Asus lawsuit puts entire industry on notice over shoddy router security - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/asus-lawsuit-puts-entire-industry-on-notice-over-shoddy-router-security/ <comment><USER2> >The action should serve as a wake-up call, not just for other router makers, but entire industries tied to the so-called Internet of Things wave that's adding Internet connectivity to refrigerators, watches, and other everyday devices. Over the past few years, researchers have uncovered a litany of security defects that make it possible for such devices to be remotely hijacked by attackers. Often, the hackers can use their position to install malicious code on the devices or to surreptitiously monitor the comings and goings of the owners.

Pretty much what we've all been saying here.

<comment><USER3> I think it's time to encode in law security requirements, a minimum timespan for security patches to be provided post purchase, a maximum timeframe for security patch provision, and liability for unpatched security holes.

<comment><USER4> Just normal consumer-protection and product-liability law ought to take care of it for the most part, if really applied. Computer software has somehow managed to almost entirely escape liability, avoiding legal responsibility for shipping software with serious defects that makes it not fit for advertised purpose. But I suspect people shipping physical devices will find it harder to avoid, because the legal regime for physical devices like ovens and toasters is well established. Nest being forced to issue a product recall of its thermostats over a software flaw is one example of this starting to play out.

<comment><USER5> > Computer software has somehow managed to almost entirely escape liability, > avoiding legal responsibility for shipping software with serious defects > that makes it not fit for advertised purpose.

So did early car manufacturers etc etc.

Personally I think if everything had been thoroughly regulated from the start a lot of the innovations we are all benefiting from today wouldn't have happened or would have taken far longer time.

So I am not against regulations, but I can understand why waiting a bit and thinking very carefully before implementing regulation might be smart.

<comment><USER6> Early car manufacturers in no way almost entirely escaped liability. There were many people killed or injured by the starter crank alone and the law suits to go along with it. It's the single biggest reason that steam cars were around until the advent of the electric starter.

<comment><USER7> The Ford Model T, "generally regarded as the first affordable automobile" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T)), over 15 million manufactured, had a hand crank. A '40s era tractor that my family "inherited" when we bought our 25 acres of land had a hand crank.

That said, while hard to use, that tractor's hand crank automatically disconnected well enough once the engine got started. Then again my father, born in the early '30s, grew up using them.

<comment><USER8> > That said, while hard to use, that tractor's hand crank automatically > disconnected well enough once the engine got started. Then again my father, > born in the early '30s, grew up using them.

Hell, I was born 30 years later, and they still existed on tractors, fork lifts, and other, assorted engines.

There are a couple 'safety rules' when using a hand crank on a gasoline engine:

1) Always grip the crank with the thumb wrapped below with the fingers. So, all your fingers on ONE side of the crank, instead of four fingers on one side, and the thumb on the other

2) NEVER push the crank down the right side of the rotation.

3) If the hand crank binds when inserted through the starting crank bushing and into the crank ratchet, don't crank start the car. Too much bind will prevent the crank from releasing from the ratchet.

<comment><USER7> Ah, yes, 1) is a rule for self-loading rifles with reciprocating charging handles, starting in the US I suppose with the '30s M1 Garand. On the off chance the gun will fire while you're manipulating the handle, make sure your thumb is out of the way so at worst your palm will be beat up a bit.

The AR-15/M16/M4 which follows that family (M1 and '50s M14) lacks that "feature", replacing the lost functionality with a separate forward bolt assist. In other major rifles of that general era, the AK-47 etc. and SIG SG 55x and I think it's 510 predecessor reciprocates, this in fact goes back to the original Nazi StG 44 "storm rifle", the FAL and G3 don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really hope this leads to some change some day. If router makers can be held accountable for not providing minimum security standards then maybe we'll stop seeing so many "me too" BS options and gimmicks and get a smaller stable of trustworthy routers/firmwares.

It kind of sucks that my first requirement for buying a router is that I must be able to immediately, and easily, flash a new firmware on to it. It doesn't matter whose makes them, you are going to be receiving absolute shit for an OS, save for maybe a few prestige models of some of the better brands.

I liked the TP-Link Archer C7s because they were easy to flash and came with some pretty nice hardware for the price. Their products have been badly vulnerable, and now they're locking out alternative firmware. So even when you find a brand/model you like, that may not last.

<comment><USER10> The thing is that security is a fuzzy boundary, so no amount of case law or statutes can draw an easy-to-understand line between negligent insecurity and acceptable insecurity, and the legal community is ill-equipped to make excellent technological laws.

Also, there's no engineering society that censures its members and creates standards or certifications for quality or security, and it doesn't look like engineers are too interested in that.

Medical malpractice or unethical behavior are also fuzzy lines, but at least there's a medical association that draws some kind of line, determines standards for membership, and censures its members for malpractice or bad behavior, thereby also improving its public image as a trustworthy institution.

<comment><USER11> You've nailed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While I have no doubt that OpenWRT/DD-WRT are better than the stock firmware provided on these routers, has anyone actually audited OpenWRT for exploits?

<comment><USER13> The root of the problem is more that the stock routers can't be or aren't updated when e.g. there is a Linux kernel or libc vulnerability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Except part of the "solution" is going to be mandating signed firmware, which means you won't be able to actually own your router anymore.

TP-Link has already fallen victim to this.

You can take openwrt, ddwrt, tomato and padavan from my cold dead hands.

<comment><USER15> IMO alternative firmware projects make things better for the 0.1% while throwing the other 99.9% of humanity under the bus. If we want the Internet as a whole to be more secure, not just our own home networks, we need to solve crappy vendor firmware somehow and not signing updates is unlikely to help. OnHub has a good tradeoff with signed auto-updates by default and a developer mode switch for hackers.

<comment><USER16> Huh, how does your ability to update firmware yourself "throw other humanity under the bus"? Can you explain that reasoning further?

<comment><USER17> The problem is asking other users to install DD-WRT/Tomato/OpenWRT in order to get a secure device. That's not something I would reasonably expect my parents to know about or do.

Consumer networking hardware needs to be secure out of the box, and automatically keep itself updated without any end-user intervention.

Installing alternate firmware should be an option, but it shouldn't be necessary.

<comment><USER18> Heck, as someone who used to run alternative firmware they seem to be making it harder for all. After a few years of a forced all-in-one device (thanks, Windstream), I went looking again... things do not seem as organized. Wiki pages argue with each other and point to forum posts without indicating which piece of information is most relevant, and in general things only look stable for routers that are at least two years old, with newer routers having regular, massive regressions. I get enough of JTAG at work, thanks.

<comment><USER19> > "and in general things only look stable for routers that are at least two > years old, with newer routers having regular, massive regressions."

Yep. New hardware is shipped first with proprietary drivers, then shitty open- source code dumps. When the hardware vendors don't participate in the open- source process, it takes the community quite a lot of time to clean things up enough to be merged upstream. Usually by the time that happens the vendors will have secretly changed all the guts of the model with completely incompatible hardware at least once.

Just requiring a new model number for new hardware would get rid of most of the confusion. If the router and chipset vendors would actually maintain their operating systems as flavors of _current_ OpenWRT instead of 5+ year old private branches, most of the problems wouldn't exist in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think the most egregious issue that the asus routers had (even up to the RT-N66U) was that when you used the interface to check for a firmware update, it would report you were on the latest update, even if you were multiple patches behind.

<comment><USER21> The most egregious, for me, is that while they published the source code for their firmware as GPL (good) they were too lazy to incorporate fixes made by a third-party developer who was fed up with their buggy software and decided to do something about it. The AsusWRT Merlin builds are much higher quality and the source code to them is, per the GPL, also available. It's one thing to not fix security issues, it's another thing to have a single guy fixing your security problems and not even be bothered to take his work and pass it on to your customers. They deserve all the punishment they're receiving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think its time for consumers to demand the ability to run open source operating systems on their devices! All consumer routers should have open device drivers. Right now its a lot of closed firmware from both router makers and the wireless radio chip manufacturers that prevents that. There is very few 802.11ac devices that is well supported by OpenWRT because of closed drivers and firmware.

Lets face it, the manufacturer are not that interested in supporting the operating system of your device after a few years. Device manufacturers profit from selling you new devices not maintaining old devices. Throwing a perfect working hardware device just because it has outdated software is bad for the environment and not good when we have global warming. Do we want to have a Wall-E kind of future scenario of the working junk we consume and throw to consume to throw?

This is of course not only consumer routers, all devices that run embedded software that the manufacturer stops caring for are in danger of getting hacked. If they can be hacked they will be hacked - hackers law.

Why does consumer devices have to be that different from a PC? A PC can load any operating system you like on including good open source operating systems.

This is also the same for cell phones, there are lots of Android devices with older releases that are not security updated.

</comment><comment><USER13> Notice that this never happened with PCs because it was well expected for people to choose and install their own operating system, which is where the vulnerabilities lie. If you have an old PC and you don't want to throw it away then you can install a newer OS (or *nix) and your only problem is that it's old/slow, not that it's insecure.

Make it trivially easy to install open source firmware and the security problem gets solved by the people who know more what they're doing.

</comment><comment> FLUX-YOU Medical device manufacturers should be the next industry to get put on notice about this.

</comment><comment><USER23> The company I work for runs a home router based CTF at security conferences. So many of these products have vulnerabilities it's mind blowing. This IoT thing is a crazy trade off, we're getting really powerful devices but people are moving fast and really fucking shit up in terms of security. Some devs will know a good amount about security or their framework will cover them, but so many don't. The end result are networks with gaping holes in them waiting to be exploited.</comment>


What Programming Language should i use for my Health Startup - <AUTHOR>

We are currently working to create our MVP for our health startup, we want to choose between PHP and Python for the webservice API. Its a web application that is going to use a lot of AngularJS and get information from the server. Please i will need comments from experienced programmers. Thank you in advance. <comment><USER2> The startup I currently work for uses Python/Django + angular quite sucessfully, though if you want realtimy functionality I would look at something like NodeJS (with express or sails) as they have more convinient web socket support.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is the API the most important part of your MVP? Why not just focus on the parts of your product which are most risky (probably the front-end, user- facing part?)?

You could use something like Firebase for your API if your needs are not too complex, and then re-visit the back-end architecture decision once you've somewhat validated your MVP. [https://www.firebase.com/docs/web/libraries/angular/quicksta...](https://www.firebase.com/docs/web/libraries/angular/quickstart.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Python /w Flask is probably the best technical fit.

PHP would make sense only if you have someone on your team that is already quite familiar with it and knows a number of PHP developers that you can hire to build out a team later on.

But Python developers with web development experience can be harder to find, depending on where you are geographically located. PHP web developers are everywhere, but the quality of talent varies greatly.

<comment><AUTHOR> there are a lot of PHP developers around my location but a lot of them are not really that good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This will come off as arrogance, but I don't feel like you have any kind of technical experience. "Looking cool" has nothing to do with the OS, programming language or technology stack you're using.

Now, to answer your question: pick whatever you're most comfortable with. Software startups fail not because they are built with PHP instead of NodeJS, but for entirely other reasons.

<comment><USER6> +1

Use your energy to look for good developer / architect. Then let him/them choose their favorite technical stack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd choose node.js for the API. Using the same language on both the server and client can be a big plus. It makes context switching much easier for devs...

Then choose between Javascript, Coffeescript or Typescript.

</comment><comment><USER6> IMHO both Python and PHP could do the job well. Let the developer use their favorite language as they will work more efficiently with it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Python. Use whichever version has the best library support for what you plan on interfacing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Go with the Laravel framework (PHP).

Just curious, are you planning on using TrueVault?

Good luck in 2015.</comment>


Facebook Plans to Put Ads in Messenger - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/facebook-messenger-ads/ <comment><USER2> This is perfect. I love receiving notifications because it makes me feel connected, even if it turns out to be an advert and not one of my friends it will be a nice distraction. Then, Ill be able to browse all of the cool neccessary gadgets I see on buzzfeed.

If you aren't like me, you are in a tough spot. There are virtually 0 messaging or communication tools for mobile. Sure, being interrupted by ads could fet annoying, but what other options do you have. Phones havent progressed to the point where they include a short messaging service by default, especially a low bandwith universal one.

There is really limited action in the space as well. It will be hard for companies to compete with the level of trust and security that is hallmark of facebook.

I heard apple was going to roll out iVoice, where you can speak directly to someone using your mobile device, and it is rumored messaging and video could be bundled in.

Surprisingly, google, snapchat, yikyak, sms, twitter, kik, telegram, wechat, textie, skype, hangouts, AOL, Signal, zendo, wire, chatSecure,yahoo messenger, slack and hip hat have failed to launch anything in the space.

With no alternatives, Ill be embracing the facebook ecosystem as it links me directly to my computer, documents, music and search(as well as all my hardware) which they make, if not for this lockin and lack of options, i would probably br upset

<comment><USER2> edit: I spoke to my inside guy at Apple. iVoice and the internal messaging system (called eMessage, or iMessage?) requires the user remember a 10-11 digit code for each person they want to contact, so no real help there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Of course they do.

I'll once again recommend anyone wanting to use Facebook on their phone to use Tinfoil available on the F-Droid repository.

It's an open source wrapper app for the Facebook website and allows greater control over permissions than the official apps do.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do companies really want to pay for the ability to annoy users with unwanted messages in Messenger? As a user, if I know that companies I've messaged can pay to show me ads, I'll try really hard to avoid ever messaging a company.

<comment><USER5> I guess they will start using promo fb messages to bait opt-in.

"Reply with the code PROMO10 for an exclusive 10% discount" and all that sort of nonsense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really hope i'll be able to permablock a company that sent me a message just like i can do with a user (explicitly AFTER they send shit) Honestly, just how braindead do you have to be to think this is a good idea?

<comment><USER7> I think this is likely to be the case, Facebook do have this as an option on their other adverts.

I just finished running an advertising campaign on facebook and was surprised by how the clickthrough rates varied by platform. Mobile CTR was about 15x higher than Desktop, so I'm not surprised they're trying to offer more options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just going to leave this here for Zuck [http://krl.io/3e3ff](http://krl.io/3e3ff)

</comment><comment><USER9> I will gleefully delete messenger as soon as I see an ad appear.

</comment><comment><USER10> Massive mistake! This makes me delete my FB Messenger.</comment>


How To Determine A Startup Funding Strategy - <AUTHOR> http://techcocktail.com/how-to-determine-a-startup-funding-strategy-2010-12 <comment><USER2> As someone who has made a conscious decision to go it alone and bootstrap my business, I love the direct advice for me at the bottom of the chart. Hopefully I will soon!</comment>


Scam baiter: Why I risk death threats to expose online cons - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41518352 <comment><USER2> Wow cannot thank these guys enough. Every scam that is serious about making money has SEO-carpet bombed Google to death, making any serious search for the truth impossible (unless you're one of those people who always knows to go to the 7th page of search results).

Also here's a pro-tip. If you're searching for something and a bunch of Youtube videos says "Is XYZ a scam??", the answer is "absolutely yes". Those videos pretend to be honest reviews that wind up finding out that "surprisingly, it's not a scam and looks pretty good", but it's all a lie.

Other scams, usually by virtue of providing a 100% incentive based compensation structure:

\- Selling mattresses

\- Real Estate sales or seminars of any kind to someone inexperienced

\- MLM or Pyramid Schemes

\- Typically anything that advocates obscene amounts of positive psychology and a scientology like version of a Christianity

\- Insurance sales

\- Selling internet services for a company like CBeyond

\- Any college of any-kind that makes a profit short of coding boot camps (and they'll probably turn into a scam within a few years which is sad)

<comment><USER3> >Any college of any-kind that makes a profit short of coding boot camps (and they'll probably turn into a scam within a few years which is sad)

You definitely lost me there - while there are scam schools and the cost of reputable private colleges has ballooned from expensive through unacceptable into stratospheric, higher education remains one of the best investments a person can make in themselves.

Yes, vocational training like coding bootcamps or other trade schools can be a way better path for a lot of people. And yes, the sort of bootcamp that charges 5 figures to teach you the javascript framework du jour is probably not worth what it charges. But a lot of bootcamps these days are partnering with large companies to learn what sort of skills are needed and going with income-based payment, something like X% of your income above $N for Y months expiring in Z years. I wouldn't write them off.

<comment><USER2> To clarify I didn't mean private colleges like Swarthmore, Westminster, or Rice. Schools like Kaplan, ITT, Cordon Bleu.

Also I have no problems with coding bootcamps. But the schools I mentioned above, whose avarice I feel like knows no limits, will eventually discover "coding bootcamps" and make them into a brutal profit extraction machine with laughable education value. But again, that in no way has happened yet.

<comment><USER4> Kaplan did buy Dev Bootcamp a few years ago. I noticed that mentioned quite often in the articles that came out in July about Dev Bootcamp shutting down.

I don't know anything about how Kaplan's ownership affected it though, either positively or negatively.

Apollo Education (which owns the University of Phoenix) acquired The Iron Yard bootcamp in 2015, and it is shutting down as now as well.

So in these cases at least, some of the large for-profit education providers don't seem to have found dev bootcamps (in their current form, anyway) to be very lucrative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Wayne May (not his real name)

Don't want to use his real name, probably for his safety considering it mentions death threats, but half a page later there's a super clear picture of him?!?

<comment><USER6> Unless he's a celebrity it's much harder to find someone from a picture than it is from a name

<comment><USER7> That probably won't be true within the span of time he'll be active. Surely Facebook or Google will offer some mechanism for face recognition.

<comment> bro-kaizen You can probably just use Google's reverse image search and then look at the "related images" pane on the right.

<comment><USER8> I thought the article title was pretty silly; as a gregarious human, risking death _threats_ is something I do on a daily basis just shopping for milk.

Anyway, I tried what you suggested. It was well worth it: [https://imgur.com/a/dCFnx](https://imgur.com/a/dCFnx)

<comment><USER9> In a dystopian future where assassination has been automated and can easily be ordered from the dark web, a contract on Wayne May brings the end for humanity ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Checked out their website, looks as if they could really benefit from somebody with some web skills: [https://www.scamsurvivors.com/](https://www.scamsurvivors.com/)

<comment><USER11> I agree. It is not his fault that the equilibrium has settled this way, but the fact is that it has settled at a point where ironically the design of his site sets off my "this is a scam site" alarms. Not a confidence scam, per se, but certainly a site I wouldn't be downloading any executables from and would be expecting a popup ad with malware at any moment when visiting.

In reality I know he isn't doing any of that but the design unfortunately signals he might be.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, I would offer myself but I'm not a web dev and could do more harm than good. Firefox gives a yellow padlock for the site, grounds to think there may be some security issues as a modern web dev _seems to_ have not touched it in a long time.

Would be awfully nice for a UK based developer to offer them their services for free and add some robustness against DDoS.

I would especially want to see some security audit done on their forum, looks as if a security vulnerability could quite literally be life threatening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I may well be too old-fashioned, but I tend to make some distinctions between different kind of scams (not necessarily online).

The victim may well be a poor innocent (possibly elderly or kids) not-the- sharpiest-knife-in-the drawer, as it happens (example) for those scam calls promising they will fix your computer that has a virus or similar, or solicitng for an unpaid (non-existing) invoice but a large part of the scams are based on the victim having some form of "greed" or "lust" or however the will to do something that would not be entirely legal or morally acceptable.

So, I personally find difficult to call "victims" someone that thought they could get a zillion dollars "helping" a poor Nigerian Prince (or his widow) to collect the fortune he accumulated offshore or those that are blackmailed because they showed nude (or worse) on a webcam believing that on the other side there was a nice looking girl.

This said, the data in the "form" for sextortion/blackmail "victims" here:

[https://www.scamsurvivors.com/blackmail/form/form.html](https://www.scamsurvivors.com/blackmail/form/form.html)

is IMHO something that noone, including and especially a "victim" of an online scam should even _think_ of filling and sending to anyone (if not - if it is the case - Law enforcement officials).

"Wayne May" is asking for exactly the same data that would make a scammer/blackmailer happy:

1) Name

2) Date of birth

3) Location

4) E-mail address

...

5) _Link to (eventually uploaded) compromising video_

Most probably "Wayne May" and his helping volunteers are in good faith and have the best of the intentions, and this data will never leak, but it is a huge, huge risk.

</comment><comment><USER13> Problem with scams is that part of it is getting automated. Scammers are now regularly scanning entire area codes looking for people to scam, usually spoofing their caller id.

I called my phone company and blocked inbound international calls: problem solved and no more scam calls.

<comment><USER14> So what happens if someone wants to call you internationally?

<comment><USER13> In that case I just use voice over ip or a messaging app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Terrible short-form BBC reporting: here's a guy who risks death treats to help scam victims! Sorry, were going to quote experts & give generic avoidance advice instead of sharing the threats or an example of how a victim was helped.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am fighting the good fight too with creating this website to expose the exact messages of scammer so anyone searching... can find a particular scam.

[https://scamshare.com](https://scamshare.com)

Feel free to submit your scam emails to the website... the more in the database, the better chance of hopefully protecting people from getting scammed.</comment>


How demand for oil will change by 2030 - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14790202&fsrc=rss

<comment><USER2> Suppose self-driving cars are developed by then? A lot of car trips would be rendered unnecessary. Instead of driving a 2 ton car to the grocery store to get a carton of milk, the store would send a 100 pound driverless go-kart to deliver it. And imagine if you had your walls covered with monitors streaming HD video in real time. Video conferencing would be almost as good as face to face contact, again rendering a lot of car and plane trips unnecessary.

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's get real, you can make oil for 80-100$ a barrel from coal, and around 200$ a barrel from air and nuclear power. There is nothing magic about long chain hydrocarbons they are just really cheep right now. So we use them for building roads, (Asphalt), lubricants, plastics, fertilizer, and fuel. Something like 20% of our GDP depended on whale oil we found a cheaper alternative. Once supply becomes expensive you will see oil demand fall like a stone.

</comment><comment><USER4> No one is saying any cause. Just prediction. Doesn't rising number of cars, also include electric or other alternative energy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Rising number of electric cars wouldn't be accounted here, since they don't use fossil fuels.

What the graphic is telling us is, no matter how big the effort is to switch to renewables+ev's, etc., the fast growth of emerging economies, less prone to become green as fast as, say, EU, will lead to a sustainable and even increasing use of fossil fuels.

The best scenario, in my opinion: fossil fuel prices skyrocketing + some political agreements to boost smart subsidies where there are needed, to make renewables cheaper than coal. As Google.org says, RE<C (where "RE" is renewables and "C" is coal.)

60% of EU budget goes to farmers subsidies. USA subsidizes also monocrops such as corn (leading to massive use of corn syrup, packaged food, boosting obesity.)

So less subsidies to lobbies and more to renewables. And more electric cars on the roads.

I've driven some cool EV's and I only say this: it's really fun. Waiting for the 4 new Renaults to come in 2011-2012 and, specially, a smaller-cheaper version of the Tesla Model S.

All that said, I don't own a car.

<comment><USER5> Electric cars don't use fossil fuels, eh? Hrm...how do you suppose they get the electricity into the batteries? Kittens running on treadmills?

<comment><AUTHOR> They of course use fossil fuels if you are using fossil fuels to generate electricity.

Which is why I explain the rest. Read the RE<C and be cool.

<comment><USER5> Which would mean that an increase in number of electric cars _should_ be accounted for by the graphic as an increase in fossil fuel consumption as well. I don't have any stats on hand, but I would bet that a majority of batteries are charged with fossil fuel energy, simply because it's the cheapest energy around, and manufacturers need to make a profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please. We'll have hit peak oil long before then; there's no way that much oil will be produced in 2030.

<comment><AUTHOR> Peak oil is there. It depends on the data you are looking at, though. Sadly, new sources are being discovered. Several new ones in Latin America, not to say the dirty sources (the really dangerous ones.) Tar sands from Canada (dig in there and then come back to talk to me) and yes, Alaska.

Tar sands are a huge issue in this picture. Just in there, north of your border.

<comment><USER5> It looks like we've hit global peak, yes, but it's hard to be sure. I went with the phrasing "long before then" just to be on the safe side.

Sadly? We're in no position to be picky about where we get our energy. We currently have no viable alternatives to oil. Combine all the different renewable energy sources you want; they'll never fill the hole left by oil.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely disagree with you. I don't think your explanation needs even a response. Oil needs to have alternatives this century. Oil is bad and doesn't make sense. It's burning "old animal matter" into what we breath, while in 6 hours we get as much energy from the sun as we do need for 1 year.

Anyway. Go burn some gasoline, my friend.

<comment><USER6> > It's burning "old animal matter" into what we breath,

Mate, we don't need that kind of rah-rah emotional imagery here at HN. Penicillin is putting living fungus into your body - but we usually just call it antibiotics.

Anyway, I agree with your other comment about nuclear power being a positive solution to oil. If we can improve batteries, nuclear/better batteries can probably hold us over to hydrogen, fusion, or whatever's post-oil/gas.

<comment><AUTHOR> ?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Universities Race to Nurture Startup Founders of the Future - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.com/2015/12/29/technology/universities-race-to-nurture-start-up-founders-of-the-future.html <comment><USER2> I don't get it. What is it about startups that makes them special compared to all other forms of bringing change to the world?

Look, as a startup founder, I am a fan of what I do, but I'd be skeptical of saying that mine is the only (or the best) way to accomplish change. It's one of the many ways of starting a business, so what?

There are so many ways to skin this cat, and it feels like startups are seeing this much push only because the media absolutely loves this space. Why is the next Mark Zuckerberg a major area of focus for a university?

Is it a power law thing? Is one charitable Zuckerberg a better ROI for humanity than 100000 quality graduates?

<comment><USER3> Trendiness, Hotness, etc.

It'll all come crashing down once the economy busts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal- arts/](http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Some things cannot be taught in what we consider a classroom.

Maybe they could start a new kind of school. A place with some enhanced programs that set you up for years of sleep deprivation and stressful situations to prepare for years of the same kind of lifestyle.

Then they would actually be teaching what it's like to start a company.

</comment><comment><USER6> If some entrepreneurs can raise money from the alumni and university to pay for their tuition in retrospect, more power to them!

Most importantly, the University should cater to all types and advance the mission of creating an educated civil society.</comment>


Nike's Vaporfly running shoes and tumbling records - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-athletics-shoe/athletics-body-to-tighten-rules-after-nikes-vaporfly-helps-records-tumble-sources-idUSKBN1ZN0MJ <comment><AUTHOR> I find it fascinating when there's still room for innovation in crowded seemingly done to death markets like running shoes. There's always a sub-niche to go after, in any sufficiently large market there will be power users that are totally willing to shell out $250 for a 4% improvement. Given that these shoes according to the article last for 200 miles that's a couple of marathons and couple months of training tops before having to be replaced. Reminds me of the Tinker Hatfield doc on the Abstract series on Netflix.</comment>


The Movie Studios Have A Great Idea To Ramp Up Piracy. - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/the-movie-studios-have-a-great-idea-to-ramp-up-piracy-and-blockbuster-wants-to-help/

<comment><USER2> The CEOs best bet for making money is to a) prolong the death of blockbuster as long as possible and more importantly b) chump it up with other board members and executives in the entertainment to hopefully land another high paying job when this all fails. He looks to be on track for success.

</comment><comment><USER3> This paragraph summed it all up:

 _If the studios are allowing some places like Blockbuster stores to rent movies on day one, but limit Netflix from doing the same, how many of the millions of Netflix users are going to drive to a Blockbuster store to get that movie? Some certainly will, but a lot will also turn to the web and simply download the movie. And some who have never done that before will learn how to get around such a ridiculous restriction._

Not sure if it's a scheme to grant Blockbuster exclusive rights to DVD rentals for the first 30 days but it sure seems that way.

In the war on "piracy" it always seems that the studios make things increasingly more difficult for their customers and driving them toward other means. It seems they won't be happy until no one can have their product but must pay for it anyway.

<comment><USER4> If the person is willing to download the movie from the internet (illegally), why would they even pay for Netflix in the first place. And once they do start downloading they'll start questioning why they have to pay. It seems like this 30 day thing wouldn't really change things, or that it would screw Netflix too.

<comment><USER5> Netflix might be convenient enough to make people not bother trying to find torrents (and worrying about getting sued). I think in many cases it's not the price that's the deterrent, it's the hassle of having to actually go to the store.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I agree with you. I don't really see much personal benefit in using brick and mortar video rental stores. Going to one means that I have to take a half hour or an hour out of my day to get a movie. And I can't check the inventory of a store online, so if I'm looking for an older or a more obscure movie, I'm not really guaranteed that it would be available. Plus I would not go to Blockbuster because I wanted to get a brilliant recommendation from a staff member. But I would be more willing to watch something recommended to me by a recommendation engine. And most video rental stores usually charge more than I want to pay.

So I really don't see brick and mortar stores competing with kiosks and rental services like netflix. The single benefit a store has is that it is probably one of the fastest ways to get a physical copy of a movie because it is not mailed. But I would not be the least bit perturbed about waiting a day or two to see a movie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The thing is, we arleady wait months for new releases, what's another 30 days? Are we really that pathetic?</comment>


Dev productivity is down: How we measure our dev process now that we're remote - <AUTHOR> https://linearb.io/blog/dev-productivity-is-way-down-at-linearb/ <comment><AUTHOR> Agree that process is more important output, as long as the output is there . . .

<comment><USER2> I think what OP is trying to say is that output is important but when it's down you want to understand why, and for that, you need to measure the process</comment></comment>


SEO's:  A letter to Google about recent search change. - <AUTHOR> http://www.seoanarchy.com/

<comment><USER2> How about instead of relying on shady 'hat tricks' (no matter the shade of color), you instead refer to Google's documentation and follow their guidelines?

Complaining won't help you. Another idea: make your own search engine and quit bothering people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. However, the Google Guidelines appear to be contradicting and ever changing.

It's not a complaint, it's a valid argument to shed some light upon their eyes. Sorry you don't share the same passion but claiming to 'bother people' is a bit much.</comment></comment>


Auto play for Netflix - <AUTHOR> http://pr.ojectblue.com/autoflix/

<comment><AUTHOR> Use the coupon code "hackernews" for a free download!</comment>


Friends don't let friends use AOL (2000) - <AUTHOR> https://www.salon.com/2000/02/02/aol_friends/ <comment><USER2> > He says that one of the company's irksome traits is deluging its members > with advertising. "You know how when you log off, you get this message, > 'Please wait while we update your software?'" says Cassel. "Well, they don't > tell you, but what they're really doing is downloading ads to your hard > drive, so that the very next time you sign on, you get hit with -- boom! -- > an ad. You get ads in your mailbox and in your chat room and an ad in the > status bar."

When I read this article, there were these ads:

* A giant top ad for Intel

* Left Column: Hertz banner, fixed with scroll

* Right Column: Various ads that scroll as you scroll down the page

* Far right column: Animated McCafe ad, fix with scroll

* Multiple ads between sections including video

* Ads at the end of the article, including SalonTV

* Center Sidebar: Reese's ad

* Right sidebar: Ad for pharma product, video;

Firefox, no adblock brand new MacBook Pro was unable to smoothly scroll this page.

The more things change, the more they stay the same indeed...

<comment><USER3> This is all of course true. uBlock Origin tells me it blocked 29 requests (representing 41% of the requests made by the page). I turned off uBlock just for a laugh and the page still hasn't finished loading even though I've had time to write this whole paragraph.

One can only assume that when this article originally appeared on Salon back in February 2000 there were less ads on the site... or maybe the editorial team just had an acutely developed sense of - or an inhuman tolerance for - irony.

<comment><USER4> > the page still hasn't finished loading

Now, why do you expect a page with video ads to ever _finish_ loading? Once it's played the video ads it loaded with, it just moves onto the next ones. By opening the page, you're actually tuning into an all-ads-all-the-time streaming television network!

<comment><USER3> You make a very good point: using an adblocker means I'm simply not used to this. It's interesting that this occurs only for video ads though: you'll note that sites like YouTube and Vimeo don't suffer with this. (Of course the video is still loading in the background, but the _page_ is done.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Years ago (it would have to be, yes?), my two sons and I went to Blockbuster to rent a video. The guy behind the counter asked us if we wanted to join some Blockbuster thing which would give us some videos for free but it cost to join. I knew we weren't interested so I just replied, "AOL sucks!"

A manager heard that and took me aside to let me know that all we had to do was sign up for the thing, then go online and cancel the account, it would wind up getting us the videos for free but at no cost and his store would still get credit for signing us up. Win, win!

A few weeks later, we were at a theater thinking we got rush hour prices. When told I was wrong, and we'd have to pay full price, I said, "AOL sucks!" getting a laugh out of my boys. The lady behind the counter asked me what that was about and then said, "Oh, here. Just take these. I don't care." Free tickets!

So now you know the running joke. For several years, when we'd walk up to a counter somewhere to pay, the first words out of our mouth, "AOL sucks!!"

<comment><USER6> I would watch a full length movie about this. Pitch it to Hollywood!

<comment><USER7> same

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember the exact same "conversion attempts". In the late 90's just after getting out of undergrad, I lived in a 55+ seniors community (different story...), and right away I Subscribed to the local cable internet service. Everyone else in the community was on dial-up AOL and I couldn't understand why. Broadband is so much faster and you get all of the Internet! I even helped a few of them move over to what was then high speed Internet but each and every one of them went back to AOL within a month or so.

You can see the same thing looking at people glued to social media today. Same mentality. I don't care about Internet, I want [Facebook / Insta / whatever].

It's scary. If FB was an ISP that offered Facebook-only for $5 a month, I bet a lot of people would ditch their existing internet/data service.

<comment><USER9> Buy N Large wins. For most everyone. I've learned that most people want the Fisher Price internet, not the Testors 500 piece glue it model, no matter how much cooler the model is once its built.

<comment><USER10> It helps if you realize that there's nothing wrong with that. The smug superiority of techies starts to feel like a guy who spends every weekend tuning his car for track racing and just can't understand why anyone would ever want a factory-standard sedan (even though they only need to it to carry groceries).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apparently you can still get @aol.com email addresses. I want to use one the next time I'm applying for tech jobs just to freak everyone out.

<comment><USER12> Watch it become the new hot property as a nostalgia item. I mean jnco is trying to make a comeback; anything is possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have an older friend I help from time to time. When he or one of his family get a new computer, when something breaks, etc.

His wife is still on AOL to this day. Their ISP is Comcast, they all use the newest windows and she has a few applications installed other than AOL. But 95% of her time on the computer is on AOL. She just can't see doing it any other way after using it for over 20 years.

I learned way more than I ever wanted to about AOL under the hood helping her through a few hardware upgrades.

<comment><USER14> I'm surprised it even works at all at this point. My mom was using Photoshop 6.0 (18 years old!!!) until very recently when my parents upgraded their computer to Windows 10, with which it is not compatible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I used to use it when I was out of college in the 90s.

There were some good reasons. I travelled for work to construction sites, and they had local dial in numbers in many places. I could check email from the construction trailer. They even had a 1-800 modem line (You were very time limited, 3 hours a month or something.)

I thought it worked pretty well.

Ubiquitous Broadband killed it.

<comment><USER16> That was my experience too. My spouse and I were living in different towns, and I wanted access to my e-mail when I visited her. In return I put up with their quirky version of the Internet. My modems were too slow for any kind of Web stuff anyway.

Not much later, they changed their technology so that they worked through a conventional IP address, so you could fire up AOL, go online, then open a conventional browser or e-mail program. One of the e-mail programs had a facility for fetching your AOL e-mail, so it was like you were a regular Internet user.

Alternatives for reaching the Internet involved a lot of delving into settings files and setup scripts, which just didn't seem like a good use of my time. My friends who did things the "correct" way seemed to have a lot more trouble and maintenance effort. I listened to their adventures the same way I read Jerry Pournelle's "chaos manor" columns, feeling a mixture of amusement and pity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Earlier this year I was pacing a marathon when I caught up to a young woman and ran with her for a few miles. She had recently graduated from college, so early 20s I suppose. We got to chatting and at some point I mentioned AOL. She had never heard of it. I suddenly felt very old. (I'm 47.)

<comment><USER18> Anyone remember Compuserve, Genie (GE's online network) and that old dos version Prodigy that did all the 256 color vector graphic rendering?

<comment><USER17> I'm old enough to remember and have used not only those, but also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_(online_service)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_\(online_service\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Oh man, Winsock. That takes me back.

<comment><USER20> Winsock is the first thing I learned that felt legit in some way. Made an IP chat app, 1998 or so. That rush led to at least a million dollars being made... it kept me from smoking pot with the losers. Programming in general was the escape, tho indeed a chat app was a claim to minor fame 10 years later! (Nothing against pot, but in high school that's pretty much the case).

<comment><USER21> I remember the days of roll-your-own proggies and feeling like we'd hit the saturation point of what we could do within AOL... but then discovering how to replace Winsock32.dll and install Netscape Navigator and starting to learn what the internet really had to offer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The amount of ads on this article/post oughta be criminal

</comment><comment><USER23> Reading this... Odd that Facebook is in some ways kinda like the community AOL was with respect to walled garden services.

<comment><USER24> IMO FB is AOL's direct descendant. There's always a niche for packaged social internet, and it seems that niche is always going to be dominated by a single company.

FB will be superseded when a competitor for that niche appears, updated with significantly upgraded tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think it'd be trivial to let a machine rewrite this for Twitter of Facebook (or Reddit).

<comment><USER26> s/AOL/Facebook/gi

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Who can say no to all those free CDs though?!

<comment><USER18> People in my dorm used them for art. One guy made a sculpture. Others microwaved them for a few seconds to get that spider pattern. Even with all the art, we still had buckets of them. What a waste.

<comment><USER10> I recall a guy who re-tiled his kitchen with them.</comment></comment></comment>


I've been working on infinite streaming in Rails 3.1, here is my work so far.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyRjFolajfE

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops, I forgot to add "<3 <3 <3 <3" to the title!

Edit: I tried to add "<3 <3 <3" to the title, but it did not accept it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Maybe instead of that music someone could be explaining what is going on because I for one I have no idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> Advice for people making screencasts: If you're not confident about your narrating abilities, at least include text bubble explaining the major points and steps you're trying to bring across.

Unfortunately, the music backtrack overshadowed any easy learning experience here.

<comment><USER4> Do the happy dance. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Saw the 1.9.3dev at the end. New hotness required for what you did or just for giggles?

<comment><AUTHOR> The JSON streaming stuff is in 1.9.3, but you can do the same thing with yajl. :-)

<comment><USER5> Good stuff. Let me know if you need any testers. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That is soooo cool! Can't wait to try some realtime apps with that! :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Sweet. Do the normal one connection per app instance rules apply?

<comment><USER8> Was going to ask something similar. Seems like single-threaded apps might have a tough time with this approach, but probably outside the bounds of this discussion.

<comment><USER9> This kind of app is perfect for non-blocking I/O.

I don't know what he does there, or what would be the equivalent for Ruby/Rails (that time.sleep(1) doesn't look good), but in Python one could use something like Gevent for long-pooling, which uses livevent to implement micro-threads: <http://www.gevent.org/>

Here's a sample that uses Gevent/Django: [https://bitbucket.org/denis/gevent/src/tip/examples/webchat/...](https://bitbucket.org/denis/gevent/src/tip/examples/webchat/chat/views.py)

It's not the same thing, because when server finally sends a response, the connection is then closed. But it's trivial to write a custom WSGI middleware, that sends a chunk of stuff, then releases the thread for other requests.

And doing it this way, you could have thousands of connections open with a single server instance.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just added the sleep to simulate "work". It's not really needed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


One App to Rule Them All – Could This Really Work? - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/one-app-to-rule-them-all-aa1cba497e62#.4bn9j4mr8 <comment><USER2> No, nobody is interested in another meta messenger. Many others tried (just look at the PC market with multi messengers). The problem is that your interfaces to other messengers and email systems will never be good enough to match the native experience and many companies like e.g. Snapchat and Instagram are not interested in sharing their content to outside. 100% sure this will not work or will be buggy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the honest feedback. We fully realize this has been attempted before, but we feel as though we can execute on it. We are in the early stages, but development is going along smoothly. We have our first integration completed and now are going to power through a few more to get to beta.

I 100% accept your challenge! :)</comment></comment>


Learning (Software) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Or_yoffe/learning-software-d81e0b07f512 <comment><AUTHOR> I just published "Learning (software)" About my approach to learning.. Hope you like it and benefit from my thoughts. Learn to code or anything else and enjoy yourself</comment>


The most advanced MySQL raytracer on the market - <AUTHOR> http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=83222 <comment><USER2> If you're unfamiliar with navigating the fabulous Pouet.net, the relevant background is in the so-called "infofile": [https://www.pouet.net/prod_nfo.php?which=83222](https://www.pouet.net/prod_nfo.php?which=83222)

(or click [nfo] in the right top)

<comment><USER3> I really appreciate comments like this for the quick time save they offer. Thank you for this comment, it was the most useful in this post for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > This is a raytracing engine contained in a single Mysql SELECT statement. In > the beginning of the code there are a few parameters that can be modified. > The scene can be specified using the @triangles and @squares parameters, but > everything is explained in the comments. The whole query returns a bitmap > file which can be written to the filesystem using the "INTO DUMPFILE" syntax > at the end of the query, if mysql has filesystem write permissions.

> The raytracer supports shadows and reflections, which makes it, to my > knowledge, the most advanced MySQL raytracer on the market right now.

[https://demozoo.org/productions/268459/info/2923/](https://demozoo.org/productions/268459/info/2923/)

<comment><USER5> Isn't it the same code?

[https://demozoo.org/productions/268459/](https://demozoo.org/productions/268459/)

<comment><USER4> That is the same link I posted without the path to the readme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fun fact:

The official XPath/XQuery test suite of the W3C contains an raytracer written in XQuery.

So most xml databases should support raytracing

</comment><comment><USER7> Now this is art! I think us geeks have finally hit upon the formula the high brow art people are used to. Now we just need to start a _physical_ market so that:

a) demoscene creators can get rich

b) "art investors" can launder their money

<comment><USER8> the problem with "demoscene art" is that the final product is often only impressive if you know how it was done. really you want to display it in a way that shows off the mechanism. i guess quines don't have this problem.

<comment><USER9> I'd argue a good chunk of "Art art" is quite similar: the thing you see is quite unimpressive and really only considered important because of context.

<comment><USER2> A nice demoscene example is "Piledriver", which contains _all_ of the last 2 decades worth of demoscene tropes, no exceptions. Hexagonal cones, walking robots, purple explosions, drum'n'bass with rap vocals, television walls with earlier scenes, it's all there. And it's extremely well executed, which hides that it's a parody. So I guess it only works as a work of art if you saw the demos it mocks.

[https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=82882](https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=82882)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4zkSd3-6I2A](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4zkSd3-6I2A)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anybody in North America who's interested in this kind of technical magic should consider attending one of the few demoscene parties (meetings/competitions) in the U.S. such as Demosplash [1]

1 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-GTf7b9PKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-GTf7b9PKk)

If you are in Europe, especially Northern Europe, there's a ton of very well attended parties. There's even a few in Japan!

It's really for people who are extremely passionate about technology for technology's sake and like to show off a little.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is actually a pretty neat mechanism that builds a string (including BMP magic number and header) and shoves it into a dump file, doing a ray trace per byte. I wish there was a commented/not collapsed version of it to better enjoy reading. Right now it's just a blob.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Released under the do whatever the fuck you want license. If you use it for commercial purposes, like rendering your Hollywood studio's new big animated A-Movie, please let me know at firstname.lastname@example.com. " \-- [https://demozoo.org/productions/268459/info/2923/](https://demozoo.org/productions/268459/info/2923/)

<comment><USER13> Is there a "this is probably a bad idea; if you use this code I'm not responsible" license?

<comment><USER14> Sounds like you want the MIT license

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Related: there's a codegolfing answer to draw the biohazard symbol -- in Microsoft SQL Server. It has graphics! For real. [https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/191323/7733](https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/191323/7733)

</comment><comment><USER16> Clever (and unreadable) :-)

Here's another raytracer written in Linq (2007) [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/lukeh/2007/10/01/taking- lin...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/lukeh/2007/10/01/taking-linq-to- objects-to-extremes-a-fully-linqified-raytracer/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Now that PostGIS outputs pngs directly, we can imagine future databases handling 3d assets (select * from objects where can_fit_in(x);) and even rendering them.

[https://postgis.net/docs/RT_ST_AsRaster.html](https://postgis.net/docs/RT_ST_AsRaster.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> By the way, you can find all releases of that party here: [https://demozoo.org/parties/3800/](https://demozoo.org/parties/3800/)

Youtube captures of all events and competitions are here: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1nWnZ0_fy8DvL13vfLD8...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1nWnZ0_fy8DvL13vfLD8zvXVdLsazEvB)

And here's another production which is an insane tech-feat: [https://demozoo.org/productions/268576/](https://demozoo.org/productions/268576/) Moving cubes with pathtracing, lighting and ambient sound in 64 bytes

</comment><comment><USER19> Wherefore the fuck?

Though I'm suddenly curious if this can be done in other SQL engines, too.

<comment><USER20> Well, yes of course, there's probably an ripe untapped market there. Lot's of potential!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is nice. So this is one SELECT statement in which the triangles and/or spheres are defined, and the raytracing-engine is written. Then it calculates the Pixels and dumps them into a .bmp-file.

</comment><comment><USER22> It is surprising to discover that there is actually a market for multiple MySQL Raytracers, much less that this is the best of them. Clever stuff.

<comment><USER23> Here's one for SQLite [https://observablehq.com/@pallada-92/sql-3d-engine](https://observablehq.com/@pallada-92/sql-3d-engine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Did we break it? (site doesn't load for me)

<comment><USER25> Site just loads really slowly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Ok so now I am curious if it could be done in other engines Cassandra,SPARQL ...

</comment><comment><USER27> Unrelated question: Is there an Ignobel for Computer Science?

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if something like this might even be slightly practical using BigQuery or similar..

<comment><USER29> UDFs are throttled, so to get max perf out of BQ one would need to make sure it was pure sql.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> So to accelerate this, do I need an SSD or a GPU or a DBA?

<comment><USER31> Yes.</comment></comment>


Latency Comparison of Lua, OpenCL, and Native C/C++ - <AUTHOR> https://www.karlrupp.net/2016/03/lua-opencl-latency-comparison/ <comment><USER2> If you're going to be in the business of profiling Lua code, you should really test LuaJITs optimized implementation.</comment>


When Madden NFL Killed NFL 2K - <AUTHOR> https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-moment-madden-nfl-killed-nfl-2k-forever <comment><USER2> The shock waves of this deal basically killed all competition in sport video games. When I was a kid there were usually 3 or 4 games in each of the big pro sports. Today there is really only one viable franchise per sport (even though I believe all the exclusive licenses have since expired). The market for these games is bigger than ever with EA bringing in almost $1 billion per year from their Madden and FIFA franchises. However the cost of licensing and the threat of another exclusivity bidding war means the barrier to entry and long term risk of creating a new franchise is sadly too high to get any serious competition.

<comment><USER3> Isn't Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer still kicking around? You're essentially right otherwise though.

<comment><USER4> Not for long: [https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/16/pes-2019-champions- leagu...](https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/16/pes-2019-champions-league-fifa- heartbreak/)

<comment><USER5> PES / WE has never had official licenses except for a few clubs here and there that change every season and no one cares because it's simply superior to FIFA in every other way. People have been playing this game for over two decades without official licenses. Losing the CL license will not affect the game much.

EDIT: Also, there are community patches with all the kits, at least for PS4 / PC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty telling excerpt of the business BS going on from Wikipedia:

ESPN NFL 2K5 was the first in the 2K series priced at $19.99 the day it shipped, much lower than market leader Madden NFL at $49.99. This greatly reduced Madden sales that year; one EA Sports developer recalled that "[i]t scared the hell out of us".[1] EA reduced Madden NFL 2005's price to $29.95. In December 2004 EA Sports acquired an exclusive rights agreement with the NFL and NFLPA to be the sole creator of NFL video games.[2] The deal terminated 2K Sports production of any further NFL games. The ensuing season, Madden 2006, saw pricing returned to the $49.99 MSRP.

In December 2010, a U.S. district court judge certified a class action anti- trust lawsuit against Electronic Arts for anti-competitive practices to proceed.[3] Electronic Arts settled the class action suit in July 2012 for $27 million, and retained its exclusive NFL license.[4][5]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN_NFL_2K5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN_NFL_2K5)

<comment><USER7> I remember when this happened when I was just a kid of maybe 10 or 11. Around the time this was happening, you still had NFL blitz, street, fever, QB club, etc all duking it out for king of the sports games, especially.

It was a time before social media, so we only really heard rumors about what happened. We all began to hate EA, even back then. We knew it was about money. 2k6 wasnt perfect and it was clunky at times, but it was way more cost effective to play, considering how much you had to pay for a new roster every year

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Madden is fascinating to me because despite widespread user dissatisfaction with the game year-in, year-out, its users treat it like a necessity. I guess that's a monopoly in action.

There is space for a competitive product, but it would need to be completely unlicensed. Without licensing, you'd need a simple way to customize rules, teams, players, etc. EAs NCAA series got around player issues in a similar way.

If that customization were fostered, you could have a football game that with a few clicks was a better Madden and/or NCAA series. You'd just need to trade your licensing budget for a legal one.

<comment><USER2> You might notice that the NCAA series doesn't exist anymore and that is partly because that plausible deniability of using the community to circumvent licensing rules can only go so far.

<comment><USER8> I think that's (a small) part of it. The surface reason is that EA did the same thing for a long time, creating players that looked like their real life counterparts with their real life attributes and real life numbers, etc.

That's what bit them. You're really going to be hamstrung fighting an open- world, modifiable game unless you're showing obvious negligence in policing it.

<comment><USER2> There would be numerous problems with 100% made up teams and players that would make it too risky for any big developer to attempt.

1\. It would be hard to market without a single recognizable face or team.

2\. It would be hostile to casual/novice users who couldn't play the game at its full potential out of the box.

3\. It would be hard to create the online and esport modes that other sports games thrive on as you couldn't allow those custom rosters in competitive modes.

<comment><USER8> 1\. Absolutely. It would require some sort of viral approach. You won't win with traditional advertising.

2\. Maybe. To be fair, I think the approach from point #1 would always come with an implicit :wink wink, nudge nudge:.

3\. I'm not sure you _couldn 't_ allow it so much as you would be expected to respond to DMCA/etc in reasonable fashion.

<comment><USER2> That :wink wink, nudge nudge: was exactly what I was talking about in my first post that EA had to eventually give up on.

In order to have any competitive online mode, you need to have have player attributes that are in some way restricted so you can't just max out the attributes for your custom team. That would be in direct conflict with recreating teams realistically because real life teams can have huge disparities of talent between them.

And just to be clear, I am not saying that this can't be done. Just that the obstacles in the way make this such a risky undertaking that no established developer would take on a project like this.

<comment><USER8> > That :wink wink, nudge nudge: was exactly what I was talking about in my > first post that EA had to eventually give up on.

It isn't, though. They had to give up because they did the job themselves, not because they had an open and accessible customization system. Had they never themselves created approximations of real players, it would have been a harder legal battle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> NFL 2K was the last big step change in football video games. You could put me on a desert island and I wouldn't miss Madden '18 one bit.

Actually I bought Madden '18 which is the first time I've bought a football game in a long time. Madden Ultimate Team is pushed so hard in that game. It's terrible. And people who dump a ton of money into it...you can't even take it into the next season with you.

One genre I'll really miss which will never come back are the NCAA Football and Basketball games. Understandably so.

</comment><comment><USER10> NFL2K was easily the best football game. The controls were so much better than Madden. Something about Sega games that made them so easy to get into. I could never get into Madden.

On the Dreamcast where it launched, you could pick plays on your controller's LCD display, making sure your opponent never saw what play you picked. So good..

<comment><USER11> NFL Blitz was also a fantastic game of that era.

It's a shame that sports games all basically are strangled into a mold these days.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, totally agreed. Blitz was great because it didn't try to be too realistic and had a lot of silly and ridiculous stuff, which made it a lot of fun. I don't like or watch sports, but I did have fun playing Blitz on the N64 with my friends. Games like Madden take themselves too seriously and (IMO of course) only seem to be good for actual sports fans

<comment><USER13> Blitz knew exactly what it wanted to be: arcade football. A sort of spiritual successor to games like Mutant League.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me, I actually still play Tecmo Super Bowl and actually prefer it over Madden. There is a large fan community and they put out a ROM patch with updated rosters every year [0]. The same for NHL Hockey '94 [1].

[0] [http://tecmobowl.org/files/file/550-tecmo-super- bowl-2018-pr...](http://tecmobowl.org/files/file/550-tecmo-super- bowl-2018-presented-by-tecmobowlorg/)

[1] [http://www.nhl94.com](http://www.nhl94.com)

</comment><comment><USER15> This can be broken, make a customizable game. Players can name their teams, name the players, name the city, load custom jerseys, load different faces/skin. Let the underground and players build their own player. Make the game player much better.

<comment><USER13> This could work provided there was a dedicated enough userbase in the early adopters who had the drive and dedication to create the current league. Then when/if the game gets popular enough, there should be enough people to make keeping up trivial.

<comment><USER15> You can fake the userbase. ;-)

<comment><USER13> I mean, you could do all the work yourself

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reading this thread is such a trip down nostalgia lane. NFL 2K (or maybe 2K1) was my first football game ever, and I have such good memories of playing it with my friends. Pity it had to die an early death, just like the Dreamcast.

</comment><comment><USER17> I still miss Front Page Sports Football from the 90s. While we owned a couple of different versions, the early one that had the most play time for us was completely unlicensed, so we made up names for all of the teams. It was a really nice balance of sim, play designer, and arcade football. My brother and I each had a team and played through multiple seasons. If memory serves, I tanked the end of one season to ensure the #1 overall pick in the next draft. Unfortunately, with our setup only one person could play at a time so we had to sim any games our teams played each other (including a championship game or two).

<comment><USER18> I was just talking about this with a friend the other day. We both agreed that to date, it was the most fun either of us have had with a computer football game. Watching your fictional players develop,get hurt etc added an rpg-like element that was addictive. I am surprised and disappointed no one has made a comparable modern version.

<comment><USER19> I bet the next developer that makes a sports game with a Fire-Emblem spin (character relationship elements, individual personalities) will make a solid amount of money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The source podcast ("Madden's Game, by 30 for 30) is itself very interesting for covering the development of the Madden games. Gets into great technical detail, such as how Madden refused to put his name on the game until developers could figure out how to make the game (in the 80s) have 11 vs. 11 players, as opposed to 7 vs. 7. Development stretched past 4 years and Madden's first game was predicted to be a financial failure.

[https://30for30podcasts.com/episodes/maddens- game/](https://30for30podcasts.com/episodes/maddens-game/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Yeah this ended any competition in NFL video games. Madden got a monopoly basically.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am not American but I gained an appreciation for American Football when I started playing NFL 2k when it came out for the Dreamcast. I continued buying the game when it was out for the PS2 and was sad when that exclusive license thing was announced. I was looking forward to the day when the license expired but sadly that day never came.

One thing I also miss is the 2k College Hoops game. It was like playing NBA 2kx except that the rosters didn't matter because they were all randomly generated.

</comment><comment><USER23> Last season should have been a good one for me-- I'm a Vikings fan.

But since the NFL became embroiled in politics, I quit watching-- and found I was fine without it. I look forward to more free time again this year.

I see where soccer (football to a lot of the world) is picking up a little more interest in the US. Maybe that'll be a better way to get my sporting fix.

</comment><comment><USER24> :shakes fist vigorously:</comment>


Ask HN: How to use developer skills for occasionally making money on the side? - <AUTHOR> Once you have a portfolio of skills you can use professionally, how can you "make a quick buck"? Most alternative revenue streams described by developers are either grown slowly (eg. side-business) or require already established and trusted profile (eg. Upwork) and plenty of time to actually complete the project. <comment><USER2> Optimization for yourself / "quick bucks" doesn't work for the client. There is no reliable fast path to greater wealth, it will always take putting in more, and higher quality effort than your peers / competitors.

This is why getting to the (partial) freedom to choose when & what to work on takes time. You have to earn (in terms of trust) your way there.

It's more than technical skills too. You will do better with non-tech skills in sales, relation, and expectation management.</comment>


Dance show for Apple co-founder - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7878566.stm <comment><USER2> Already posted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=472975></comment>


Windows 10 turns 5: where did it all go wrong? - <AUTHOR> https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-turns-5-where-did-it-all-go-wrong <comment><USER2> _In fact, Windows 8 was such a disaster that Microsoft skipped Windows 9 altogether to distance Windows 10 from its predecessor._

I am not defending Windows 10 and would never use it for personal use in its current state. That said, my understanding is that they skipped 9 because of all the existing code that looks at windows versions and could potentially match 9.x as "95, 98, 98se" as a matter of reducing risk. I do not have a current reference for this.

I would use Windows 10 if the default install was a stripped down version of LTSC and had zero telemetry. Give me a kernel, a window manager, sound drivers, video drivers, storage drivers, network drivers. That's it. Install size should be less than 500 MB and idle memory usage should be less than 512 MB of RAM, in my opinion. When I "view processes for all users" it should be less than 20. Aside from Windows Update and layer 2 discovery, there should be zero network packets initiated by the OS unless I specifically requested it. Call this one LTSZ for Zero Cruft.

<comment><USER2> I challenge Microsoft to make what I described. Side project? Summer intern project?</comment></comment>


Ask HN and PG - Justin.tv Question? - <AUTHOR>

How does Justin.tv get by still with so many people broadcasting pirated and copyrighted material?  How have they not been shut down ie. Napster? <comment><USER2> _(Not affiliated with either party, but here's my take)_

Simple: clear fair use, and responsiveness to takedown requests.

Take NFL games as an example:

At any given time you can probably find a channel showing any NFL game, but you won't be able to find one that lasts the whole broadcast. That means they're pulling copyrighted content in < 3 hours, which is pretty damn good.

Simultaneously, you can find lots of UGC that isn't pirated on justin.tv (i.e., the site exists for more than piracy).

<comment><USER3> I strongly suspect you're right. The same is true for tennis grand slams. Watching the last few tournament stages is practically impossible, streams are shut down within minutes. Oh, and the infuriating "max number of viewers for your country reached" message. Not that you can watch it anywhere else for love nor money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Justin TV's legit content consists of video game streams and young girls life casting.

A vast majority is pirated material. If you look at entertainment, every single one is pirated on the first page(by viewers). They are responsive to takedowns but what then happens is a new NFL stream of the game pops up or goes private. They are legal in following takedown requests but it highlights that the DMCA is not very effective on live streaming sites.

Viewer numbers of their 5 biggest sections front page:

Sports-17k pirate

Entertainment-10k pirate

Gaming-2k legal

Producers-3k legal(overlaps with gaming)

Social-1k legal(barely...)

</comment><comment><USER5> If you hear an answer from either PG or justin.tv, I suspect it will have been reviewed by a lawyer :)

The owners/investors of that company aren't going to create any public text that could be used against them later in a lawsuit.

<comment><USER6> The short answer is just a google search away: [http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/08/12/justintv- steps-...](http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/08/12/justintv-steps-up- copyright-protection-efforts)

The long answer: Like any site with UGC, we have to deal with the issue of copyrighted content. We deal with it by going above and beyond the requirements of the DMCA and working with copyright holders like Fox (among hundreds of others we have relationships with) to make sure their rights are respected.

I'm a founder of Justin.tv. This hasn't been reviewed by a lawyer.

<comment><USER7> Just curious- do you have to pay any licensing costs? And if so, do you know offhand how they compare to music licensing costs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> DMCA basically gives you 72 hours to take something down. Now that worked in a world where content was intended to have an unlimited lifespan ie- music, youtube videos,etc. With livestreaming video, the damage is done within a few hours or less.

Livestreaming sites have put content fingerprinting technology in place and often respond very fast to takedown notices. Even the fastest of responses will still cause damage. So does that mean JTV puts in a system where content owners can just start taking things down at all like ebay does with auctions? I don't know, that's scary.

I would never cancel cable because I can watch sports on a livestream site. The quality is usually crap with foreign commentary. Odds are the people watching that content don't have cable anyway (like myself).

There are two missing pieces to the content side of things when it comes to shifting people away from cable subscriptions: local news and sports. Local news could be solved in a fairly straight forward manner. Sports is up to each league,etc. If I were the NBA, NFL, MLB,etc. I would start working with livestreaming sites to do test runs of pay per view content. Once most sports games are ubiquitously available on the internet in real time and for replay Comcast should be scared. If Comcast actually had their shit together, they would have purchased JTV/Ustream/Livestream when they were cheap.

Right now, the real value of live video isn't from illegal sports or content, its from real time interaction. If you've ever seen a celebrity or music artist interact with their fans on a live video site, you know the platform is something special. The numbers that Jonas Brothers/Ustream/Facebook pulled in were absolutely mind blowing.

<comment><USER9> I am the VP Marketing at Justin.tv, this was also not reviewed by a lawyer :)

"DMCA basically gives you 72 hours to take something down"

I don't believe there's any law or precedent that states 72 hours (or any number of hours) as a required turnaround time. More importantly, for the vast majority of infringing broadcasts, we don't take 72 hours (or any number of hours) to respond to a request for takedown. Instead, the vast majority of owners of infringing content (over 150 companies including probably all copyright owners you can name) have access to a tool that lets them take down content instantly without any intervention on our part.

"Livestreaming sites have put content fingerprinting technology in place and often respond very fast to takedown notices"

When you refer to these sites, I'm curious which ones you have in mind other than Justin.tv. We do have live finderprinting and we do respond instantly to most takedown noticed. However, I don't know of other live sites that are doing either of those. In fact, Ustream was sued this summer due to not responding to takedown notices and Fox's content group legal counsel has specifically stated that Livestream has not gone to the same measures to protect copyright holders as Justin.tv.

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/17/ustream-sued-by- boxing-...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/17/ustream-sued-by-boxing- promoter-over-pirated-broadcast/)

[http://newteevee.com/2009/11/11/justin-tv-live- fingerprintin...](http://newteevee.com/2009/11/11/justin-tv-live- fingerprinting-goes-live-this-week/)

[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/110031/JTV/Video/content%20filtering...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/110031/JTV/Video/content%20filtering.mov)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hulu and Justin.TV makes me ask, "Who needs Cable TV & why would I ever subscribe again!" Love watching marathons of my favorite shows!

Thanks Justin!

<comment><AUTHOR> I should note I canceled my cable subscription because of it.

<comment><USER11> Hulu will be moving to a subscription model soon.

<comment><USER12> Overstatement; Hulu will soon move to a subscription model for premium content, current content stay free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Considering a show called "New Moon - Looping" already has 33,000+ views... I'm not sure.</comment>


Julian Assange Opens M.I.A.'s New York Show Via Skype - <AUTHOR> http://pitchfork.com/news/52872-julian-assange-opens-mias-new-york-show/

<comment><USER2> The founder of a whistleblower site using Skype? Did the journalist get it wrong? Or doesn't Assange give a clippy about security?</comment>


Ask HN: are there any "must read" product management books? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to get some fresh ideas to improve our product lifecycle.
A quick Amazon search turns up a lots of stuff, but I'm not sure which books are for us - in particular, even if the book is very good I am not sure if it is targeted towards say enterprise vs. an small, everyone-wears-multiple-hats agile team.
With software development you've got "must reads"  like Code Complete that basically are relevant to any programmer regardless of environment, so I wonder if there's analogous tomes for product? <comment><USER2> You should check out Inspired - How to create products customer love by Marty Cagan. I found it extremely concise and useful.

[http://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Create-Products-Customers- Lov...](http://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Create-Products-Customers- Love/dp/0981690408/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294301344&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the book Managing Humans is a wonderful book on management.

<http://www.managinghumans.com/>

<comment><USER4> The website is great, really simple and original.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Augustine's Laws_

Like the mythical man month, only not mythical.

[http://www.amazon.com/Augustines-Chairman-Lockheed- Corporati...](http://www.amazon.com/Augustines-Chairman-Lockheed-Corporation- Augustine/dp/1563472406)

</comment><comment><USER6> A classic book is "The mythical man of the month", It was published in 1975, but its worth reading.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month>

<comment><USER7> It's "The Mythical Man-Month".

Which makes sense given the content of the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> See: [http://www.quora.com/Product-Management/What-are-the-best- bo...](http://www.quora.com/Product-Management/What-are-the-best-books-for- Product-Managers)?

</comment><comment><USER9> steve blank's Four Steps to the Epiphany. Steve also has a list of books on his website, steveblank.com/books-for-startups.

</comment><comment><USER10> Making Things Happen by Scott Berkun.</comment>


World's first commercial quantum computer sold to Lockheed Martin - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/27/first-quantum-computer-sold/ <comment><USER2> D-Wave has a long, long history of making grandiose claims and completely failing to back them up.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems#Criticism>

All this press release proves is that they got a defense contractor to spend $10 million dollars.

<comment><USER3> I worked with someone who worked there. It's not all bullshit but one of the founders has got big dreams/plans and so comes off as a bullshit artist. Even my former colleague says he thought a lot of it was a little iffy but he never doubted they'd eventually get there. The stories were awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The D-wave machine is different from a general purpose quantum computer which is why it can have many more qubits than the more traditional approach that you are most like to have heard of in the press. That said no one knows what the power of this type of machine is and calling in a quantum computer is probably stretching it a bit. Here are some details for those interested: [http://www.quora.com/Is-the-D-Wave-One-a-true-quantum- comput...](http://www.quora.com/Is-the-D-Wave-One-a-true-quantum- computer/answer/Dave-Bacon-1)

</comment><comment><USER5> Two months ago we had a story that 14 qubits was the largest quantum computer yet (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2404470>). This one now has 128? Is this just a money difference, was this a huge engineering breakthrough, or is there something else going on here?

<comment><USER6> There's something else going on here. The one-line explanation is that true QC requires quantum entanglement to be preserved, for reasonably long time scales, across all qubits. It's not believed that the D-Wave 128-bit machine does this, although the 8-bit one seems to.

Here's the opinion of an independent critic:

[http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/05/24/q-and-a-with- pr...](http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/05/24/q-and-a-with-prof-scott- aaronson-on-d-waves-quantum-computer/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd love to know how many people in the world actually understand quantum computing with reasonable depth. My bet is less than 500. I will be the first to confess that I have no idea what they are talking about most of the time.

<comment><USER8> Here are a couple of articles on the announcement by Scott Aaronson and Dave Bacon (professors at MIT and U Washington).

[http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/05/24/q-and-a-with- pr...](http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/05/24/q-and-a-with-prof-scott- aaronson-on-d-waves-quantum-computer/)

[http://www.quora.com/Is-the-D-Wave-One-a-true-quantum- comput...](http://www.quora.com/Is-the-D-Wave-One-a-true-quantum-computer)

<comment><USER9> Scott Aaronson is basically THE go-to guy for anything involving complexity theory or quantum computing. His explanations are phenomenal and his blog is usually full of easily understood information. He posted something a few weeks ago about the D-wave situation and pointed to that article he did for Forbes.

<http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=639>

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't say Aaronson is the premier expert on computational complexity. That would probably be Lance Fortnow who literally writes the blog on computational complexity (<http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/>). RJ Lipton is pretty notable, as well <http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/>.

<comment><USER11> He didn't suggest Aaronson was the premier expert, he suggested he was the best person to go to for clear, easy to understand explanations (such as in the Forbes piece linked).

These are completely different things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This kind of sounds like bs. For several years now quantum computers have had a very low number of qubits, only incrementally increasing every once and a while. Now this thing nearly 10x the qubits? I don't think so, such a breakthrough would make much more news than this.

</comment><comment><USER13> This could pose a problem to the BitCoin money supply.

</comment><comment><USER14> Want to know if these quantum computers have any Operating system and what Programing languages are used to build the programs

<comment><USER15> Its OS is built with alien technology (aka LISP)

[http://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/learning-to-program- th...](http://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/learning-to-program-the-d-wave- one-software-you-should-install-a-book-you-should-buy/#comment-21948)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good to see this type news being shared publicly. What ever happened to Bob Gelfond & MagiQ?

<comment><USER4> Still alive and kicking. There are also a few other quantum cryptograph companies around including <http://www.idquantique.com/> and <http://www.quintessencelabs.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The real kicker is programming it with punch cards.

<comment><USER18> It's hard because you need quantum punch cards.

<comment><USER19> I have a feeling this will become a ThinkGeek product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> wasn't D-wave a scam company?

<comment><USER21> There are lots of people questioning whether their device is really a quantum computer but D-Wave has published many papers in peer-reviewed literature and so just calling them a 'scam company' is a bit strong. We'll see soon enough once more people get their hands on these devices. If they really are a 'scam company' they won't last long now that they're shipping actual hardware.</comment></comment>


Is Open-Source Cryptography Secure? - <AUTHOR> https://qvault.io/2020/01/30/is-open-source-cryptography-really-secure/ <comment><USER2> In short, the answer is yes</comment>