Ask HN: What makes dynamic scoping different from all variables being global? - <AUTHOR> In light of the recent discussion on JS and Scheme, this is something that's been annoying me for a while. I can not think of a single experiment that will let me tell apart languages that have dynamic scoping from languages in which all variables are global, i.e. there being no such thing as many scopes.<p>Is dynamic scoping really a nicer word for "no scoping"? (Puns about first person shooter games aside.) <comment><USER2> No, dynamic scope and global scope are two different things...and can exist within a language alongside lexical scope. Common Lisp (unsurprisingly given its development as a consensus standard among working programmers and Lisp system vendors) is an example. The macros defvar and defparameter [1] accompany lexical scope (and package/namespace scope). For my money, Common Lisp is a great language to study when trying to get a handle on language design because it does so much. YMMV.

[http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/m_defp...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/m_defpar.htm)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been learning a lot about OOP while studying CLOS, so I am not surprised. Will look into scoping in CL too. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> My favorite OOP language is Smalltalk. I'd say it helped me make more sense of CLOS and Javascript and Ruby Objects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's a Javascript program:

        const x = 'lexically scoped';

        const f = () => x;

        const g = () => {
            const x = 'dynamically scoped';
            return f();
        };

        console.log(g());

It prints which scoping Javascript uses. When `f` is executed, `x` isn't defined in that scope (the body of `f`), but `x` is used in that scope: does the language look in the scope that `f` itself was defined in (the top-level in this case, but you can have nested scopes), or does it look, at run-time, at the scope that `f` was _called from_ (the body of `g`)? That's the difference. The local-to-`g` `x` that dynamic scoping would use when `f` is called is not a global; it's an entirely different variable from the other `x` (even in a dynamically scoped language, calling `g` won't change the outer `x`'s value).

Dynamic scoping can be useful: for example, in Common Lisp (which supports both lexical and dynamic variables), _STANDARD-INPUT_ is a dynamically scoped variable, so you can temporarily redirect stdin like:

        (with-open-file (*standard-input* (open "file.txt"))
          (function-that-reads-from-stdin))

And not have to worry about setting _STANDARD-INPUT_ back to its old value when you're done. Scala's implicits are also often used to produce the same effect as dynamic scope.

As an aside, you could argue that `this` is dynamically scoped in Javascript (outside of new lambdas).

<comment><USER3> Wasn't thinking when I wrote that Lisp example; obviously you don't use OPEN alongside WITH-OPEN-FILE, it just takes the filename.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lexical scoping means that a variable expression X refers to the innermost binding which is in the program text that encloses the references.

Dynamic scoping means that the expression X refers to the innermost binding of X in the entire activation chain ("call stack") leading up to that point (or possibly to a global, top-level X if there is no such binding).

Global means that X refers to a single instance in a top-level environment.

Dynamic scoping can be faked with global variables plus a hidden saving/restoring mechanism. That is to say, the local binding of a dynamic variable can be simulated by saving the current value in a hidden local location associated with the activation frame, then simply assigning to the global variable, and finally restoring the prior value (with unwind protection, so it is guaranteed). However, the ruse will be exposed under any sort of concurrency (threads, coroutines, continuations) which will make it apparent that there is only one instance of the variable. Under a true implementation of dynamic scoping, the local binding of the dynamic variable actually has a separate local location from the fall-back global one.

Note that the scoping classification of bindings is not sufficiently nuanced to capture what is possible. Words like "lexical" refers to visibility but "binding" is what happens at run-time: the establishment of the life of the thing that the name refers to, through to its termination. In Common Lisp parlance, the run-time lifetime of a binding is called its "extent".

If a language supports lexical closures, then lexical variables never "go away" while it is possible for a closure to be invoked which refers to their values. This situation is called "indefinite extent".

"Dynamic scope" is an informal term for "indefinite scope, dynamic extent". See here: [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/clm/node43.html](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/clm/node43.html) [cltl2, 3 Scope and Extent]

This terminology lets us distinguish nuanced situations such as:

\- C non-static local variables: lexical scope, dynamic extent (go away when block scope terminates).

\- C static locals: lexical scope, indefinite extent

\- Common Lisp blocks: lexical scope, dynamic extent

</comment><comment><USER5> Dynamic Scope let's you run code portions with their own variable bindings - without the need to pass arguments into the function and without the need to rebind the variables lexically in surrounding code. The scope is dynamic, that means that the bindings are only active while the code is actually active - different from lexical binding, where closures capture bindings even then the closure generating code is no longer active.

Dynamic binding is usually called 'fluids' in Scheme. There are constructs like fluid-let which create dynamic bindings.

In Common Lisp the normal LET creates dynamic bindings when the variable is declared to be special. Variables defined by DEFVAR or DEFVARAMETER are declared special by definition.

</comment><comment><USER6> Check whether you get the outer scope's value back when the inner scope terminates.

<comment><AUTHOR> With no scoping you don't, because there is no inner scope.

With dynamic scoping you also don't, because there is no lexical scope.

What am I misunderstanding?

<comment><USER6> I don't understand your point 2. Here's an example of what I meant:

      > (defvar somevar 3)
      > (defun printvar () (format t "somevar is ~D~%" somevar))
      > (printvar)
      somevar is 3
      > (let ((somevar 5)) (printvar))
      somevar is 5
      > (printvar)
      somevar is 3

If you only have global variables, you wouldn't get 3 back the third time, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> YES!! Thank you!

This made it click with me, finally. I can't yet put it into words nicely, but I do have an intuition for the concept now.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why CISA Issued Our First Emergency Directive - <AUTHOR> https://cyber.dhs.gov/blog/#why-cisa-issued-our-first-emergency-directive <comment><USER2> Considering the top two cybersecurity roles in the US government have been vacant since mid 2018, it's fortunate that there are still some people focused on area.

<comment><USER3> My understanding is Trump is having so much trouble getting confirmations through congress, he's basically stopped trying except for essentials and the gov has never taken tech related stuff as essential.

<comment><USER4> He's had few difficulties. Executive positions simply aren't being filled, for some reason. He's proposed many judges. AFAIK every name proposed for any position has been approved by the senate.

<comment><USER5> I am not from US, but decided to google quickly about this... and you are wrong, and the guy that is downvoted seemly is right:

[https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/423965-senate-throws- hun...](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/423965-senate-throws-hundreds-of- trump-nominees-into-limbo)

<comment><USER4> Hmm, interesting. The high profile ones seem to go through without any more than a ceremonial objection so those less prominent ones are surprising.

Thanks for checking this!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fun detail: their first-ever "emergency directive", owing to a rash of DNS hijacking attacks, and not one mention of DNSSEC, despite the fact that the US Government requires agencies to use it. And they do! Pull a list of random .GOV or .MIL domains and check if they have DNSSEC --- most will! And it did fuck-all to stop this attack.

<comment><USER7> This attack vector is not something DNSSEC was ever intended to defend against, so why would it be mentioned? Once the registrar account associated with a domain is pwned the attacker can do pretty much anything they want with it, including obtain fraudulent certificates.

<comment><USER8> As someone who has recently dealt with a major government agency, the requirement of DNSSEC means that agencies can't use Route53 as it doesn't support DNSSEC. This makes it much less likely that an agency will use something like Terraform for managing DNS, which would help in making sure all records are validated and easily auditable. Instead, many DNS records are managed by hand or with bespoke systems. The best case is that it's managed by maybe Akamai, but records are still updated via support tickets and implemented by hand (as akamai's Terraform support is pretty bad).

So it's relevent to mention DNSSEC because it's spoken of within the government as a method of securing DNS, but in reality it makes things worse. It doesn't protect against attacks like these and the end result is you are forced to use a crappy system that makes you even more vulnerable to these sorts of attacks. It's the worst of all worlds.

(Also, I was on the call they held for CIOs and tech leaders of all agencies, and it was astonishing how many of the questions in their chat made it obvious that many of the entrenched players didn't even understand how this attack worked.)

<comment><USER9> The article/directive specifically called out DNS account passwords on DNS hosting providers. If they were using support tickets and manually implemented changes by hand then there would not be an account. With no account for a control panel you don't have any risk that the email and password gets dumped on pastebin. In the directive it even speaks about password managers, which again implies that the issue they are talking about are DNS control panels like the one at Route53, likely with reused password, and not bespoke systems.

For high priority domain names I would go so far and recommend against having a DNS control panel accounts on things like Route53. It has access control management but unless the department has the experience and skills it will likely end up with a single account that has full access with little oversight when something goes wrong. Those departments are likely better served going through a domain management company that handles all the security and manage who can request changes and how. If they have the experience and skills then managing it fully themselves can be a better option, but then what they really need is a registrar which allows for DNSSEC keys to be forwarded (with for example a cds record).

<comment><USER8> "If they were using support tickets and manually implemented changes by hand then there would not be an account."

Your contracting team may not have a DNS account, but the contractor that deals with DNS changes certainly does.

The point is that all infrastructure really should be managed with code. If you managed DNS from Terraform you'd notice that your production DNS system was in conflict from what your code said it should be the next time a terraform plan/apply was run (which is happening all the time from dev or maybe CI). Without it you could go months or years without noticing a changed entry on a little used, but critical system. From what I remember this attack was ongoing for a couple years before it was noticed.

<comment><USER9> If they are using contractors that have DNS accounts with email and password as authentication, and who reuse that on other online websites which later get leaked, then that is major a failure in procurement when the bid was initially created.

> The point is that all infrastructure really should be managed with code

That I agree 100% with. If the agency itself has a IT department with experience and knowledge then the most optimal choice is that they do it themselves with either something like Terraform or their own physical hardware with authoritative DNS running on it. Agencies that is involved with either critical infrastructure, personal information, or state secrets should always have a security risk analyze done which describe what would happen if someone broke into DNS and where the vulnerabilities are. Sadly very few agencies does this.

Other agencies are likely better served by updating their procurement in respect to DNS management and make sure the requirements lists liability and high security. Make sure that rather than some cheap bulk registrar with a do- it-yourself control panel, where the registrar always have zero livability if the credentials are leaked, it is better to pay a more costly management company that manage the infrastructure with code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> tl, dr: Because Iranian hackers were hijacking DNS records for government sites.

<comment><USER11> Where is Iran mentioned?

<comment><USER12> It's buried in links, but the FireEye research referenced by US CERT discusses it.

[https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current- activity/2019/01/10/DNS...](https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current- activity/2019/01/10/DNS-Infrastructure-Hijacking-Campaign)

And

[https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat- research/2019/01/global-...](https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat- research/2019/01/global-dns-hijacking-campaign-dns-record-manipulation-at- scale.html)

\---

Link chain that I followed:

1) op — [https://cyber.dhs.gov/blog/#why-cisa-issued-our-first- emerge...](https://cyber.dhs.gov/blog/#why-cisa-issued-our-first-emergency- directive)

2) first link in op, "emergency directive" — [https://cyber.dhs.gov/ed/19-01](https://cyber.dhs.gov/ed/19-01)

3) footnote #1 in the emergency directive — [https://www.us- cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2019/01/10/DNS...](https://www.us- cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2019/01/10/DNS-Infrastructure-Hijacking- Campaign)

4) FireEye research referenced on the US CERT page — [https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat- research/2019/01/global-...](https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat- research/2019/01/global-dns-hijacking-campaign-dns-record-manipulation-at- scale.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >We know an active attacker is targeting government organizations.

>Using techniques that aren't especially innovative, we know they can intercept and manipulate legitimate traffic, make services unavailable or cause delay, harvest information like credentials or emails, or cause a range of other malicious activities.

>We know that this type of attack isn't something many organizations monitor for or have tight controls around.

Interesting that they've specifically identified a case of this ongoing in a coordinated manner. Makes sense why it'd be an "emergency directive" in this case.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems reasonable enough, steps that should have already been taken (and may have been already for certain sectors of the government). Pretty level headed "directive," I definitely welcome it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nine out of ten times, it's bad passwords.

<comment><USER14> Or shared credentials, etc.

<comment> Iwan-Zotow or Putin

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There isn't enough detail here. Which agencies gave an unknown (still unknown even now!) actor or actors access to all information that the public passed to them over the internet? What harms has the public suffered as a result?

<comment><USER17> This impacted work for people I know and we have all asked around informally and no one has info in the beltway so those in the know seem to be tight lipped about it.

That said I was unaware of the Talos publication last week so I will read that but I assume this same surface level fluff.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for that. I'm now _more_ worried not less. b^)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are a number of efforts to secure DNS (and SSL/TLS which generally depends upon DNS; and upon which DNS-over-HTTPS depends) and the _identity proof_ systems which are used for record-change authentication and authorization.

Domain registrars can and SHOULD implement multi-factor authentication. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi- factor_authentication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi- factor_authentication)

Are there domain registrars that support FIDO/U2F or the new W3C WebAuthn spec? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAuthn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAuthn)

Credentials and blockchains (and biometrics): [https://gist.github.com/westurner/4345987bb29fca700f52163c33...](https://gist.github.com/westurner/4345987bb29fca700f52163c339a270f)

DNSSEC: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System_Security_Ex...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System_Security_Extensions)

ACME / LetsEncrypt certs expire after 3 months (*) and require various proofs of domain ownership: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Certificate_Manageme...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Certificate_Management_Environment)

Certificate Transparency: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_Transparency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_Transparency)

Certs on the Blockchain: "Can we merge Certificate Transparency with blockchain?" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18961724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18961724)

Namecoin (decentralized blockchain DNS): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin)

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

DNS over HTTPS: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_HTTPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_HTTPS)

DNS over TLS: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_TLS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_TLS)

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

</comment><comment><USER19> I am probably just cynical but the title reads like a medium tech blogger is about to tell me why he started using React in the cloud.</comment>


Y Combinator S12 Demo Day Batch 1 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/21/yc-demo-day-s12/ <comment> jack-r-abbit 9GAG? Really? I don't want to live on a planet where 9GAG gets into YC. The others look pretty innovative. It would be nice to see some more robotics stuff. And work place collaborative stuff. But internet curated memes? _sigh_

<comment><USER2> Are you against the funding because you think 9gag will fail and YC will lose money on the deal, or because you think 9gag will be successful but you wish it weren't?

<comment> jack-r-abbit I don't think my answer falls into the two options you presented. Also, I'm not sure how we even measure success/failure anymore. A site can be a huge success and still be a bad investment. Ask anyone holding Facebook stock. (yes... horrible, horrible example... I know... but you can see where I'm coming from... right?) I'm not sure what about 9GAG stands out among all the many, many other lame sites just like it. I find most of those sites to be trash, but to each their own. One man's trash is another man's treasure. I don't know how any of them make any money. But I guess the people who pick the winners see something here.

<comment><USER2> By success, I mean "make money for the investors". That seems like a reasonable criteria for judging the success of an investment.

I don't think I see where you're coming from, actually. Do you object to YC investing in 9gag because:

It won't be a successful investment, aka make money for its investors

OR: It might be a successful investment, but if so it's only because they bamboozled someone. It won't ever make much money, though someone might acquire it (or it might IPO).

OR: It will be a successful investment, but it's trash as a product.

OR: It will be a successful investment, and it's OK as a product for some people, but it's not innovative enough

OR: something else? You mention a lot of things, but what's the core reason you object?

<comment> jack-r-abbit If we are measuring success solely on making money for investors (which I guess makes sense in this context)... then the closest option would be: _It will be a successful investment, but it's trash as a product._

Or more closely: It _might_ be a successful investment, but I think it's trash as a product and it's not innovative. I am not convinced it will make money legitimately. I'm not saying anyone will get bamboozled, but I could see a momentum-fueled, top-arc sale that makes someone some money at the expense of someone else being left holding yesterdays news.

Also, the part about "you see where I'm coming from" was strictly relating to Facebook being a massively successful product, yet horrible for stock holders... considering the stock is basically in the toilet. In the "make money for investors" category, Facebook is hardly a success.

<comment><USER2> 1) I disagree with your assessment of 9gag. It's similar to previous social news sites, but different in a couple key ways.[1] Reddit was originally called a "del.icio.us clone" but now we call things reddit clones. There's some ick-factor from the way that content is copied from reddit and elsewhere, but that really goes both ways.

2) It's pretty clear how 9gag makes money: paid placements. Unlike reddit it doesn't appear to have a strong anti-commercial taboo. If it can grow big enough, it will make money. Remember: Facebook is already quite profitable (by the billions!) just not profitable enough to justify at $100 billion valuation yet. So this objection makes no sense to me.

3) Facebook was a HUGE success from the point of view of pretty much every investor except people who bought for the "pop" right after the IPO. Every VC investor in Facebook did great. Maybe they IPO'd above their true value, but it's still a $40 billion company. That's larger than 99.99% of all companies that get started. So I really don't get where you're coming from here at all.

[1] Specifically, it is image-only, presents the images inline, and uses Facebook likes and comments instead of native ones.

<comment> jack-r-abbit > _I really don't get where you're coming from_

ok. we can can disagree. I never intended to convince you of anything. have I failed? lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The ones I'm most exited about are BufferBox and Double.

BufferBox solves a real pain point for me (to the point I was thinking about setting up something similar here in Uruguay, but I don't have the cash).

And Double would be great for everybody who can't afford to travel constantly for meetings (both time AND money), though face-to-face meetings aren't going away anytime soon (too much off-band communication, relationship building, etc..).

</comment><comment><USER4> I like Kippt. I just wish their was a service like it where I didn't have to worry about any of my saved content becoming public. Or that it might be acquired and then I have to start over (I'm looking at you, Spool). For now, I suppose I will continue to use Kippt. Their search needs some work, though.

<comment><USER5> I was thinking the same thing. I'd love it if they grew like Dropbox, charging users who extract more value from their service so that they can stay independent. The pro offering for $25 is a good sign in that direction. Still a tiny bit worried about them getting acqui-hired though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's the time horizon on something like FundersClub being open to non- accredited investors due to the recent law being passed that takes away some investment restrictions?

</comment><comment><USER7> Really excited for the BufferBox and Plivio guys !

<comment> jack-r-abbit BufferBox looks really nice. I like that kind of thinking. Solving a real world problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems in the ideas pond, people are combing up dry or Y Combinator have set their standards at a new low. Seriously, 9GAG, Imgfave and Kippt are the most unoriginal ideas for websites I have ever seen. I hate to be negative and cynical but am I the only one that sees no true value in these particular "startups"?

For starters any startup that pens itself as "A Pinterest for..." or "A Reddit for..." I wonder what is going through the minds of any investor or person who thinks these are legitimate ideas for websites trying to mirror the success of other sites by doing nothing new.

One of the startups that almost didn't make it into YC, "Bufferbox" is probably the best startup by far YC have opted to support. As for the others, most will fail because they're nothing exciting.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone else see "Airbrite" and furrow their brow?

(I don't know if there are grounds for a trademark infringement nastygram from Eventbrite, given they're in the same space.)</comment>


A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts - <AUTHOR> http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html

<comment><USER3> By that logic Chrome is easier to use than Safari because in full screen mode on Chrome the tabs are at the top of the screen. In Safari they are below the address bar and the bookmark toolbar.

</comment><comment><USER4> > The industrial designers let loose on the Mac have screwed up most of the > keyboards by cutting their function keys in half so the total depth of the > keyboard was reduced by half a key. Why was this incredibly stupid?

It wasn't; Macs don't _use_ function keys for anything (or, at least, anything touch-type-y.) They're there for compatibility with the few non-HIG apps that demand them (and now for Bootcamp), but mostly they've been repurposed into controls for very deliberate system actions (like summoning Expose or advancing a track on your music player) that you wish to trigger far _less_ often than you want to type an @ symbol.

<comment><USER5> The actions are far from all that deliberate. Change contrast. Next track in iTunes. Increase volume. The definitely start feeling deliberate because these keys are almost impossible to hit without looking at them - they're small and offset differently from the rest of the keyboard. Tog's point stands - <USER2> keys present a horrible target. The one thing he doesn't mention is the staggering brainlessness of putting the 'Eject Disk' key at the top-right corner, above 'Delete'.

<comment><USER6> >The one thing he doesn't mention is the staggering brainlessness of putting the 'Eject Disk' key at the top-right corner, above 'Delete'.

You think that's stupid? On the HP keyboard I'm using, there's a similar key above Escape. What does it do? It _sleeps the computer_. At least on my Ubuntu, there's no confirmation, just immediate hibernation. (Nor, for that matter, can I find a way to turn it off. But then, configuring the keyboard in Ubuntu is quite frustrating -- alas, a separate issue).

I can't imagine this wouldn't've come up during testing. I mean, really.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> this explains on eof the major annoyances of windows. between the taskbar and the window header, the GUI of any program is deprived of all four corners and two edges. edges and corners are your most effective places for important functions.</comment>


Want to practice Algos & DS with other programmer? - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/groups/172458136253353/

<comment><USER2> nyone ready to practice and build strong skillset for Algos and DS?

Hey folks, anyone python newbie or someone who wants to learn DS and Algos. I have a plan. We can make a team of 5-7 guys (who knows basics of python) and can practice regularly, solve problems, hack algos and match/review each others solutions, guide each other. It would a fun + learning experience.

If we work in group, are committed to practice, we can increase our skillset within few months while helping and encouraging each other. This is a FB group specially for those who want to build strong Data Structure and Algos skillset.

It would have 8-10 dedicated programmers who want to crunch DSA.</comment>


Ask HN: Good ressources to learn (Web-)Design - <AUTHOR>

I am a solid Programmer and I know pretty much all I need to know about Backend- and Frondend-Developing. But I would like to get deeper into the Design-Aspect. I am not talking about HTML, CSS, etc.. More about what makes a good Design actually a good Design. I already read "Don't make me think" and "The Design of everyday things", but they were more about usability then actually what makes a design beautiful. Any recommendation what (online-)sources I should try to teach myself? <comment><USER2> You might want to try <http://teamtreehouse.com/> They have some good videos that give concise explanations on a range of topics including design.

I would also try looking at <http://dribbble.com> for inspiration even though it is not an official learning resource it is valuable.

For books dealing with good design I would recommend "The Non-Designers Design Book". It is general advice but you will be surprised at what a huge difference it can make. Its a great foundation to build upon.

If your really motivate, buy some books on color theory, typography, iconography, and layout. These are all the essential building blocks for design (web and print).

Finally if you need to brush up on your photoshop skills, try psdtuts.com for some good tutorials.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Read Tufte and there was a book that came out recently called 'Design for Hackers' that you may find interesting.</comment>


They Thrive on All-Meat Diet (1929) - <AUTHOR> http://archive.macleans.ca/article/1929/9/1/they-thrive-on-all-meat-diet <comment><USER2> A detail not mentioned here was that (if I remember correctly) they initially ate an all-muscle-meat diet and had real problems; it was only after they included a lot of organ meat (imitating the Inuit) that things stabilized. I think eating liver can get you enough Vitamin C, for example.

<comment><USER3> Inuits, and possibly others, also consumed predigested vegetation in animal stomachs (1)

Also, worth noting that a meat-heavy diet can also kill you from lack of fat. This is known as protein poisoning. This obviously depends on what your source of meat is.

(1) [https://www2.dmu.dk/1_viden/2_publikationer/3_fagrapporter/r...](https://www2.dmu.dk/1_viden/2_publikationer/3_fagrapporter/rapporter/fr528.pdf)

<comment><USER4> If you eat meat meat, as in complete meat from an animal, you're gonna be ok (although you probably need to supplement Omega 3, something Inuit had in excess because they ate fish too). If you eat organic low fat meat from Trader Joe's you'll have a bad time for various reasons. Not only will you not get enough fats, but you're gonna get very little amount of micronutrients, which are not prevalent in muscle tissues.

<comment><USER5> Meat has plenty of omega3 and omega6 (usually more omega6) The ratio in the standard American diet is about 20:1 (3:6) eating a grass fed ruminant will get you much closer then that. Eating some marine products might get you closer to the (possibly optimal) 1:1.

<comment><USER4> I meant to write Omega 3, that's a typo, fixed. (i.e. animal muscle tissues are usually too omega 6 rich, so you need extra omega 3 sources)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yowza. My wife has a PhD in nutrition and teaches a "culture in foods" course at university. It's about how various cultures around the world and throughout history had all their nutritional needs met from their various diets.

An explorer might last a little while on an all-meat diet but you'd be missing out on a lot of essential vitamins and minerals. The Inuit for example, only avoid scurvy by getting their vitamin C from raw fish. (Cooking it destroys the little it contains.)

Interesting article, though!

<comment><USER7> There's a modern movement of people adopting an all-carnivore diet [1][2], who report it to be effective at overcoming conditions like autoimmune illness, depression and other chronic illnesses that defied other forms of treatment.

The theory is that for highly sensitive individuals, any carb/fiber/allergenic content in food causes inflammation and dysbiosis, which leads to these chronic conditions.

They believe that by removing all these food components, even if the diet has low levels of essential nutrients like Vitamin C, they are absorbed and utilised better than in a regular diet, due to the reduced inflammatory activity.

I haven't tried it and won't be doing it myself, but I have been through episodes in my life where I was afflicted by these kinds of chronic "mystery" illnesses that didn't seem to respond to any kind of treatment, and I can understand the kind of pain and exasperation that would lead people to try this.

[1] [https://hvmn.com/podcast/meat-heals-the-autoimmune- disease-c...](https://hvmn.com/podcast/meat-heals-the-autoimmune-disease-case- ft-mikhaila-peterson-episode-92)

[2] [https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/comments/8f0o1w/my_experie...](https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/comments/8f0o1w/my_experience_with_medium_term_zc_for_gi/)

<comment><USER8> I'm a celiac and I have a slightly different take on it. I've cut out gluten, sugar, caffeine, sodium nitrites, and MSG as triggers for sinus headaches (took years of trial and error to identify them all).

First, I love hearing carnivore diet stories because I relate to them a lot. Varying symptoms, cut out some foods, drastically improved health. I lived for 23 years with sinus headaches, I had to figure out how to work through them in college. Life is so nice now that I don't want to take a drill to my forehead.

That said, I think the carnivore diet is the shotgun blast approach. I bet there are specific triggers for their symptoms that they could identify by following a strict diet (e.g. chicken and rice) and slowly reintroducing stuff.

It's an area that is drastically understudied. All the celiac papers are on gastrointestinal issues (which I had, but the sinus headaches were 50 times worse). My understanding is eating gluten while celiac causes your body to attack your small intestine, which causes deterioration. This usually leads to problems with FODMAPs. My brother has issues with lactose, and for me it was fructose.

It's hard going to something that isn't evidence backed, but sometimes the best we can do is do the experiment on ourselves. I'm tracking what I eat everyday and when I get sinus headaches. I primarily eat protein. I get 3 beef patties and 2 small chicken breasts each day from the burger place at work. The french fries and corn chips at work are safe for me to eat, so those are the carbs I get regularly. I take a vitamin C supplement. On the weekends I cook steak, and some brazilian cheese breads. There is also a brand of gluten free bread with no sugar that I really like.

I'm extremely fortunate that I work somewhere that can accommodate my diet and that I can afford meat regularly outside of that. So yea, shout out to everyone else with weird food reactions, stay strong.

<comment><USER9> You'll love my story. I'll keep it short.

Basically, one day, I started getting pressure and pain and ringing in my ear. It was really bad about every other day. I went to an ENT and he diagnosed me with meniere's disease and told me that I had permanent hearing loss. I kept going to doctors. One of them diagnosed me with endolymphatic hydrops.

I spent a month or so obsessively reading research papers, and internet sites seemed to basically be support groups for people whose lives are ruined and can never think straight again.

I had good reason to suspect it was an autoimmune disease, because steroids cured my symptoms. I also had my personal suspicions that wheat was involved but I couldn't correlate anything.

So I started eliminating foods and keeping a food diary. Long story short, about a year later, I was very confident that wheat was my biggest trigger. If I eat a large amount of wheat, my symptoms come back 36 hours later, and last for at least 2 days.

I struggled with the fact that I have no doctor suggestions, or diagnosis, or study of what problem I have, what it is, or any way to prove to anyone else that wheat is causing my problem. Most people think that I'm just jumping on a gluten free fad bandwagon. Oh well. I've tested it about 8 times, including blind tests where I accidentally ate wheat. I've been almost symptom free for like 2 years now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> More info.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson's book, "THE FAT OF THE LAND": [https://web.archive.org/web/20180802084820/http://highsteaks...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180802084820/http://highsteaks.com/the- fat-of-the-land-not-by-bread-alone-vilhjalmur-stefansson.pdf)

Vilhjalmur Stefansson's coverage of the same topics from Harper's Monthly Magazine, November 1935:

\- Part 1: [https://web.archive.org/web/20180109155358/http://www.biblel...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180109155358/http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm)

\- Part 2: [https://web.archive.org/web/20180104021843/http://www.biblel...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180104021843/http://www.biblelife.org:80/stefansson2.htm)

\- Part 3: [https://web.archive.org/web/20171206075942/http://www.biblel...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171206075942/http://www.biblelife.org:80/stefansson3.htm)

The Harper's Magazine articles cover the same ground as the book but are better written in my opinion.

Also note: I am not associated with any web site.

</comment><comment><USER11> Something I've read multiple times throughout the years being somewhat curious about nutrition and diets is that the Inuit's would often eat their meat raw.

When eaten raw, there can actually be significant carbohydrates present. The mitochondria for instance contain glucose in-flight that apparently gets destroyed by the cooking process.

At least that's what I've read. It seems plausible to me that one could get all the nutrition they need eating copious amounts of raw animal flesh, drinking the blood, eating the liver, everything.

<comment><USER12> There are no essential carbohydrates. Your body can function perfectly fine without them.

<comment><USER11> My intention in mentioning the carbohydrates lost when cooked was more meant to suggest other nutrients are also likely intact when consuming the meat raw.

The classical Inuit diet is more unique than just being meat-based, it's also mostly raw. This detail is often overlooked by those using the Inuit diet as proof for some dietary argument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious how other mammals, which are essentially purely carnivorous, get their vitamins and minerals. Presumably they're similar enough to us that they'd require similar amounts?

<comment><USER14> They, except us, guinea pigs, and a few others, synthesize vitamin C within their bodies.

<comment><USER15> I find this pretty fascinating. Apparently it's a single gene that is responsible for the inability to synthesize vitamin C. [1]

[1] [https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/401/why-do- human...](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/401/why-do-humans-not- produce-vitamin-c-like-other-mammals)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Owsley "The Bear" Stanley (legendary SF producer of acid and sometimes sound engineer for Grateful Dead) was huge all-meat guy.

[http://highsteaks.com/carnivores-creed/owsley-the-bear- stanl...](http://highsteaks.com/carnivores-creed/owsley-the-bear-stanley/)

Stayed healthy till his death in a car crash at 76.

A fun story here:

[https://dangerousminds.net/comments/uncle_johns_ham_the_grat...](https://dangerousminds.net/comments/uncle_johns_ham_the_grateful_deads_all- meat_diet)

</comment><comment><USER17> All humans are unique in their own way- thus what might be working on some humans it might have a different effect in some others. As an example: My wife has horrible migraines almost every other week. She has followed so many different diets that worked for some others but didn't even improve her migraines at all. Simply put, be mindful about what you read and what you put in your body.

<comment><USER18> >The "classic" ketogenic diet is a special high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that helps to control seizures in some people with epilepsy. Doctors usually recommend the ketogenic diet for children whose seizures have not responded to several different seizure medicines.

You're saying she already tried a ketogenic diet for a few months and it didn't help?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I found Dr. Ede's website helpful on the subject if anyone else is interested. She also includes a lot of information on other food types as well.

[http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/food/meats/](http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/food/meats/)

</comment><comment><USER20> > a lot of us might be dwelling too anxiously on what to eat and what not to > eat

100 years and nothing has changed

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, post on HN that you are on a carnivore diet and people will pounce on you to tell you that you are not eating """healthy""".

<comment><USER21> Warring internet factions of meme-dieters are all lamers.

<comment><AUTHOR> And so are their criticisers. Why don't we all become nihilists and stop curing our medical conditions via dietary intervention?

<comment><USER21> It's the internet part. Taking something as deeply rooted in the physical world as food, and using online as a venue to clash over it. It's a recipe for lame outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I pretty much only eat meat and bread. I've only eaten vegetables a handful of times in my life, usually because my parents were forcing me when I was young. It's not so much a conscious choice as just who I am, I personally find vegetables pretty gross.

Though it's not really about vegetables either I think I just have some weird food phobias: I don't like my food to touch, I only eat 'plain' things, I need my food to be homogenous (like smooth salsa vs chunky salsa).

<comment><USER23> >I personally find vegetables pretty gross.

All of them?! Gee, there's such a wide range. Even, say, potatoes can be cooked so many entirely different ways - steamed/boiled, baked, chips etc. I guess you can say that because you've never tried almost all of them. Your parents 'forced' you only 'a handful of times' to eat vegetables? I can't begin to fathom how someone could have a child and virtually never give them any vegetables of any kind to eat...

<comment><USER22> I like french fries. But I don't rrally consider that a vegetable I guess. I've tried carrots and broccoli a couple times. Carrots are okay, but I don't like broccoli. I've never tried most other vegetables: lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, etc.

My parents certainly tried to give me vegetables. Even going so far to pay me to eat them, but I always refused. Even as a 2 year old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For some perspective, contrast this to the current fashionable trend of recommending plant-based diets where people unwittingly use nutrition epidemiology studies to validate their beliefs: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19100718](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19100718)

</comment><comment><USER24> I like meat, but I wonder if the powers that be reached all the way back to 1929 for this nugget because there's a surplus they want to liquidate.

[https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2018/7/24/17606958/me...](https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2018/7/24/17606958/meat-cheese-surplus-visualized)</comment>


Why your company should accept BitCoin - <AUTHOR> http://dennis.svbtle.com/why-your-company-should-accept-bitcoin

<comment><USER2> My problem is that it's too volatile. It's like penny stocks in a way, because a simple article talking either good or bad about BC could mean a huge swing in value.</comment>


Parking in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://www.parkingforme.com/map?san-francisco-parking&lat=37.776669&lng=-122.398603 <comment><USER2> Welcome to HN.

Submitting the same 4 times (last 3 hours) will you only get flagged. Use [https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show) to present your business. It helps to add a comment like "Hi, I build <x> because ..." indicating you're active on HN and would like feedback, e.g. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19097132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19097132)</comment>


How the FBI investigates the hacktivities of Anonymous - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/exclusive-how-the-fbi-investigates-the-activities-of-anonymous.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss <comment><USER2> "The hackers found and immediately posted e-mail addresses, passwords, and physical addresses of 205 O'Reilly site members paying $5 a month to hear Bill's wisdom"

It's funny how a group that claims to be so good..is nothing but evil. This is why I can no longer support them.</comment>


Ceasefires Don't End Cyberwars - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudflare.com/ceasefires-dont-end-cyberwars

<comment><USER2> Ceasefires usually don't end real wars either.

<comment><USER3> All wars end with ceasefires, however. I'm not convinced by your assertion, what's it based on?

<comment><USER4> Technically it's not just cease-fire when you end a war, it's capitulation on one side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be nice if CloudFlare could provide a couple of examples of what sites exactly are being attacked.

<comment><USER6> IDFblog, if you tried to go there during the war, they would popup and say "we're checking if you're a legit request .... redirecting now"

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _CloudFlare's goal is to power a better Internet. While that will inherently mean we will increasingly find ourselves in difficult situations like this one, we will continue to be guided by the principle that it is not our role to decide whether one idea or another is correct, but instead to ensure that all ideas can find equal footing online._

I wonder what jgrahamc has to say about Cloudflare shielding sites used to ddos people.

<http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1182576>

<comment><USER8> CloudFlare works very closely with law enforcement.

<comment><USER9> Yet you wouldn't talk to the hosting company of the server that hosts a spam list containing my email address and many more (even after I gave links showing phishing sites and DDoS tools on the same server) :-(

<comment><USER8> Would you like to email me so I can look into that? I don't do abuse support for CloudFlare myself but I can talk to the person who does and find out.

<comment><USER9> Much appreciated. Will do.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Business Bank with good customer service? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to get a business account set up for a new project, and every bank I've applied with has dropped into "bank time", where they expect to have somebody get back to you in the next 3 weeks.
That's pretty much the worst way you could treat a new customer, and it's turned me off every one of these banks to the point where I'll probably just give up before they get their act together.
Has anybody here had a better experience?  Is there a bank out there that can start a new account online and get it up and running in a single day?  If so, let me know and they'll get my business. <comment><USER2> Which country?

Here in the UK, I've had excellent service from HSBC. So good that when they sent me the feedback form, I actually filled it out to say so.

<comment><AUTHOR> USA, though I'm physically in the UK right now. It's getting painful enough that I'm considering starting a parallel business/bank account/merchant account track over here and going with the country that wins.</comment></comment>


Artist's Shit - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_shit <comment><USER2> > In August 2016, at an art auction in Milan, one of the tins sold for a new > world record of €275,000, including auction fees

I am both amazed and disgusted.</comment>


San Diego HN meetup is tonight 7:30pm-9:30pm Broadway Coffee in Kearny Mesa - <AUTHOR> http://cses.ucsd.edu/wiki/index.php/San_Diego_Hacker_News_Meetup#Upcoming_Meetups Please RSVP so that we get an accurate headcount: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108889155819372&index=1 <comment><USER2> Would it be useful if I added features to HN to support meetups? If so, what features?

<comment><USER3> Yes. Please, yes.

I run Hackers and Founders, Silicon Valley and SF. <http://hackersandfounders.com>. We've been going for around 2 years and have around 900 members. About half come from HN, the other half through word of mouth, or Meetup.com. I don't make any money off this, I just enjoy having a beer, and geeking out with startup geeks every 2 weeks.

I also try to contact other people that post meetup listings on HN, and try and help them get off the ground if I can. I've been in contact with meetups in NY, Chicago, Indianapolis, Tel Aviv, and Wellington, NZ.

The churn on the front page is so great that unless you're in a major metropolitan area, you're not going to get enough upvotes to have a meetup posted. So, it would be helpful to those in non metropolitan areas to have a venue to post their events in a place where it wouldn't fall off the front page in 8 hours at best.

Honestly, just a simple "events" tag at the top of HN would be great, and allow people a self-referencing post Ala "Ask HN:..." I think there's a big demand from HN readers for something like this.

For instance, we just hosted a meetup for 6 guys coming in to SV from the UK for a week to check the area out. The only reason that they knew about Hackers and Founders was because our first event 2 years ago was a meetup before startup school, and the organizer of the group came to the meetup before startup school. The guys that came in were really cool, and I picked up a lot of great ideas for my startup from them.

I try not to announce hackers and founders meetups here anymore much, because I really don't want to pollute the front page with event listings. We have events every 2-3 weeks, and I think it would be a pain in the ass for HN readers to read event announcements from us every 2-3 weeks.

I'm pretty sure that Brennan that runs the Indianapolis meetup and Dave that runs the NY meetup don't post here that often either. Brennan uses Meetup.com and Dave uses a twitter feed + Anyvite. The Chicago meetup uses a Google group.

<comment><USER4> Agreed regarding an "events" tab at the top of the page or even a way to call out events on HN more so. There's certainly a lot of churn regarding news stories, so I've typically used our own Twitter handle (<http://twitter.com/hackersfounders>) to post updates from those who attend and if we change the location (depending if it's rainy outside, we'll go somewhere else other than Shake Shack). I'm also a HUGE fan of Anyvite to organize all the invites.

<comment><USER5> +1 On the event board idea. With some supportive upvotes we got the first HN in TelAviv to around 40+ members.

Afterwards we weren't as lucky with timely upvotes (being a rather small community) so I am relying on our existing 90 user Facebook page. Which results in the exclusion of new members.

1) Would be nice if there was a place to post in advance and have it stick

2) Some way for events that were upvoted on that page to appear on the bottom (or any other visible but not too prominent area) of the main HN page for 24-48 hours so all members can see.

3) Still keep some control, so people don't just post events and then change their minds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been to the last two meetups and they've been a lot of fun! Great people and great conversation. Good mix of tech / biz / misc. If I remember correctly, the HN group (10-15 people) ended up staying there 3-4 hours both times (until the coffee shop owner wanted to close for the night!).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please RSVP so that we get an accurate headcount: [http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108889155819372&in...](http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108889155819372&index=1)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's a shame I'm feeling so shitty today, or I'd be going. I've been wanting to go to the SD HN meetups for a few months now. :(

Also, how can I get prior notice of when the meetups are? I always here about it day of, which is part of why I've never gone.

<comment><USER8> _Also, how can I get prior notice of when the meetups are?_

Sure, join the mailing list: <http://groups.google.com/group/sd-hackernews>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This sounds pretty cool. I didn't realize San Diego had this many HN'ers. Count me in.

</comment><comment><USER10> I moved to SF from SD in late 05 and there wasn't much of a startup scene outside of biology or wireless hardware. Has that changed much since? Any YC alum down there?

<comment><USER11> San Diego isn't too bad as far as general hacker stuff. We have a Ruby user group that meets at UCSD, an agile/extreme programming group, and a Django user group. Not too bad.

<comment><USER12> I'd like to get a Scala users group added to this list. Any Scala users or enthusiasts in San Diego?

<comment><USER13> I'm possibly interested in a Scala users group.

(Translation: I'm thinking of moving back to SD, we'll see in a couple of weeks.)

I guess that means count me in as a "maybe", which might be good enough to kick things off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> oh awesome - I live in San Diego.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm not making it but if any SD hackers or biz-dev folks are looking for a start-up to join please give my thread a look -> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1305342></comment>


Fitbit Blaze - <AUTHOR> https://www.fitbit.com/uk/shop/blaze <comment><USER2> I received the e-mail too, but can't say I'm excited. Fitbit stock is down from a 52 week high of $51, to just $14 at the moment. Low of $11 on the year. Their market cap is still $3.2 billion, which from where I'm sitting still seems high. I don't see the Fitbit blaze fixing any of their problems...</comment>


Show HN: Devmail, get names and emails from all contributors of a Git repository - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nov1n/devmail <comment><USER2> Am I missing something or isn't this just what `git shortlog -se` will do?</comment>


Recruiting Drops at Business Schools  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123414304204261913.html

<comment><USER2> A friend, who is currently attending Harvard Business, had as his Facebook status recently, "hoping that Obama's financial bailout includes a golden parachute from his MBA program." He was a consultant at a Big 4 consulting firm before going to school, but now even his former company isn't hiring.

People are pounding at the door to get into the top schools, and hardly anyone can find a way to get out (into a job).

<comment><USER3> I wonder if the number of applicants to HBS has decreased. If so, it might be a good time to apply if you are interested.

<comment><USER4> It's probably just the opposite. A lot of those people who got laid off are probably heading back to school, and while it might be hard to get a job now, the value of having HBS on your resume lasts a lot longer than this recession will.

<comment><USER5> That's basically what I heard. Basically there's a positive correlation between unemployment and grad school enrollment. I've under the impression that your pay over the total time spent at a company can really depend on starting salary. So college graduates hope to wait out the bad market by going to grad school. And the unemployed hope to improve their job prospects by going back to school.

Comic with data from NFS:<http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1078>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's the natural result of an overcapacity of supply and a lack of demand. The finance sector -- which traditionally hires very aggressively from top business schools -- has been decimated, and there is a glut of highly qualified managers who have lost their jobs and/or graduated from B-school last year, and are still looking. I am not surprised that companies are paring back recruiting efforts.

In my opinion, this trend bodes well for entrepreneurship. If corporate America isn't hiring, it's an opportunity for MBAs to come up with a niche to exploit on their own, or develop new businesses.

<comment><USER7> Too bad MBAs don't tend to start businesses. Most programs are feeder streams for finance and consulting these days.

That's my admittedly non-statistical impression. I'd be very curious to find out what the actual statistics are and how it compares to the general population.</comment></comment>


The Answerer knows everything. Are you able to ask it a valid question? - <AUTHOR> https://sfss.space/ask-a-foolish-question-1953-r <comment><AUTHOR> That's what I thought.</comment>


Pay with your time, Crowdsourced savings - <AUTHOR> https://vidfall.com/

<comment><USER2> A dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8148120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8148120).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a decently easy way to get discounts on some pretty great brands I'd say</comment>


Roadmap for Ubuntu Official Support for the Raspberry Pi 4 - cm-t https://ubuntu.com/blog/roadmap-for-official-support-for-the-raspberry-pi-4 <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like they'll be going for a 64-bit kernel, which is great!

I also hope KVM support is compiled in. Looks like someone else on the post is after the same.</comment>


Microsoft leak reveals new Windows 10 Workstation edition for power users - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/5/15739192/microsoft-windows-10-pro-for-workstations-advanced-pcs-features <comment><USER2> As a power user, I hope this doesn't ship with ads and telemetry enabled. It's things like that that pushed me away from windows and towards Linux. If Microsoft had never participated in the NSA PRISM program I would have never decided to "just try this Linux thing out" and I'd probably still be a windows user.

I think at this point they'll have to do more than get rid of ads and telemetry to get me (and others) to switch back. Linux turned out to be much more stable than Windows for me, and after experiencing package management and sane update policies I can't go back to an OS that won't even let me use it while it's installing updates.

When I sit and try to make a list of reasons to use Windows it seems to come down to program compatibility and not operating system quality. Instead of trapping people on an OS because of vendor lock-in, try improving core parts of the OS to make it worth using.

<comment><USER3> What it comes down to for me is that I can do my job (web development) on Windows just fine. But I'm going to spend the entire time trying to trick Windows into doing Linux things. Mintty for terminal stuff, VMs or the new Ubuntu mode for Linux software, etc. And yes, that works, but it feels hacky, performance is so-so, and it takes considerably more time to setup than the native alternative.

The inverse of that is that all I need Windows for is Adobe stuff and Outlook (we use Exchange for mail, meeting scheduling, tasks etc.), which all run perfectly fine in a Windows VM with minimal resources. The only real extra setup involved there is running the Windows installer, which takes like 20 minutes tops.

So what's left to compel me to use Windows? The UI? Admittedly, I feel a bit more zippy in Windows than I do Linux, but Kubuntu feels pretty damn close and I kind of prefer its UI over Windows' at this point.

<comment><USER4> > But I'm going to spend the entire time trying to trick Windows into doing > Linux things. Mintty for terminal stuff, VMs or the new Ubuntu mode for > Linux software, etc.

Windows is not UNIX and that's its strength. Don't try to coerce it into doing Linux things; learn Powershell and Windows concepts instead. I've recently switched development from Linux to Windows and couldn't be happier.

<comment><USER2> >Windows is not UNIX and that's its strength.

Microsoft seems to disagree, which is why they felt compelled to include a Linux sub-system in Windows.

<comment><USER5> And does the existence of Wine prove that Linux is inferior? It's just nice to have a way to run software written for other systems. Doesn't mean you think that system is superior.

<comment><USER6> There is a small difference in first vs third party here. Wine is more analogous to virtualbox. WSL AFAIK was done to attract developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They really need to fire their VP of SKUs. Creating that role has resulted in far too much unnecessary fragmentation.

At this point, it's like she's just trying to justify her position.

<comment><USER8> I dare you to go explore their ERP offerings. It is impossible to grasp, and if you ask for help, your support request will be redirected to one of your local third-party Microsoft partners.

<comment> UK-AL As far as I know, every ERP vendor is like this. They all work via partners.

<comment><USER9> When everybody is a partner...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why does Microsoft have to waste so many resources coming up with a dozen different "editions" ?

I remember (back in the day) Windows NT came in "desktop" and "server" editions. Someone did some digging, and it turned out the difference was 2 registry keys, whose settings were checked at boot time, and depending on the settings, the "server" or "desktop" editions were created.

Times have changed; Microsoft needs to change too.

<comment><USER11> From time to time (every 2 years or so) I make an attempt at buying a Windows license in order to run some program that only runs on windows. In 10 years (5 or so attempts) I have yet to figure out what edition of Windows I want, how to buy it and how to download an ISO image of it so I can load it into a VMWare image. Every time I realize that the effort just isn't worth it so I give up.

I just want an OS that works. So I use OSX and I use Linux. Where I don't have to care much about what I'm running. At most I have to occasionally care about the revision I'm running being a bit old. But there's no nonsense with different editions that I need to waste time on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Everything I know about business I learned from Joel on Software. This sounds to me like trying to sell (essentially) the same product at a higher price point to users who are willing to pay more, to maximize profits. See Joel's "Camels and Rubber Duckies": [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and- rubber-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber- duckies/)

<comment><USER13> It's called market segmentation.

MS does this to windows since... I'd say since Windows was a thing, but I don't know how they sold versions 1 and 2. So, since Windows 3.

Yet, if you segment your market too much, people stop knowing the segment they belong, and stop playing the game.

<comment><USER14> they spent the early years (including 3.x) competing with ibm. note the "power windows" language on the side pic

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The notion of "Developer editions" and "Power User editions" of windows really bothers me. I discovered a love of computers and IT from having my own computer with windows 98 and just fucking around on it.

I destroyed the OS on that computer at least twice by doing stupid things like deleting DLL's in the windows folder because 8 year old me decided he "didn't need them" and bypassed the system file protection, but apparently that's part of learning to use and understand computers. Certainly it taught me how to install a new OS, which opened up a world of new OS's to me, which brought me to VM's, which inexorably lead to experimenting with hosting services, which lead to sysadmin skills, and so on.

Considering Microsoft is operating in and even leading an industry that alleges it is slowly starving to death from lack of new talent, creating versions of the OS with anything less than 100% control seems like a really stupid long term move. How are people supposed to form an intuitive grasp of the potential of general purpose computers if they grow up with machines that say "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"?

<comment><USER16> An administrator account can still do all that.

<comment><USER17> I understand you stopped using Windows several versions ago.

<comment><USER16> Nope. I'm on 10. What are you not able to do as an administrator?

<comment><USER17> Windows 7 is already full of magical folders and processes that an administrator is supposed to leave alone.

<comment><USER16> You can take ownership of any folder and do whatever you want to its contents. The fact that Windows tries to protect you from doing something dumb (but gets out of your way if you're sure) is probably a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Still no actual control over what data they suck up and keep for who-knows how long and sell to anyone who asks? Still no actual control over what updates happen, when?

Still don't care about W10.

<comment><USER19> The same telemetry is in 7, and you can Defer Feature Updates in 10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Haha... "workstation mode". Didn't everyone who tested "Game Mode" on Windows 10 creators update come to the conclusion that it didn't do anything?

<comment><USER21> One of the features of the Windows 10 Game Mode is that it raises the thread priority of the application. This proved incredibly useful for me in some games - most notably GTA 5 - and in a lot of other games it didn't seem to do anything at all. I'm pretty thankful for the feature - because manually raising the thread priority every time I open the application was a very unnecessary pain.

<comment><USER22> Windows has raised the thread priority of the foreground program since at least 95...

<comment><USER23> That mechanism only boosts the priority of whatever thread is actually attached to the window in the foreground. This doesn't matter for single- threaded applications (obviously), but means the background threads can get lower priority than the main threads of other applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hopefully they disabled all the telemetry and advertising crap.

<comment><USER24> Hopefully all of the websites I visit have disabled all of their telemetry as well, but I doubt it.

<comment><USER25> Operating system is not website. I don't want my system to be sanding any data anywhere without my knowledge. Currently operating systems are used for handling various of very sensitive and potentially dangerous information (credit card details, bank accounts, SSNs, tax returns etc). There is tons of informations on computers that can cause a lot of problems if used by bad people. Blocking unknown and unnecessary traffic and strong encryption is our best bet against cyber criminals.

<comment><USER26> I keep seeing this nonsense about how operating systems and web services are different as a way of suggesting Google's behavior is okay but Microsoft's is not. Almost all of the data you deal with on your computer in the modern era eventually ends up traversing the Internet. You enter your SSNs into forms to pay bills and the like, your credit card details are entered into your browser to buy stuff online.

All of this can potentially be inspected by Google if you use their platforms or services.

There's really no difference here. Condemn Microsoft, condemn Google. Be upset both have defined your privacy as unimportant.

<comment><USER27> the double standard is simply better PR by one company. Not to mention half of HN either works at goog or wants to. Add in the historical hate for MS and it really starts to make sense. Apple or google could literally start forcing users to give blood samples and you wouldn't hear a peep.

<comment><USER28> No it's not simply better PR. That's completely absurd. One of them is a website I optionally go-to occasionally, the other is unremovable shitware on _my personal computer_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's not perfect but the tron script will turn off a lot of the more objectionable MS services.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/)

Personally I just boot into Linux unless I'm streaming (Netflix 720p on Linux, boo), playing Civilization or doing my taxes.

<comment><USER6> Blackbird is another similar thing: [http://www.getblackbird.net/documentation/](http://www.getblackbird.net/documentation/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The features that they mention...SMB Direct, large memory, more sockets, REFS...are great, but I think that they should only have one client SKU.

Also, it should have a telemetry manager that applications have to use for sending telemetry data to Microsoft. It should have UI and PowerShell cmdlets that help people see the data that's being collected. It should have a global off switch for people that are concerned about it.

I tend to think that things like telemetry or "swarm" downloading of updates and patches are good things. I know that's not popular. I think that they need to be far more transparent about that stuff to make privacy concerned people happy.

Also, there are some people that are never going to like Microsoft, Windows, or anything that they do. I kind of wish those people were less involved in the conversation. If you aren't going to use their stuff, why should they listen to your feedback?

</comment><comment><USER31> ReFS as a boot drive file system? That'll be the proofing for it by default from server 2019 onwards. Every three years is LTS/Server cut from current branch I thought I read.

</comment><comment><USER32> The only version of Windows 10 I'm interested in is the one where it is I who is mostly in control, or, you know, be the power user, not just some power sheep.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Resilient file system"... sorry, if you want professionals to use and trust your new filesystem you should give it to end users first; wider audience. Then the pros will pick it up.

</comment><comment><USER33> How billing for socket/CPU could matter anymore with 16 core CPUs (32 SMT) with many DDR4 memory channels going to hit the market during this summer [1]?

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/antonyleather/2017/05/17/amd- an...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/antonyleather/2017/05/17/amd- announces-16-core-threadripper-desktop-cpus-to-do-battle-with-intel-x299-and- skylake-x/)

<comment><USER31> MS need to drop the crazy minimum requirement for licences of 8 * 2 core packs per server. Otherwise the pricing seems to work. It feels like they're forcing smaller customers to buy Azure instead of paying a fair price for the software.

<comment><USER34> That is basically what is going on. MS i getting out of the shrink-wrapped software market, and trying to push everyone towards SAAS. This by either crippling local software or putting nagware everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Adding SKUs to a product line that is already confusing to non-windows users is not going to help them win back market share.

it might help them wring more cash out of already-windows-users who need these new features. but those users will be glancing to the side and noticing all the features packed in for free by OSX and linux, and without a malignant upgrade process.

</comment><comment><USER36> > Workstation mode: Microsoft plans to optimize the OS by identifying "typical > compute and graphics intensive workloads" to provide peak performance and > reliability when Workstation mode is enabled.

Shouldn't reliability always be as high as possible? Why would workstation users get more reliable operation than anyone else?

<comment><USER37> Reliability could also mean reliable performance, where the power saving functionality gets dialed down.

But probably this was written by some marketing guy with only half a clue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This sound a bit like horseshit.

Win10 Pro supports 2 CPU sockets and all cores within them. Expanding this up to 4 sockets seems to undercut their server market as past 2 sockets Win10 Server charges per socket.

</comment><comment><USER39> It's not an actual leak, this is just native advertisement.

</comment><comment><USER40> 10 is garbage. The start button doesn't even do what it should most of the time.

I feel tricked into using the worlds worst OS.

</comment><comment><USER41> In 2017, a piece of software is decidedly _not_ for power users unless it's open source.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is this why my win 7 ultimate, got upgraded to 'pro'?

MS is really outdoing themself lately.

</comment><comment><USER43> Does ReFS support native encryption like Apple's new filesystem does? What's keeping Microsoft from enabling encryption for all Windows users by default, other than nickle and diming them for it by forcing them to choose more expensive versions of Windows if they want full disk encryption?

Windows is pretty much the only OS left that doesn't support encryption by default.

<comment><USER44> Isn't BitLocker ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitLocker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitLocker)) how Windows supports full disk encryption by default (shipped with Vista and later)?

From an end-user perspective it seems to behave very transparent as well. In what way does it come up short?

<comment><USER45> > BitLocker.... In what way does it come up short?

By forcing an escrow key linked to Microsoft and whomever owns the TPM on your computer.

By definition, backdoor keys and hidden users who can access encrypted content is just absolutely, horribly wrong. And there's no way to turn it off... Well, I'm sure someone will say there's 10 regkeys to change that _might_ fix it on a specific version.

Still does nothing regarding the "trust" with the TPM.

<comment><USER46> What do you mean linked to Microsoft? And if your TPM, the hardware device that stores keys, is pwned, the whole exercise is meaningless anyways

<comment><USER47> The TPM is pwned, by default. It's closed, secret, and as the AMT issuws showed, has a lot of software running in it with questionable security.

That's why the whole excercise is meaningless if you leave the keys on the device, and why you should put them on external hardware TPMs or key vaults. Even a YubiKey is better.

Now you just need a system that supports reading keys from such a device during boot.

<comment><USER48> You can use YubiKey to store BitLocker decryption key.

<comment><USER47> And? That still allows MS to decrypt the drive.

<comment><USER46> False. You are given a _non-default_ option to upload a backup of your Bitlocker key to Onedrive. By what evidence are you claiming Microsoft gets to decrypt the drive if this option isn't selected?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can I create this mobile app with a multiplatform tool? - <AUTHOR>

Ok so i'm trying to create this app that is a simple ebook reader which allows the user to tap on any word for an instant dictionary look-up (either in pop-up or a separate frame).
forgive me, i'm not a coder. but i'm just wondering if this is possible to do in one of the multi-platform tools like phone gap or rhomobile.
An example of this idea as a chrome extension is this: http://bit.ly/cL8ZWt
here is a file called dict.js from this extension that has all the relevant code for the pop-up: http://drop.io/zowd7mo
thanks for the help! <comment><USER2> I don't see any reasons why you wouldn't be able to do this.

I'd go with Appcelerator's Titanium, which can build for Android, iPhone, Windows, Mac and Linux (and they will probably add Blackberry in the future).

I've used Titanium very little, however my understanding is that while you can re-use plenty of code, you will still have to do some customization for each platform.</comment>


Finding where to give a Tech Talk - <AUTHOR> If you have a PhD or you work on a big tech company, is fairly easy to get accepted on the most well-know conferences (e.g. TED talks, PyCon, JsConf, etc) or to get invited by a popular Podcast to give an interview.
However, is not as easy if you don't work on a fancy company or your blog/open source project didn't went viral, even if you are a good developer and have prepared an interesting talk.
So,the question is: where do a non-famous developer can apply for give a talk?
I assume the best alternatives are webinars, rather than in-person conferences, but I don't know which are the best ones. <comment><USER2> What kind of talk are you looking to give?

I'm actually working on a solution for this... email me please</comment>


RSA splits passwords in two to foil hacker attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19896353

<comment><USER2> There are a few more technical details at

[http://productsecurityblog.emc.com/2012/10/split-value- crypt...](http://productsecurityblog.emc.com/2012/10/split-value- cryptographic-authentication-building-advanced-threat-resistant-software/)

The basic system decribed doesn't appear use hashes, just xor operations. Of course, it may layer this system on top of other security measures like salted hashes and so forth.

As described above, two servers are used (Red and Blue). Given a password p, the Red server stores a random number R, while Blue stores (p xor R).

To verify whether a given password s is correct, a client first generates another random number r. It sends r to Red, and (s xor r) to Blue.

Red computes (r xor R), while Blue computes (p xor R) xor (s xor r), and the results are compared. The results are identical if and only if p == s, ie. when the passwords match.

Neither the query operations nor the data stored reveal the password to either Red or Blue in isolation; data in both servers must be combined to recover a password. The assumption is that this reduces the risk by forcing an attacker to hack both servers rather than just one.

To further mitigate attacks, the entries in both Red and Blue are periodically xor'ed with another random sequence R_t.

In other words, the entry for a user in Red changes over time as

R

(R xor R_1)

(R xor R_1 xor R_2)

...

while Blue stores

(p xor R)

(p xor R xor R_1)

(p xor R xor R_1 xor R_2)

and so on

Now the attacker must obtain both databases within the same window to recover the password.

</comment><comment><USER3> Video at [http://blogs.rsa.com/idp-beat/announcing-rsa-distributed- cre...](http://blogs.rsa.com/idp-beat/announcing-rsa-distributed-credential- protection/)

Any suggestions of what might be worth $150,000 in all of this?

At a basic end, this seems to be similar to storing every other character of a suitable hash on two nodes (preferably running heterogeneous architectures). RSA's ability to 're-randomise' suggests the ability for the two machines to be able produce a plaintext version of the password, which obviously seems particularly dangerous, especially if somebody is sloppy and backs up both nodes to the same location.

Is there any distributed encryption algorithm that could be done that would allow straightforward credential verification as well as the ability to re- salt a hash securely without knowing the plaintext?</comment>


Ask HN: Why has no one created an "Amazon" driven by local businesses? - <AUTHOR> I'm sure I'm not the first one to have this glaringly obvious idea, so I put it up for discussion. I was largely motivated by horror stories of Amazon workers having to walk 15 minutes to the break room for their - you guessed it - 15 minute break, along with a very strong desire to support my local neighbourhood/city shops.<p>The concept is an "Amazon" style shopping experience which supports local businesses. Let's ignore shipping logistics and synchronising stock inventory for now. Why is there no single global site for consumers to search local neighbourhood inventory for a product as a starting point. Yes, large department and retail stores often have nearest branch stock checking and online checkout, but I still feel the experience is frictious and fragmented. I understand many small businesses already operate on Amazon and eBay through fulfillment programmes. It seems like a fairly concrete and scalable problem to solve in principle, but probably quite difficult to operate sustainably. <comment><USER2> The biggest problems with this kind of Marketplace is(without the ignored points):

\- convincing local Shop-Owners at first (this should be a no brainer but it isn't - many won't see still today any value for this )

\- to invest in modern Systems (even if you subsidize the cost of it, there is a chance that many owners dont do/want it)

\- bring local shops/stock online (the easy part, because it can be done without further involment of the owner)

\- train the local shop owners (it is still a big part in this kind of projects and the costs are high, because many would prefere a face to face training. - lack of PC / Web Skills)

\- keep the owners on the marketplace (some local shops will see a increase in transactions but most of the shops will not(they get just more work with no gain), so you have to subsidize some kind of cost(no fees for example) and pamper the shops to stay)

\- getting steadiliy new shops into the system (because many shops will leave at the moment you want money from them or - see point above.)

\- keeping officials of city/county, VC's etc. involved (with money, press or whatever - subsidizing all of this needs money and manpower)

</comment><comment><USER3> I kind of think this fundamentally doesn't work. But I do wonder what can be done to leverage web based stuff to help support a healthy local economy. Help local artists, writers and what not to make money online. Maybe help give exposure to small towns to promote tourism. That sort of thing.

I like the basic idea of fostering local business in some way. I just don't really see an Amazon style fulfillment deal working. I feel like Etsy is the Amazon of local retailers.

But how do we turn this into a means to give pushback against the big getting bigger and eating the world? How do we use the web to help solve some of the problems it is helping to create?

</comment><comment><USER4> Local businesses (at least in rural areas) aren't very tech savvy or even computerized, and many couldn't afford the time/effort/connectivity to do such a thing, though you might get some of the shining stars in the area (around here theres, some candy makers, a rock shop, several wineries, local honey, olive oil, and a few professional entertainers, artists and craftspeople).

My local business concept in development is [http://www.doPlaces.com](http://www.doPlaces.com) \- a better local guide; geared for tourists as well as locals, has more detail and uses a lot of categorization and cross-linking, also some mapping to make finding stuff around here easier. Lists businesses groups, services, makers, entertainers, events, attractions, etc.

Similar has been done by numerous big guys but most of their listings are out of date, inaccurate, or just woefully incomplete.

I figure there is a niche for mom-n-pop community guides, that provide better information that are locally maintained.

</comment><comment><USER5> Pointy [1] allows you to search local shops, though it currently only covers Ireland and you have to go to the shop to purchase the item. At it's heart is a hardware device that integrates with the store's bar code scanner so inventory can be synced with an online database.

[1] [https://www.pointy.com](https://www.pointy.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love this, it's brilliant and solves most of the inventory concerns. If anyone knows of the business development team I'd be interested in the challenges they faced trying to scale this out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One additional issue is that while you might walk into the local shop, look around, get served by the local salesperson, have them provide recommendations or compariaons on different products, etc and "have a good experience", once you take the purchasing journey online much of this non-transactional experience disappears, so price becomes much more of a deciding factor. Most people don't 'shop around' too much for a few dollars less in meatspace, but when its all online (especially in an Amazon-style marketplace where products are compared between multiple sellers), customers are much more likely to pick whichever seller is cheaper, which isn't exactly appealing to business owners!

</comment><comment><USER7> There are already platforms that have the info and could probably roll this out with minimal effort. Etsy, squarespace, Shopify, etc all know what you are selling and where you are located. They just need to enable a search by local.

<comment><USER7> Upon further thought, Amazon could even offer this service. Perhaps even as a way to earn goodwill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This sounds similar to Milo. [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/milo](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/milo)

They were acquired by eBay, but it seems the service no longer exists. [http://www.ebay.com/local/](http://www.ebay.com/local/)

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://express.google.com/](https://express.google.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I've fantasized about this very thing, albeit with far more emphasis on the logistics angle. Building out a massive Amazon-scale logistics network and then offering that advantage exclusively to individuals. No chains, franchising or large-scale ownership permitted. Subsidies would be provided to those without capital wishing to start their own shop.

It'd be more or less a turnkey solution. The small business owners would be bringing their own decor, atmosphere, style and charm to the table; something other than a corporate chain or big box feel.

Of course, the appeal of big box retail is that everything is in one place. Therefore it might make sense to make this a real-estate play as well: group shops with complimentary offerings together, or even facilitate a market/bazaar style setup.

Why go to Walmart when you can go to a high-tech bazaar backed by modern logistics and bleeding edge point of sale tech, that offers the same goods at the same price.

Creating Amazon-scale logistics is no small investment though, so it's not really feasible idea unless you've billions to burn bootstrapping it.

That said, the idea of liberating capable people who are currently stuck in hellish retail jobs is very cool. Granted they'd still be in retail, but as shop owners with relatively high amounts of freedom and a living wage. It'd be a huge win for individuality and quality of life. The same function to society would be fulfilled, but with massive benefits to both the worker and consumer.

I hope someone does this one day, because bigbox retail and massive corporate chain restaurants need to fucking die. Their monoculture and asthetics suck the magic right out of society. There's no better illustration of this than comparing variety in big city commerce to a typical suburb. Most suburbs are veritable wastelands by comparison, and that's not even considering the extreme cases where the only store in town for most essential items is the local Walmart.

</comment><comment><USER11> Many people I am sure have realized the need for such a thing for many years. You can include me in the list of such people.

I am co-founder of a startup producing an ECM product. The product is, amongst other things, designed to be able to address the need you are pointing out. The company is named 'Carbon State' and the website can be seen here: [https://carbonstate.com](https://carbonstate.com)

What is needed to be able to have an "Amazon style shopping experience" is a site that can easily allow anyone to list any known object that could be sold in a cleanly organized way. This requires many different things:

1\. A system that can scale to enterprise levels ( meaning many servers working together but appearing to be a single website to the user )

2\. A hierarchical tree of categories in which items are located, that can easily be updated by many different groups simultaneously and audited for accuracy.

3\. The ability to allow multiple structured definitions of products at any point on the tree. That is, the ability to define what constitutes 'a thing that can be sold' at that point in the tree. Different types of things with different sets of attributes could be at each point in the tree.

4\. The ability to let product owners define visual layout for their products in an appealing fashion that is compatible with all users of the system. ( and the ability to prevent them from messing up the large system by doing this )

5\. The ability to let individual shop owners control their payment process entirely, while still allowing a 'global payment gateway' to exist. This essentially means that different stores will have their own websites as well, but they will feed in a clean structured way into the global system.

6\. A system that does not charge any percentage of the value of the products on sale, and charges a very minimal fee for businesses to join the global gateway.

The product my company is working on will, when complete, address all of these needs.

</comment><comment><USER12> I had an idea similar to this a while back.

Local shops would be provided with point of sale devices and stock control software. Their stock data would be fed into their own store websites/profiles and a wider marketplace.

Users could either purchase from an individual store or the marketplace. If they did the latter the system would find products from stores closest to their location. Users could arrange in-store pickup or same day delivery using spare capacity from nearby takeaway drivers.

Money made from sales would be nominal, but the real value would be providing data to suppliers.

</comment><comment><USER13> Your first problem is not thinking from the perspective of the customer. Most customers don't care about the conditions of the workers nor do they care about supporting local businesses.

Second problem is you can't count on other people to build your platform. Until you get past a certain critical mass of stores/products, the site won't be very useful and so it's going to be tough to convince businesses or customers to use it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Germany has a bunch of initiatives going in this direction.

Few companies from that space: [https://atalanda.com/](https://atalanda.com/) [https://www.lokaso.de](https://www.lokaso.de) [https://www.locafox.de/](https://www.locafox.de/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I believe this was the same battle fought by local bookstores when Amazon was just an online bookseller.

I suppose someone will try again. It's largely a network effect and economy of scale, perhaps?

But then again, people build new browsers, car and/or space technology companies, or similarly "insurmountable" projects.

</comment><comment><USER16> There have been a few local inventory search startups, but there are a few gotchas:

An in-stock item may be bought by another party before order or pickup.

Inventory may show more inventory than actual. Shoplifting is one reason for this.

In the end I think prioritizing in-store shopping conflicts with pick-and-ship operations.

</comment><comment><USER17> Pay people to walk into stores with their phones, filming the aisles. Process that video with image recognition software to tag products and read prices. Boom you've got a database.

</comment><comment><USER18> > Let's ignore ... synchronising stock inventory for now.

That's ignoring the most important part?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're ignoring this for now because once we can prove a realtime synchronised searchable inventory MVP, you can solve the shipping problem separately. It's also a separate problem on the logistics front as you don't have a central warehouse. Thinking about it, it's an extreme subset of the same problem i.e. effectively infinite distributed warehouses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Because small local shops are not as efficient as big not-local shops. Nothing to do with the skill or determination of shop owners, just plain, uncomfortable, economics.

</comment><comment><USER20> There are start ups out there which are doing this already. I don't know their name but they are existing (I heard from one in Germany I think).

</comment><comment><USER21> I hate people giving off ideas to big companies in public forums.

</comment><comment><USER22> Small companies are often run by people who are at best inexperienced and more often are incompetent.

They can't scale their business, why do you think you can do it for them?

Recipe for disaster.</comment>