 years later nation states (Iran) are getting owned by the same old autorun.inf.

<comment><USER15> Humans are still humans. Software security can increase but people are still weak and convenience versus security is a common trade off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article appears to expose a serious violation against the International Olympic Committed by the inappropriate use of "Olympic Games".

While it is possible that a proper license was obtained, it seems extremely unlikely that the IOC would permit there trademark to be used for an operation instigating a terrorist attack against one of its members countries and I am currently unaware of the IOC adopting hacking as a completive sport.

The article states "Mr. Obama ordered sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran's main nuclear enrichment plants, according to participants in the program. He decided to accelerate the attacks, which were begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games,"

</comment><comment><USER17> Modern witch doctor has things he wants.

</comment><comment><USER18> Since when is it ok for a US official to talk about China and Russia as "adversaries"?

</comment><comment><USER19> Probably spoken for the law makers.

</comment><comment><USER20> Well then take those systems off the internet. Problem 100% solved.

Why the heck are they on the internet in the first place?

<comment><USER21> unfortunately i think 100% is quite an overstatement. (given that we're talking about people dying, and all).

<comment><USER21> i'm sorry. the downvotes would suggest when your network is not connected to the internet you are invulnerable to cyber attacks? lol

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _"I'm not sure they're going to volunteer if they don't feel that they're protected legally in terms of sharing information. So our hope is that ultimately we can get Congress to adopt that kind of legislation,"_

Translation: Before we loot their databases, we have to reassure them that they are not liable.</comment>


Can Citizens Become a Political Force? - <AUTHOR> http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2014/06/can-citizens-become-political-force.html

<comment><USER2> There is no consistent correlation between money and U.S. federal electoral success, when other factors such as incumbency are controlled for.

Even the Sunlight Foundation, in studying the 2012 federal election, concluded that the increased outside spending had no measurable effect.

The idea that the U.S. electoral system is hostage to big money interests is largely a myth. While Congress as a whole has very low approval ratings, most members of Congress have good approval ratings in their districts and states. In addition, the policy platforms being pursued by those members of Congress also enjoy strong approval from their voters.

The system actually does work. The problem is that voters disagree with _each other_ vehemently on a number of issues, and therefore demand that their elected representatives achieve ideological victory in both directions at once.</comment>


Tell HN: Hacker News's favicon is missing? - <AUTHOR> I browse hacker news using Mozilla Firefox on Ubuntu. I don't know it just happened to me or to everyone that HN's favicon is missing. When I see the HTML source code, there is a favicon. <comment><USER2> Appears to still be there, please try going to: [https://news.ycombinator.com/favicon.ico](https://news.ycombinator.com/favicon.ico) to see what comes up.

Resource Request Information: Location: [https://news.ycombinator.com/favicon.ico](https://news.ycombinator.com/favicon.ico) Size: 256px x 256px, Cached:No, Type: X-ICON image, HTTP/1.1 200 OK, Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 03:04:01 GMT

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. It shows on that page but doesn't show on the browser tab. I don't know maybe cache problem.

It's just small problem that don't have to worried about.

<comment><USER3> Getting all the browsers pick the favicon is more difficult than it seams.

Retry in a few hours and retry from another computer. If the problem is still there, you can send a message to the mods firstname.lastname@example.com (preferably with a screenshot). I think they'll be happy to get the bug report and fix it.

(For this kind of topics it's better to use the email than a post, because the post sometimes is unnoticed and they usually reply to the email in less than two hours.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for suggestion @gus_massa.

I will be contacting them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


EU fines Mastercard more than half a billion euros - <AUTHOR> https://www.dw.com/en/eu-fines-mastercard-more-than-half-a-billion-euros/a-47179421 <comment><USER2> The card payment industry duopoly (in europe at least) is a really weird one that seems to go mostly unnoticed.

I often wonder how much goes into the pockets of these companies who are essentially providing an easily replaceable service if it were not for the entrenched reality. (IE; to compete you'd need an entirely new card system that would be incompatible with the others, and thus your card would be unusable in most places)

That said, I can't complain too much about VISA; which (Apple Pay and Samsung Pay also uses on the backend, there is no escape in Europe) -- they seem to be processing things fairly well, even if I don't understand how much both parties paying for such a service.

<comment><USER3> Here in Denmark, the story is a bit different. Many consumers here use a Dankort, which is a national debit card. The fees are low and regulated by the government. It is usually combined with a Visa so that it can be used abroad as well.

<comment><USER4> And in Germany it's Girocard[1]. You couldn't even buy a metro ticket with a Visa / MasterCard in Berlin a few years ago. And maybe you still can't.

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

<comment><USER5> I was astonished when I was in Berlin couple of years ago how many places wouldn't accept credit cards. I was used to the US where I could get around for months without carrying any cash, and there everybody was refusing to deal with CCs. And I arrived on week-end, means I couldn't just go to a bank to change cash (there were probably still places to do it, but I didn't know where they were...). Had to borrow cash from local friends to get by until the workweek started. No idea why Berlin is so reluctant to deal with credit cards.

<comment><USER6> I can answer this :) Because in Germany, everyone uses Girocard. It has a lower fee, so it is preferred over credit cards. We also don't need the consumer protections that credit cards offer because most of them are law here.

<comment><USER5> But if you already accept Girocard marginal cost of accepting Visa/MC (with which they are co-branded frequently, as I understand) should be extremely low. But what I encountered is a lot of cash-only places, from fast food & restaurants to museums. In US, where I live, I know maybe one or two cash-only restaurant out of a thousand. In Berlin, it felt like the majority is. And the delta in fees can't be that big...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have to say the best thing about credit cards in the U.S. is the massive point bonuses you get for signing up for cards. I have gamed the credit card bonus system for ~6 years and pay for 90%+ of my personal travel including international business and first class flights and high end hotels with points earned from opening multiple cards each year with almost no impact to my credit score (760+). Combined with the fact that points are not taxable it is probably the single most lucrative "side hustle" I have that requires almost no work.

<comment><USER8> All those bonuses are coming from somewhere, though. In this case, it mostly comes from higher fees on merchants, which leads to higher prices.

You're getting some points, sure, but everything you buy is a percent or two higher to pay for it.

<comment><USER9> Everything _everyone_ buys is a percent or two higher. This behavior should really be considered antisocial. GP is taking advantage of the system for their own personal (moderate) gain to the (very small) detriment of everyone else.

<comment><USER10> The problem isn't the consumer who takes advantage of the system. the problem is the regulations that prevent consumers from choosing whether they want to pay that extra 2-3% that credit card companies charge the merchant. Right now, if i want to pay with cash, I still end up paying that extra 2-3%, even if the merchant wants to give me a 2-3% discount, they're not allowed, due to those regulations.

<comment><USER11> It's payment network agreements, not regulations in the government sense. E.G. If you accept Visa, you cannot mark up credit transactions & discount for cash per your agreement with them. It's nuanced (gas stations do it compliantly by advertising both prices next to each other).

More info: [https://www.pymnts.com/visa/2018/non-compliant-cash- discount...](https://www.pymnts.com/visa/2018/non-compliant-cash-discount- card-fees/)

<comment><USER12> But that is a sign of a lack of regulation, as that is obviously anticompetetive behavior (demanding that a competing product cannot be sold cheaper).

<comment><USER11> It's the same product being sold, not a competing product. And as a merchant, you aren't required by any law to accept Visa, or credit cards of any kind. Many merchants don't accept Amex, for example, because their fees are a few points higher than competing networks.

<comment><USER12> Cash and Mastercard are competing products, and Mastercard requiring the merchant to sell payment with cash at the same price as payment with Mastercard is obviously anti-competetive. Whether the merchant has the choice to not offer a particular product is irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hopefully crypto payments/stablecoins will get more traction so we can get ride of these mono/dupolies.

<comment><USER14> This was my thought too. It amazes me that people don't see crypto currencies as the answer here, and one that solves a number of other problems at the same time.

<comment><USER13> I believe the main reason is the association of bitcoin and its flaws(i.e volatility) with crypto payments.

The payment processors don't seem very eager to support stable coins either as it's harder for them to inflate the fees/conversion to fiat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > The fine would have been higher, but Brussels reduced the amount by 10 > percent to thank Mastercard for cooperating.

I am unable to find a link to the ruling in the article, does anyone have it? Curious how this number was arrived at.

<comment><USER16> Press release: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-19-582_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-19-582_en.htm). It says:

 _"Mastercard cooperated with the Commission by acknowledging the facts and the infringements of EU competition rules.

The Commission granted Mastercard a 10% fine reduction in return for this cooperation. Further information on this type of cooperation can be found on the Commission's Competition website"_

with a link to [https://europa.eu/!XC69Qb](https://europa.eu/!XC69Qb).

Basically, you get a fine reduction if you promise not to appeal to the fine.

<comment><USER17> That seems problematic. It appears to be equivalent to financial punishment for appealing a ruling. And in the EU competition law is enforced via the rule of essentially one woman and her department - competition laws are so vague that she effectively has the power to levy huge fines at will, unchecked by anything _except_ the right to appeal, because she doesn't have to prove anything in court to begin with.

If the Commission is now able to levy such massive fines _and_ lower them if you promise not to appeal, in a binding way, then they can simply make whatever sum they pull out of thin air 10% higher, give a 10% "reduction" for cooperation, and that's effectively a second fine for appealing the first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's sad that this duopoly is controlling so much of the market, especially that merchants can't make customers pay the fees (in which case mastercard and visa would quickly lose their market share).

Especially considering that many european countries such as Germany had (and have) independent systems with often orders of magnitudes lower fees, faster transaction times and more safety and security.

I'd rather see girocard become a monopoly on the european market than to see this mastercard/visa monopoly continue.

<comment><USER19> > ... especially that merchants can't make customers pay the fees ...

Why not? Is that due to contract terms that prevent you from charging more for card transactions vs other payment methods?

I vaguely remember clauses like that were recently thrown out in the USA. I'd imagine the EU would be even more consumer friendly.

<comment><USER20> Anecdotally, I see lots of small businesses in the US which explicitly charge slightly more for credit card transactions.

This is extremely common at gas stations and coffee shops, for example.

<comment><USER21> Sometimes that is actually the business charging slightly less for cash transactions rather than charging slightly more for credit card transactions.

What's the difference? If the business advertises both a cash price and a credit card price, then there is effectively no difference I believe whether you characterize it is a discount for cash or a surcharge for credit cards.

However, if you only advertise one price, then its a surcharge if that is the cash price and you add extra for credit cards at the register. If the one price is the credit card price, and you take off some for cash at the register, then it is a cash discount.

Doing a cash discount was a common trick at gas stations to work around terms in their contracts that said they would not have credit card surcharges. There was a lawsuit against such contract terms by merchants who wanted to do a surcharge, and in a settlement in 2013 Visa and Mastercard agreed to allow them (with some restrictions, like no more than 4%, must be a sign disclosing them at the point of sale, had to be included on the receipt, and had to apply to all cards), reducing the need for such tricks in many areas.

There are some states that have laws prohibiting credit card surcharges, so the cash discount trick may still be in use there. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas. These have been challenged on Free Speech grounds. The Supreme Court has said that they are (well, New York's version, but others are similar) is a regulation of speech, but did not rule whether it was an unconstitutional regulation (the lower courts had not reached that issue) [1]. I don't happen to know what happened to that case after that.

[1] [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1391_g31i.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1391_g31i.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't know the entry barrier details, but are governments working on standards to put your own payment system based on a defined API and following standard regulations?

</comment><comment><USER23> > On this basis, the Commission concluded that Mastercard's rules prevented > retailers from benefiting from lower fees and restricted competition between > banks cross border, in breach of EU anti-trust rules

The following will be extremely unpopular here, however, it's a bit interesting that the EU is, in the case of private businesses, interested in preventing "restricted competition," however, when it comes to taxes, the EU continually criticizes Ireland for low corporate taxes. Essentially the EU is opposed to tax competition.

The EU parliament has accused Ireland of being a tax haven and damaging the economies of its neighbors. While now, Mastercard is being accused of harming the EU economy by preventing competition. Mastercard gets fined for preventing competition (a correct decision in my opinion,) while strangely, Ireland also gets condemned for attempting to have lower taxes. Ireland, Hungary, and Bulgaria are promoting competition and they're in "trouble" while Mastercard is restricting competition and they're in "trouble" with the EU as well.

So the EU Parliament is effectively acting like Mastercard by attempting to prevent tax competition which would lower prices for consumers far more than anything Mastercard could come up with. If the EU actually cared about competition and lower prices for consumers, then they'd let members set tax rates to whatever they want, but instead they want to "harmonize" tax rates -- essentially destroying the competitive advantage of lower tax locales. The countries that are harmed the most by tax competition are the ones that have highest taxes and public obligations -- yet Ireland, Hungary, and Bulgaria are supposed to raise their taxes to compensate for the fiscal decisions of France, Spain, or Italy?

"The EU's tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici said in November that the Commission was considering using extraordinary powers to strip EU states of their veto power on tax matters to break resistance over blocked legislation."[1]

So the EU tax commissioner wants to essentially force EU member states to comply with a "harmonization" of tax rates, despite some members opposing such a move and now the EU is fining Mastercard for attempting to "harmonize" interchange fees? That's hypocrisy, assuming the reason for the EU fine is to protect competition and/or lower prices for consumers. The difference is that businesses can more easily stop accepting Mastercard than they can change governments. It's worth noting that Pierre Moscovici is French and France has some signifiant headwinds in terms of regulatory and taxation attractiveness for companies. Punishing Ireland, Hungary, Bulgaria and other countries with significantly lower taxes serves to benefit high tax countries such as France.

So good for the EU for punishing Mastercard -- let's hope that they now turn to punish themselves for attempting to prevent competition with taxes. To be clear, I'm not anti-tax, I'm anti-tax harmonization and the reason is that tax harmonization essentially subsidizes bad fiscal policy. So countries like Ireland lose a competitive advantage simply because Spain can't balance its checkbook.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hungary-ireland- taxation/...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hungary-ireland- taxation/hungary-ireland-oppose-eu-wide-tax-harmonization-efforts- idUSKBN1ET1ZY)

<comment><USER24> > The following will be extremely unpopular here, however, it's a bit > interesting that the EU is, in the case of private businesses, interested in > preventing "restricted competition," however, when it comes to taxes, the EU > continually criticizes Ireland for low corporate taxes. Essentially the EU > is opposed to tax competition.

How is that "interesting"? That should be obvious. Taxes pay public goods, private companies just extract money to investors. They are diametrical opposed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is why we need crypto.

<comment><USER26> How would crypto-currencies change the situation?

<comment><USER27> Decentralization.

<comment><USER26> The market has shown that cryptocurrency infrastructure tends to centralize in the same way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Europe seems to be on a roll lately but is brexit going to change that? Is GDPR and all these other consumer focused regulations lessened by losing that market?

<comment><USER29> Why would Brexit affect the EU's GDPR legislation that already exists? Perhaps it could change in Britain, but it would still exist in the EU, where the legislation was approved and is currently being enforced.

<comment><USER30> The ICO won't be a member of the EDPB post-Brexit which will definitely have an impact, but not a catastrophic one.

The bigger problem is that the UK won't be able to be certified as having adequate protection due to the Snooper's Charter (or, rather, any adequacy decision will be almost instantly sent for judicial review).

<comment><USER31> Yep.

I think our politicians have forgotten how much we got away with by doing it after we joined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > The Commission, which monitors competition, said that Mastercard's rules > prior to 2015 forced retailers to pay certain bank fees in the country they > are located rather than let them shop around.

Meanwhile I can't get a debit card from my bank that defaults to a language I speak at POS terminals because that's not the official language of the country I opened it in.

The logic and connection being that is the country in which I signed the terms of service and agreed to x, y, and z (one of those being the language and another being fees).

So I, as a consumer, am stuck with the terms of the country I reside in, but the bank, as a merchant, shouldn't be?

<comment><USER33> That's a false analogy. No one forces you to stay with your bank. If you are an EU citizen, you can open an account in any other EU country. Mastercard was forcing merchants to only use banks within their respective countries.

<comment><USER32> In point of fact my bank is German, but because I'm in Estonia I'm regulated (in their mind) by the Estonian TOS I signed.

<comment><USER33> Which is necessary because each EU country still has its own local laws, which the local T&C must abide. If you travelled to Germany and opened a bank account at a local branch, you'd get German T&C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The EU laying down the law!</comment>


Hottest tech startups in France - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech-startups-in-france-2015-4?op=1 <comment><USER2> Other than blablacar, EVERYTHING in that list is about either entertainment or solving non-existing issues for privilaged class (like organizing URLs), can we ACTUALLY go ahead and solve real problems or does that not attract VC funding?

EDIT: The above statement is based on an assumption that the list in the article is legit, I don't know anything about French startups to reflect on the entire scene

<comment><USER3> Most of those aren't startups anymore by anyone's metrics. France has both a culture and systemic problem towards startups. It's been made abundantly clear to me when having a chat with UK and US people at conferences such as dot[0] that the environment here is quite hostile and successfully launching requires either solid government backing or a great amount of courage. Probably why everytime some news outlet here wants to talk about startups, each one of them hover way above ~5M€ turnover and 30+ employees.

Here's[1] what I consider being one of the genuine french startups that recently launched and tries to be useful (although aimed at the tech crowd).

[0]: [http://www.dotconferences.eu](http://www.dotconferences.eu)

[1]: [https://scalingo.com](https://scalingo.com)

<comment><USER2> Well, dropbox, uber etc. are called startups too. Maybe there is a massive word abuse, but it's not only about france :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1-page article: [http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech- startups-i...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech-startups-in- france-2015-4?op=1)

<comment><USER5> Thanks, changed from [http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech- startups-i...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech-startups-in- france-2015-4).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would have included algolia. They do site search and query auto-completion algorithms, with a very clean API.

<comment><USER7> Interestingly the search on HN is powered by algolia :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What?? Quantic Dreams, Gameloft, Deezer are not startups anymore, and have not been for a LONG time. And I would not qualify Quantic Dream as "tech startup" in the first place, it's a video game company, which falls in a very different category. And if you start including Quantic Dreams, why not include Nadeo, Arkane Studios, etc... most of which are not startups either anymore.

<comment><USER9> Same for Vente Privee (founded in 2001).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > If you've ever organised a gift for someone in the office, you know how > tricky it is to get everyone to pay up. Leetchi solves that problem by > allowing users to create a money pot. Friends and coworkers can use Leetchi > to contribute to the pot through an app on their smartphones.

Wow, and they raised $7.9 millions for that! WTF?

<comment><USER10> They run Mangopay, a payment processor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I hope BlaBlaCar insisted on getting their funding in pounds... """The company raised $100 million (£683 million) in new funding in July 2014"""

:D

</comment><comment><USER12> On Leetchi: _If you 've ever organised a gift for someone in the office, you know how tricky it is to get everyone to pay up._

I can think of a very easy solution - don't force anyone to pay. Buy a gift to the value of the money that people volunteer to put in. If you work in an business of 30 people, and everyone has to chip in $5 every time there's a birthday, that's effectively garnishing everyone's wages to the tune of $150/year. That should be a choice. If it isn't then your company is likely a horrible place to work.

Alternatively, just have the CEO organise the collection and watch everyone pay up immediately.

Either way, you don't need an app.

<comment><USER13> Why are you assuming it's a top-down thing from the organization? It certainly isn't with us.

And the problem isn't forcing everyone to pay, it's getting everyone _who agreed to pay_ to follow up with it after the thing has actually been bought.

That said, I'm not sure we need an app either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would have included Drivy, which has recently raise $8.6m and acquired Buzzcar (a concurrent). [Peer to peer car sharing]

Other than that I would be curious to know how that list compare to other country/state.

Edit : and also capitainetrain, which have raise $6.3m. [Buy train ticket]

<comment><USER15> _Concurrent_ \--> competitor

<comment><USER14> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Such a shame that Capitaine Train is not present in this list. They have an excellent product (with an amazing UX), solving a real problem (ordering train tickets online used to be a pain in the arse) and with a vision (unifying the European railway).

</comment><comment><USER17> A lot of these companies are old, some were founded in 2007, 1999 and one is even from 1994.

Start ups, really?

</comment><comment><USER18> I am surprised [http://www.bimeanalytics.com/](http://www.bimeanalytics.com/) is not on there. After doing a lot of research and seeing a lot of demos in self serve BI it seems like one of the best products out there. Their pricing is also a game changer.

</comment><comment><USER19> TIL Withings is french and realize the name comes from Wi-Fi and Things… And I still don't know if it should be pronounced Wee-things (Because, you know, we call it Wee-Fee here), or Why-things…

<comment><USER20> To me "Withings" sounded like an English surname featuring "wi" as in "with" and a voiced dental fricative "th" (like in "though"). Like "Witherspoon" or similar. It didn't even cross my mind it could by "wy-things" or "wee-things".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> OVH?

<comment><USER13> A 16-year-old company with 17 datacenters and 800+ employees is hardly a startup anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yeah, include bookmarking website (lol) and other junk, and don't include real businesses like AT Internet and Viadeo.

<comment><USER23> Wouldn't really consider Viadeo as a startup anymore.

<comment><USER24> Well, then neither are most of the companies included. Parrot was founded in '94\. Even their drone division is 8 years old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Tech startups in France are hard. A friend had one that delivered soap and shower gel. Not one customer!</comment>


Search Engine with User Defined Filters - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone made a search engine that allows the end user to filter sources?  For example, I don't want the search engine to show me any links from, for example, newspapers, or only show North American results or don't show anything from a particular ISP network.
This is opposite of how search engines work now. They search everything and filter based on search criteria, not source criteria.  Some might argue that you just add more sophisticated results filters to get the same thing, but then you have the problem of sources trying to defeat your filters all the time.
I suppose the ethical internet folks might put something together that boycotts certain segments of the net very openly, or provides the end user with the ability to tailor the input sources to suit their needs.  Kind of like Search as SaaS.  Does that seem viable? <comment><USER2> Google Search used to have "blocked sites" feature:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hide-sites-to-find- mo...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hide-sites-to-find-more-of-what- you.html)

They dropped it in 2013:

[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/03/google- discontinues...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/03/google-discontinues- blocked-sites.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but blacklisting is not what I am thinking of. I mean the ability to exclude whole chunks from the crawler. Google would still crawl those sites, but the blacklist would exclude them from results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm working on something similar to this in a very defined vertical. The results will be divided into website types and the user can specify which result types they want to see.

You have a specific use case you're looking for or thinking of creating one?

<comment><USER4> I will try to give an example. During recent Charlie Hebdo incident, I wanted to find their address. If you search for "charlie Hebdo Paris Address" the first page and many subsequent pages are all dominated by media outlets. ([http://imgur.com/3nyjURA](http://imgur.com/3nyjURA)) I should go to "maps" tab to get the address

This happens very often. Media outlets dominate search results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I see and share your pain. No filters exactly but you can use millionshort.com to filter out most media/newspaper websites.</comment>


Ask HN: Did you get into YC even though you had already raised a round? - <AUTHOR>

I'm debating whether to try and raise a 250k seed round, but I'd also like to apply to the YC Winter Batch, but winter batch doesn't start till January, 4 months away, and a lot can happen in 4 months.
I write to just ask those who have interviewed with YC and were accepted or rejected based on having raised money already.
How was the experience for you? How much did you raise prior to getting accepted/rejected from YC? Do you think the fact you raised made a difference in your success? Is it generally interviewing with YC having already raised money?
Thanks for any advice in this area. <comment><USER2> Use YC not as a source of funding. Use it as a piece of education and networking in your start-up puzzle.

Edit: Funding by itself is no measure of success or validation. It might be part of the puzzle, along with the knowledge learned, and people met along the way (investors, customers, employees).</comment>


Is React Native good for building sites like stackoverflow or Quora? - <AUTHOR> Hello I am thinking of building a forum-based site like stackoverflow and quora. I would like to make it available on web and mobile as well. Would React Native be the best way to go? I have heard that React Native will have issues with performance. (Btw my current tech stack is React, Vue, NodeJS, MySQL, MongoDB) <comment><USER2> I'd do web only. Once you get your first million members, build the app. Even then I prefer web to apps if there is no value add.</comment>


The Omni Programming Language Manifest - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/daniel-kun/omni#the-omni-programming-language-manifest <comment><USER2> Don't want to beat a dead horse, but the implementation (or the prototype screenshot) doesn't really seem to achieve the goal ("In short, Omni frees the programmer of unnecessary tasks that the classic way of writing programs in text files imposes on them to let you get things done.").

Looks like this approach actually ADDS more unnecessary tasks the programmer has to go through just to express him/herself.</comment>


The PayPal Mafia Puts $525K In CapLinked - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/22/the-paypal-mafia-puts-525k-in-caplinked-a-linkedin-meets-salesforce-for-private-investing/ <comment><USER2> The recently introduced XpertFinancial is another player in this space:

<https://www.xpertfinancial.com/>

Glad to see more stabs at this. I've often wondered why there is no eBay for securities offerings.</comment>


Company alleges Chinese software has stolen code - <AUTHOR> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Chinese-software-has-stolen-code/articleshow/4651370.cms

<comment><USER2> Earlier submission of a different link on same subject:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=655596></comment>


Clickable acquired by Syncapse for $33M - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/14/syncapse-acquires-clickable/

<comment><AUTHOR> Official announcement: [http://syncapse.com/syncapse-acquires-clickable- integrates-s...](http://syncapse.com/syncapse-acquires-clickable-integrates- social-search-advertising-into-leading-social-performance-management-platform- for-global-enterprises/)

Notably, Clickable has raised $32.5M: <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/clickable>

<comment><USER2> It seems like Clickable is a good match for Syncapse, but based on their funding record they must have been on track for something considerably bigger. I wonder what happened that caused the sale at this price.</comment></comment>


Why Haskell is suited to IO - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/DanielWaterworth/Musings/blob/master/why_haskell_is_suited_to_io.md

<comment><USER2> This rant strives to dispel two myths:

1.) Haskell is "a bad language to write IO intensive programs in"

2.) "maintenance is more expensive as Haskell programmers are thin on the ground"

I was convinced of neither.

First, just because your own (potentially biased) benchmark shows that GHC performs "very favorably" doesn't mean this is true in general. For anyone to buy that argument, you need to provide code or at least a precise description of the experiment. These guys did a good job of that: <http://www.yesodweb.com/blog/2011/02/warp-speed-ahead>. Also, just because iteratees are fast, doesn't mean they're "good" for writing I/O intensive programs in. They're really difficult to understand, so most people end up using lazy I/O. Part of not being bad for I/O programs is making the task approachable, and I'm not convinced of that by this article.

The argument to dispel #2 is vague too.

> If you agree that programs that are more correct are also of higher quality > then the you should also agree that the cost of maintenance for Haskell > programs is lower than for imperative programs.

Okay... You can still write errors in Haskell, they're just less frequent (at least that's what this statement suggests). But how can you maintain them if no one is willing to actually do it? If it's N times easier to maintain a Haskell programmer, there need to be at least 1/N as many Haskell programmers as there are imperative programmers, and the article doesn't address this at all. As someone who likes Haskell, I'm actually curious to know if this is true.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the argument presented for point one is pretty weak, but I do agree with it. Having the lazy I/O, and especially lazy bytestring option is great IMO. Although Oleg style left-fold enumerators as used by warp are superior in many respects, typically as a user you don't need to interact at that level; iirc you don't in Yesod, which is built on warp. As an example of approachability LBS approach, checkout this two line "wc -l" implementation, which beats "wc -l" by 64x, apples and pears no doubt, but shows fast enough,(from [http://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg18878.htm...](http://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg18878.html)):

> import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy.Char8 as L

> main = L.getContents >>= print . L.count '\n'

edit: actually it beats "wc", and is roughly same speed as "wc -l".

<comment><USER2> That's really cool, and is the kind of good benchmark I was referring to. I'm curious to see how it compares to an iteratee approach. I suspect in this case that there wouldn't be much of a difference, because iteratees are suited especially well for handling multiple concurrent streams, and this deals with only one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> People's ravings about Haskell are very effective at revealing my inner Blub- ness:

 _The pattern boils down to creating an expert system that is pure and encodes a state machine and creating a system within the IO monad that operates by querying the expert system. Both parts would be written in a synchronous style, but would use coroutines to mask the passing of control flow._

Um, awesome. You do that, and I'll continue to "print 'Hello world'".

<comment><USER5> I think the basic issue most people have with Haskell (or rather, with Haskellers) is the fetishization of 100% correctness. For most tasks, it's just not that important, and so the (considerable) extra cognitive load that Haskell imposes is a net negative.

I mean, precise joinery may be superior to hammers and nails when building a house, but it's an expensive proposition, and there are 5 people in the world who can do it properly.

Most of us monkeys, when coding, are aiming to accomplish some task in the notoriously incorrect real world. It is often much better to spend 1/5th the engery get to a 80-90% correct solution very fast, and then patch as necessary, for the very important reason that you don't even know if what you're attempting to do will work. In that mode, like carpenters, sometimes it's helpful to just bang it with a hammer.

If what you do is write compilers, well, OK. The description you're quoting sounds pretty good. But the world doesn't need tons of compiler writers, and those it does need typically have pretty stable specs in front of them, so maybe joinery is the right approach.

I think this guy gets it about right: <http://alarmingdevelopment.org/?p=440>

<comment><USER3> An amusing analogy, sure, but I can't help be reminded of this xkcd <http://xkcd.com/568/> \- "you'll never find a programing language that frees you from the burden of clarifying your ideas". Haskell just makes that trade- off more 'up front'. Obviously it's not the right tool for every job mind, of course sometimes quick and dirty scripts win.

<comment><USER5> Well, sure, but frequently I don't want to clarify all my ideas up front. I want to dip my toe in and see if my ideas have any legs at all. (Wow, tortured metaphor.)

I actually like Haskell. But I do think it's the wrong tool for a lot of the work that people here on HN tend to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's what I don't get about Haskell's.. philosophy I guess.

(Disclaimer: I've only spent about a week learning me a Haskell for great good, and that was a couple weeks ago, so I'm not an authority by any measure.)

The Haskell community uses the word "pure" a lot, and I don't get it whatsoever. Even this musing says it's "easier to write correct pure code than correct imperative code." What does that mean? Is "pure" code the opposite of "imperative" code?

<comment><USER7> So, "pure" is the opposite of "impure" and "lazy" is the opposite of "strict" (but often cited as "imperative). Haskell is a _pure_ , _lazy_ functional programming language. I'll talk about purity here, and not about laziness.

Pure means that functions are not allowed to have side effects. More formally, a pure function can only use its inputs (parameters) to generate its output. Therefore, a pure function can't modify a global variable, print to the screen etc. because those are all side effects (more on this later). The benefit of this is threefold:

* Testing is much safer and generally easier. You just have to test the various inputs and edge cases and you can pretty much guarantee the function is 100% correct. You can't get this guarantee in impure languages.

* Inherently concurrent. Since functions don't modify any global state, you're free to make this as concurrent as you want without worrying about "thread safety" and all that.

* Increased modularity. Pure functions are highly portable, since they don't modify state they can be used for any library if needed, really. In an impure language, you often have to modify functions for use in a more general sense as a library.

Of course, the real world has side effects. Almost every program we run is a side effect, since we're giving it input from the world and it uses that to print to a screen. So how can a program be pure at all???

Without going into too much detail, there are ways in Haskell to isolate impurity to a small part of the code which is _clearly_ marked as impure. This impure code is responsible for say, reading a string from the user input. This string can then be used to make function calls to pure functions.

So the way you do things is to put all your business logic and such in pure functions, then the impure functions just deal with shuttling values to and from the real world. You can test pure functions with theorem checkers and you test impure functions with unit tests and integration tests.

Haskell has a steep learning curve since it has so many concepts which still simply haven't made it into more industry-standard languages. This is getting better with language such as Scala becoming more mainstream.

I really love Haskell and even if I don't use it on my day-to-day, it is great to hack out a Haskell program every once in awhile.

Hope this helps!

\- Mitchell

<comment><USER6> Great explanation, actually. But one question. I thought functional languages were "pure" throughout. I mean, I thought the whole point of a functional language is that there are no side effects and every expression returns some value. How is "pure" distinct from "functional"?

edit: BTW, Haskell DOES have a steep learning curve, and the inherent recursion breaks my brain. Even simple things like:

`combos = []` `combos = combos + 'foo'`

hurt, because counterintuitively (to me, anyway) this winds up in infinite recursion. I'm very used to OOP so this sort of thing is hard on me. I'm old though.

edit: I'm a little bummed out by the downvotes on my original question. It was an honest academic question I had and was answered splendidly. I was not attacking Haskell whatsoever. I apologize if anyone took it as anything other than an honest question.

<comment><USER7>
      Great explanation, actually. But one question. I thought functional languages were "pure" throughout. I mean, I thought the whole point of a functional language is that there are no side effects and every expression returns some value. How is "pure" distinct from "functional"?

Oh, no no. Pure is not required for functional programming. Functional programming is mostly defined as the ability to pass around functions as 1st class data types. In fact, I noticed on your GitHub you do some Python. Here is functional programming in Python:

      # Sum a list in Python using FP
      items = [1,2,3,4,5]
      function = lambda x, y: x + y
      reduce(function, items) # => 15

      # The equivalent in haskell:
      foldr1 (+) [1,2,3,4,5]

Pure is a stricter form of functional programming, which Haskell enforces.

      edit: BTW, Haskell DOES have a steep learning curve, and the inherent recursion breaks my brain. Even simple things like:
      `combos = []` `combos = combos + 'foo'`
      hurt, because counterintuitively (to me, anyway) this winds up in infinite recursion. I'm very used to OOP so this sort of thing is hard on me. I'm old though.

You're stepping now into the "lazy" aspect of Haskell. You're allowed to have infinite recursion in Haskell because it is only evaluated when needed. I don't really want to get into it here since there are many resources online about it :) But this also isn't inherent to functional programming or pure function programming.

<comment><USER6> Interesting, thanks for taking the time for in-depth explanations.

<comment><USER8> Also you don't need to _use_ recursion too much, when writing Haskell code. You should stick to using combinators over your (recursive) data-structures. Think fold, map, filter, and friends.

Alas, you still have to be able to _understand_ recursion to get anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> An interesting argument, but how about some examples to back it up?

<comment><AUTHOR> All in due time.</comment></comment>


Llanfairpwllgwyngyll - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll <comment><USER2> > The long form of the name was invented for promotional purposes in the > 1860s.

So this was done as a marketing stunt, just a long time ago.

<comment><USER3> Yeh, I lived there from age 3 to 8 and we all used to call in Llanfair, or Llanfair PG

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg[1] is the equivalent in the States.

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

</comment><comment><USER5> I am thankful to the person who took the time to record an audible pronunciation sample, and posted it to Wikipedia.

</comment><comment><USER6> No idea why this is here ...

Anyway, this is one of the first things I learned to say and spell when I first moved to the UK. The full name is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, although read the page to see the history.

Curious, yes, but ... ?

Anyone who's interested, I will later this year be giving some math workshops and a lecture later this year in Bangor. I can probably get invites for guests if anyone is interested.

<comment><USER7> Because it's fun and smart people like to spell things.

An old schoolmate of mine used to make regular visits to Webster Lake in Massachusetts. Of course it was also known by its much more famous name, Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. Guess who committed that to memory upon first seeing it.</comment></comment>


Vegetarians Less Healthy, Lower Quality Of Life Than Meat-Eaters - <AUTHOR> http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0088278&representation=PDF <comment><USER2> It seems like there are a lot of variables that need to be controller for here. For example, do people who adopt a vegetarian diet DEVELOP depression and mental illness? I doubt it. Much more likely that those people who are predisposed to emotional issues for whatever reason gravitate disproportionally to a vegetarian diet.

I've been vegetarian for 20 years, but the health aspects of the diet are only about 10% of why I chose to be a vegetarian. I bet that's true for a large number of vegetarians.

<comment><USER3> Yep. People going veg for environmental and/or animal ethics reasons are usually living in a society that's not aligned with their conviction. Principled would be one word for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I offer the usual warning to those who might think this study represents a real scientific finding -- it studies the health of people who have already chosen to be vegetarians or meat-eaters, it doesn't control for the source or reason for that choice.

This means the study suffers from the problems that plague all "retrospective" studies, studies of populations who have already made their choices for unknown reasons. It is this lack of control that calls any meaningful conclusions into question.

A prospective study by contrast, obviously totally impractical, would empanel subjects who would be randomly made to eat either vegetables or meat, and the results would be carefully examined. That might be science, this is not.

<comment><USER5> It's a peer-reviewed journal, accredited academic researchers, thorough methodology (probably better than average actually, not badly done) ...

What exactly is your problem with it ? What is the problem with retrospective- scare-quoted studies ? I personally have more problems with non-retrospective studies for obvious reasons.

Like all academic papers there are loads of problems with the research and conclusions, mostly stemming from an inability to do real experiments on humans and limited budgets, and of course these do introduce caveats. But if you're going to start judging papers on sample size ... first you don't understand statistics, secondly these guys are using more people than most (because it's such a widespread phenomenon, it's easy to get a big sample size of course, but still).

And frankly, artificially limiting your intake of different foods ... results in some chemicals not being available to your body ... first of course results in weight loss (because a lot of these require a lot of chemical energy to manufacture, or can't be manufactured at all) ... and then result in bigger problems.

It is only outside of medical circles that the benefits of modern food are in question. Nobody in the medical establishment doubts that processed, meaty and fatty foods are pretty much the best nutrition possible for the human body. Just yesterday I read an article about what everyone thought was an epidemic of the plague, at the end of the last century in Chicago. It wasn't, it was contaminated grain that made it into bread, was effectively invisible, and quite deadly. For obvious reasons this grain was grown perfectly natural, if only because modern stuff didn't exist yet. Yes, it makes you fat. Yes, there are historical screwups (not nearly as much screwups as with "natural" food of course, but somehow the screwups with industrial food are judged infinitely more important).

And yes, there are some, including medical researchers and so on, that doubt the morality of processed foods. I find this distasteful. Medical research and all science should first and foremost be value-free. Morality should be shut out (with the potential exception of describing methods to do direct large scale damage, ie. I find it acceptable that the exact gene sequence and samples for say the bubonic plague does require you to sign a letter you won't use it for nefarious purposes, even if I would have major problems with similar requirements for the cure).

<comment><USER4> > It's a peer-reviewed journal, accredited academic researchers, thorough > methodology (probably better than average actually, not badly done)

As retrospective studies go, it's not bad. But retrospective studies have a well-deserved and terrible reputation for confusing causes and effects.

> But if you're going to start judging papers on sample size ...

I invite you to locate the sentence where I complained about the sample size.

> Nobody in the medical establishment doubts that processed, meaty and fatty > foods are pretty much the best nutrition possible for the human body.

Apart from your obviously false claim, The "medical establishment" are not scientists and are not competent to make that call. They are not researchers, they are practitioners of methods developed by others.

> I find this distasteful.

That's your argument? Please -- in a discussion of science, one is expected to produce something resembling evidence, not emotion.

You need to learn why retrospective studies have the poor reputation they do. You need to learn that they cannot distinguish causes and effects, and why. You need to learn how science works.

<comment><USER5> > As retrospective studies go, it's not bad. But retrospective studies have a > well-deserved and terrible reputation for confusing causes and effects.

So do the double-blind studies you appear to be advocating. Ever thought of what exactly the placebo effect is and what some causes might be ?

> Apart from your obviously false claim, The "medical establishment" are not > scientists and are not competent to make that call. They are not > researchers, they are practitioners of methods developed by others.

The medical establishment are people who treat the sick, mostly. They observe that they regularly have people who come in with nutritional deficiencies because they are vegetarians and didn't follow the diets properly. One look at such a diet tells you exactly why this happens. Second is that you observe that vegetarianism and eating disorders go hand in hand.

You know what contains every single substance your body needs on a daily basis, all vitamins, minerals, calcium, you name it and will prevent nearly every food disorder, and it's hypo-allergenic (meaning perfectly safe for very nearly every patient you have) ? A 150gr steak. The only thing it doesn't have is sufficient calories, so you should also have something starchy with it. (And to be pedantic, it's the fatty tissue in the steak that's the main source of it's good properties. And yes, we're talking a rare to medium steak here)

You know what vegetarian food contains every single substance your body needs on a daily basis ... None. What should a vegetarian eat daily ? * Nuts * Beans * Spinach or soy (or tofu, even if that's less ideal) * Sunlight (yes, really), or Vitamin D supplements * Vitamin B12 supplements

Needless to say, this list is very much not hypo-allergenic, there is a significant fraction of the population (not that many, granted, but you have to check) that will swell up and start convulsing if you feed this to them. There are obviously other vegetarian diets, but they have similar problems.

True, missing one of these for a day is very much unlikely to kill you, but prolonged shortages will. Also keep in mind that you should never raise a kid vegetarian, because that is much riskier than being vegetarian as adults. There have been cases of kids dying because of vegan diets.

What I find extremely convenient is the physical symptoms of low-level protein deficiency. First : it's really, really bad for you. But the initial symptoms are sleeping more, weight loss and tissue loss (ie. not just fatty tissue). That's imho why people do this : because it slims you down.

Incidentally, the one thing that is confirmed to slim you down by removing fatty tissue is cold. And if you don't overdo it (e.g. go swimming in a 24 degree water pool) it is quite safe. It's not about feeling cold, merely about increasing your body's heat loss.

[1] [http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8373.pdf](http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8373.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Only 0.2% of the interviewees were actually vegetarian. It would be hard to generalize based on such a small group.

<comment><USER6> There's also a large body of research that contradict the findings of this study, just fyi. Just one example (there are many more):

[http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/june2013/06102013vegetari...](http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/june2013/06102013vegetarian.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if everyone's quality of life would drop if everyone ate the amount of meat per person consumed in Austria. Could our environment even support it?

</comment><comment><USER8> This might be a reaaally noob question but I wonder if any of that is related with the use of pesticides in food?

<comment><USER9> Maybe a noob answer but I don't think so. Most vegans and vegetarians I know are pretty aware of this and only buy organic. Then again, please consider the hormones and other crap supermarket meat is pumped full of..

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Please don't rewrite article titles like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> The original (peer reviewed, etc) research was submitted in liu of a journalistic news story for increased submission quality.[1] The conclusion of that research reads:

 _" Overall, our findings reveal that vegetarians report poorer health, follow medical treatment more frequently, have worse preventive health care practices, and have a lower quality of life."_

Which is unfortunately too long for HN submission, but is the (in fact, verbatim) published summary. A revised headline might read, Without any substantial editorialization or modification of meaning:

 _" Vegetarians report poorer health...and...lower quality of life."_

Aruably the word "report" is more neutral than "have", but is substantially similar to the submission. All that being said if you guys want to change it...it is absolutely your perogotive. Its just hard to avoid making certain compromises (imperfect title or imperfect article). This is unfortunately one of those corner cases IMHO.

It goes without saying that the published academic title ishopelessly vague for anyone not already familiar with the results. To wit:

 _" The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study"_

Has infinite degrees of freedom.

[1] An third party edited and published title highlight what it is 'newsworthy' (ie, this is not self edited). The original research was submitted (ie, mismatched) to increase the quality and availability of the information provided to readers.

<comment><USER6> > The original (peer reviewed, etc) research was submitted in liu of a > journalistic news story for increased submission quality.[1] The conclusion > of that research reads: >"Overall, our findings reveal that vegetarians > report poorer health, follow medical treatment more frequently, have worse > preventive health care practices, and have a lower quality of life."

Actually that's not what the research concludes. You left out "Austrian adults who eat a vegetarian diet". That's different than American vegetarians, who are a much larger group with a different and longer culture of being aware of issues like B12, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good point, but misleading. The relevant qualifications are obvious (as to the study co-hort).

On the substance of your point, however, I appreciate the comments. A discussion of the limitations of the study cohort and methodology is certainly a good discussion topic.

I would caution the notion "americans" are superiour at being vegetarian. Other cultures are more natively vegetarian. EG, The Indian Sub-continent and Bhuddists in Nepal, etc. And have genetic and cultural adaptations much longer in gestation as a result.

Also, context switching doesn't solve the key issue: non-vegetarians veg- native cultures also self-selct. Ethnic variation is also a vexing problem in this area because of phenotypic variation (race, lactose tolerance etc) linked with health.

A study of vegetarian-dominant cultures may show something entirely different. Yet also not be applicable to the US population.

<comment><USER6> I didn't say Americans are superior at being vegetarian. I said they're a much larger group with a longer culture of being aware of issues like B12, etc. That's factual.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


7 things I've learnt in 3 years coding my first indie game - <AUTHOR> http://chrismdp.com/2015/01/seven-things-i-ve-learnt-in-3-years-coding-my-first-indie-game/

<comment><USER2> I'm the developer, and happy to answer questions!</comment>


Tiny MMOs, Massive Opportunities? - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/179175/Tiny_MMOs_Massive_Opportunities.php

<comment><USER2> It will take a while for this to be truly "Massive". There's still too much nostalgia business-wise regarding MMOs and the only viable comparisons with them could be graphics. However there's much harder issues to get clear first such as long term platforms stability, proper execution of current business models, cost effective production and distribution methods, among others.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wouldn't that just be an MORPG?</comment>


Development: Time to leave GDP behind - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/development-time-to-leave-gdp-behind-1.14499

<comment><AUTHOR> The biggest issue I have with GDP is that it has become more than a measure, a mean in and of itself. Policies that could have a beneficial impact on societal wellbeing have been shut down using the argument that it would negatively affect GDP growth, thereby arguing that this number alone is what matters. Sometimes it feels like politicians and economists participate in a world cup encompassing all nations where the score is determined by GDP and GDP growth, the number removed from its societal meaning.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps, and yet... GDP is not meaningless. It may not be everything we care about, but it's certainly correlated with the things we care about. If you look at a list of the top 10 large countries by GDP per capita (I picked a cutoff of 6 million people to exclude small banking and oil states which aren't really generalizable) you get:

The US, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Austria, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, and the UK.

I have preferences abut where I'd like to live within that list, but I, for one, would be pretty happy to be an average Joe citizen of any one of those places. The bottom ten, by contrast, would be something like Afghanistan, Madagascar, the CAR, Malawi, Niger, Eritrea, Liberia, Burundi, Zimbabwe, and DR Congo.

I'm frankly ecstatic that I wasn't born in any of those places. In addition, I think we can all agree that _any_ step that makes DR Congo look more like, eg, Sweden is going to involve a significant rise in per capita GDP. Conversely, any significant rise in per capita GDP is, as a practical matter, going to make life more pleasant for ordinary Congolese.

Where GDP arguably breaks down is in trying to compare Canada to Australia, or Germany this year to Germany five years ago. GDP numbers would tell you that Canada is better off than Australia, while Germany is better off now than in 2009. Is that true? Arguably, in some ways. In others, probably not. But is it better to be living in Canada than Mali? Yes. And if we're going to be honest, a vast amount of that difference _is_ represented in the GDP per capita figures.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. It seems that you are making GDP as a primary standard of living indicator.

Someone could strike gold/oil in one of those bottom ten countries, making a few people very rich, thus raising average GDP. Worse still, many of those places are in (almost) perpetual war, which brings everyone's standard of living down. This vast wealth might incentivize them to start fighting more. But look, GDP is up so they must be doing better!

<comment><USER2> I said: "look at a list of the top 10 large countries by GDP per capita (I picked a cutoff of 6 million people to exclude small banking and oil states which aren't really generalizable)"

You said: "Someone could strike gold/oil in one of those bottom ten countries, making a few people very rich, thus raising average GDP."

I'm open to counter-examples, but offhand I would say no; that can only happen in small countries. That's why I limited my comments explicitly to large countries. :)

(In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that it was late, and I didn't properly filter the list of the bottom 10 countries by size. Liberia and CAR are small, and should have been replaced by Mali and Togo.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Hypocrites Of Congress: Who Voted Against Net Neutrality, But For SOPA/PIPA - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111126/15435216901/hypocrites-congress-who-voted-against-net-neutrality-sopapipa.shtml

<comment><USER2> These are the same idiots who will act outraged as the Internet crumbles around them is this passes

<comment><USER3> I'm afraid you give them far too much credit!</comment></comment>


New cloud attack takes full control of virtual machines with little effort - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/new-attack-steals-private-crypto-keys-by-corrupting-data-in-computer-memory/ <comment><AUTHOR> Paper: [https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurit...](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity16/sec16_paper_razavi.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> From TFA:

"computer scientists have developed a significantly more refined Rowhammer technique they call Flip Feng Shui. It manipulates deduplication operations that many cloud hosts use to save memory resources by sharing identical chunks of data used by two or more virtual machines. Just as traditional Feng Shui aims to create alignment or harmony in a home or office, Flip Feng Shui can massage physical memory in a way that causes crypto keys and other sensitive data to be stored in locations known to be susceptible to Rowhammer."</comment>


Learning Python and Haskell has not improved my programming (2006) - <AUTHOR> https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/why-learning-haskell-python-makes-you-a-worse-programmer/ <comment><USER2> This programmer can't code with taking the constraints of the program's environment into consideration.

After learning an unrelated programming language he isn't able to write idiomatic code in a different programming language with a different paradigms.

That's like being depressed when wanting to curse in English as the Russian curse words are much better but when translating them into English, they lose a lot of their appeal.

This programmer should learn that you shouldn't fight the basic premises of a language. That leads sometimes to ugly code but this often is still the best you can do within this particular language.

Also the next programmer to maintain this code will be much happier.

<comment><USER3> The main thing I learned when learning Functional Programming was that there are multiple ways to solve the same problem, which forced me to look at the data and output first instead of jumping to the syntax to get intermediate results. A program isn't a set of conditionals, loops, and objects, it's a transformation of data from one form to another.

Before FP, I would implement a compiler as a massive state machine. In FP, I think more in terms of small functions that work together in a stream, and the state machine is implicit. With declarative programming, I think in terms of defining the grammar.

I don't use FP techniques for everything, but my whole way of approaching a problem is different because I know that other options exist. Sometimes I'll use a for loop, other times I'll make a recursive mapping function, it really depends on which solution is simpler and less likely to have bugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article does not age well. Especially the C# stuff...

Also, using Haskell 'very little' will not give you the experience you need to write something like this. Haskell has a (very) steep learning curve and you need to recognize ways to solve problems and to see the elegance (and the warts as well by the way). That takes time and effort; maybe there are people who just get it, I am definitely not one of those people, but the work, for me, was definitely worth it.

<comment><USER5> The article agrees that it made the author a better programmer. The argument they're making is that it made them a worse C# developer. Their Haskell experience allowed them to see the specific problems with their C# code but didn't give them the tools to fix them because functional programming isn't (or wasn't) idiomatic C#.

<comment><USER6> The c# code is ancient at this point and doesn't use linq, which remedy his issues.

The language has added significant functional capabilities in the last 13 years...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I compare it to Morty experiencing "true level" [0]

[0] [https://youtu.be/w-wbWGwZ7_k](https://youtu.be/w-wbWGwZ7_k)

</comment><comment><USER8> A dilettante complains about something they "learned," as opposed to committing to mastering it with real use and then forming an informed opinion. PEBKAC seems the more likely explanation.</comment>


Troubleshooting emails with Excel attachments that crashed a T1 circuit - <AUTHOR> https://np.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/9si6r9/postmortem_mri_disables_every_ios_device_in/e8rbgmg/?context=2 <comment><AUTHOR> This is up there with the 500 mile email problem - the nature of headers inside an XLS file embedded in an email caused a signalling error in a T1 line when the email was retrieved!</comment>


OK Soda - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda <comment><USER2> This seems like something that came about a decade too early, like Neutral Milk Hotel. If this launched today, I could see it gaining traction.

The art on the cans is pretty cool.

I love that there was a Usenet mailing list for this:

[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.fan.ok- soda/WQuelBjd8s8/...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.fan.ok- soda/WQuelBjd8s8/M7t4pcRsBSEJ)

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.ok- soda/9Kxv...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.ok- soda/9KxvfnhmaCE)

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.ok- soda/1_E_...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.ok- soda/1_E_O_HlXww)

(Not sure if Google Reader links are stable.)

<comment><USER3> The marketing was a total hit where they tried it (including in my area), but it tasted terrible. It might have been conceptually a little "out there" for the early/mid 90s, but lots of people were talking about it, and my friends and I really wanted it to be great. I really think the problem was that it just sucked.

<comment><USER4> Another marketing company that deploys product as an afterthought?

How many companies have signaled jumping the shark by renaming and rebranding, as if any product issue can be fixed with messaging? Comcast -> Xfinity. Radio Shack -> The Shack. Sci Fi channel -> SyFy...

As a consumer, I'm insulted when the vendor thinks I'm so shallow. As an employee of such a vendor, it's a sign of thrash and a warning signal to look at leadership.

<comment><USER5> I agree, if you have a good product people will flock to you, although if everyone basically has the same thing like say sneakers (Nike!) that are essentially the same across all vendors a brand can set you apart even though your product isn't really any better than the competition

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think I was into my second year in middle school in Italy when this came out... so it's far from my experience in both time and space. And yet it triggers an inexplainable sense of nostalgia in me for the nineteen-nineties, grunge, early-New Economy, pre-9/11 world. Somehow it also makes me think of William Gibson's _Pattern Recognition_ , both because it features a protagonist who is hyper-sensitive to branding to the point of allergy, and functions as a funereal eulogy to the era.

It also reminded me of _Pepsi Perfect_ , the fictional brand of Pepsi-Cola featured in _Back To The Future II_ 's (now) alternate version of 2015: [http://design.pepsico.com/pepsi- perfect.php?v=101#section2](http://design.pepsico.com/pepsi- perfect.php?v=101#section2)

<comment><USER7> Yes, for some reason reading/looking at this made me super nostalgic as well! Just want to sit in a couch in the mid 90's and listen to CD's and watch Beavis and Butthead and read stuff in magazines instead of on the internet.

Very strong melancholic feeling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The budget home brand of Dutch hardware store chain Gamma is called "OK". They have everything from paint to power tools and it uses even more brutalist packaging design: [https://www.gamma.nl/assortiment/zoeken?f_brand_name=OK&f_ca...](https://www.gamma.nl/assortiment/zoeken?f_brand_name=OK&f_categories=Verf&scrolltofacet=categories)

Why buy good paint if you can also buy "OK" paint and pay less?

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of the Japanese brand (non-brand?) Muji: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muji](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muji)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I saw the can design I immediately thought that it looks like the art style of "David Boring" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boring)), turns out it was really Daniel Clowes who designed it. "Ghost world" is one of my favorite stories & movies as well, but I didn't hear about O.K. soda before. Fascinating!

While I really like the art style and dark touch I think it was probably too niche or too off-putting for most people.

<comment><USER11> Fellow Clowes afficionado here. That's exactly what I thought too when I looked at the art!

Just a couple of days ago, I discovered Clowes work in the movie 'Paul'. I thought the art work looked very much like that of Clowes' and paused the screen to observe it closely and noticed that it was signed 'Pussey'(after Dan Pussey, the timid cartoonist character in Clowes' universe), which confirmed it for me :) [https://imgur.com/a/HbCLB5c](https://imgur.com/a/HbCLB5c)

Clowes also drew one of Silicon Valley's promos [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9V2XMLUIAA8oaC.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9V2XMLUIAA8oaC.jpg)

<comment><USER12> Eightball was one of my favorite comics back in the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I remember

① buying a can of this from a vending machine at MIT, when I visited while I was in high school

② occasionally calling 1-800-I-FEEL-OK, especially to test out a phone or something

<comment><USER14> I just called this number to try it out. It's a phone sex line now. There are supposedly hot girls for guys to talk to, but I didn't investigate the veracity of this claim.

<comment><USER15> I will volunteer to perform this hard hitting investigate journalism.

<comment><USER16> Now I have two questions:

1\. Is the sort of thing ever outsourced to, for example, India? Or wherever else is a common place for call centres if it's no longer there.

2\. Is anyone currently doing this with chat bots and speech synthesisers?

<comment><USER14> >> 1\. Is the sort of thing ever outsourced to, for example, India? Or wherever else is a common place for call centres if it's no longer there

I don't know if there are call centers full of phone sex workers. You'd have the same background noise you get when calling any call center. And the workers would have to get paid when nothing was happening.

Here's a read on the topic:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/reality-of-being-a-phone- sex...](https://www.businessinsider.com/reality-of-being-a-phone-sex- operator-2015-5)

>> 2\. Is anyone currently doing this with chat bots and speech synthesisers?

Me: Hey Google, talk dirty to me.

Google: Manure. Dust. Crusty crumbs on the floor. <Poop emoji>

I can only report that Google does not talk dirty to me at this time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I drank this regularly in Junior High. It basically tasted like "Swamp Water" (all the available sodas at a fountain mixed together) with a slight awkward vanilla or black liquorice tone. I remember it tasting especially bad if it wasn't cold.

Blast from the past, not sure why it is on HN, I did a double take. Didn't know I was in a "Test Market". Ok Soda and ORBITZ were the only flash in the pan sodas I remember from that generation.

<comment><USER18> I love the term "swamp water." We called it making a suicide.

Also, just looking at the ingredients of OK Soda I expected it to taste like Coke and Mountain Dew mixed together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Scored too high in the #fellowkids scale to work out.

Especially since it seems a fine example of design by committee. Test markets, reports. Gee I wonder why Gen X was cynical like that.

Oh and they even had a "manifesto" that was in some ironic way a "selfawarewolf".

<comment><USER20> How come we don't hear more about gen x? It is always millennials are lazy or millennials are killing this or millennials are destroying that. Even when gen z does this ok boomer thing, it is the millennials who are blamed of being disrespectful (my understanding is very few of us are doing the ok boomer thing — we are in our thirties now!)

<comment><USER21> 20 years ago, all you heard about was generation X. They had their time.

<comment><USER22> We're not dead yet...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There are two critical things to recall about OK Soda:

1\. This article in The Baffler: [https://thebaffler.com/salvos/id-like-to- force-the-world-to-...](https://thebaffler.com/salvos/id-like-to-force-the- world-to-sing)

2\. 2/3 Coca-cola, 1/4 Orange Soda, 1/12 Dr. Pepper

<comment><USER24> A funny thing, sometimes a shitmix has it's own unique taste.

Ever try "thumbs up"? First time I tried it I was like gross, what did they mix all the flavors?

But the distinct taste grew on you.

<comment><USER25> Assuming you mean the Indian soft drink, IIRC it's actually "Thums Up" (no "b").

<comment><USER26> That's correct, and the "weird taste" relative to other sodas was (is? Been a while since I've been to India, and I noticed it was losing market share badly last time I was there...) cardamom. Cardamom is put to good use throughout Indian cuisine (chai, sag dishes, etc.), making Thums Up really much more complementary than traditional western sodas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you are into this kind of stuff, I recommend watching the movie Syrup [0]. It's a fictional movie about marketing/branding within a soda company.

[0] [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762138/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762138/)

</comment><comment><USER28> When I saw marketed at Gen X, the first thing I thought of was at that time, one of the conventional bits of wisdom about Gen X was that we were resistant to being marketed at. I'm not sure that I buy that—Gen X bought into a lot of lame stuff marketed at them, but this seemed exactly the sort of marketing campaign which would support the conventional wisdom.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'll just stick to my FUCKING STRONG COFFEE thank you.

[https://www.goodbeans.nl/](https://www.goodbeans.nl/)

[https://www.facebook.com/fingstrongcoffee/](https://www.facebook.com/fingstrongcoffee/)

<comment><USER30> Good coffee, nice people. They're my neighbors in Amsterdam.

<comment><USER29> The stuff sure delivers on its promise! I used to live near you too, since I got it at the place on Binnen Oranjestraat, near Relax and Small World Catering (a really great place with nice people, too).

<comment><USER30> Small World Catering is great! They're still doing some take-out out business through the window. (During Coronavirus, I mean.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They featured the work of Clowes and Burns! Very cool.

Just a couple of days ago, I discovered Clowes work in the movie 'Paul'. I thought the art work looked very much like that of Clowes' and paused the screen to observe it closely and noticed that it was signed 'Pussey'(after Dan Pussey, the timid cartoonist character in Clowes' universe), which confirmed it for me :) [https://imgur.com/a/HbCLB5c](https://imgur.com/a/HbCLB5c)

Clowes also drew one of Silicon Valley's promos [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9V2XMLUIAA8oaC.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9V2XMLUIAA8oaC.jpg)

<comment><USER31> Yes, two of my favorite comic artists from the 90s. I was clearly in the target for this soda, although I have never been into soda. Maybe that was the error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I find the contrasts between Gen X and Millennial stereotypes quite striking. You can see it in the media, which was often simply a dramatized perversion of generational self-reflection to sell media.

The Gen X generation seems to be characterized as generally depressed with a bored attitude of *its ok, i'll get over it". The primary theme there is some form of muted (apathetic) emotional resiliency, where mute suggests a primary characterization that is unintentionally not primarily communicated. These sort of characterizations suggest something that is not fragile, but not something that is socially exciting.

Millennial generation on the other hand appears to be characterized by maximum inclusion and interconnectedness, which are great... until people are cut off, which is characterized for its stark fragility.

Those are stereotypes and are prone to being wildly inaccurate with respect to any particular group or subculture, but still its interesting to compare those two demographics by solely looking at the representative media. During Gen X grunge, gangster rap, and country music were wildly popular. The really big deal in my area was Nine Inch Nails which was horribly depressing. Shows like Roseanne, Married with Children, and Beavis and Butthead were all the rage which mostly featured primary characters sitting on a couch complaining and getting over it. Also remember the Simpsons were far more depressing in their first few seasons during that period of time.

Media also reflects the stereotypes for the Millennial generation as well. The popular shows of the late 90s and early 2000s were things like Friends, Seinfeld, Sex and the City, Grey's Anatomy, and 30 Rock. These were all friends spending time with each other being happy, and aside from 30 Rock, none of those people ever seemed to go to work. Work is boring and depressing. The biggest things in music during the early years of the Millennial generation were most pop bands that graduated from boy bands or young attractive female pop singers. The theme was be beautiful, happy, and connected, but the moment you weren't connected the rest of it seemed to fall apart.

Comparing the two generations it seems Gen Xers are living an emotional coma enjoying all that numbs them to, while Millennials are living with bipolar disorder.

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

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

</comment><comment><USER33> Another example of the myth of the omnipotence of marketing messages.

Marketing only works when the product works. Coke works because most peoples first experience is good, not only good, but in many cases magical (kids who've never had caffeine, especially combined in a tasty high sugar drink). Coke advertising just has to trigger memories of the happiness of that original taste association, and the marketing director looks like a genius.

Then he tries to make his own products, and the feathers on his gawdy wings start to smoke.

</comment><comment><USER34> > OK Soda may be the preferred drink of other people such as yourself.

I love this! Is it a novel piece of copywriting, or a play/parody of something?

<comment><USER35> Perhaps an allusion to non-mainstream demographics?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Perfect marketing for 2020. Hope they'll reboot it soon.

"The drink's slogan was 'Things are going to be OK.'"

</comment><comment><USER37> Well hey, the branding worked for OkCupid.

The site's not trying to be an _amazing_ Cupid. Just an OK one. ;)

</comment><comment><USER38> It's blowing my mind that these had Clowes/Burns artwork on them!

</comment><comment><USER39> Weird to see my tiny hometown (Lynden, WA) was used as a test market

</comment><comment><USER16> Here in Berlin there is an energy drink branded "ok.-"

<comment><USER40> Here is the link with pictures [https://www.okpunktstrich.de/](https://www.okpunktstrich.de/)

Not too exciting. They also have chocolate and strawberry drinks :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I was working in college radio and writing for The Onion back when OK Cola came out. I think the money that went into this makes most sense framed as a type of generational panic combined with technological transformation. The early Gen Xers were entering the workforce with a set of behaviors / values that felt unfamiliar & perhaps threatening to Boomers. Boomers began to feel uncool, out of touch and no longer culturally adept in the way they always had previously. This is nothing new, but I think it might be particularly wrenching when it finally happens to a demographically large and dominant cohort. Millennials, let me know how it works out.

More importantly rapid changes in technology caused corporations to lose control of media distribution for the first time. Widespread availability of personal computers / microchips caused media creation and distribution costs plummet in publishing, music, and film production/distribution. New insurgents like Fantagraphics, hip hop, college radio, indie rock, The Onion, The Stranger, Might, indie record labels and indie movies could route around large corporations to find an audience and build a business. Capital was still needed, but was orders of magnitude less than it had been for prior generations.

The resulting panic was deepest in the industries connected to entertainment, including those that depended on it for marketing. It seems absurd, but consumer brands convinced themselves that not only would Xers reject traditional media & advertising - they'd reject the previous generations products as well. There was sincere worry that millions of kids would stop drinking Coke & Miller Lite. Ad agencies helped fuel this panic as it brought with it an opportunity to pry large accounts away from incumbents.

This period didn't last long, but it did birth a number of experiments like OK Cola, most of which were conceived as experiments and strategic contingency plans. For a brief and shining moment, there was some decent money and cultural cachet showered upon a bunch of smirking early 20s Xers whose only qualifications were helming a late night college radio program. It was wonderful to see Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns and other generation-defining artists get some well-earned money if not recognition.

</comment><comment><USER42> For a moment there I wondered if George from Seinfeld had created a virtual assistant :D

<comment><USER43> I've watched all of Seinfeld and I don't get this reference :D

</comment></comment><comment> mark-r Despite being in one of the test market areas, I don't remember this at all.

</comment><comment><USER44> I remember being so proud of my OK Soda hat that I won in a can at school.

Good memories.

</comment><comment><USER45> Design of OK Soda looks quite similar to Fallout Nuka Cola

</comment><comment><USER46> > OK Soda's concept was that the youth market was already aware that they were > being manipulated by mass-media marketing, so this advertising campaign > would just be more transparent about it.

<comment><USER47> It reminds me of a catchline for 7-Up, spoken by the cartoon character Fido Dido (late-80s?): "More a can of drink than a way of life."

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I have a hobby of trying odd sodas. This one was on my list with New Coke, Crystal Pepsi, Surge and Orbitz as things I'd never get to try.

That list has gotten smaller over time as Crystal Pepsi and Surge got mass rereleases, and New Coke got rereleased last summer.

Orbitz I believe said that they no longer have the machinery to make the balls but I have no source on that.

Come on Coke, rerelease OK Soda. Tie it in with OK Boomer for all I care.

</comment><comment><USER49> Am I the only one feeling this has a weird resemblance to "OK Boomer" in its nonchalant attitude?

<comment><USER29> The "Soda Generation" is the generic version of the "Pepsi Generation".

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po0jY4WvCIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po0jY4WvCIc)

French Firm Targets "Soda Generation" With Cola-Flavored Wine

[https://www.beveragedaily.com/Article/2013/06/28/French- firm...](https://www.beveragedaily.com/Article/2013/06/28/French-firm-targets- soda-generation-with-cola-flavored-wine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> If I drink this soda will I become haunted like the guy on the can? lol

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda#/media/File:OK_Soda_-_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda#/media/File:OK_Soda_- _can.jpg)</comment>